fandomhighdorms | The Salle - Wednesday, 7/22

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The Salle - Wednesday, 7/22 - after classes

...considering that she'd had to deal with an awkward situation she'd thought well over with, ruined EVERYTHING, and had to deal with a dead body all in one day?

Fiona was in the salle. She was away from her books, away from her globe, away from the flowers that she'd nonetheless put in a little vase in her alcove even if she couldn't quite look at them. No, she was in the salle, she was practicing, and since she'd already done the hour of text messaging with Eliot (which had actually started with the question of What Exactly She'd Done with his music yesterday), she was staying away from the phone and hopefully, everyone.

Swords were so much simpler to deal with, after all.

[open, for Fiona, and as a salle is open]

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Ben, a cougar kitten trotting at his heels, walked into the salle with his new lightsaber hilt.

It didn't take an empath to pick up on the emotions in the room, but Ben was very careful not to wince. "Fiona," he said, nodding as he walked to a free area of mat.

Another one of the dummies fell into a dozen or so pieces before she turned around and despite the rage, well, she looked like nothing so much as a child caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

"Ben," she said after a minute, trying to sound a little more adult than she felt. Then again, judging by the bits-o-dummy that littered a good portion of the salle, the tantrum was somewhat, er, obvious.

"You've made quite a mess," he observed, cocking up an eyebrow.

She bit her lip and tucked back a curl behind her ear.

"I've been" and then she swallowed "told that we're allowed to destroy them. And it's practice."

The last was added rather lamely.

"I think the implication was that you wouldn't destroy all of them," he replied.

"I didn't! There's--"

She glanced around, only to find one dummy unto--

No, it was missing an arm. Crap.

"I'll put up new ones if they need me to," and yes, she was grumbling a little, as much irritated with things as with herself.

"Or if I do?" Ben asked. "It's not just your salle."

"I know," she ground out before breathing in with a huff and going to look for the supplies to do just that.

"Give me a minute, all right?"

"Fine," Ben replied. "And there's no need to be huffy at me."

"I'm not being--"

She breathed in again, closed her eyes, and forced the rage to recede. It wasn't easy, but she managed it if only because the sight of the dummies made her feel, well, ridiculous.

I really am becoming one of them. I don't give a crap about anything but my needs.

That worked even better and she felt the rage, and her strength, drain away with a tired sigh.

"Sorry. I know there isn't. And you don't deserve it. I'll get some new dummies up and clean up the mess if you can give me a few minutes. Promise."

Ben closed his eyes and checked her emotions. "Better," he said. "Now you're not giving every empath in the place a raging migraine. And thank you."

She turned, arm full of dummy parts.

"What?"

"You turned down your rage," Ben said simply. "You think that goes unnoticed around here?"

She almost dropped them.

"I didn't-- I don't know."

People knew when she was angry?

Ben shrugged. "You should ask," he said. "You were giving me one hell of a headache, and I have pretty good shields. That kind of anger is dangerous."

She looked at the rest of the dummies.

"I know. That's why I was here."

Then she brought the pile of parts to one side and went back for another.

"I'm sorry about the headache, though. I wasn't even aware that was possible."

"It's a bit like weather," Ben said. "How some people get headaches when it shifts? You were an emotional low-pressure system."

"Sorry," she said again, absorbing the information but not quite sure what she could do about it. She did her best with controlling her temper as it was.

She sighed, tiredly, and went for another bundle of pieces.

"When did you get a kitten?" she finally asked.

"You're not Jedi," Ben said with another shrug. "We focus more on controlling our emotions to make it easier for others to live with us. Powers without controls are extremely dangerous." He might have heard his father repeating that little piece of advice close to daily most of his life.

He smiled at the cougar kitten. "That's Tahiri. Fandom is being funny again."

She looked at the kitten for a moment before nodding to her in greeting and continuing with the dummy parts.

"I know. I talked to another one, or he said he was. Asked him about it. He didn't have any suggestions."

Dump. Return. Pick up more. She was almost done, actually.

"Who did you talk to?" Ben asked, taking his cloak off and placing it neatly in a corner. "People who pretend to be Jedi won't last very long on this island. Granddad doesn't have a sense of humor about, well, much, but especially not this."

"Said his name was Zayne. I didn't think he was lying, but I wouldn't really 'know'," she admitted as she picked up the last pile. Of course, one head wouldn't quite fit in her arms so she'd have to make another trip.

"Zayne's a Jedi," Ben said firmly, "but from a different time than me. They might train apprentices differently then. He's also not as strong in the Force as I am. What did you ask him about?"

She turned and raised an eyebrow... and then bit back the snappish response she wanted to give him. He was trying to help.

"About my anger. And the rest of my emotions. They don't work right anymore."

Dump. Grab. Toss. And now she had to start putting up the new poles; Fiona grabbed half a dozen and started planting them.

"What do you mean they don't work right? They're your emotions." Ben's forehead furrowed. "No one else should control them but you."

She put a pole into the slot and looked at him.

"They don't work right anymore. Something my aunt and my mother did-- maybe something I did. Unless I make them work, I don't feel anything at all.

"Except for the rage. That comes too easily."

"That is really not okay," said the boy with far too much experience dealing with the dark side, taking a step back. "If the only emotion you feel is a bad one and you do that kind of destruction on dummies because you've had a bad day or something? No. You have to work on fixing that, or you're like a weapon without a safety on it, dangerous to everyone."

"No," she said with a breath out, "this is from a bad week. And I really did need to practice. I don't exactly have anyone to give me lessons anymore."

Fiona had taken lessons in an effort to learn how not to harm people. With karate, and even the sword lessons, she could defend herself as needed without resorting to her abilities. She could block a blow, knock aside a punch. The more she knew, the easier she could subdue without causing harm.

You don't have to actually know how to fight if you can cut through anything, after all.

"And I'm not dangerous. I don't want to harm anyone."

"It's Wednesday," Ben noted. "It's not even a full week. And you don't need people to give you lessons to learn ways to diffuse anger that don't involve tearing things apart. Meditation. Running long distances. Riding horses." Another look. "Remembering that there are other people on this island who are a little more tuned into the emotional side of things who are getting blazing headaches when you decide to tantrum like a toddler."

She cocked her head at him.

"Weeks can run from other days than Sunday," she pointed out before putting in another pole.

"And I don't want to do anything that will destroy things. Tried to read.

"Sliced part of my covers up. Don't know how to meditate; don't know if it would help." She didn't like running, but it seemed childish to say that, especially since she did like racing. But her racing partner wasn't here. "Don't want to be near anything living, so horse riding is out."

Her teeth grit then and she had to think of Eliot, of the music from yesterday, to keep the tide back.

"I didn't know. And I don't exactly enjoy it either."

If she said anything about the 'toddler' comment, she'd snap at him and she was determined not to.

"That sounds a lot like 'I don't want to stop feeling sorry for myself, Ben,'" he retorted. "I gave you several non-destructive options. You read, look up meditation. It's all about finding your center and calming down." Techniques of which he was using now to avoid being overtly irritated at what seemed like pointless stubbornness.

Some of his annoyance seeped through. "But do something. There are five year olds in Jedi classes with more self-control than you are currently demonstrating."

"Did I say I wouldn't?" and she couldn't help that, the edge to her tone.

She left that be as she finished putting in the poles. She went back for more.

Once again, ignoring the comments on childishness. She was keeping herself contained, barely, and there was nothing she could say to that that he'd 1. understand or 2. respond to favorably.

"Your tone was very much not 'thank you, Ben, for suggestions that have helped you keep your temper for most of the the last fifteen years. I'll implement them immediately'" Ben replied, rolling his shoulders and igniting his weapon with a distinctive snap hiss. The crystal, glowing blue, was from his old lightsaber and wasn't exactly in tune with the new hilt, but it worked well enough for Ben to judge the new weapon's balance and heft.

She didn't reply, choosing instead to put in more poles. Putting in poles was almost soothing. Methodical. Easy. Brainless.

Then she came back to get the dummies to mount them up.

Silence suited Ben just fine. He was far too focused on making sure that the various parts of his lightsaber were working in harmony with each other--he'd seen first-hand some of the disasters that occur when a lightsaber wasn't properly calibrated. So far nothing seemed amiss.

As she put up the dummies.

"...you've been like this your whole life?"

Angry. She'd never been angry like this before. Frustrated, sure, troubled, occasionally. Sometimes, she'd given her mother a look or two, but she'd always given up and gone to her room or done what was asked.

Before her fifteenth birthday, she hadn't even tussled with her brother. They'd been raised quiet, polite, sweet. And now?

Now she was setting up dummies to replace all of the ones she'd sliced up just to be this calm.

"Been like what?" he asked. "Jedi? Good with a lightsaber? Empathic?"

She put up a dummy.

"Angry. You've had to do stuff like that... your whole life?"

"I'm not angry all the time," Ben clarified. "I'm human, and therefore emotional. And for a Jedi, that's a liability. Our strength comes from the Force, and we are better able to understand the Force when we are at peace. Anger, frustration, fear, hatred that all leads to the dark side. And no Jedi wants to go there. So we learn how to diffuse."

"The dark side," she repeated.

She hung another dummy.

"What's so bad about the dark side?"

She was thinking of her father, of the other half of her heritage, the one she was more careful about mentioning.

Which was a bit like asking Ben "what's wrong with setting yourself on fire?"

"It's the dark side," he said, blinking. "It's everything a Jedi fights against. It's the heart of selfishness, self-indulgence and evil. It's the decision that makes you feel like you're better and more important than any other being in the universe. It leads to torture, pain and death. It tears families apart. It tears galaxies apart. It's the heart of chaos and disorder, masked in the promise of giving you everything you've ever wanted. It's wrong."

Yeah, that was exactly what she'd thought it was. Exactly what she was at least half made of, possibly more after the mess with Beelzebub. She was so... what was the term?

Screwed.

She could practically hear Audrey saying the words, only instead of 'the dark side' it was 'your father's family' and instead of 'it', she said 'he'.

"And the Jedi," she asked quietly, "what do they do when they're not sure where someone sits between the dark side and" she guessed "the light side? Or when they think someone might go to the dark side?"

"Try to get them to notice how destructive they are being before they cross a line that is very hard to come back from," Ben said. "Once they've made that choice, it's a whole different story. My father believes in redemption for everyone. I'm...more wary."

She nodded, but she didn't say anything else as she finished hanging the dummies.

"All done," she reported, "you have a full set to work with now."

It was times like this she almost wished she ate. Then she'd have something to be sick with. This whole week--

Why, if she was a goddess, why couldn't she just go back in time and just leave the island for a week so all this hadn't happened? It wasn't a productive thought, not even a healing thought, but it was all she was up to at the moment.

"Thanks," Ben said, turning most of his attention to the dummies. "You don't have to be Jedi to be in danger of the dark side," he added quietly. "Work hard on your controlling your temper, or someone will use that weakness to destroy you. That's just how it works."

In Ben's galaxy, at least.

"I believe you," she said, not angry, not tired, just... lost. Sad.

I'm just pretty sure I'm already there.

It sure felt like Hell.

"See you around, Ben." She considered again and waved to the cougar kitten. "Tahiri."

Then, bag in hand, she made for the exit.

Ben turned his entire attention to working with the dummies, hoping Fiona never asked to the people who turned entirely to the dark side.

Most of them never survived.

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The Salle - Wednesday, 7/22 - after classes

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