Hoth: Blood and Ice

[Zeno Thul]

Zeno had become something of a fixture in the operations center. He'd been putting serious hours in to help with the assaults by the pirates. He sat with an uncharacteristic cup of caf at a table that he had pretty much commandeered so that he had a regular place to keep notes and listen to comms chatter for any pirate attacks. He had become significantly less cheerful and high energy in the past few days as there doesn't seem to be an end to the conflict in sight. Which bothers him a lot less than the prospect of being away from his family for even longer than he had anticipated.

[Katarzyna Panteer]

Similarly to Zeno, Kat was a common sight in this area, as she helped with managing the refugees and logistics, and her keen intellect and education allowed her to be a decent advisor on the matter of tactics.

Holding her own mug of caf, she gave a wave to Zeno. "Good morning, Zeno," she said, offering up a small and tired smile. "How are things looking today?"

[Zeno Thul]

"Not as busy as last night. Relatively quiet if I'm being honest. Which is a relief for my mind. These meditation sessions are taking a fair amount out of me. Not getting a lot of relaxation time."

[Katarzyna Panteer]

"Quiet is good... I think the refugees could use a bit of that," she said and took a sip of her caf as she picked up a datapad to look at how they were faring in terms of numbers - supplies, power, fuel... the whole lot.

"What seems to be the problem with meditation sessions for you, if I may ask?"

[Zeno Thul]

"Not normal, battle meditation. I can now reach a pretty far distance with the force, but it puts a lot of strain on the mind to reach so far out into the wastes," he says.

"That's why I am in here so often now. If the pirates drop in on one of our patrols I want to be able to respond and give them an edge."

[Katarzyna Panteer]

"Ah," she nodded as Zeno clarified. "It's a pretty impressive ability to master. One I haven't even been able to attempt myself..." she knew very few who could manage such control of it.

"Just don't forget to get some rest yourself from time to time though, hm? Can't have you falling asleep all of a sudden," Kat smirked. "Has there been any pattern to their attacks?"

[Zeno Thul]

"Not that I can track. I don't have a strategic mind really. Tactics, aggression and focus I can help with, but not what they are doing," he says with a shrug.

"Also, I think it's a bit different, how dark and light enact their influence. I was originally trying to create a shared web if senses which kind of worked, but found that the dark works better when used to just make people more efficient and aggressive."

[Katarzyna Panteer]

"Hmmm... I will take a look over the reports of their attacks, and see if there is a pattern." She did have a strategic mind, and good analytical skill. A few swipes on the datapad, and she could begin looking at it.

His suggestion of a shared web however was interesting. "Would it be possible to do so without such... forced behavior? If the Force users could perhaps unite together to create this web in a way." Kat rubbed her chin as she thought. "But yes, the dark will naturally try to draw out the negative emotions, and cloud the mind with aggression."

[Zeno Thul]

"I don't really know. Battle Meditation was described as shared senses and battle awareness in my initial research. But that research was based on writings from a Jedi. It was about sharing what the force user had. Light has calm and awareness, dark has aggression and passion," he explains.

"But sharing senses in a web among force users would likely be a function of a more individual power that each participant would likely need to know. To both share and receive. Battle meditating tends to only share with very little receiving."

[Katarzyna Panteer]

"I am confident greater minds than ours have pondered this particular puzzle too," she said thoughtfully, wondering what her master would share on this.

If only there was a way of forming some sort of communication network through the Force. Actively sharing thoughts between eachother at great distances. "My own skills lie more in sensing thoughts and emotions through the Force... if only we had the time, and the opportunity to test a great deal, we could have seen if it was possible to unite the two different approaches. Alas," Kat gestured to their surroundings, "the pirates and the Eternal Empire don't seem to care much for our interests to experiment with the Force."

[Zeno Thul]

"I have no doubt that there are plenty of greater minds, since I have met a few. But that doesn't mean anyone has considered every idea or approach. After all, some barely conscious savage from unknowable eons ago was the first idiot to realize that round things are easier to move than flat ones. The genius of his day didn't need to be a genius to shape civilization. Just needed a unique thought," Zeno replies with a smirk.

That smirk grows a bit with his next genius idea. "If you want to do force experiments though, we can have spouse playdates and let them talk about politics," he suggests.

[Katarzyna Panteer]

Kat got a good laugh at the mental image of Gaul and Ziandra talking out politics over drinks while she and Zeno engaged in mystical experiments. "Perhaps we could. They certainly have much more passion for politics than you or I do." While she didn't despise politics and was adept at handling herself, the finer arts of negotiations were not her strong point.

"If we could rope some more people in who are able to use the battle meditation, and or those who have good telepathic abilities, perhaps by combining efforts something could be possible. Problems is that it would probably take a lot of our fighters away from the frontline here."

[Zeno Thul]

"I'm not sure anyone else can perform battle meditation here. If so, it's not like they advertise it. But as for senses and telepathics, I'm not good enough for thoughts, but I can also do some basic emotional reading and sharing. So maybe we can figure something out. But for now, it's probably best not to exhaust our force users on top of keeping them from the fight," he says.

[Katarzyna Panteer]

"Mhm," she nodded in agreement. "I don't think I got around to asking you before, but what was the training like for you on Korriban? Some of the stories I hear from the other Sith here have been... well, sometimes I think they might be exaggerating?"

[Zeno Thul]

"I mean to put their experiences into perspective, the current empress was conceived there by Remmington and a Sith named Jun-Tsu as part of a ritual that devoured and incorporated a dark side vergence called the Void engine into her being. The fetus drank some of my blood by drawing it in through her mother's flesh. If any of that sounds less believable than what you heard then you probably heard right," Zeno replies.

"As for my personal experience? It was pretty violent. Helped Darth Zash devour someone's soul... not my best decision, almost got eaten by a tuk'ata that was like triple my size with a few other students, ended up killing it, graduated top of the class and made a Lord of the Sith," he shrugs at all that.

[Katarzyna Panteer]

She had only seen this Remington in passing, and the thought that such a cruel empress had that guy as their sire seemed... maybe more insane than what else Zeno shared now.

"Sounds... well, like a place a lot of students will die. Is it always like that? Even outside of Korriban?" Kat knew what her fellow Jedi had told her, bit hearing it from others seemed to confirm how truly terrible it all was.

On one hand the Sith Emperor had created a chaotic society that would eat itself given enough time, and on the other he had created a complecant society that would let him do anything because he was their immortal hero.

[Zeno Thul]

"Death is pretty common, yeah. But it's not just the Sith. A lot of nobles and other agents are always killing each other off. My family was relatively... intense? Less cruel and more obsessed I would say," he replies.

"And then there is the normally short and brutal lives of slaves. But that conversation would be less insightful with me than with Layne. Not that it's something she'd want to talk about."

[Katarzyna Panteer]

"Slaves suffer greatly no matter where in the galaxy it is," she said with a sense of grimness of one who had seen her fair share of enslaved people.

"Layne... I've kind of been giving her a wide birth after the whole ordeal. I think she pretty much hates everything I am, without actually knowing me. Doubt anything I say or offer to her is something she wants to hear. Considering I was among the ones apprehending her the first time around."

[Zeno Thul]

"Despite what she says, I think she is going to be stuck in the same place. I don't think she knows how to give up her suffering. Some people just choose to make their own life harder because they think that is how they atone or live with their past. Don't realize that regret is a waste of time. I hope she learns to be someone that can let go of that pain someday."

[Katarzyna Panteer]

Kat placed aside her datapad and almost empty mug of caf. "It was just so... when she confessed to the murder the first time, when we apprehended her then, it was so terrible to listen to. The way of justifying the murder of an innocent person just because it would... I don't know, make her the hero again, it almost sounded like?"

She shook her head with a heavy sigh. "She will probably deny it a long time, but she needs therapy and help, while she is serving her sentence. It's the only way she'll understand and come to terms with herself." Not to mention how repentant-Layne had lasted all about maybe a day before she decided she had suffered enough. "Lots of folks in the galaxy have suffered terribly, most of them don't become murderers."

[Zeno Thul]

"Most of the people in the galaxy are well meaning idiots. Which is not a bad thing in my opinion. Well meaning idiots make the worlds turn. It's the jerks that stand on top selfishly that cause all the problems," he says with a shrug.

"And she needed therapy two decades ago. Probably should have been part of accepting her into the order, providing trauma therapy. I know I should be getting therapy, but at least I have always had family to stabilize me."

[Katarzyna Panteer]

Kat nodded. "I would have thought it was offered to her too at the time, but..." she shrugged as well, "I did not meet her myself until five years ago on Alderaan. Whatever happened after she joined the Jedi I do not know." She suspected Layne had probably just stubbornly refused it the entire way, or pretended during those sessions.

"You do know we have excellent councilors and therapist on Alderaan, right?" she remarked with a smirk to him. "It's good to have elements around us that give us stability and peace of mind, but it's also important to learn to manage without it." It created an unhealthy co-dependency otherwise.

[Zeno Thul]

"The truth is that I am relatively unstable with some strange ideas. But I have a purpose and that purpose is more constructive than destructive, so I am happy with being unstable and strange. And Ziandra keeps me from going over the edge too," he says with a soft smile.

"The last time I saw a therapist though, he didn't know how to react to the fact that my earliest childhood memory was the image of my infant sister's assassinated corpse. Knowing I would have been next if the assassin wasn't killed before he got to me. It's not something they teach you to deal with in therapy school."

[Katarzyna Panteer]

"Not regular therapists, no," she agreed with a dry chuckle. "But if you like, I could get in touch with some friends in the Order who are skilled with cognitive therapy as well as understanding the more... difficult life experiences. I would promise that it comes without any preaching and attempts at recruitment, of course." Kat made sure to add that in, as she knew Zeno's personal feelings on such.

[Zeno Thul]

"So they can tell me that my openness about it is a cry for help. Then I can tell them 'no duh, I'm the one crying' with tears. Then they can understand that I know it, accept it, have been working through it, and there's nothing they can really do about it that wouldn't just make my cognitive dissonance worse than it already is. Then we can shake hands and go our separate ways."

He shrugs at the hypothetical.

"Therapy is not a waste, it's just not always what we think it is. But unlike some I don't dismiss it out of hand. I just have low expectations for what it can teach me that I haven't already learned."