External Serenity

Rendal's return to Coruscant had only just begun and yet he sought the peace and tranquility famously found within the great greenhouse known as the Room of a Thousand Fountains. It was here that Rendal sought to cleanse his mind of the creeping darkness and passions that he had encountered during his most travels. Rendal entered the great greenhouse of serenity through the main entrance and walked along the pathway of stone that was so fitting inside of this tranquil place. Rendal himself found himself soon looking at a nearby rare shadowroot plant from one of Endor's moons that had been collected and brought back to this greenhouse for it's rarity and unique properties, albeit those mostly involved being an ingredient in rare soups from Endor.

In an effort to give thanks and memory to his most trusted friend's death Rendal and begun regular travels to the Wookie homeworld of Kashyyyk. On this trip Rendal had asked for a group of Wookies to come with him into the more uncharted areas of the Kashyyyk wilderness. During the expedition two Wookies had died and Rendal blamed himself, not only for being the Jedi on the mission and having no ability to protect them but also because he was the one who had insisted on taking the expedition into the deep and more dangerous wilderness areas of the planet. These two deaths not only were tragic and weighed heavily on Rendal's  conscious but reminded him of the death of his greatest friend who had also been killed by the wild of a planet. The similarities were abundant in that his friend was also a Wookie and killed by the carelessness of the Jedi and in his direct company. Rendal's sadness gave way to darkness and passions and thus he sought the peace of the Room of a Thousand Fountains for solace and a chance to find his inner peace and light once more.

So Rendal, in front of this shadowroot plant, began his attempt to concentrate and release his darkness, passion, and anger from his very soul and essence to once again be pure and filled with the light side. Rendal is not stranger to this procedure as he seemed to be prone to becoming angered and filled with passion and darkness in the face of death. Rendal's mind became a blur of images, dead Wookies that he attempted to replace with his training and his embracement of the light that he was aligned but his imagery based attempts to cure himself were too little and too late. His continued failure to cleanse his mind only led to angry stares from him to the shadowroot plant in front of him, though the plant was far from his mind, so far that even while it was directly in front of Rendal it was not even in his sight, such was his deep thought and introspection.

His concentration was suddenly broken by two Jedi masters who had come for a walk through the greenhouse to discuss current events passing by behind him, sensing a slight disturbance coming from him they both turned to look at him but he had already begun to move away before they could speak to him. Rendal was afraid upon questioning or more his darkness that he was trying so hard to expel would be shown and he would be removed from the Jedi Order, at which point he would have nothing left in his life and his despair would be complete. The Jedi masters kept on their way and Rendal eventually found himself facing one of the many fountains that this greenhouse held, it was here that Rendal Arstor kneeled and allowed himself once more to attempt to commune with the living force and embrace the light once more.

Concentrating with great focus on his own mind and with his connection to the force Rendal opened his mind and began to meditate on the connections that kept him within the light and what was worth his maintaining and strict adherence to the Jedi code. Contemplating his own personal value and giving himself over mentally to the force as he kneeled in front of a great fountain, the only thing that pierced his concentration was the gentle dripping noise of the fountain, Rendal had meditated himself into his own mental world and cleared his mind. His closed yellow eyes seeing nothing, not even the darkness of his inner eyelids, Rendal focused on peace, knowledge, serenity, and The Force. Freeing himself from his emotions and passions and thus eliminating the darkness that had rippled the force around him with it's changes inside of him. The darkness had left him or been buried within his mind, Rendal never knew as he had repeated this procedure more than once, but it did not bother him so long as it didn't effect him actively. Rendal now had the inner peace and light affiliation returned and decided that he would spend some more time taking in the beauty of the greenhouse with it's rare forms of galactic life and enjoy the experience that so few had the opportunity to enjoy.

He is having difficulty finding his place again.

Months have gone by since his return and yet there are still those who questions his reasons for staying, question his stay, question him. He knew without any doubt there would be issues with his delayed and somewhat ragged return to the Light, but he had felt at the time that there was nothing time couldn’t sooth away.

In this he was wrong.

Time is nothing here, here in this large sanctum of light and righteousness, and without that time, he is faltering. He needs something to give him a passing of moments not filled with meditation in a temple or a spar with others too reserved and controlled around him.

In this practicing, he is alone. His Master is away, and no one - not even those Master and Knight who so claim to “understand the darkness” - will pick up a weapon against him. The Padawans are warned away from his presence, and the ever-looming threat of the Council to keep himself under control has tied him down into an impossible position.

He needs to express his thoughts, his feelings, his knowledge of the Light through his drills and katas, but he is always alone in them, no one to rush against or meet blades with, no one to drive him onward to understand more. And he needs it, that understanding; it kept him warm on icy nights, and saw him through blood-letting that would have made a Sith unsettled.

But now, the knowledge he brings is corrupted; it is an inky stain on the glory of the Light. What is his path through all of this? He is home here, at least he had imagined so in the beginning of his return voyage. Here, among those drifting through life like radiant statues, he finds that his feet are always on the ground, leaving scuff marks and dirty rugs in his wake.

He doesn’t know how to find his peace again without the blade.

So he had taken a stroll one day, purposefully staying far from the others who walk the enormous halls and picking a path he remembered from vague childhood memories of play and contentedness.

The Gardens.

Stepping inside the place brought a lull to his mind that sent goosepimples over his broad frame. This place, it wasn’t that other garden; it wasn’t dense and full of beastie things out for dinner, or so cold at night that to die would be a blessing. No, this garden was a tame version of his hell, and upon that realization, he shuddered to his toes, dragging his ragged robes around him pulling up the cowl. There is nothing to get him here, and he should find some peace, but all he finds is that lull, a gentle brush against his battered mind that said stay, find yourself.

So he steps forward, then again, until he is walking a path that set him towards a fountain - one of many, if he recalls correctly - that’s expanse was no so great that he could not see the individual meditating on the other side. Though the fellow was doing an excellent job of trying to force out the tremors of faith within him, the Keshiri knew it would be back.

It will always be back.

Once that dark takes residence in your conscious, giving it the boot is nearly impossible. But working around it, bending it back around to introspect on the Light it was so painfully separated from gives one a greater understanding of the Force as a whole. That’s something they should all do, not just meditate on the Light.

Talk to the dark, and see what it has to say.

As Rendal rose from his position meditating at the base of the fountain he noticed someone had come into rather close proximity to him, another Jedi actually. It seemed that the Room of a Thousand Fountains was a popular place on this particular day considering that Rendal had so far encountered three Jedi here and only just barely came in from the entrance. That was good in that more Jedi sought the peace of this sacred and tranquil place yet also posed a problem for Rendal who had come here to banish his deepest darkness back into the depths of his mind. The force kept no secrets from those who knew how to ask it the right questions.

It appeared that Rendal had caught the eye and the attention of this other Jedi that was the most recent to enter this peace garden. The interesting part about this scenario was the Jedi approaching him was abnormal in the way he felt within the force. Such a feeling gave Rendal pause to consider him as he approached the other side of the fountain that Rendal had been kneeling at. As he approached Rendal's mind began to calculate the probability that he was after Rendal in some way with basis in communication or otherwise and came up with very minimal results...However due to his approach and timing it seemed almost impossible that the other man had not felt the great darkness that Rendal had been fighting within himself by way of force and meditation on the light.

This meant that the other Jedi was a threat to him, the threat he posed was to expose him to greater speculation and interrogation by the Jedi Council to examine his connection to the force and his loyalty to the light. Back in his home planet of Nishr the people that were disloyal and harbored sympathies to the enemy were punished severely, their tongues were cut out, fingers were pulled off from their very sockets, sometimes the head was encased in a cage and the body bound to expose it to the wildlife and hunger for days on end. Such seemed barbaric for the Jedi but sympathies for the enemy and traitorous feelings, especially so in the one in question's power base, seemed a very highly punishable offense.

Externally Rendal's finger twitched as he looked at the other Jedi whom had finished his approach to the other side of the found and Rendal stepped around toward his right. This situation had to be handled expertly and Rendal's instincts had been activated in survival mode. His yellow Nish eyes glowing slightly through the darkness cast down upon his face by his heavily armored hood. Rendal skirted around the edge of the fountain walking towards this new coming Jedi with an air of tension between them stemming from nothing but the situation in which they had found one another. If Rendal had still been meditating when this was happening he would have puzzled over how many things had gone wrong between two otherwise friendly and allied people because of improper timing or a bad situation turned worse. For now, Rendal just hoped to be able to leave this garden with his Jedi status intact and his soul blessed by the light of the force.

So, Rendal approached the other Jedi whom had come and stood at the other end of the fountain. Standing with significant less height than the other Jedi who stood before him. Rendal had always been used to being above average in height but it seemed that this man had beat him out in that regard. Another non-human being that was among the Jedi that otherwise would have made Rendal feel more at home with his own strangeness but now filled him with a cavalcade of emotions. And so, Rendal took the final step between he and the new coming Jedi giving only about half a meter of space between the two, it was at this point that Rendal finally spoke to him. "There is no need to beat around the bush friend, I'm sure that you felt the cause of my meditation and the banishment of those thoughts and I would very much appreciate your silence in the matter with regards to the rest of the Jedi order. Apologies if I seem blunt or too direct but this is a matter of great importance to me and I would rather get it's matters handled as fast and directly as possible." Rendal spoke with his most authoritative and serious tone, at least the most of those two aspects that he could muster which he hoped would be enough.

He was no expert, but from the other man’s body language, he was not happy with the intrusion. Ren didn’t blame him of course; he could feel the confusion and the tinges of grey floating around the younger Jedi, and it felt distinctly familiar. There would always be doubts, for every Jedi, but when those doubts began to act as harbors for other emotions, it was time to step in.

But he had no business in this man’s life, and he certainly wasn’t one to tell the man how he should be meditating on the Force. If anything, the Nish should stay away from him and his thoughts on the subject, though he knew he was in error to have waited so long in his presence.

Regardless, it is no surprise when the other Jedi speaks of keeping secrets and important matters. He’d never met this particular individual before, but then again, he’d been out of the loop, as it were; ten years is a long time to some, and even longer when it is spent in a hellish nightmare.

The tone taken by the man was interesting; obviously this situation was far more serious to the armored Jedi than it was to the dark-robed Knight. Reaching up, the Keshiri draws back his hood to reveal silvery dreadlocks and a face blank of emotion. He blinks once, twice in slow succession before responding to the Nish’s request.

“Do I appear as a man that cares what you do in your spare time?”

If the rather too-close Jedi would open his sense to more than just his own fear of being caught, he would be more than capable of feeling the tangible dark that tainted the edge of blue Knight. It doesn’t matter that he is fighting from moment to moment to keep that black from creeping in closer; that stain is permanent, unwilling to budge despite his best efforts.

Rendal's thoughts were almost entirely wrapped around his own darkness once again. His ritualistic attempts to stave it off after missions had been interrupted, first slightly and now greatly. It hadn't been completely removed as he hadn't had the chance to bury it deeper into his will of the light by adding on new experiences as covering for the tomb of his dark energies and force tendencies despite his strict adherence to the code of the light. However, he was now being openly challenged to return to darkness with sarcasm and it was filling Rendal with a resurfacing of his emotional inability. His eyes twitched, yellow gave way to a slight orange coloration and his right hand flinched, four fingers (all but the thumb) jittered and for a sustained several seconds violently twitched creating tremors throughout Rendal's entire arm.

Rendal was filling his body with force energy and attempting to channel the light through himself. Rather than letting it flow naturally through his body Rendal had indeed begun to use the force but in no directed way. Taking it into himself in an attempt to both draw on the light that was ambient in the serene environment as well as create a mental shield to the darkness that was being uncontrollably loosed by the uncaring and unorthodox ways of this fellow Jedi whom had been so intrusive in his meditations.

"You appear to me as someone who would approach one in meditation and distract them as you did. While I may not know much about you I know that you now have harmful information. Respectfully I am going to have to tell you that what you felt cannot be allowed to leave this room, to spread to anyone aside from the two of us. It can't happen and your care to my personal time is irrelevant provided that what I just said is our mutual understanding." Rendal hissed out his words giving way from his light sided exterior and showing his inner ways. As he continued to charge the force within himself, channeling the great power that was the way of the Jedi.

Rendal's right hand repeated the motion it did before, however this time it had slightly greater effects and a larger range of tremors. Extending up his arm it could be noted that his elbow locked into place as his arm straightened down his side. His eyes hidden once again by the cloak that served as his Jedi garb despite it's dark coloration and design to hide his face, though if one were able to see his eyes they would be exhibiting the a slightly darker than usual yellow color with a slightly dilated pupil in the center. His power and aura becoming darker by the moment.

There is a thickness to the air now that causes one of the older Knight’s silvery eyebrows to raise in amusement and annoyance. This one is impulsive and unsteady, traits he could well understand; he sees them in himself daily, though he has become much more capable of controlling said…flaws. But were they really flaws? His Master had more than once used these traits to focus his student, and more than once his student had been chastised by others for their presence.

Crossing his arms across his broad chest, Ren takes a moment to study the situation: the boy – what else was he going to call him? – was ready and willing to take this situation to an entirely different level, all because he thought he would be “discovered” by the Council or other members. In reality, the Keshiri couldn’t care any less about the other Knight’s issues with the dark; everyone had them, and there are some things that had be dealt with on an individual level, things that couldn’t be helped by training or mentorship.

This kid seemed to need a little introspection with guidance, however. He is wavering on a line that shouldn’t be crossed in the middle of a meditation garden at the heart of the Jedi organization, but that didn’t seem to be a deterrence in the least. His voice is quiet when he finally speaks, the words issued coming with a flat tone only coloured by the graveled nature of his speech.

“You talk about meditation, yet here you are, issuing threats. To another Knight.”

Those claret irises of his seem more red, richer, saturated though his face remains passive.

“I have no intention of mentioning your…issues to any other. But if you want to play “who's got bigger problems with the Light”, then be my guest.”

His presence seems to grow heavier in the room, though it is a subtle thing, a shifting in pressure that leaves a metallic taste on the tongue, a shift that cannot be attained by simply existing within the Light. A strolling Padawan skirts them both as he comes to presence of the fountain, turning away immediately and skittering back the direction he came. This little situation would become more populated soon enough, particularly since all eyes were waiting for the blue Knight to show his true colours.

Rendal could feel the tension as he was sure the other Jedi could. It had mounted into quite the large barrier of force and intensity between two who were wielders of the power known as the force. It sparked between them in an almost majestic way, much in the same way that two lightsabers grinded against one another in a duel, but that was a problem. It was a definite problem if two Jedi were talking to one another about the light and the dark with a focus toward the dark. More so it was a problem when two Jedi who were supposed to dedicate their entire life to the light side of the force were dabbling in darkness between one another and creating sparks of violence and beginning towards a boiling over point. It was as if two Sith had met rather than two Jedi and that was a problem.

Seeing this from the larger perspective for the first time and that his faith and light had been tested and failed Rendal fell silent in a long pause. Holding the gaze of the other Jedi and staring from what was now bright orange eyes into the unsurprisingly also dark appearing eyes of the Keshiri Jedi that stood before him. Rendal's right arm twitched again with a final increase in intensity causing slight tremors all the way up his arm. Channeling of the force and holding back of the very cells in his body that were reacting to the dark stimuli that was coming his way, while mostly his fault he still felt as if he should share some blame of this with this so called Jedi. Rendal's mind opened up to the world around him once more as he attempted to find inner peace again all the while refusing to break the stare. He knew full well that it was pride holding him there and a gateway to darkness but he also knew that he would never hold himself in respect if he left things as they were.

And so, finally, Rendal was able to sense outward rather than inward and feel the inklings of darkness among this other Jedi. He made less of an attempt to suppress them, less of an attempt to hold them off, more of a danger to the Jedi than Rendal was for sure. "I can see what you are now. A parasite within the order who has now regard for his own healing, mentally or otherwise. Your judgment of me does nothing but give me the chance to realize how easily I was swayed farther down into this spiral I had begun. I should thank you for that and ask you to give yourself introspection and study to the Jedi Code. I should, but personally I find you to be a blight here and even among this peaceful garden meant for meditation and clear-mindedness your words acted as a poison." Rendal had regained his Jedi composure much in the way that he had fallen back to the Jedi Code when his Wookie friend had originally passed. It was his last line of defense after his Jedi exterior and defensive self image and pride had been breached but it was his most powerful means of defense against darkness that threatened his mind and his soul.

"I admit my shortcomings as a Jedi and know that I must seek the teachings of a master who is strong with the light to right my wrongs and banish my darkness, one who could help me achieve power among the light great enough to do so. Could you admit to weakness and show humility?"/ Rendal carried on in his 'holier than thou' Jedi way of speaking. Letting a mixture of his pride and his regained composure take effect in this conversation rather than following what the small light voice in the back of his head told him to do, walk away and meditate somewhere else on what had happened. Let things go and become stronger for them. Instead, Rendal's mind had become twisted by this encounter and he sought to finish this and have some form of closure more permanent than walking away from it.

Annoyance was not at all close to describing just how he felt about this entire mess. All he wanted was to take a walk, meet someone new, maybe make a friend, but here he is, a boy of a Knight staring him down while spouting out pride and shallow belief. There is a tone in the Nish’s words that indicates a failure to check his self-righteous egotism, and it should have bristled Ren; it made him laugh.

It was just a bark of a laugh, a cut-short thing that was followed by a wry smile and raised eyebrow.

“You judge me? After threatening me, challenging me?”

He laughs again, this time releasing the energy that had been building up around him like a dark robe, allowing it to flow outward and pool around them both until it dissipates into nothingness. There was no point to this anymore. The kid had a few problems that just “finding a good Master” weren’t going to fix.

“You ask me to show humility when you have none. You talk like a Jedi, pretend to be one, but now at least I know better.”

The Keshiri grows serious again, all traces of his earlier humor vanishing.

“And never talk to me about weakness when you can’t acknowledge your own.”

There are a few things in the galaxy that he knows for certain, with absolute conviction, and his own weaknesses are among them.

Rendal listened to the other Jedi, he waited maintaining his position and holding his gaze, Rendal even closed his eyes while the other Jedi spoke and waited for him to finish. He was attempting to remain serene and keep his harmony with the force. However, when Rendal had just gone on about how he was being a humble Jedi who knew his weakness and then this Jedi who could barely be called such standing in front of him doing what he could to provoke Rendal. As it was with the Jedi way to seek peace first and then react using whatever means are accessible to make sure the Jedi way is upheld. He even referenced a challenge which Rendal had uttered which is leading Rendal to wonder if perhaps a challenge is what this other Jedi was after.

Rendal spoke now with conviction, his composure was regained and he had heard all of the slander and provocation that the other Jedi was going to throw at him. In fighting was something that was famous among the Sith and it would not be allowed here in these peaceful gardens. It couldn't be allowed, how could a stalwart defender of the light regain his peace and inner light with such distractions and tensions within the air. "Are you challenging me? You're weakness is greater than mine as you have clearly fallen from the path. I advise you to turn to a Jedi Master and perhaps both of us could learn to be at peace with the force once again. I will admit my weakness if you will cease your challenges and pride we can let down our hostilities." Rendal smiled but his eyes still shone with a fire and orange glow. It could be seen through his dark overcast hood. His mind was still surrounded by his darkness and a floodgate of his earlier emotions were building up from below his exterior shell, though Rendal had stopped channeling the force.

His arm had ceased twitching and he was trying to decrease tension between the two, however he was not going to back down on this matter. Rendal even stepped slightly closer and readjusted himself toward the Keshiri Jedi. His arms resting at his sides but their close proximity generating a resounding further tension between the two of them. A part of Rendal wished that this other knight would challenge him further, bring this to a head of passions but the majority of Rendal wished that this could be resolved as he had just said. Rendal waited for his reply.

He wishes beyond reason that this kid would just take a step back and listen to his own words. There is nothing to be gained from their little verbal skirmish, but the other Knight seems convinced they should air out their “weaknesses” and move along; he also appears to have no intention of simply walking away. There is a thickness to the air that would choke a Padawan, and Ren can safely say it isn’t all on his end. The Nish radiates emotion in ways he normally only felt around the Sith, not a good start for one who professes a need to learn “peace with the Force”, and those emotions buffer against the cracked exterior of the blue Knight’s mind.

Abruptly, there is a memory super-imposed over the moment, a memory of things he hopes will one day be forgotten. Faceless men and women cutting at him, bleeding him, making him scream even through gritted teeth. They taunted him, proved to him how helpless, weak he really was, and it was a lesson carved into his flesh for all the world to see. His weaknesses? He knows they are too many to count. Isn’t that why he fell from grace? Isn’t that why now he feels the sweet pull of the Dark, tantalizing and smooth as it wraps around him and promises him he will feel no more pain?

It promises others will feel that pain tenfold.

His red eyes are shut tightly closed, and with a shake of his head, he takes a half step back, away from the challenging youth. His hand goes to his belt almost before he can think, fingers brushing the cortosis grip of his guard shoto while part of his mind screams for him to stop. This Knight in front of him is not those men, he is not a faceless thing that poured out rivers of his blood, and he needs to remember the now, the moment he is in, not one that happened years in his past. Ren’s entire body shakes with the deep-seated urge to lash out, to cut down the Nish and leave him as little as nothing; his fractured mind rails against the act even as it supplies more memories, more fuel for a fire always stoked.

That small bit of soul still pure tells him to walk away, or death would be a part of this day.

But he can’t walk away.

Rendal  could feel the tension and challenge rising from the Force. It was heated and becoming more and more so by the moment despite Rendal's attempt to clear it up by simply declaring himself the winner of the contest, though being fair it was not something that he would have accepted should it have come from this Keshiri. This thought let loose the floodgates of his mind opening Rendal to realize the situation from an extended version of himself rather than only from his own perspective as the Jedi were meant to do. It struck him that he was making no real effort to end the conflict but rather escalating it by trying to be a superior Jedi to this forward Knight for fear of his own weakness being discovered by the Jedi Council and the only thing he had left in his life being taken from him. His fear had led him to the Dark side and this Keshiri standing there, not rising directly to his challenge but not backing down may have been the thing that stopped him from simply suppressing it until it was so great he could no longer control it, hide it, and it would consume him.

The Keshiri now had his eyes closed and Rendal noticed his quick move to his belt and his lightsaber which prompted the same move from Rendal though when the Keshiri Knight stopped so to did Rendal. Extending his own mind farther from himself than he had before he could feel the darkness and torment of the Keshiri, the hate and darkness of the other knight standing before him was becoming more and more clear in his actions, eyes and place within the Force. Rendal was not helping, he was making things worse and his own hubris and blindness had dragged another Jedi Knight down with him. It was up to Rendal to remedy the situation because it was his own darkness and evils that had been the breeder of this, but how?

Rendal had always believed that through personal effort the light could overcome the dark and his he still firmly believed, however, due to the lack of direct intervention of his master during his time training and becoming a Jedi Rendal had never learned how to spread the light side to help someone else, he could heal with the force but that was only skin deep. The light was fundamental goodness, trust, lack of emotion and strength stemming from reason and peace. Being elitist because of one's own light and determination was not the way to go about bringing the light into someone's life and actually could be assumed to spread more darkness than light. So what was the most light that he could generate to make amends for his ignorance and his 'holier than thou' attitude toward the Keshiri? The Keshiri Knight who had his own struggles that Rendal had pushed farther and farther and whom he saw as a threat to his ability to stay a recognized Jedi.  

Rendal resumed his action and grabbed his lightsaber by it's bone hilt. Drawing it from his belt and feeling the coldness of it as well as the familiarity he had with the particular weapon. It had always been at his side or in his hand when he needed it and always had been used to defend himself and remind him of the sorrow brought on by death. As Rendal closed his eyes letting it hang loosely in his right hand he knew that this plan was the only way to pay penance for his misdeeds today, in this tranquil garden dedicated to the peace that exists between all Jedi and all adherents of the light. Rendal extended his right arm, lightsaber in hand but backwards in an offer from Rendal to the Keshiri Knight he had wronged. The close proximity between the two meant that Rendal could almost touch the other knight with his lightsaber but he refrained from fully extending his arm and attempted to meet him half way between their ranges. Rendal was disarming himself to prove that he was done with his self righteous ways, Rendal had no intention of fighting his knight anymore as he had seen that it was really himself that was creating the problem in the first place. So Rendal had resolved to disarm himself to this knight in penance and offer some words with it in explanation and apology. "I failed to sense out from myself Keshiri, I don't even know your name and moments ago I was willing to draw this lightsaber on you, I've been the cause of great tension but now I realize that I was wrong. I was blinded by my own problems and thus blind to the darkness that you have, thinking only myself was burdened with such. I have failed as a Jedi to you."

Rendal closed his eyes for a moment and let the light side of the Force once again embrace him. This time he had beaten his darkness back rather than just shove it deeper down into his soul. This time it had a chance of not coming back up at the next sign of the dark that came into his life, the next death that he blamed himself for or the next tragedy that he felt he could have helped to solve. Or the Keshiri would attack him while he was unarmed after taking his lightsaber. Rendal was skilled with the force but if he didn't need it, he wouldn't keep it around. Either way Rendal was finally doing the will of the light and of the Force and he was happy with himself rather than shrouding himself with false hope and attempts at true light which were becoming harder and harder every time. He truly was thankful to the Keshiri for standing his ground against Rendal's challenge and letting him see this all for himself.

The voices are everywhere.

They are haunting him, playing with him, telling him how small he is, just how much of nothing he equated to. They whisper, they shout, they clamour in his head until he can’t hear anything but their twisted words anymore, and soon they bring images to aid in their cunning manipulation. Images of those faceless men ran rampant, but even more so of the blood that ran freely between them all. He’d killed, and soon began to feel nothing at all for the loss of life; no sorrow, no guilt, no pain. Things considered barbaric were done to him, yet he had paid back that kindness in turn, bringing down those who hunted him in any way possible, bare hands if he could manage it.

Now he is ready to do the same to a boy he’d only just met, another Knight who was taunting him. Those images, those memories of his were dancing over his sight even with his eyes closed, confusing him in an attempt to provoke reaction, any reaction, so long as it is violent. And why shouldn’t it be violent? There was a challenge issued, wasn’t there? Such a challenge should be met full on, without hesitation. But is this a challenge to the death? Is it one that needs death to satisfy it?

The voices though, oh gods the voices. They don’t stop, they don’t relent, they just continue their long litany of pain and suffering and bleeding deeds and cold nights and torture, torture, torture…

There is movement that he notices even though closed eyes, and his weapon is suddenly in motion, arcing through the short distance to find its place along the side of the other Knight’s head. The action is practiced, smooth, but held a note of desperation in it, as though it was the act of a man defending himself from something well and truly horrible.

But the blade is not ignited.

The cortosis guard rests only a millimeter away from the Nish’s face, held there with a sure hand, though not an entirely steady one; the blue Knight is still fighting his own demons, forcing them back as he tries to deal with the here and now, and not the black weight of his past. Heavily, his red eyes open, and there is a wildness to them seen only in wounded predators ready for a final stand. He is still hurting, but then he blinks once, twice, and gently removes the guard shoto from its place near the other Knight’s head. Ren is unsure of himself for the moment, unsure that he didn’t cause damage while under those voices’ spell, but he knows at least that he didn’t cause physical harm to the Nish.

Taking in a ragged breath, he staggers another half-step away from the boy, returning the saber to his belt as he takes in the sight before him: the Knight is offering his weapon. Standing in confusion for a moment, the Keshiri slowly reaches out to lay a hand on the proffered hilt, only to softly push it back towards the man, his eye catching the Nish’s.

“I’m sorry.”

The Nish felt the wind and the movement of the other knight, the Keshiri. Rendal had recently made peace with the light once again. In all fairness this peace with the light that he has regained along with his Jedi way. If Rendal had been struck down at that moment the would have been more at peace with the light than he had been since his final Padawan trials and his knighting. Though...a voice still clung to the back of Rendal's mind, Rendal had not done enough in life, he was meant to do something great for good or ill. His continuation was still required but this voice had lost it's power. Some darker part of Rendal even wished that his end was going to come at this moment so that he could die in total peace with himself before the darkness and his regrets had a chance to reclaim him. A small part that was barely worth mention, everyone had a will to live and that voice was absolutely drowned out by Rendal's particular will on the matter.

Rendal probably would have begun combatively wielding the Force, or perhaps been so torn by a will to remain peaceful in this great place of peace or attempt to save himself that he stood still and waited, had Rendal heard the hum of a lightsaber or the activation of one. However, Rendal heard nothing but shifting movements and felt nothing but a shift in the air as the Keshiri Knight drew his lightsaber hilt and swung it around in a combative manner, refraining from igniting the blade. Was this an act of domination? An act of proving a point? Did it even really matter what it was to Rendal? Not really, the point was that there was no true violence between them. Sparks of the mental variety had occurred between them and great tension between the two of them.

Rendal's eyes remained closed up until the Keshiri lightly pushed Rendal's right hand and thus his lightsaber back toward him, refusing his offering but in a way that implied this schism was over.  Rendal's eyes opened just in time to meet the incoming glare of this other knight that Rendal now felt a somewhat deep connection between them. In this confrontation Rendal had been so angry, so challenged, so...connected over the same problem of the dark side. Perhaps the greatest bonding that can occur comes not from slow friendship or a gradual comrade. Perhaps even a greater bonding than being brothers in arms is one that comes from surviving a confrontation out of mutual respect with your then enemy. Rendal felt that he could be friends with this Keshiri, that they shared something more than just surviving one another in one of the most peaceful places in the entire galaxy but that they shared a common darkness within, that together they could really help one another maintain the light side in themselves.

Rendal withdrew his lightsaber and looped placed it at his side where it belonged, the left side of his waist. While the Keshiri took a step back so too did the Nish. Standing across the room from one another the four eyes connected, yellow and red, Rendal's eyes had become calmer now, more the way that the eyes of a Jedi should be, not clouded and made orange by the degradation of the dark side flowing throughout the body. It was a sickening sight and an appalling process yet so common among those who were force sensitive and let themselves fall to those innermost desires and emotions. "You reacted within reason, I was high and mighty and I brought about darkness between us because I was threatened by you, simply because you detected the dark tremors from me that anyone who was paying even the slightest bit of attention to me would have been able to see. You didn't deserve to be the subject of my anger and the anger shouldn't have existed in the first place, I am a Jedi after all. I wish for us to be friends one day, or at least meet again under less unpleasant circumstances, a real meeting between us." Rendal said, feeling now a bit like he was rambling but also that he had finally communicated something he had been waiting to with this Keshiri. "What is your name fellow Jedi" Finally such a simple request that usually comes from the beginning of a meeting, perhaps the beginning of something new, at the very least an attempt for real comradery.