Edges of the World

Chapter 33

Ahsoka, Ventress and Leia stood on the platform together for a while longer, before Ahsoka began to move toward the Temple.

"Right. Well I for one think some meditation is in order, don't you?" Ahsoka remarked as she walked down the platform.

To Leia's surprise Ventress nodded as Ahsoka moved past her. "Not a bad idea at all."

Meditation?

Oh great.

Here she thought she'd actually be training to become a more efficient combatant so she could take down the Empire, and they wanted her to meditate?

She set off after them, focusing on her relief that their petty arguing had vanished, replaced with a soft spoken discussion of her training and how they planned to proceed with it.

Unfortunately from what she could hear, there was going to be a lot of mediating in her future.

She'd watched a lot of Luke's attempts at Jedi training. For the most part it had seemed to involve either meditating for hours on end, or wearing a blast shield and evading low level blasters as training drones buzzed around him and he waved his lightsaber about. She had assumed that he had focused on those two things so heavily only because those were the only things General Kenobi had taught him to do.

She was beginning to suspect that assumption had been a mistake.

What was she getting herself into?

The three of walked together to the courtyard with the large golden tree Ahsoka had shown Leia during her initial tour of the Temple. They stopped before it, and the two older woman regarded each other for a short while before Ventress turned to Leia, her brows raised.

"You should learn how to connect to others at will, and more importantly how to guard yourself from being... overwhelmed by what you find when doing so. Based on what happened just now outside... well it wouldn't do for you be set off whenever you are near Force-sensitives who are upset, especially if your ultimate goal is to fight against the Sith. You'll find the emotions they exude are far more powerful than anything any of these Jedi could ever dream of experiencing." Ventress spat the word Jedi out like an insult, her lips curling with disgust around it.

Leia wondered what had led to Ventress being here, both accepted by the denizens of the Temple as someone who was not a threat, and to being assigned to assist with her training.

There was a story there, about rules and compromise and building towards a more inclusive future, and she hoped to learn it before she returned home.

Ahsoka placed a hand on Leia's shoulder, crouching down slightly to be at Leia's eye level. "I know meditating doesn't seem that exciting, but it is vital Leia."

With the guidance of the two women, who as time went on seemed to be falling back into their pattern of lightly bickering, Leia folded herself into a seated position on the ground facing the tree, and set out to follow their instructions: focus, clear her mind, let the Force fill and guide her, and feel the tree.

Extracting information of actual value from this woman was harder than staring down a gundark. Not that Leia had ever attempted the later, but she was pretty confident it would be easier than this.

Anything would be.

Thankfully, even with the archeologist being as annoying as it was actually humanly possible, Leia was learning some interesting things about Darth Vader from talking with her.

Oh not how Vader took his meals (Aphra had never seen him eat) or how many hours he slept at night (Aphra had never seen him sleep), no but... there was something about her.