annexedlogs | I look at the world

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I look at the world

Who: Ezra and you
What: Ezra getting his chip out and exploring with his connection to the Force restored
When: Chip removal a few days after the missions, the rest of the next week or so after that
Where: Witches Camp Infirmary then around the camp and nearby jungle
Content Warnings: None at the moment, more may be added or in subject lines

A. Chip removal

After what had felt like forever debating himself, and fretting about making the right decision, it turns out getting the chip removed is surprisingly quick and simple. Ezra walks out of the infirmary, not entirely sure that he truly believes that it's done. When he'd woken up back in that cell, he's instantly known something was wrong.

He's expected his connection to the Force to simply snap back. But that's not quite how it feels.

Too much anxiety. He can't sense anything beyond that - he needs to-

He tries to fall into tune with his breath. With the calm he has come to know well. And then the Force floods back to him.

Which is, of course, when he bursts into tears in happy relief. In letting the entire rollercoaster of the last few weeks pour out, really.

B. Animal friends

Along one of his frequent jungle walks, something catches on the edge of Ezra's awareness - a spark of interest from a small, bright mind, although it doesn't feel like a human. He looks up and round, reaching his senses out, sending out a wave of curiosity...

Ah. He lifts his arm and down flies a crow. He thinks it's a crow, anyway. Black and medium sized, anyway.

"Hello," he greets, warmly.

C. Meditation time

Could he be doing this somewhere even more out of the way? Probably. But he doesn't actually mind feeling and hearing people getting on with their business, at least not most of the time. On a very good day, a small distraction can pass over and through all his senses. A ripple on the surface of a pond.

And some distractions are less temporary. That's fine, too.

Chaos, yet harmony.

"Questions?" he murmurs, from his kneeling position, keeping his eyes closed for the moment.

D. Wild Card! [Hit me up for any shenanigans with Ezra. We don't even have to stick to the Force/psychic theme.]

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Jim was out and about as usual, taking advantage of the good weather by taking the longer route back to his apartment, which ended up taking him on a pathway close to the infirmary. Spotting Ezra slightly ahead he calls out, waving a hand through the air as he jogs over to the other side of the street to catch up with the guy.

"Hey! I haven't seen you in a couple of days, how have-" Jim pauses, as the distance closes between them he notices what appear to be tears in the younger man's eyes. "-Hey, are you alright?"

A response drifts to Ezra from about ten feet to his right in the form of a quiet chuckle. Codi's been kneeling there in a parrot of the boy's meditation stance for the better part of fifteen minutes - at first to see if she could pick up on what he might be listening to or feeling (she couldn't), then to see how long it would take him to realize that he has company.

"Many," Codi hums, glancing at her phone to confirm the time. "But only if it isn't a bother. You look...focused? Don't let me interrupt you."

[Now that Ezra's chip-free, he won't need a tether to know when Luke's close. Because while Luke might be extremely untrained, he's still one of Anakin's kids. It's a small miracle that they managed to keep him off the Empire's radar for as long as they had honestly.]

Ezra! [It's only as he gets closer that he realizes he was absolutely interrupting.] Sorry. Were you busy? I can wait? It's not really important or anything.

[And then, without actually waiting at all.]

Ben said you were getting your chip out too, so I wanted to check in with you.

Ezra jerks to focus on Jim, blinking hard.

"Yeah. Or - it's not bad and I will be," he amends, and then pauses to trying to figure out to explain. "I...got them to take my chip. It's both - it's a lot, but also I'd missed it."

He shoots the older man a shaky, earnest grin.

Oh, it hadn't taken that long to work out that he had company. But he knows her curiosity (whatever it stems from) is more than a momentary thought.

He open his eyes and flashes a small smile. "I was, but it's ok. If I absolutely wanted to be left alone, I'd find somewhere else. What did you want to ask?"

[Ezra open an eye and says, dryly-]

I did, and yeah, I can tell that you did.

[But it really is fine that Luke came to find him. Ezra smiles up and him and shifts to slightly less formal and focused posture, gesturing for Luke to sit.]

You can?
[The words are out before he's even really processed Ezra's statement, but after a half moment of reflection he realizes, that right. That's a thing isn't it?]

Oh, right. Of course you can.

[He settles down in the spot indicated, smile turning slightly rueful as he gets settled.]

Honestly? It... doesn't really feel all that different yet. Not really.

[Which is partially why he's here. Sometimes it's easier to talk to someone closer to your level on things, instead of talking to someone who's so much more like Ben or Juhani.]

The last thing the Doctor had expected when he rounded the corner with a box full of parts and various books he had borrowed from the library was a person just standing there. The bump into another body jostles his precious stack of things causing several to fall to the ground.

"What are you doing just standing there?" He can't help the initial question that comes out of his mouth. "If you're going to stand somewhere don't do it around a corner where other people are going to be walking."

The chip? That makes some amount of sense, considering their location and the appearance of the younger guy being in pain.

"Did it hurt? Or is this the effect of it being gone and no longer tempering skills that you have?"

Jim can't comment on the experience, he is still chipped but even then he's just a regular guy, there was nothing that needed to be sealed away. But he's heard stories of otherworldly abilities that others regained once they had the chips taken out.

Codi huffs a more derisive laugh as she puts her phone back in her pocket. Blunt, but at least he's willing to talk in spite of her obtrusiveness. How interestingly mature. It mirrors the enormous amount of self-control she's inferring from the fact that he's meditating in public in the first place.

"For starters?" she quips, shifting to sit in a more casual, side-legged pose. "What are you doing? You haven't moved for, like, twenty minutes."

Ezra shakes his head.

"They were pretty slick with the magic, so it didn't hurt much. It's the yeah, basically getting another set of senses back."

If it helps - it didn't snap back to the way I expected at first, either. [He rolls his eyes just a little.]

Honestly, I'm still working that, which is part of why the meditating.

I don't really have anything to expect yet.

[Luke rolled his shoulders, leaning back to stare up thoughtfully.]

A week before I came here I didn't even know the Force was something you could Feel.

[So the fact that he still can't really feel anything isn't... too surprising, but after how others have talked about it. It's definitely a bit anti-climactic and disappointing.]

You think meditating would help?

[He nods once, slow and thoughtful.]

It might. But let's just - have you tried this before? Did Ben have a chance to walk you through concepts?

He shifts so his posture is more casual, too.

"I was meditating. Specifically, on awareness of my body and my surroundings."

His attention had been a little...far flung. And then he jolts, and reaches with the Force to catch some of the items as they start to fall.

Not that he's focused enough to catch everything.

"Sorry!" he gasps out. "I was...distracted."

He gently lifts the items that he'd caught telekinetically up to a level easier for the Doctor to grab. "Let me help get this gathered back up."

[Luke shake's head head, though the confusion that shows on his face answers the question just as easily.]

What're the concepts?

There's a bit of a huff from the Doctor who now had a clear view of the person in front of him. Despite his initial grumpiness, the floating items don't go unnoticed as he reaches for them and slowly begins stacking them again on his pile and tucking a couple of them under his arm. "Were you always able to do that?"

[Well, that conveys that Luke doesn't have an experience.

At least not, any formal experience.

Ezra freezes for a just a second while he tries to figure out even where to start.

Then he blows out a breath in a near laugh and reflects-]

Kanan, when he first started teaching me, said it's difficult to teach. And you know what, throwing a bunch of ideas – and literally things – at me all at once is part of what tripped us up, at first.

So maybe a story, instead? Of the first kind of mediation that I learned. But I didn't know that was a word for it.

He starts slowly lifting the bits he didn't catch as well.

"Um, I was born with the potential to be able to do this. This is part of my abilities through the Force. I didn't learn how to do this, specifically, until I was a teenager. I, uh, just got a chip, so I'm a little-"

He waves a hand towards his face, to indicate that he's still scrambled.

[He leans back on his arms to listen, not about to rush Ezra through the explanation when it's something like this. Rushing feels like it'd be counteractive for some reason.]

Ben didn't throw anything at me, but he did stick me in a helmet with the blast shield down and made me try to deflect bolts from a remote droid.

[Not quite the same, but he can definitely see a bit of a similarity in the method.]

I got hit a lot.

[As if there was any doubt.]

A story? I mean sure, I guess? If you think it'll help?

[He'll even try to listen.]

[Somewhere between bemused and amused-]

Well, that's one way to try to get you to reach out to the Force, I guess.

I mean, the thing is, Jedi at the temple started learning some of this stuff since they were really little. Maybe as long as they can literally remember. So translating for older students- [He waggles a hand to indicated that it can be iffy.]

When I was little - the first years I was on my own...it was really easy to get overwhelmed. But I couldn't let myself stay that way for long. [He just blows right on past the implied 'or he'd have been hurt or made a dumb decision that could have gotten him captured, or made him sick, or otherwise dead'.]

The safest place I found to stay was an abandoned comms tower, well outside the city. Out in the grasslands. There are a lot of beautiful wild flowers out there. [He smiles gently.]

My favorites are there were little green daises. They open up around movement from other living thing. Like pollinating insects. Or someone sitting or laying down nearby and breathing.

At the end of a bad day, when they were in bloom, I'd just...sit there. And breathe. And watch them bloom. And then things didn't seem so bad.

Eventually, even when they weren't in bloom, or I wasn't near them, I could close my eyes, and focus on breathing and picture the daises slowly blooming. And it would help my brain feel less frantic, less all over the place.

Seeing the strain on Ezra’s face the Doctor is quick to gather the rest of the things. “Well don’t strain yourself. You look like you’re going to pull a face muscle - you don’t want to get it stuck that way, do you?”

When everything is accounted for he adjusts the box so that he can at least see Ezra when he’s speaking to him. “How was the procedure? Clearly it worked if you can do your little Force trick,” he started waving his free hand a little.

Yeah, nothing like getting blasted while people laugh at you to really make you want to focus on the Force.

[It had worked, somehow, but that doesn't mean it's necessarily his favorite memory. Sorry Ben.]

Yeah. Ben doesn't seem to think that's the best idea. Said it was important I had the chance to grow up 'normally'. Whatever that means.

[Normal for who is his question, but he doesn't think he's really in a place to argue with Ben about it. So hasn't.]

It's definitely something that's going to have to change. [And here Luke goes, already thinking about the Future of the Jedi when he is hardly even one himself.

True to his word, Luke does listen. Noticing that honestly? Despite growing up on an admittedly shitty planet, he's actually been really lucky so far. To have family for as long as he did, to have relative safety that he absolutely had taken for granted a time or thirty as a kid.]

It sounds- [Boring. Sitting and thinking about flowers absolutely sounds tedious to Luke, but if it works for Ezra that's great!] Nice!

[And he does mean that, it's good that Ezra's found something that works for him.]

It's hard for me to imagine, but I bet actually sitting there with them feels amazing.

[As he's seen more plant life since he's been here on the broken world than he had in his entire life before so it's not really something he can relate with at all.]

[He frowns a little in confusion when Luke starts talking about growing up 'normally'. Certainly he's wondered what his parents would have chosen, if the Republic and Order hadn't fallen. It's hard for him to imagine, at this point, his life without both his birth and adopted family.

For the moment, he points out-]

It already has changed. [Himself, Luke, Leia, Rey. None of them fit the old mold. And unlike Luke, Ezra hasn't experienced any Jedi indicating that's inherently a problem.

But that's not the issue really on hand right now. He laughs softly.]

Ok, maybe not sitting and visualization meditation today. You should probably give it a try sometime. You never know, it might grow on you.

Hmm. Knowing any good spots to walk without interruptions?

Edited 2022-09-13 22:23 (UTC)

"Okay, that's not so bad then." Giving another glance over Ezra, particularly at the back of his head, it doesn't seem as though he has any real visible injuries to draw attention to.

"When you senses, are you talking about better strength, or hearing, something like that? Whatever it is, if it was being disrupted by these chips then I don't blame you for having them take it out." Jim may be undecided on his, the risks of being tracked through it via being useful if they ever need to properly infiltrate the enemy camp, but he does not lose anything of himself by keeping it either.

Oh. I didn't mean with us us. I meant for the future ones.

[Because naturally despite the fact that Luke can hardly even feel the Force yet, he's already thinking Big Picture. Grand Scheme.]

We might be the ones learning Now but that's not always going to be the case, you know?

[And it's going to be on them to shape the future of the Jedi. To be the ones to decide what traditions to create. It's... something he should probably worry about more when he actually knows what the old traditions and methods are first. But never let it be said that a Skywalker thought small and didn't see the Big Picture of things.]

Yeah, maybe. [When he's old. Or when he's at least a little more tired. Just.. not yet. Now that moving meditation stuff? Much more his speed.]

Pretty much anywhere in the jungle really. Long as you don't go towards places where other people are, it's a good place to just move.

[He might think himself new to moving meditation, but the reality is that he's quite used to it. Since running through the jungle is absolutely the sort of thing he does to clear his head. Though, it's more effective now that he's de-chipped. Though he hasn't fully realized just how much, because he hasn't tried it yet to feel the difference.]

I haven't noticed any specific place I like best just yet. You?

Codi opens her mouth to ask 'that's it?' before stopping herself short. Don't be rude.

"Notice anything interesting?" she asks instead.

"Uh. Hmmm. Not the easiest to explain." He lifts a hand to rub the back of his neck, then thinks better of it, and drops until a half-shrug.

"I have a connection to energy that pervades...everything. I can draw on it and interact with it in a lot of ways. Including boosting strength, sure."

"Well. The point is sort of to cultivate mindfulness about...everything I sense. To approach it, as much as I can, as if it's all interesting?" he hazards.

He flashes a sheepish smile, because he knows that's an idea that doesn't necessarily make sense to some people at first. It didn't, entirely to him, a few years ago. It takes practice. He imagines it always will.

"That said...there's a pretty, um, heavy presence that I'm not sure what the deal is-" He points vaguely in the direction of the Troop. "That way. Might check it out."

There's going to be Force-sensitives of all sorts of ages and kinds of backgrounds that could use help. Maybe even a community.

[Then he shakes his head.]

Not specifically. But there's got to be decent clearing somewhere nearby.

He makes a slightly different face at the mention of strain.

"It's not hard, I just need to...get my head settled." He sighs. He can do that later. "The procedure itself was fine. The local...magic makes for pretty quick and mostly painless."

"I imagine having to reboot your brain takes some time." He's trying to be sympathetic. He's gone through enough regenerations to know how confusing that process can be. A chip being removed from a brain? Probably a similar feeling.

How was he supposed to react to this though? Somehow just walking away and leaving didn't seem like the best course of action and he could practically feel Bill's withering gaze urging him to say something comforting. "...Do you want to get something to eat?"

"...so some kind of superhuman strength. Or ability."

A vague description as Jim hasn't been able to visualize it in order to describe it, but he gets the concept enough at least. In a galaxy full of different species and even with humans who have been augmented, he understands the concepts at least. 'Superhuman' covers a vast array of interesting and inspiring abilities out there.

"I can't pretend to really understand what you mean by that, at least not yet, but is it normal for you guys? I mean-- where you're from, do you all possess the same... abilities? Powers? Does it have a name?"

"Maybe we should get your stuff wherever you wanted it, first?" Ezra suggests, with gentle amusement.

"But yeah, food sounds good. Probably can't hurt."

"Right." He had been en route back to his flat in the compound but had seemingly dropped the thought much like he had dropped his things.

"Pick a place and let me know where to meet you. But not the one stall with the big cartoon goose on it." It had been one of the few stalls he hadn't wanted to go back to after trying it the one time.

Codi nods in understanding. She doesn't actually understand - not to the level she imagines Ezra hopes she does - but she's at least familiar with the concept. The sort of 'active meditation' she'd heard her head of medical talk about practicing. It helps to have a sixth sense capable of noticing those things, she supposes.

At least that's not the only thing Ezra has to offer her, though. Her head turns to follow his pointed finger. Directions are not her strongest suit, and they're in a fairly busy part of the Witches Camp that's not directly bordering the Troop, so she doesn't immediately put together what he's talking about.

"...There's a little pastry shop that way?" Codi offers helpfully. "They make nice sugar cookies. Do you think they're doing something shady to make them taste so good?"

Ben or Juhani might have a better idea than I would.

[Luke knows just how much he doesn't know, but what he does know is that there are people here who know a whole lot more than he does. Or Ezra for that matter.]

Who knows, one of them might even have already started thinking about something like this.

I think we can find a place to do some walk meditation.

...or did you mean the general community stuff?

The general community stuff!

[Luke laughs, scratching his neck absently.]

I mean, just finding a place to walk isn't exactly hard. Finding help for that would be kind of weird. But for bigger training later? That's another story.

Ezra visibly hesitates for a moment.

"It's...rare. But known. Or...was more commonly known. Kinda an active campaign to kill or control those of us with the potential, in my lifetime. One term for it is Force sensitivity. The Force being a name for the energy we connect with."

He shoots her a cautiously amused sideways glance.

"Nah. For one thing, it doesn't feel....bad. For another, I'm pretty sure it's outside the densely-inhabited area."

"Well, a week or so ago, at least, Ben was talking about we were 'the future'-" He doesn't actually make air quotes, but they easy to hear, nonetheless. "And best thing to do was ignore him, or something."

He clearly doesn't believe a word of it. "But then, I think I talked him around to talking to Juhani about organizing some training?"

"Is the Hare & Hammer too boring?" Ezra offers, with a hint of tease.

Jim wishes he could better comprehend it, but in all honesty, he does not. What he is getting from the conversation is that there is something, some power that not everybody has access to, something both coveted and feared.

"This Force.. your people were killed if they had it? Why?" Despite asking, he takes an educated guess before awaiting an answer. "Is it because of those who don't have it?"

It is a likely scenario, one that has played out no matter where you are in the galaxy. Groups of people do not like it when others have something they cannot possess, or it tips the balance of power out of their favour.

Ezra sighs.

"Well, that's caused issues at times, sure, and it makes a good lever for propaganda. But actually, when I'm from, the problem really is that the Emperor is secretly a very powerful Force user who doesn't want anyone challenging him."

"He's afraid someone might overthrow him." Ezra says Emperor, so it hardly sounds like a democracy. And if lives are in danger for simply being who they are, he has to wonder just how peaceful their existence is.

"Sorry, I didn't meant to bring up something so negative. I was just curious, we don't have anything like that where I'm from so I was just trying to understand it better."

Codi chuckles, smoothly playing off her answer as a joke. Or, at least attempting to.

"Of course," she grins. "The guys who run that place are way too normal. So, giant, neutral presence, but away from the main city? Sounds juicy. What do you think it might be?"

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I look at the world

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C

C - In which... I don't see much meditation happening for a bit, sorry Ezra

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Pffft

He doesn't apologize for the interruption in the slightest

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