Simra: Empyreal Meditations

[Kynane]

On Light

 

Sitting in bright light of the noonday sun, Simra settled herself in preparation for her daily meditations. With her reintroduction to the main body of Vanquished Illusions, she had been neglecting her meditations in the rush of new and overwhelming experiences.

…And overwhelming had certainly been the defining word where a certain Jedi had been involved.

The very tip of her lekku twitched as the thought of the Jedi triggered a rush of emotions she had been wishing to meditate on, breaking from what she had been recently told was a highly unsettling and unnatural stillness. Simra didn’t understand what those Twileks had meant by ‘unnatural stillness,’ when they couldn’t even preform the most basic control over the emotive aspect of lekku she had been taught before she had even reached her tenth year. If anything, their lekku waving and twitching everywhere like an infant’s when they weren’t even using them to speak with had been unnatural.

She sighed and shook her head at herself… such a derailed train of thought like that meant she truly had been neglecting her meditations. With that spurring her on, she doubled down on concentrating on the pure, blinding burn of Light that was manifested in the physical as stars.

Slowly, the fog of her emotions and thoughts was seared away as her concentration on Light grew and her connection widened, until she reached the familiar state of scalding clarity. It took a few timeless moments to readjust to such a state, how every part of her self was ablaze in Light, how her emotions were removed from her, and how her mind gained the focus, clarity, and cauterizing force of a unsheathed saber.

As the final bit of adjustment settled, Simra first turned her burning adamantine mind towards the point a certain Jedi had raised.

“Satele’s Order might have died with the war with the Eternal Empire and the Grandmaster’s vanishing…But we Jedi of VI keep some part of it alive within us.”

The words had pierced her and her usual patient serenity with the force of a blade to the heart, filling her with conflicted turmoil and horror even as she enjoyed the presence of the woman beside her. To think that she kept part of the Order within herself that had demanded the death of herself and her Cadre…

The scalding sensation of Light burned away the emotions trying to flood her mind in fog, allowing her to consider the conundrum the words had raised.

The Son of the Emperor had legally taken her and many hundreds of others from their biological parents who surrendered them to the Jedi Order. Only pure chance had seen her infant self be determined worthy of the Son’s grand experiment. She had not interacted with the true body of Satele’s Order until the Son had been unmasked, but she had considered herself to be a part of the Order until they condemned her and her Cadre. She had killed for them, in their name, hundreds of times before she lost count, had comforted her comrade-siblings as they cremated the unfortunate who did not win their match, did not come home. Their Code had been her Code, lived by as realistically as something so inhuman could be; and even now she still saw to its tenants in her own way.

Yet she hated them as much as she could bring herself to. They had been judged by those who had been fooled even more thoroughly than them, and had been found tainted, irredeemable. Those that should have been their comrades, the Shadows, slaughtered them in their home like they were Sith who gloried in the pain of their victims. Mercy, kindness, compassion, all the qualities a Jedi were supposed to strive for had been as absent that day as breathable air in dead space.

Simra knew of no others that had survived the slaughter and the hunt of those who had not been there that dark night. She was alone, the last of her cadre, and her name was a command to herself to remember the dead.

Scorching Light pierced through the memories of her time with Satele’s Order, dispelling the cloying effect grief gave them and the tears threatening to build. With her memories fresh in her mind, but clear of emotion, she asked herself the question that burned coldly within her heart. Was she as much a living epitaph for Satele’s Order as she was for her murdered comrade-siblings?

She looked to herself without mercy, and saw that while she had changed and grown from the assassin she had been, she had ultimately remained herself. She now questioned her target assignments, investigated her suspicions, had found a different, beloved family other than her slaughtered Cadre, and perhaps had discovered the chance for a new relationship….But…She was still a Jedi who had been raised in Satele’s Order in a most unconventional way, and she carried that history and knowledge with her wherever she went. It was part of her, and she could no more cut it out than she could cut off her own lekku.

She could distantly feel her hands clench into fists on her thighs as the searing purity of that self-knowledge settled into her.

Ignorance can be bliss, but once it is banished it cannot be brought back, she thought cuttingly. It took an unknown period of timeless moments before she felt ready to examine the other matter she had wished to meditate on, but once she was she turned her burning concentration to her memories of Kinjita Savanos.

She had initially met the human woman at a sparring match, but they had not truly interacted there beyond the most superficial of ways. They had not even introduced themselves then, and did not cross paths again until that truly fateful night. She had not even intended to go to the social event, but had passed by the area on the flagship while on an errand to the crew quarters and found that she was rather curious as to what form the social event would take. It had not been a pressing errand, so she had thought it would do no harm to see.

And it had done no harm, except perhaps her expectations and tranquility.

She wondered for a moment if she would have noticed Kinjita Savanos if she had not been forced to pay attention to the woman by being made the dance competition judge. Simra would like to say yes, but the cutting clarity of her meditation allowed her to acknowledge there was no telling since the dance competition had also firmly impressed upon her that Kinjita Savanos was also a being of flesh as well as a Jedi. The dance competition’s impression had led to her seeking out Kinjita in particular when she decided she desired more training, and had put her in the frame of mind to look more closely at the woman.

Further examination and interaction proved that the woman had strength and purity of will, and her character matched her will in its shining strength. Light blazed in her, and it made Simra want to draw closer and wrap herself in its blaze until their circling stars melted and mixed into a singular unit that blazed like a nova in the dark.

Simra had burned with carefully chained fervor after that, and no hesitation or indecision was strong enough to withstand the heat of her fire. Action was demanded, but determining what would be appropriate had been something she had fought with herself fiercely on. She had wanted to be as bold and bright as the Light she submerged herself in, dazzling Kinjita, but she had not wanted to disgust or frighten the woman with her sudden emotions or presumption. It took some time to determine a plan of action she would be satisfied with, and a gift that showed how fiercely her admiration burned no matter how silent it may be.

The bouquet had come about after some researching had her stumbling across the “flower language,” and she had seized upon it as a way to express herself without overstepping the bounds of propriety.

Fifteen Ranunculus flowers in oranges and reds to say “You are radiant, I am dazzled by your charms.” Fifteen Austrian Roses to express that “Thou art all that is lovely.” And five Mignionette and Mezereon flowers, each paired together and scattered artfully throughout the bouquet to tell her “Your qualities surpass your charms,” and a “Desire to please you.”

Gathering the fresh flowers in time for the romantic day that had come so quickly after their meeting took some favors pulled in VITALS, but the glass vase had given her no such trouble. Of course, gathering her gift was the last time everything had gone to plan. But, despite how overwhelming the surprise of her plan crumbling to has had been, it had worked out splendidly. Somehow ,she had managed to get an outcome that had been more favorable than her most optimistic predictions had given her.

 

She felt a distant ghost of warmth on her hands, the memory of Kinjita holding them as she held her pinned beneath her fiery eyes, and smiled.

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