22 Cynn Drallig

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20+ chapter ahead. -----------------------------------------------

The tour itself lasted half an hour and was very informative. And it's not even about the questions and answers, but the way the Guardian answers. And in general, the conversation. You get the impression that he is on the fly psycho portrait of everyone who asks him a question. Innocent questions, answers asked in such a way that he is asked back, just meaningless phrases, after which he tracks the reactions of those around him. And of course the constant feeling of staring. At first I thought I was imagining things, but when I "looked" at the hologram, if it was a hologram of course, I "saw"... thousands of barely visible threads of the Force. Not even threads, but slightly more orderly streams of the Force reaching for the hologram. And I'm not at all sure that this is the only way he can track his interlocutor's state. That it does, and nothing more, I'm sure. The ability to "see" the Force has its advantages.

I waited the next week for more questions, but surprisingly, I didn't. Apparently, I was not the only "genius" in the history of the Order. Take Skywalker, for instance. How old was he when he built himself a race car out of junk as a slave? Ten years old? I think he wasn't much dumber at almost six than I am now. Or do they just not care as long as I'm on the light side of the Force? I don't know.

One day, about a month before my birthday, when I was training at night in the fencing room, there was an incident that I didn't realize at first. I was once again trying to beat off shots from a training droid at level five speed, and as always before, I wasn't very good at it. It wasn't just because I wasn't keeping up, although that was part of the reason, but because I just didn't have enough light-ball movement. After all, pure Shi-Cho wasn't very suitable for deflecting blaster shots.

- Level five speed. - Holy shit! I flinched at the voice behind me. I missed a few shots. - Pretty good for such a young young youngling. I hadn't seen a nugget like that in about fifteen years, to be honest.

Turning off the droid, I turned around. Standing behind me was a tall human male in a traditional Jedi robe. If he'd been wearing anything else, though, I would have been surprised. A Jedi, that's all. The man also had long white hair, not blond hair, but white. And his ears were a little crooked, but that's if you look closely. Actually, I had seen this guy more than once during my fencing training, but from a distance, and I didn't know his name. Now, up close, I could see that he was a half-breed, and one of his parents seemed to be of the Sephi race. Or maybe not his parents, but his grandparents. If it weren't for the stupid spiral hairstyles that stood like towers on their heads, the Sephi would be an exact replica of the Elves. As it were, they resembled them. Even the Sephi had a slightly longer life span than humans.

- Rein Dakari," I bowed, disengaging my sword.

- Cynn Drallig," the man grinned something. - I see you know Shii Cho quite well. Again, for your age.

- He's simple enough, Master Drallig. Sometimes too simple," I glanced at the training droid hovering nearby.

- And it is often used by masters of this style," the Jedi nodded.

- Meaning? - I did not understand.

- It is the best known and easiest to master. But only technically. It's not the kicks and bindings that matter, but their application. For example, if you know Shi-cho well, you can predict the next blow, not the place where it will be delivered. But your opponent is a Shi-Cho master, and he undoubtedly knows what you know. Just as you know that he knows that you know. In the simplicity of this Form is hidden its power. And once you know it fully, you become very, very dangerous to the enemy. Of course, it has its disadvantages. But every shape has one.

- Are you Master Shi-Cho? - the question came out of my mouth.

- I... practice six of the seven Forms.

Wow.

- Can you teach me?

- Heh, you're in a hurry. First, learn Shi-Cho. At least at the intermediate level.

- I'd be happy to," I grimaced. - But they don't teach it. It's all part of the program. You should have known what it took to get me to show you a few extra moves. I looked for help in the Archives, but I learned from a book... - I shook my head. - But I did learn a few tricks from a book.

- You can learn sword fighting without a teacher... ...but difficult. And often harmful. Longer, for sure.

- "That's my point," I said with a heavy sigh.

- But you don't have to hurry, either.

I almost grimaced at his words. Nowhere to fucking go. Well, they don't intend to teach me. Then what's the distraction?

- Excuse me, Master Drallig, but I have work to do," I activated my sword and turned to face the droid.

- "Even so? Well, I'll leave you to it.

Strangely enough, Drallig didn't leave, but he didn't stop me from training either. He just stood in the distance and watched. It was annoying at first, but then I got used to it. Well, really, if he wants to watch, let him. I'm not a red maiden, I won't melt. It was much more annoying that I still could not reduce the droid's hits. A rough calculation showed that only three times out of ten times I failed to get my sword in front of the shot, and in the other seven, my knowledge of Shi-Cho failed me. For some positions, there simply wasn't the right sword movement to hit back the shots in harmony. I had to improvise, but it was followed by a hit. At the very least, I'd hit one or two more shots, but the rhythm was no longer there, and the end was a foregone conclusion - another beam skip.

- You went to level five too soon," the Jedi said after about twenty minutes. He's too lazy to stand there. - You don't know enough. You sense that, don't you? You must be blaming it on Shi-Cho. The interesting thing is that you're generally right, this uniform isn't designed to fend off blaster shots, but not in this case. Now you're incompetent even in the first Form, which makes you lack movement.

What a sickening thing to say under his arm. Reaching out through the Force, I disengaged the droid. Turned to the man, disabling the sword.

- So?

- Uh... hmm. I wouldn't advise you to keep doing that. Right now you're learning skills that will hurt you later. If you want to train, slow it down and only use what you already know. - Damn, that makes sense. At least with my knowledge of swordsmanship I can't argue with that statement.

Glancing at my watch, I noticed that I still had twenty minutes left in the time I had allotted myself. Well, let's work on level four.

- Thank you for your advice, Master Drallig," I bowed to the Jedi.

- Please," he waved his hand.

- Can I use the techniques I learned outside of the standard program in this training?

- That's an interesting question," the man said. - If your instructor showed you the techniques, yes. But you would have to show them to someone else first. Someone to show them to your tutor. It would be unpleasant if you had to practice a bit of the wrong move over and over again. More than unpleasant, I'd say.

- Thanks again, master.

- It's all right, it's no trouble at all. - And after rubbing his chin, he added. - Would you mind showing me how you do level four? Or better yet, first the third and then the fourth.

- Sure, Master. - Maybe show me a few tricks after all?

Alas, he didn't. After standing with me for another forty minutes, he smiled benignly, thanked me, said goodbye and left. Asshole. I even increased the practice time in my gratuitous, as it turned out, hope. No, but there's the fuckup. Asshole piece of shit. I'll remind you of that.