RPlog:Painfully Stubborn

Cleared Area (Before Main House) - Karrde's Base - Myrkr

Central to the base is this open area between the main buildings is this open expanse, with its meticulously trimmed bluish-green grass and the occasional dotting of wildflowers. When necessary this area can be used for anything from special (and discreet) picnic-type gatherings to the organization of certain cargo before and after shipping. Often the clearing is the location of Karrde Group employees exercising, playing some simple lawn games, or simply enjoying the outdoors in between duty shifts. The main house is just to the southeast of the clearing; far to the west is the hanger, while the barracks are situated against the trees to the north.

The Players:

Jessalyn The composure of this young human woman is probably the most striking thing about her. Though otherwise unassuming, her expression is one of surprising coherence and calm, belied only by the slightly mischievous gleam in her leaf green eyes. Shining dark red hair falls in unruly silken waves down to the middle of her back, framing her wide cheekbones and smooth, pale skin not as fragile as most redheads'.

She is wearing a loose, cream-colored tunic made out of some light material, scooping low beneath her startlingly white throat and showing off a thin silver chain set with a rough but shiny blue-green stone that rests just below her collarbone. The tunic is belted at her narrow waist and the full sleeves end just above her pale slender wrists. She wears a pair of tight, dark brown pants tucked into knee-high black leather boots, both complementing the best pair of legs in ten parsecs.

Simon Of average height and fair coloring, the young man before you has dark brown hair and eyes of a color somewhere between blue and gray. His hair is parted and cut short. His eyes are deep-set, looking more ready to draw his brow into a deep frown than a warm smile. For facial hair he wears a well groomed goatee and mustache, trimmed short and of the same deep color as the rest of his hair. All in all, the man's demeanor can be summed up in a word: intense. The man before you is dressed in earth tones. Light tan, loose fitting trousers are tucked into soft leather boots that come up to just under his knees, and are tied tight with brown, leather chords. Tucked into the top of his pants is a simple shirt of a matching color. Over this is a loose wool tunic of dark brown, covering his arms completely and hanging down below his waste. It's comfortable clothing, suitable for most climates and cultures. Strapped diagnolly across his chest and back is what appears to be some sort of harness. It's worn in the way some people wear a bandolier, yet there is nothing attached to the device. A long shaft of cylinder rises over his left shoulder, a rod sheathed where some warriors sling their sword. Currently, the man's hood is pulled up, concealing his face in shadows. With his back bowed slightly, either from a heavy weight or old age, it's difficult to tell the man's age. He might not even be human.

Jessa has spent a good part of the afternoon atop this small rise in the middle of the grassy clearing outside of Karrde's base. She is still there, sitting cross-legged and brooding as she gently twists the fragile stem of a heavy white wildflower between her fingers. It's a spot which for now offers her some relief from the Force-blindness, and she's used the time to meditate and collect her thoughts and emotions. She's ashamed of her initial reaction -- her behavior and lack of control the day before were abysmal for one supposedly trained as a Jedi. But today she has found her center again, and she's prepared for the inevitable blindness when it hits again.

Otherwise, the expression on her face is a pleasant one, tranquility back in her eyes, and a revealing smile spread on her lips.

Not unlike Jessalyn, Simon has been spending most of the day in his element, finding his center and balancing the odd mix of emotions that have overwhelmed him since coming to Myrkr. More than just the relief of being freed from a life-long curse, there was the sudden and inexplicable strengthening of his feelings toward Jessalyn. Wandering through the wooded areas near the compound, Simon let himself become temporarily lost in the smell of the sap and leaves, his feet feeling the natural earth through his soft soled shoes. It was a sobering time as well as a relaxing one, yet even through it, it was a face framed by red-gold that kept returning to his mind.

Returning to the compound, it didn't take him long to discover the flowered area where Jessalyn had come to. With a face devoid of emotion, Simon steps into the grassy area slowly. A new, wooden staff is in his hand, a thick, straight shaft that he uses now as a walking aid.

"I have found you, Jessa," Simon says as he stops a few meters behind the Jedi. He grounds the staff in front of him and leans slightly against it as he continues, "You look like you belong here, among the beautiful things that grow here."

"It was the first thing I learned to do, though I didn't even know it at the time," Jessalyn says as if she had known he was there all along. Her fingers have found a soft spot in the earth, and she digs a small hole there, and places the limp stem of the plucked wildflower into it. She carefully pats the dirt back into place and closes her eyes, the smile on her lips quivering as she concentrates, pouring her heart into the very cells and fibers of the little plant. When she opens her eyes, the stem of the flower has straightened, and the half-closed bud begins to open as new shoots begin to form.

Satisfied, she looks over her shoulder at Simon, smiling warmly. "Hi."

Simon starts to take a step closer to Jessalyn, but stops. Walking around as he had, he'd discovered that there were places that the True Source seemed to break through and reattach to him. That he could usually move a few feet to free himself once more was only a small comfort. Part of what troubled him was how often he'd wish to linger in those areas and feel the power the True Source of life provided. It was beyond disconcerting, and the pockets he found, he tried to avoid now. Jessalyn clearly had to be in the center of one of those pockets, to do what she had just done.

"Hello, Jessa," Simon says, offering her a friendly smile. "It is good to make things grow and work with the land. I did not know that you could use the True Source to help with this. There must be many things that the Jedi know that is wise and good that I am not aware of."

Aware that he's avoiding her spot for precisely the same reason she's chosen it, Jessa smiles wryly and gets to her feet, pausing to brush grass from her trousers as she does so. "Maybe someday you'll let me show you some of those things," she says with a playful wink. Stretching out her limbs after having been seated for so long, she tilts her head and studies his expression, stepping out of the little circle and towards Simon.

"Someday," Simon repeats, and shakes his head slightly. He returns her gaze, his smile fading so that his expression is mostly emotionless again. Mostly, in that there is a touch of sadness in his frost blue eyes. "Do you think we will remain together that long, Jessa? I can not feel what our future holds any longer."

"The future is always in motion. It's our choices that bring the future into being." Jessalyn slowly shakes her head, her green eyes squinting against the brightness of the late afternoon sun, casting long shadows over the softly swaying grasses. "I don't know what the future holds, but I hope we still have much to learn from each other before you decide to part ways." She knows better than to bring up her hope that he'll accept Jedi training at some point, and not just because she doesn't want to see another person joining the Dark Side. But because she truly cares about what happens to him.

The Selas blinks, and his brow furrows with his surprise at Jessalyn's words. "Before -I- decide?" His shock is clear in his voice. "I can not see myself choosing any path that would take me away from you, now. I know that you will not do anything to me or to anyone else in my presence that would make me... upset."

He pauses a moment to take a deep breath. He says, the sadness in his voice now, "No, it is you that will choose to part from me. There are too many differences between us. I think that I... upset you. Perhaps as much as your Jedi ways can upset me."

Considering his words, Jessalyn sighs and looks down at her feet, her hands held helplessly at her sides. "If there are so many differences between us, then why are you willing to to follow the same path as me? Do you mean that these differences are so enormous they can never be overcome? I think you've forgotten one thing about me. I'm too stubborn to do any such thing. I won't give up on you, Simon. Even when you at last give up on yourself." She inhales sharply through her nose, a bit surprised at her outburst, but remaining calm and composed.

As he'd done the previous day, Simon raises his hand to touch Jessalyn's cheek, but stops short. The touch had been intoxicating, and was probably best avoided, just like the pockets where he could touch the True Source. Like the pockets, there was a deadly temptation.

As he lowers his hand back to his side, he says, "I am stubborn like you. Perhaps we are enough alike to be like lodestones, pushing each other away as often as not. But you ask why I would follow you. Is it not obvious, Jessa? Do you need your Force in order to see what I feel?"

"How could I, when it's clear you loathe the fact that I'm a Jedi?" Jessalyn says in a surprisingly gentle voice. She watches his hand lift and fall, and ventures to reach for the fingers to squeeze them lightly and let go. Her heart is racing in her chest. If she can somehow lead him back from the path he has begun, then perhaps he won't be lost.

"And plus I promised you I wouldn't go looking into your thoughts. You honestly baffle me," she adds with a nervous chuckle.

When Jessalyn releases his hand, his eyes drop to look at his hand, once again surprised by Jessalyn's actions and words. He had been afraid that she would recoil away from his touch, and she had instead moved to reassure him. And her words... could she possibly think that he loathed her?

"I can not trust the Jedi," Simon says slowly, trying to pick each word as tactfully as he can muster. "I do not like that you are so tightly bound to their order, but you are more than just a Jedi. The Selas Brotherhood were salvaged from the Fallen by the Jedi. I live with the hope that a Selas brother can rescue you from the Jedi."

Or it could very well go the other way, Jessalyn tells herself. But then again, she doesn't even know the nature of this Selas tradition. Are they more closely related to the Sith, using the Dark Side as their tool? Would Simon even be able to distinguish the difference? Or is Simon one of the "fallen" Selas, being seduced to the Dark Side from an otherwise benevolent order.

"Well," Jessalyn says at last, after a lengthy silence, a surprisingly amused smile quirking her mouth, hands planted firmly on her hips. "Are you willing to be friends with me in the meantime?" She's being playful and facetious in an attempt to defuse the gravity of the conversation, and gives him a pointed look as she grins.

Simon opens his mouth to answer her question with the same serious tones and underlying formality that he almost always used in speaking with her. Words were on the tip of his tongue. He wanted to tell her that he was more than her friend already. He wanted to say that he was lost without her, and that she was all he could think of, now. Yet, that look, and that playful tone stops him.

He returns her smile and says at last, "Of course I will be your friend, Jessa. I use your short name, don't I?"

"You do. And I've never asked what I should call you in return. I've just been rude and used your first name," Jessalyn says very softly, gazing up from beneath the screen of her lashes, the sun dropping lower in the distance to cast rose-gold shadows across the structures of the base and the swaying trees. The subtle change in his demeanor makes her somewhat uncomfortable, and she shifts her weight from one leg to the other.

Simon considers that. So many had simply called him by his first name rather than by his full name that he had quit giving it a second thought. It was his own tongue that he guarded, not the tongues of others. This civilization had different standards as far as what was proper or not.

"You may continue calling me Simon, if it pleases you," he says. "The shadows are going to be long and dark soon, and there are things that live in the woods that are fierce. We should take to safety. Perhaps you will share a meal with me?"

"Of course, Simon," she smiles, making a point to take him by the arm as she turns to face the walkway to the base. "I'm starving, anyway, and I want to talk to you about Karrde and our next move...."