Chapter 5 – On the way to Corellia

While he was checking the coordinates, Layan heard light footsteps coming behind him. Turning around he saw the young Lyn Gella.

She sat beside Layan in the co-pilot seat and watch him work as he checks the overhaul state of the ship through the monitors.

"How are the others?"

"Sleeping, this was really an emotional roller coaster for us, and we barely knew each other before we get acquainted in our cell."

Lyn starts to tell about her experience while looking at the hyperspace channel through the cockpit.

"Yeah, I know how it feels to taste freedom after being deprived of it for a long time. They will need time to calm their mind and realize there is no danger anymore. And you, how are you?"

She looked at him a bit surprised and started to talk about how she felt while bringing up her knees to her chin.

"It's a strange feeling, I lost my family, my freedom, hope, ready to accept my fate when you arrived and freed us from slavery. At first, my thought was on what my life would become as I was all alone, but then you asked me to become your student and learn to use the Force. I'm deeply grateful, you gave me a goal."

A bit taken aback by her declaration, Layan thought to his own past, when he met Shaak Ti, at this time he was a vagrant, living his life without a goal. Living one day at a time, without making a plan for the future, not searching for love or trying to create a family. He was living a life full of action, ever since he lost his family and became a slave, Layan didn't plan anything and knew he could die the next day.

That's why her speech affected him more than she thought, what she saw as a possible future, he has lived it and knew how depressive it was as a life.

"I hope you're prepared, girlie because you will surely beg me to stop your training after 3 days. What I offer you is not a joke, I want you to invest yourself in it at more than 100%."

Layan chuckled and said to her when he saw how calm she is when she envisaged her training with him.

"I'm fully prepared. I have an unwavering will, you can make me go through the worst. I won't give up." She said with a cute snort.

"Can't wait to see it!" Answered Layan with a light chuckle.

"You will see!"

The little girl seems to be quite temperamental as she said with a cute snort once again. Seeing him and his smug smile, Lyn wanted to pay him back and got an idea as she watched his almost golden skin tone.

"So, should I call you master from now on? Or would Goldie be good enough, or maybe Golden Boy?"

"Oh, seems like the little girlie didn't like that I called her girlie. You can call me as you wish, girlie."

Seeing her proud smile fading as he got her good, Layan calmed down and resumed on a more serious tone.

"Now, let's get serious. The trip to Corellia will take us some time, so I will start to teach you about the Force and see if you can get the basics."

Hearing that, Lyn looked at him in the eye, ready to listen to his every word.

"I'll teach you the way of the Force, lightsaber-wielding, history lessons, and a few les-sons of mechanics. I can't let you be unable to understand mechanic in the galaxy we are in."

Lyn nodded at what he said, but looked at him and realized something amiss.

"Why don't you have a lightsaber? I thought Jedis never went anywhere without their lightsaber."

"I'm not a Jedi, and let's forget the unnecessary details. Now let's start the lesson, we'll begin with the meditation, it will help you feel the Force all around you."

"I only asked one question and you're switching topics…"

He didn't let her continued and resumed what he was saying.

"There is 3 basic type of meditation: Floating, Moving and Empty. Each one helps you to focus on yourself to achieve something. The floating meditation helps you to focus on the Force and help you feel it around you. The Moving mediation consists of focusing on a task and help you reach a deep level of focus and peace with yourself. The Empty meditation goal is to reach an empty mind, devoid of emotion and reach inner peace."

"Not too complicated" She nodded after hearing his explications.

"Because it was just a summary. Now, I'll teach you the floating meditation and help you feel the force around you. If you succeed in using the basic telekinesis before we reach Corellia, I won't have wasted my time. Follow me."

Leaving the cockpit, they stepped in the common room where they held the meeting before and resumed their conversation.

"Cross your leg and sit, I'll teach you how to practice the floating meditation."

Lyn did as Layan said and sat cross-legged on the floor.

"Close your eyes. The Force is everywhere in the earth, the grass, animals, even this ship. This is the bond that links everything. You have to feel it flock inside you and use it."

Nothing happened, he knew that you can't succeed at the first try without much con-centration, except if your potential with the force is huge, like Anakin Skywalker.

"Close your eyes!"

Lyn was a bit impatient and opened her eyes slightly to not be caught, eager to see if she used the force around her like the Jedi to make things float around her.

"Don't be impatient, empty your mind, be at what you do now, not what you want to achieve. Focus your mind and try to feel the force around you, inside you."

After a couple of minutes, Layan saw the cups laying on the table started to tremble and raised slightly in the air.

(She's talented.)

"That's it, feel, don't think. Feel the force around you, bring it to you and use it."

The cups continue to rise in the air before hovering almost one meter above the table.

"Calm your mind, through the Force, you'll see other things, the past, the present, and the future."

She breathed out through the nose and continued her meditation until images came through her mind, she opened her teary eyes and howled.

"Mom! Dad!"

Stepping beside her, Layan took her by the shoulders and made her stare in his eyes.

"Calm your mind! You saw the past, you can't change anything! Focus on your breath and calm down. We'll stop here for now."

It took her half a minute before she calmed down and talked to him with a trembling voice. What she saw seems to shock her, maybe something she wanted to forget, but the Force always show visions for a reason.

"What was this?"

"I already told you, the Force can show you things. Force Visions are uncontrollable and fickle, most of the Jedis think that if a vision appears to you, it is that the force wanted to show it to you for a reason. I think you'll have to grieve your parents, you couldn't as you were taken into slavery. Now go sleep."

Still shocked by what she saw, she turned around and headed toward the room where the girls were sleeping with a downcast mood, but before she could leave the room, Layan called her.

"Lyn. You did great, you have potential, don't let this discourage you."

"Yes."

She nodded with a low voice and left the room with the automatic door closing behind her, leaving Layan alone in the common room.

"Bad luck, first meditation, and a vision appeared to her mind. At least, it gives me a direction to her future training."

Sigh

He sighed and left the room heading toward the cockpit to keep a check over their route.

Layan wasn't exactly sure of what to do with his newfound apprentice. Shaak Ti taught him for 5 years and after this, he was alone honing his skills for a bit more than a year and a half. He wasn't knowledgeable about how to train an apprentice. He'll have to do his best and use his own experience to teach her.