Bleeding Kyber Chapter 7: 07_ Force Awakening (1)

Read chapter 7 of Bleeding Kyber by theRonin_666 on NovelPedia.

'So, what will it be now, Herald?' "Now back to Herald, huh? Not Aarav, Force." Herald talked to the air beside him, that was how it looked to the slaves surrounding his cage. A kid talking to the air beside him, madness finally reaching him after the despair of reality. The undeniable process every slave travels through. 'Now we are taking about the present, hence Herald. And I am not the force. Just the part that connects you to the force.' "Then you are the lesser force." '.... If you need to define, then I am.' For a moment Herald did nothing, he just took deep breaths. Plan after plan running in his mind before being scrapped. Any problem, any solution he found for them, were crushed by the present reality surrounding him. Only for an answer to suddenly shine brightly in his head. 'What if I stopped basing my solution on reality?' Silence, the lesser force speaking in his mind went quiet for a moment. As if it was looking at the childish and definitely idiotic plan in his head. 'You... may be able to escape after all.' The galaxy was waiting for him. Herald closed his eyes in the cage, the cold metal still pressing against his spine, the barricade still snapping in the desert wind and then none of that mattered, because he was somewhere else. The transition was smoother this time. Less a violent pull and more a slipping, like stepping from a noisy room into a quiet one and feeling the door click shut behind you. The mind palace. That was what the lesser force had called it. Herald thought it looked less like a palace and more like the universe's most intimidating screensaver. The two-sided galaxy sprawled beneath him or above him, or around him; directions were suggestions here. On one side, the blue crystal floated in its eternal blue sea, waves crashing against stones. The light it cast was calm, warm and clean, the kind of light that made you want to be still, breathe and stop thinking about all the people you'd killed. On the other side, the red crystal burned in its storm of fire, the flames licking at the void with a hunger that felt personal. The light it cast was the color of rage, of fear, of the moment before you did something you couldn't take back. Herald floated between them, cross-legged, his hands resting on his knees. "So," he said. "How does this work?" The lesser force materialized beside him, as a distortion, a ripple in the fabric of the galaxy surrounding him. When it spoke, its voice came from everywhere at once, and also from inside his own skull, which he was getting used to in the way you get used to a toothache. 'The Force flows through all things. You. Me. The crystals. The water in your mother's kitchen. The sand in the desert. The blood on your hands.' "Subtle." 'I am not capable of subtlety. I am a mediator between you and the Force. Clarity is my function.' Herald exhaled. "Fine. Clarity. Then clarify this; how do I actually use it? In the mine, it just... happened. I wanted something, and it answered. But then I wanted to save Pytor, and it" He stopped. The name caught in his throat like a fishbone stuck, choking him. 'The Force answered your emotions. Fear. Rage. The desire to survive. But emotions are crude tools to use. They give you power without direction. You swung a blade and hit everything in the room. Including the one you meant to protect.' "So what's the alternative?" 'Discipline. Connection. Stillness.' The distortion shifted, and Herald felt something press gently against his forehead, not a touch, but an intention. 'You must learn to feel the Force without being overwhelmed by it. To channel it without drowning in it. This is what the Jedi teach. This is what I will teach you.' Herald opened his eyes. The blue crystal pulsed, and he felt it, a thread, thin as spider silk, stretching from the crystal to his chest. No, not to his chest. To the place where his crystal had been, the one the scavengers had taken. The connection was still there, invisible, unbroken. "I feel it," he