FAREWELL LOG
Set from October 24th onwards:
( -To absent friends, lost loves, old gods, and the season of mists; and may each and every one of us always give the devil his due. )
( -To absent friends, lost loves, old gods, and the season of mists; and may each and every one of us always give the devil his due. )
Now even more than before, Luke was aware of the Force - not just the senses it conveyed to him, but the entity itself. Vast and timeless, permeating everything, connecting it all. It was sentient, in a way completely unlike he was - and yet, in a way, the same. Those who had joined with it, as he had, beckoned.
He wanted, very dearly, to return to it, to them. Luke's current state of being, of being anchored to a body and all that that entailed, from the anachronistic right hand to the human perceptions of existence - it held him back. Soon he would ask his cells to die and return to the Force, to his role - soon.
But not just yet. There were loose ends to tie - one of them a reminder that his death wasn't an irrevocable separation. Luke went out to meet Cephiro in the gardens behind the Clinic, and as he waited took a moment to set out a little brazier with a pot of milk in it. As it heated he unwrapped the gold foil from a bar of chocolate and started to shave it into the pot, working unhurriedly but efficiently.
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Cephiro took a seat on the other side of the brazier from Luke, glancing at the pot and chocolate curiously as he did. Oh, he probably knew about hot chocolate, but the way the other man was preparing it had a curious, almost ritualistic manner about it. For a few moments he simply sat there, watching and thinking - content with enjoying the other's company in silence. Yet, even as he was content with it he knew on some level that they would part ways. Most people, he thought, would probably leave, and for his own part Cephiro was not particularly interested in staying or going home. He hadn't broached the subject with Presea yet, but he thought he would find somewhere else to go for a while. It didn't seem wise to return home as a different person, with little knowledge of who he had been before.
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"Hello, Cephiro." He looked up and smiled gently, then went back to shaving. The chocolate made a mound in the simmering milk, melting at the edges and sending pale brown tendrils through the white liquid.
Finishing, Luke dusted his hands off over the pot, set the foil aside, and then started to stir with a wire implement. With his free right hand he pulled things out of a pocket - a little vial, a twist of paper with reddish powder in it, a packet of salt, mint leaves in a small envelope. He poured in the vial now, still stirring.
It was all combined now. Luke lifted the pot off the brazier and breathed in the steam. The chocolate had gotten a little bit burned - he hadn't done this in decades - but not so much that it put him off. Luke set the pot down and added the powder, a bit of the salt, whisked for a little longer.
"A good friend introduced me to this. Lando Calrissian," he said, soft-voiced. He seemed fond, and yet like he hadn't pronounced that name in a long time. "It was considered exotic in our time and place. The plants that chocolate's made of weren't cultivated on many planets. There were substitutes, but never quite the same."
It was mixed, a little frothy. Nodding to himself, Luke poured the contents of the pot into two white mugs from the Clinic break room. Neither was entirely pristine, being scrounged out of some Wilderness a year or so ago. One had an emblem of some kind of feline mascot; the other was one of the traditional "You don't have to be crazy to work here, but it helps!" mugs. He added the mint leaves, some to each.
"Take one, and I'll explain what I proposed." Luke had said that it would make communication easier - and he'd said it involved his own blood. But these things were more easily conveyed in person.
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"I don't think there's anything like this where I'm from, either." There had been quite a variety of drinks in the Sphere that had been completely alien to him, but he had at least tried most of the sweet-tasting ones. "Don't tell Smoke I said so, but I think your version is better."
Blood magic - that had been Cephiro's first thought when Luke had proposed the idea. He was a bit wary of the idea, but willing to admit that it was probably just some weird cultural thing. The Force wasn't quite like magic, and even if it were there was no logical reason why using blood was inherently evil. Besides which, he trusted Luke, so he pushed away his preconceived notions and settled in to listen.
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He lowered the mug and cradled it in both hands. This would take a few minutes."You know about cells. How most living beings are made out of countless tiny units all working together, and each unit knows the plan of the entire body it's part of. But among them, living inside them, are other cells, smaller, of different species. Some make us sick, some help us digest our food - and there are some so symbiotically adapted to us that we can't survive without them, or them without us."
Luke paused to sip his chocolate before going on. "Living in me there are innumerable other cells called midichlorians. They have a connection to the Force which is - complex." He grinned again, briefly. "I'll spare you the details. The point is that Force-Sensitives host them in multitudes, and in a way, they are as much 'us' as the human cells."
"Some Force-Sensitives have used this to create a technique called the blood trail. Nightsisters mark targets with their own blood, treated in a specific way so that their midichlorians survive in the target's body. They can then track the target. I know a modification of that technique."
"I can't tell you what it's like to be one with the Force. Not really." Luke's eyes closed for a moment, and he seemed more distant. "But I... lose myself. My sense of myself as an individual changes. I can... manifest as myself, but it's an uncertain thing, and easier if I'm called on." He took another sip. "You can see where this is going."
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Although Cephiro wasn't entirely surprised that it had come to this now, it was still difficult to come to terms with. Death, the loss of self - these weren't positive concepts to him. Even if it came with eternal peace and oneness with the universe and they could still talk once in a while, it still seemed frightening - not the sort of thing you would wish on someone you liked. But, however strong or important his will to cling to life may have been, Cephiro's fears were his own.
He had set his cup down and begun tracing a sort of sigil around it in the dirt with his fingertip. It was a strange symbol, involving what seemed to be a rather stylized treble clef with some extra bits. He wasn't the artistic type, but the act of tracing it out helped him calm his mind and focus on the important things. The important things were that he did like Luke very much, and that at some point it was necessary to let go even of people that you liked very much. As a teacher, theoretically he should have been experienced enough at that if he only remembered, but perhaps he hadn't been very good at it. Now was as good a time as any to practice.
"I'm glad that we met," he said quietly and sincerely, before picking up his mug again and taking another sip. The bottom of the cup left a perfectly circular, clean outline in his otherwise imperfect drawing - which, of course, Luke probably couldn't see. Luke might have been able to sense his smile, however.
"Yes, I think I understand." It was evident by his tone now that he was changing the subject to refer more directly to the matter at hand, though even on the best of days Cephiro was awkward at expressing himself verbally. Coming from a society where men were expected to be stoic, he had forgotten the socially-appropriate way to channel the sense of appreciation that Luke was even making such a proposal. Growing seemed to have helped somehow, but he still couldn't seem to find all of the words he wanted to use.
"I-- thank you."
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Culture was a funny thing. The one Luke had been raised in so long ago had encouraged a degree of stoicism in males, especially in emergencies, but it hadn't been as strong an encouragement as in many others. He had taught himself, gradually, to be open, but he empathized with how difficult it could be. "You are welcome."
"If it helps - you don't have to think of it as death. The Jedi have a code, a mantra. I told this to my students." He drew himself up and his voice swelled a little, for a moment becoming firmer, more authoritative - but still his, still compassionate and layered with affection. "'For a Jedi, there is no death. There is only the Force.' As it is with you, so am I. When you need guidance, or solace, or anything, you can ask. Just remember that I can't just step in anymore. This is your turn."
Luke settled back down, shaking his head. "I used to be a little pompous," he mused, self-deprecating. Another sip of chocolate - cooling now, though it was still warm enough. "I could recognize, when they called, because even the ones not related to me had trained and worked with me. They could call on the Force to remember me. A touch of my blood will do something of the sort. It's more giving you a little power over me than the other way around."
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"It does help," he admitted. Perhaps that would help, in general - not thinking of death as the end of life but the beginning of something else. There must be some analogue to the Force in his native belief system--
Cephiro's expression change was palpable: the look on his face was unmistakably that of a young child who has just realized that he has been tricked into eating vegetables. And that he would do it again.
"... Oh, this is religious."
That wasn't the point, though. The point was the last bit, which he nodded to. He wanted to say something like, 'don't worry, I won't do anything stupid like bother you every fricking day' but he felt that something like that should probably be assumed between them. Or else they wouldn't be having this conversation. On the other hand, maybe it needed to be said for some reason. Cephiro had no clue, so he took a long sip of his drink to prevent himself from opening his mouth.
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Luke actually laughed. Settling, he pressed a hand against his mouth, but his eyes danced. After a moment he lowered his hand to say, "Well, there'd be a reason for that. I did reestablish the Jedi Order, and my life has been structured around the Force. It's so much more than a power source. But don't worry, I'm not going to try and recruit you."
"And don't worry about bothering me. My perception of time will have changed. It's..." Frowning, he visibly searched for the words. "It's like a story. Everything has happened a long time ago, and is happening right now, and will happen in the far future." Snorting gently, he added, "That's not quite right, but... well, don't worry about it. It's not like being interrupted."
He let his expression lapse back into fond solemnity. "It won't take a lot of blood. A few drops... but there are two ways to do it, and they both have drawbacks. With one you'll need to suffer a small cut, and you'll have to have have a mild fever, for a day or so. With the other... it will stay with you, but you'll stop noticing quickly. You don't usually notice the feeling of your toes in your footwear, or your tongue in your mouth - it's a little like that."
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"The second one would probably be preferable," he said, doing what he thought was a fairly good job of ignoring his tongue and toes now what he had been reminded of them. "Unless it matters to you."
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Luke drew a small scalpel blade, no longer than the first joint of his thumb, out of a protective paper sleeve. He held it in his left hand and without ceremony drew it just briefly over his right arm, above the nearly invisible seam of the prosthetic, before returning it to the sleeve.
The blade was not bloodied, and the mark showed red but didn't actively bleed. It was a tiny cut, and shallow. Luke stroked and pressed the skin around it with his thumb, coaxing enough blood to well up that it stained and covered the pad of his thumb. He seemed to be focusing intently at it and, simultaneously, very far away.
Almost palpably now there was a sense of focus on that tiny point, of something shifting or coiling just perceptively - flowing - and then something which had tensed relaxed.
"There we go," Luke murmured, looking up. "Now I'm going to need to mark you with this. You'll be able to remove the blood once it's dried, so the spot won't be visible. It will feel acidic, especially at first, but most of it will fade, and you'll stop noticing the rest, like I said before. You'll be able to call on me partly by focusing on the mark."
He held his hand out, fingers loosely curled and bloodied thumb extended. Though he didn't move much otherwise, it felt as if his whole body had come that much closer. "Last chance to back out," he teased. "If you still want this, just take my wrist and show me where."
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"Let me know if this is too awkward," he said, taking the other man's hand and guiding his thumb towards the center of his chest. Close to his heart, though he only realized the symbolism once he had placed it.
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There was a flicker of movement the instant before contact, as if the couple drops of blood on his thumb had started to move. Then the distance was closed, and Luke was almost leaning in as the sense of focus came back, not quite the same.
It did indeed have that acidic feeling of skin getting eaten at unevenly. It wasn't strong enough to hurt, quite, but it wasn't far off, and there was a sort of radiating effect coming off it. Maybe that was just the pressure.
Then, a distinct sense of something splitting off from him, sinking in, spreading - not far, not yet anyway, maybe just a few square centimeters beneath a layer of skin. Luke let out a breath and pulled back.
His thumb wasn't clean, but it didn't quite look bloody now, either. There was a residue. There was a bloody thumbprint on Cephiro's chest, not as bright a red as it had been. A sensation remained, fainter now and warm against each heartbeat.
"There we go," Luke said. He wasn't out of breath, but breathing a little more emphatically than before. "All right?"
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"Are you?"
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When Cephiro let go, Luke took up his mug again and took a deep pull before responding.
"I'll be okay- I am okay. It's all right." He wiped chocolate from his lips and nodded at Cephiro's mug. "You can finish now, if you want. If you can fix this in your mind, all of this-" his gesture took in the fall garden behind Wellspring Clinic, the little fire still going to the side of them, the two of them themselves. -"it will make calling on me easier."
The sights, the sounds, the feel of it, the smells, of course the taste... Luke hadn't picked this place and made these preparations at random. He himself, what he'd done, might work for whatever other senses Cephiro used, but it was good to make an impression with every sense. Ideally there would be an emotion, too, but he had an idea for that.
Luke steepled his mismatched hands around his mug, fingertips meeting fingertips and thumb touching thumb. He couldn't remember if this was something he already knew or not, but he had to ask. "Do you meditate, Cephiro?"
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"Every day," the mage replied, nodding. That was one of those things - he had really started doing that well before he had realized that he was a mage, and even before he took up martial arts. It must have been an old habit.
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