Sub level 2: Training Arena

Finna listened in silence, hands tucked in his sleeves and face expressionless as Miras talked about being brought to Carida by Ashla.

'Ashla.' An archaic and poetic name for the Light Side of the Force. A preferred term of Adieumus Matango and some of his friends. Miras was asserting the personality of the Force, like some of the Jedi had come to do. Finna had never explicitly avowed this view, nor had he denied it. In theory, though, it made sense: if only in context of the terminology which the Jedi used, the Force was given many person-like attributes. The Jedi spoke of themselves as being servants and followers of the Force and its will. There were other forces in the world: electricity, gravity, magnetism, etc. None of those had wills or designs, none of them had servants. Either the Force was an entirely different sort of Force, or it was some sort of being; a god, perhaps, and the Jedi were its priests.

Finna had once thought of himself as a favored servant, chosen for a great destiny. Then he'd met Alkor Centaris. He'd disdained the former Jen'jidai, tried to impress the man with his raw talent and dedication - all of it had bounced off of the man's implacable skill. Alkor was one of the most skilled men Finna had ever seen, and he refused to cede an inch to Finna's ego. The Echani realized now that it had all been his own ego that had caused his early conflicts with Alkor. Ego had played a large role in his attempts to better the Corellian today. Alkor had trounced him and summarily left. Where had he gone?

Returning from his momentary reverie, Finna realized that his mental monologue coincided with Miras' question. His brow furrowed slightly.

"I do not know, in all truth. He and I were sparring - " Finna wheeled and delivered a vicious chop to the training dummy, resuming a paced exercise of striking techniques as he spoke. "He won, and then he left." The drill would ordinarily culminate with a three-strike series; a forehand jab, followed by a forehand hook, and then a backhand cross; but Finna paused on the last strike. He was panting again, hands frozen in a combat guard. His eyes blinked and he felt something surging in his chest and face.

He was tired of his own ego. Alkor Centaris had been trying to break it out of him the entire time, the only way that an ego could be broken: by being ignored, by making it more effort than it was worth. Only now was Finna realizing how much effort he had put into trying to impress Alkor and everybody around, and he was tired. The scope of his own bravado was crushing.

Dropping his guard, he leaned one hand against the dummy and wiped sweat from his brow with the other, staring at the ground.

"In truth, I do not know what to make of it, and I am troubled."

Finna smirked humorlessly at Miras' words, staring at the floor and regulating his breathing. He pushed off from the dummy and stretched his arms over and behind his head, slowly strolling about the room.

Neither did I, Miras. Neither did I.

He stopped at Miras' next question. 'What's he like?' Finna chewed on that for a moment, turning and sitting cross-legged on the floor, facing Miras.

What was Alkor like?

"...implacable." That seemed the best place to start. "I don't think I've ever heard him tell me that he was impressed with me, or that he was proud of me, or anything of that sort. He won't show pleasure. Honestly," he chuckled mirthlessly, "I don't know if he can feel pleasure any more. I never wanted to admit it, but I think I can now. He remembers everything he's done, and he owns it, though he is not proud of it. I speculate that he feels the burden of his deeds, that he knows that he is an unclean man. Perhaps he joined the Jedi in search of something like personal atonement; but I've never seen him to be seeking atonement. He is... he's mysterious, certainly, and he's one of the most dangerous men I've ever met. Perhaps the most dangerous. I do not know if I have ever truly understood him, at all, for even a moment. Something is driving him. He is harnessed to his own fate, and I think that it shapes him, as much as he shapes it. You know..." Finna raised his head. He had spent most of his monologue staring at the floor, but now he looked to the ceiling with a pensive frown. "...if ever a man was fully aware of his own past, present, and future, I think it must be Alkor Centaris. And I wish that I could see it too, so that I could know what to expect from him."