[D3 EA] Fear is the Mind Killer

[Dino Brado]

Dino growls as he tries to change his positioning. Meditation, he thought, was to narrow and focus his mind, and yet he's supposed to feel fear. It's a challenging start.

Dino had led the others in with him the other day. He wasn't quite their leader...no, someone was in place already, but it seemed that in some ways he had become a figure for the Trandoshans. But that wasn't helping Dino right now, as he tried to refocus his thoughts, paradoxically causing more annoyance to build.

[Dapper Dog]

“Troubled, Disciple?” Sister Sorrow asked.

“One does not need the dark gift to see that something distracts you.”

[Dino Brado]

"This." Dino motions to the surrounding temple. "I have fear, I cannot deny it. But how...how to I use it, while it does not use me? Without it making me weak to shrink, or so panicked to fly off without thinking?"

Dino snorts. "The Instructor tried to make his students do this, but I was never taught those parts."

[Dapper Dog]

“If I give you a knife what would your instincts say?” she asked.

[Dino Brado]

"Drop it, and use my hands." Dino says without thinking. "The knife does too few things...but I would be hurting something. That is my instinct."

[Dapper Dog]

“It’s simply a tool, Dino. Inflicting hurt and pain is one of many uses of your hands, a knife, or even fear. Fear is a tool, respect it like you would anything that has the capacity to harm but a true Disciple learns that it is a tool and it will do what you need it to do,” she replied.

“Instincts are good and dangerous; acting without thinking is an advantage. You are a strong fighter, but fear is about more than just fighting it is a form of control, a Dread Master could break you without raising a hand. Your strength would be nothing and yet that does not make you weak.”

[Dino Brado]

"That's the problem." Dino lets out a small hiss, mostly in frustration at himself. "For...ever since I received the name "Dino", I have pushed to hone myself to be this. It's...

Dino seems to struggle to put things into words. "It's as if I honed that knife to the point where it could be honed to a razor's edge...but too thin to survive using it as an actual tool. With this, it's as if I am going back to a new tool, one where I need to ignore what I did to get to where I was before."

Dino punches the floor, his fear and anger spilling out from whence he had contained it.

[Dapper Dog]

“Turning a knife into a hammer is not a seamless process. It is no different I suspect than turning a slave into a Sith, something will be broken in the process. Entropy is change, change cannot exist without a little destruction,” she said looking at his display.

“You have progressed well, do not see this as a setback.”

[Dino Brado]

"I know. I know as well as anyone that progress is one day at a time, and that you can't always see it."

Dino settles back in, the fear of failure acting as the spark, a dagger sent into his belly. He tries to get it to rise again, trying to let it fester and rise in the blackness around him in the meditation room.

[Dapper Dog]

She takes a lotus position in silence.

[Dino Brado]

So a new knife...well, a new tool. It doesn't have to be a knife. Sister Sorrow's metaphor at least gives Dino something to visualize, a starting point to frame thoughts.

I need material. More material. More fear

Dino dives back into his fear of failure. Why did he feel failure?

The images of the taunting students from his vision appeared once more, but once again it morphed. Dino knew of worse things now, the people whom these student would grow into.

And you fear them? It's almost as a second voice is joining in with the first, needling him.

Not them. They...they are pieces of the machine that I fear.

Dino imagines the full weight of the Empire. All the Lords, and Inquisitors, and all the people from the other day swarming after the attempting bombing. All of the not so subtle reminders that he didn't belong, and that he existed at their leisure.

But that's everyone in the Empire. You might have it more, but why is that different? Why is that special?

Because...if they knew...

Images immediately flood back to the wilderness outside La Belle Epoque. There are wampa corpses on the ground, drawn to hunt by a pair of would be hunters who were now battered, but alive. Instructor Brado smiles at Dino, and then a look of surprise flashes across his face.

Dino looks down at his claws. Blood flows from the end, falling in heavy droplets in a staccato beat.

Plip. Plip. Plip.

Dino looks back, only now he's back in the vision from the Dread Masters from before, Lord Bellious at his feet. He's killed her, just as surely as he killed Instructor Brado.

[Dapper Dog]

The corpse laid at his feet and the world of Ziost was on fire. he could feel that these actions... he did them but he didn't do them.

[Dino Brado]

Ziost continues to burn around Dino, terror and chaos all around him.

"Yes. This is right."

Something shifts hardens in the Trandoshan.

"This is what Lord Bellious wants to bring. This is our fear made manifest and palpable for all the others, touching those who sit on their vaunted towers. This is giving a bit of terror to those who have not felt its lash."

Dino savors his fear, savors the fear that is around him. He had a place in them. Perhaps not directly by his hand, but in something that he was doing, the path he chose.

He didn't know how he knew he just...did.

"And I'm alright with that." Dino has no idea that he has spoken the last words aloud.

[Dapper Dog]

Her eyes glimmer red and she spoke but the voice was not hers, it was raspy and filled with malice, “You tread on dangerous ground, Dino Brado.”

[Dino Brado]

Dino's eyes snap open at the new sound. He can hear something off about the voice of Sister Sorrow.

Dino tries to hold onto this feeling from before, while keeping his eyes open.

"I cannot remember a time when I am not on dangerous ground."

[Dapper Dog]

“You have lived a hard life, but where you tread now is on the precipice of annihilation,” she said in that same voice.

“You see a possible future.”

[Dino Brado]

"But I have no idea of what actions would cause what I see." Dino shrugs. "I can't act in a way that I know would cause it, or a way that I know wouldn't. I can hardly make choices on what might cause an alternate future when I have no idea what particular step sends me on that path."

"

[Dapper Dog]

“This is not a vision of understanding,” she replied in that same voice.

“Only what could be, he who trained us will soon be strong enough for the End. We are curious what that will be.”

[Dino Brado]

"Who...trained you?" It seems like the most obvious question to ask. "And what End?"

[Dapper Dog]

“The Immortal Emperor, we are the Dread Masters,” she responded in that same voice.

“The End, we do not know what else to call it but simply the End. If there is a beginning, there will be an Ending.”