Challenge #00807-B076: To Ride the Dark

On the Dark Side of the Force:  you can’t let it guide you like you can the Light, you must not, in fact. Rather, you have to muzzle it - or perhaps ride it, is a better analogy. Use it’s power, but do not let it run away with you. Like with a particularly independent, stubborn, and genocide-happy horse.

“You have much anger in you. That is good. It is a feeling. Feeling is life.” The Master smiled at her padawan. “What you must never do is allow your feelings to rule you. That way lies defeat. Behold - the little dog in the courtyard. It, too, feels.”

The yapping little mutt was chasing pigeons with no hope of catching them. Syla could see that the dog was just yapping after the first creature to move. “It feels that it has to chase,” she said.

“Indeed,” Master Egris nodded. “The dog expends all its energy in a useless and unfocussed chase. Ultimately, it will be too exhausted to chase, and lose any hope of a prize.”

“So I must be focussed like a cat?”

Laughter. “Nonsense, padawan. The cat focuses exclusively on one goal. It focuses too fiercely, and leaves itself vulnerable from an unforeseen attack.“

There was a cat in the courtyard, below. A mottled little beast with its amber eyes avidly on one fat bird. It was the perfect hunter. Quiet and stealthy. Low to the ground. Unobserved by its prey.

Until Master Egris pitched a pebble at the feline and it leaped, yowling, away from the attack.

“We are not animals and we should not strive to be them,” said Master Egris. “We are people. We think. We are in control of what we say and do. We learn. We can learn from animals, true, but think of the entire example.” A smile and a gentle hug. “Between the flurry of the dog and the focus of the cat, there is the ultimate balance. Enough focus to keep the goal in sight, and enough energy to prevent others from thwarting you.”

“Balance,” said Syla. “That’s very… light side.”

Egris chuckled. “There’s more in common between Light and Dark than most masters tend to admit. The Light believes that emotion gets in the way, and must therefore be eliminated or reduced. The Dark believes that emotion is one more thing to use.”

Syla screwed up her face. “So which one is right?”

“Who said either of them are right?”

Syla stared at her Master in confusion. And, once more, wondered why the hell her ancestors had even bothered building New Alderaan in the first place.

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