Jedi Academy

Zanja sat on the edge of Aca's Funnel in the blazing double sunlight, enjoying the cool draft of air rising from the cenote--and seemingly unfazed by the dizzying drop below her dangling feet to the cistern at the bottom. She wore a pensive scowl as she adjusted the hood of her loosely draped cloak to keep the sun off her delicate growing horns.

She would hear the scrape of Corvin's feet as he approached. Given how he walked, that meant he was probably doing it to be polite. He, too, was wearing a cloak, one of the green-brown ones he favored.

He grunted. "Zanja." He said.

"Master Corvin." Zanja's hood slipped back as she tilted her head to look up. "If I didn't know better I'd wanna go down there to cool off," she said, frowning.

He leaned casually over, peering down into the space. "Wouldn't be an easy climb." He said mildly. "Think you could do it?"

"I bet I could." Zanja shrugged and peered below, speculatively. "Unless I got hit with some weird vision, and it tricked me into letting go or something."

"Maybe." Corvin shrugged. "There's easier ways to stay cool, though. Could slather yourself in mud like a hippo."

He was probably joking.

"That's easier?" Why did every conversation with Corvin sooner or later seem to involve a mud hole?

"Sure." Corvin smirked. "All you need's some mud."

With casual grace, he sat not far from her. "Is that's all that's on your mind? Climbing down a hole or not?"

"Yeah. No. I dunno." Zanja picked up a loose pebble, rolled it around between her fingers, and considered tossing it down into the cenote... then thought better of it. "It was pretty weird down there."

"Yeah?" Corvin grunted, crossing his arms over his chest. It was basically an invitation.

"Mmph." Zanja tossed the pebble back over her shoulder instead. "What happens to people who fail this whole thing? The trials?"

Corvin frowned, looking down into the hole. "I knew a guy who just couldn't get over what happened to him in there. Kept eating at him. The masters did what they could, but he couldn't keep training. Couldn't finish the trials."

He grunted. "I know they wanted him to join the Agricorp. I think he did." He shrugged. "We weren't close."

"Who decided, them or him?" Zanja was glowering into the middle distance again, down past her knees and into the shadows below.

"Don't know." He shrugged. "Some of both, I think."

He glanced over at her. "Is that bothering you? You're thinking we're gonna judge you unworthy, and kick you out or something?"

"Dunno," she said gruffly. "That's what the cave showed me, though. Everyone else decided I'd never make a Jedi, so they gave me away to the Sith instead. Like, what the hell is that s'posed to tell me?" She shrugged and started swinging her leg again, looking a bit guilty. "Sorry. Language."

Corvin chuckled, amused at her apology. "Well, there's a few possibilities for visions. It could be the future, or a future, but that doesn't seem too likely." He shrugged. "Probably it's something about you. Something you're afraid of, maybe."

"I'm afraid of, like, lava flows." Zanja frowned into the depths. "And cave-ins. That would be a real easy vision to show from inside a cave."

Corvin scowled. "Sure. And you wouldn't learn anything from it. That's not the point of these trials."

He looked at her. "This one, you should be able to learn something from. Did you?" His voice was exceptionally gravelly at the moment.

"I guess." Zanja was equally gruff. "That I'd rather be alone than get handed off to the Sith. That I wouldn't wanta have to."

She swung one leg in nervous circles for a few beats.

"Also, that getting stabbed in the back by Jedi really hurts."

Corvin grunted. "Alone's not so bad. And it does beat the Sith." He looked at her. "That it?"