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Nyx breathed out slowly, imagining the air swirling away from him into the room, diffusing out and filling the four corners until he could feel the walls themselves as if they were his body.
The banner fluttering on the wall was his breath.
The cushioned benches shoved against the wall were his bent knees – ready to move but steady in stillness.
The staves in their rack were his ribs, evenly spaced and orderly, ready to guard and protect.
There was nothing of life in the items themselves, only the echoes of emotions from the hands that had held them, the shouts that had brushed past, and yet there was Magic—there was the Force inside them.
Nyx listened and breathed with the room and did not gather the magic to himself or twist it together with his will for a spell as his mother had shown him long ago. He just—
There.
Nyx kept himself still with the long experience of a hunter, of a warrior, of a son of the Clan Mother. Haste would not serve him here, and he let the solid strength of the walls keep him as firm and deliberate and predictable as they were. He let his center drift toward where he had felt that scent of otherness, slow and steady, almost as if he were approaching a rancor calf, even if he had no visual cues to go off of, just that almost-scent, almost-taste. He wasn't sure if back in his flesh-and-bone body his mouth had actually opened to better catch the smell, but it felt something like that as his very self listened for the sense of otherness he couldn't quite describe.
Finally, finally he reached the presence. Nyx slid along the surface of its warmth, coming to rest like they were leaning together, back-to-back. He felt a tone of fondness and then at last he could see Regis there, so bright, light all the way through, even with the scars, even with the worn parts of his soul, wounded just like Nyx was by life, by the touch of the Dark Magicks. More than Nyx was, because Regis had been fighting the Dark for so many years before Nyx was even born, but still, at the heart of him he was light.
It was almost like being back on the mountain on Dathomir, sensing his sisters and his mother like stars, fierce and warm and familiar to him as the constellations above. Regis was a star, but not like home; he and his students were stars without the veil of atmosphere, the comforting twinkle and constancy lost. They were stars seen from space, sharp and small and exactly themselves no matter how distant, no matter if Nyx could see them or not. Here and now, he could almost sense them through Regis, invisible lines of connection that drew his attention out, out, out.
He was not alone, he was never alone, even with all his family left behind or gone on ahead of him. Clarus said that those who die rejoined the Force, even if Nyx couldn't feel them there, but this, this was real, even if Nyx could no more hold it in his hands than he could the wind of Selena's spells. Spinning out away in threads from Regis' bright star, they were all there: Tionne, Drautos, little Noctis, Eliana, Streen, Clarus himself, and Cor--
And Cor was looking at him, Cor could see him back through Regis and he was bright and sharp and clear and close and--
Nyx fell abruptly out of the meditation, jerking back to awareness in a body that didn't feel quite big enough just yet. There was no pain, even after he'd been still for however long that had been, there was just energy brimming over, like a storm was coming. And something was coming, apparently, because Cor-Knight Leonis had been far too close, even boosted by Master Regis' bonds, even with the vagaries of the Force and its relationship to physical reality. So either Knight Leonis was coming to them, or—
Scrambling to his feet, Nyx managed not to trip as he lurched to the door of the ship's training room just as it opened.
Jedi Master Regis Lucis Caelum, last prince of Lucis and the founder of the New Jedi Order stepped through and smiled fondly at his newest apprentice. "Finally noticed, did you?"
"Are we--"
"We will be coming out of hyperspace in ten minutes. Then we will get you all settled in the Academy." He gave another of those tiny smiles, more eyes than anything else, that made Nyx think of his mother. He missed her, but he'd needed to leave. Not just for himself, for this chance to actually do something with the magic he'd always felt inside him, that they'd defied convention to try to teach him, but only ever bits and pieces—no, he was doing this for Dathomir, to give them a voice on the outside, some control of their own fate. He would see them again, when he was trained, when he had found a place for him here in the New Republic. He would.
"You did well with the exercise," Master Regis said, turning back toward the bridge, letting Nyx fall in behind him. "I know the ways of the Jedi, at least as I was taught them, are not quite the ways of your people, but it is a good sign that you can bridge the two so well. I believe we will learn much from each other, just as you already have with the other students. It might not be quite traditional," Nyx could hear the smile in his voice, "but I think it is a good thing we have so many adult learners coming together like this. I'm too old to do all the teaching myself anymore. Cor was enough for any three Master Jedi."
That was hard to imagine, but Nyx didn't properly know Knight Leonis, even if they had fought together back on Dathomir, had fallen so easily into working together without words. It had made Nyx feel like leaving was possible, that he could find another sort of family if he followed Master Regis out to the stars. The result of that fight—that with Master Regis and the other outsiders he'd brought they'd managed to beat back the Nightsisters enough that his clan could be safe even without him—hadn't hurt, either.
Pausing as they reached the end of the hall, Master Regis slanted a glance behind him toward Nyx – wholly unnecessary, because Nyx could feel his regard in the Force even if his eyes had been closed. But that was the theatrics of politics, he supposed, even in the larger galaxy.
"If you'd prefer to gather your belongings, you may do so, but there is also one more seat left in the cockpit if you wish to observe our approach."
They'd stopped at five different planets on their way back to the Academy, picking up other learners or Knights finishing up their missions, but the reality of space travel was still a wonder. Nyx wasn't about to turn down another chance to watch the starlines fade as they settled back into realspace, to watch a new planet get closer and closer in the viewscreen until it finally felt real to his heart and his Force sense. It was the closest thing to the flying Nyx had always dreamed of as a child and never been able to explain – flying with his braids staying still, moving but feeling held, at home.
"Let's go," Nyx said, barely keeping the eagerness out of his voice. "I want to make a proper start of this."
Master Regis actually laughed. "You have no need for concern, Nyx Ulric; you will fit right in. I have a good feeling about this."