marytudori (marytudori) wrote in thedoorway, @ 2015-05-16 08:52:00 |
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Just about the time Anakin had decided that he was getting used to this place and the weird things it would throw at you, then it would throw something else. But as he pulled closer to a year in New York and Potts Tower he could honestly say that he was beginning to expect that things would be unexpected. Someone would show up from your future or your past that you'd never have expected to see and you would have to figure out how you were going to relate to what they brought with them. Or you'd wake up in someone else's body. Or… people would wake up with new powers - including apparently having access to the Force. Well, at least this was something Anakin knew more or less how to deal with. Admittedly, he'd never really taught someone about the Force before. He'd helped younger students on Yavin IV with basic stuff, learning how to behave ethically - like Jedi - but he'd never really started at this level. He could remember his training though, the first things that his Uncle had taught him, or Master Solusar or Master Tionne, or even Master Ikrit, although he'd met him a little later after the basics. He tried to think what it would have been like to have none of the connection that he took for granted and then having your entire world open up - probably… bright and loud. Like being blinded and then gaining your sight, or moving from a very silent room into a very noisy one. It was the best comparison he could come up with - and not having that experience or knowledge -- it'd make it challenging. So he'd just do his best and hopefully he wouldn't mess this up. Mary seemed nice enough after all. Anakin took a breath, straightened his jacket and knocked on Mary's apartment door to let her know that he as here. Mary answered the door when she heard the knock, more than a little nervous. She felt quite strange, and that was putting it simply. She couldn’t quite explain it. She had a heightened awareness, similar to what many men described once drunk, or so Mary assumed. It wasn’t proper for a lady in her era to drink at all. Yet, here she was, feeling connected to just about everything all at once. It was so strange. Based on what everyone was saying, Mary had guessed that they were referring to what Kenobi had spoken of only briefly during their times together at mass. She really didn’t know if she wanted to understand it further, but Anakin seemed quite nice. And he was handsome, too. Who was Mary to say no to that? It was improper to be introduced to a young man without her father’s permission at all, but since he wasn’t here? She was going to try, at least. Anakin would have been greeted by a young woman who had her dark hair tied up in a proper bun. Mary looked a little less than the regal princess she had been when she’d arrived here, but she still wasn’t quite the 21st century girl yet. Mary preferred dresses to anything. She stood in a long, royal blue dress. It was simple, plain, but it was still a proper attire for Mary to be wearing. “Hello, Anakin,” she greeted, dipping politely into a brief curtsey. She knew he wasn’t royalty, but from what she’d been learning so far (and Mary tended to find whatever information she could about someone once they became friends with her family), they were akin to it in their world. From what she understood, there was royalty in the bloodline, at least, so that was something to her. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, and I thank you for your assistance with this.” Her accent would have been noticed straight off: the proper British, London drawl that she couldn’t get rid of even if she wanted to. It had been so long since someone had even begun to introduce themselves to him with anything akin to high manners that it took Anakin a split second to respond to the curtsey, but a smile spread across his face as he dipped into an automatic bow in response. A slight dip was one of many typical Jedi greetings, but Anakin had been the son of a former Princess of Alderaan, raised by one of her best friends and advisors, and had attended so many diplomatic functions across the galaxy that manners were something that had been a necessity. "It's my pleasure, truly," he responded as he stepped into her apartment. Her dress and manner of speaking was different from most people in New York City, but that wasn't terribly unusual in Potts Tower, and for Anakin, who had traveled the galaxy and seen a little bit of nearly everything, it wasn't unusual enough for comment or notice. He instead took in the girl in front of him more seriously. He supposed first question first: "How are you feeling right now?" Her eyes light up at the sight of the formal bow. Mary was surprised, in all honesty. She was a princess back home, but she’d been reduced to being just “Lady Mary” when her father deemed her illegitimate, even though there was no question between him and her mother. It was the marriage itself that wasn’t legitimate in his eyes, thanks to Anne Boleyn. She smiled politely, resisting the urge to tell him to rise. She wasn’t a princess here, nor was she royalty. Nor was he her subject. The courtesy, however, counted volumes with Mary, and if this was how Mr. Kenobi treated Anne, Mary could understand why she had taken a liking to him straight off. “It’s...a bit surreal, forgive me, Anakin. I know that this...all of this is normal for you.” Mary struggled to find polite words. There were no words for feeling this connected to everything. She had known he was at the door before he was even there, sensing something yet not quite being able to explain it herself. It wasn’t something she should know. That was a power akin to God himself, and no mortal could ever obtain such a status in Mary’s eyes. “I could not believe it this morning when I woke. I felt that perhaps something was wrong with me, that I was ill, until I saw others writing to the same.” Let’s not just yet bring her religion into this. What she was feeling, from what she understood about the Force, went against her religion completely. She was trying to understand different cultures and peoples here, though. Anders was polite and kind enough, though he resembled in her mind a druid healer. Those outcast by the kingdom for their heathen ways. She thought of him as a friend, someone who treated her politely and who welcomed her even for her differences, and she him. Perhaps Anakin could be a friend, as well. Mary was anything but rude, even when she was faced with her greatest enemy. She remained her mother’s daughter: a polite yet fierce woman facing the world ahead of her. "It's normal for me because I was born with it," Anakin shrugged easily. "And more than that, I was born into a family who knew what the Force was, who it's been… part of our heritage, I guess. It's strong in our family and by the time I knew how to walk I knew something about it. There's no shame in feeling unsettled by something you haven't experienced before. Or asking questions about something you don't know. And that's why I'm here, to try to help a little if I can." Anakin didn't really know what it was like when or where she was from but there was a formality to her words that reminded him a little bit of Tenel Ka, and he could take his cues from that. He supposed the very first thing he should do is try to explain a little bit about what had happened. Something that was made more difficult by the fact that he genuinely had no idea outside of 'tesseract shenanigans' what it was that might have happened. "I guess let's start at the beginning. You said you knew Master Kenobi, so forgive me if any of this is repeat. It seems that this morning you woke up with the ability to sense the Force. The Force is an energy field, it creates life and it connects all life together, everything in the universe, the stars, the planet, the plants, what you're feeling probably is some part of all of that. It was there yesterday, you were even a part of it yesterday, but you didn't have the same awareness you do now. Every living thing exists in the Force," Anakin paused, and then decided the Yuuzhan Vong were a philosophy lesson for sometime other than right now when things needed to be simple. "At home, some people have a greater sensitivity to it than others. You can learn to use the connection, to understand it, and when you learn that you can do things with it. Master Kenobi and I are both Jedi, which means we both have that connection just like you do." The information he’d passed to her was...unbelievable, to say the least. Mary’s eyes widened only slightly as she took in the information. She was connected to...everything now? The whole idea was strange. “It creates life? So, does that mean, that this Force is akin to God himself?” she questioned softly, trying to understand in whatever way she could. If she had somehow tapped into the ability that only God possesses, that would put her above her father, as the King was the representation of God on Earth. Well, maybe there was more to it than just that, but this is what Mary was trying to deal with here. “I only slightly know Master Kenobi. He is polite friends with my father’s wife, Anne.” That was polite for Mary when it came to introducing Anne Boleyn. She turned her attention back to Anakin, then looked around her curiously again. “So what does it matter to be connected as you say?” She couldn’t think of another way to ask her question, not yet. What did it mean? Being connected was one thing, but, what did it really mean in the grand scheme of things? Anakin didn't have any concept of what Mary thought of as God. He had a concept of god or gods, but he also knew that those concepts varied from culture group to culture group. He had been here long enough to know that this planet had multiple gods represented throughout various culture groups, and several major religions many of which had one or more gods attached to them. Almost every planet had something akin to that, and most recently his experience with the Yuuzhan Vong and their many gods had been less than thrilling, so the question wasn't one he could easily answer. "Here, come sit down," he suggested, sliding easily into a meditative position on the floor. "There's a lot to being connected. But to answer your first question… I don't know," he shook his head honestly. "I don't know who God is for you, but I do know that as I've studied the Force, there's a lot I don't understand and there's a lot I still am learning. Perhaps the Force is akin to God, or perhaps God exists outside of the Force but it's something he's aware of and can use,"Or perhaps he doesn't exist at all, but Anakin was well enough aware of cultures to not suggest that in the moment. And truthfully he knew nothing about Mary, which meant he had no idea what or who her god was, and he'd seen enough cultures with ancient gods later explained by this or that understanding, to realize that human understanding was frequently limited. Even his own. Dismissing her beliefs wasn't going to help her understand the Force, it would only create conflict between the two of them, and that was anything but helpful right now. "The Force can be used for all sorts of things, it can be used for healing, it can be used to reach out and help another person, to lift objects or move them, it can be used to manipulate matter, or to connect with people over long distances. It can give you knowledge of what's to come, so you can better anticipate danger. That's just a small glimpse, but we can start smaller than that." Looking confused at the idea of sitting on the floor, Mary knew it was rude to be rude to a guest. So, she accepted his offer, and slowly sat down beside him, letting her skirt fold over her legs gracefully. “God is the Father of all creation,” Mary explained softly, looking at him with surprise in her features. “He gave his Son to us so that we might live freely, the Lord Jesus Christ.” She wasn’t sure how he couldn’t know of God having been here. “If it helps…” Mary paused, remembering that in this day and age, more religions existed then her own. “I follow the Catholic faith.” She didn’t add that it was the one true faith in her mind. There was no need. Usually, if one followed a religion, it was the only thing they believed to be real. At his explanation, however, she startled. See the future? That was akin to a witch! Was she considered a witch now, with powers of blasphemy? Her hands shook without her realizing it and Mary let out a gasp of shock. But Anakin didn’t seem a witch. Nor did Master Kenobi, from what she knew of him. How then? “Healing,” she repeated, focusing on the one part she understood well enough. “It can be used to heal, and to see into the future? How similar is the Force to the powers of a witch?” There. She asked her question outright, not sure if Anakin had the answers or not, but she was curious to see and to know what he had to say about it. Even without the Force Anakin could have sensed that Mary was a little unnerved by what he'd told her and he rather cursed the fact that he didn't know useful details about any of the religious beliefs of this world. What he knew had come from reading, popular culture, and classes through the ESD. He knew there were major religions, Christianity, Islam, Bhuddism, Hinduism, and he had heard of Catholicism, a branch of Christianity, but he didn't know enough about any of them to find places where they might meet with the beliefs of the Jedi or to find common ground here with this woman to whom her religious beliefs were clearly very important. And that was something Anakin respected, really. He didn't want to undo it, but he'd been so worried about whether or not the new Force users would try to do something untoward with their new powers, that he hadn't considered what religious beliefs they might have and how that might tie-in to their acceptance of what had happened to them. Well, now he was suddenly considering it. And something about her question made him pause. The Nightsisters on Dantooine used the Force and were considered witches, at home sometimes people referred to Jedi as wizards, and his own conversations with Albus Dumbledore had made him recognize that there were parallels to what he could do and how the Force was transmitted with what Albus could do and how magic in his world was transmitted. He felt really out of his league and rather desperately wished Uncle Luke or Master Kenobi had come with him. Well, there was no way out but through it - so he'd do his best. "I'm Force sensitive, and I follow the code of the Jedi Order. Being Force sensitive simply means that you have the ability to connect through the Force. And in my galaxy, there are different sects of Force users that have different beliefs and codes to guide how you connect to the Force. Being Force sensitive it's like… having another sense? You can see, hear, smell - now you have the ability to sense the Force in the world around you. And I don't think that it necessarily negates what you believe," he hesitated and realized perhaps the most helpful experience he could draw on was all the questions that the Yuuzhan Vong existing outside of the Force had raised for him. "I realize this is all really different from what you know. I've had the experience of something coming along and challenging everything I thought I knew about my belief system, but I promise you this isn't something to be afraid of. It is something we will need to seek to understand." This whole world seemed strange to Mary. People with powers, with special abilities that let them do special things that were never even a dream in her world. That didn’t happen. If anyone were to have powers it would have been her father, else that person would probably lose their head for getting powers and not sharing them with the king himself. Here was a strange world where there was no king, but a president. The queen was but a puppet on the throne from what Mary could gather outside of England, doing the bidding of the people, rather than bidding orders to the people directly. She lowered her gaze a moment when he explained it like having another sense. That part she understood, mostly. “I come from a time where having anything that my father doesn’t is enough to die,” Mary admitted quietly. It wasn’t something she was proud of and her own future scared her. What she had learned about what she did...that was terrifying. She understood her actions, certainly. A child placed between the battle of religions, used as a tool by the Catholic Church to regain its foothold in England. And she had done so, willingly. She was gladly their tool, for it was what she believed wholeheartedly. Yet, here she had the rare, unique opportunity where she wasn’t a princess, or a lady, or the daughter of a king. She was Mary, and that’s why here, she needed to find out who that was. “He’s the King of England,” she explained softly, not certain if Anakin knew. “I grow up to become Queen myself, but I’m hardly that now.” She paused, taking his words into consideration. “So this Force is akin to a religion,” she managed softly, “and like in my own world, different parts of the universe respond to it differently and use it differently. From what you’re saying...you, Master Kenobi and the others here use it to help people.” Mary’s words were carefully chosen as she spoke, deliberate and to the point. She managed a shaky laugh. “Since I have it now, whatever this Force is, I would like to try to understand it more, if you’re willing. And forgive my questions, Anakin.” She lifted her gaze to meet his directly. “I come from a time hundreds of years before this one, where the threat of a new religion was something that was tearing apart my family.” Anakin had been afraid that maybe he'd said the wrong thing, but the fear subsided as he listened to her words. Still he couldn't help but think of the Imperial days when being a Jedi or possibly even being Force sensitive would have been enough to pull death down on you. And maybe Kanan would have been a better person to talk to Mary, but it wasn't Kanan that was talking to Mary, it was Anakin, and he had his own experiences to pull on here and more importantly, he cared that this was a positive experience in her life and not a negative. It would have to be enough. "No one should have to go through that," Anakin said finally. "It sounds like you might need some time to figure out what that means for you here. And I can imagine, if that's what's happening where you're from that this is going to be a little bit difficult. So we'll take it slow. You don't have to learn everything overnight, and there's no rush, and we'll move at whatever pace you're comfortable with, all right? If you need to talk about home stuff, that all right, and if you have questions about the Force, that's alright too. I'm here to help." And if the help that was needed wasn't strictly in learning how to meditate, or control the Force at all, then that would be the help offered too. It wasn't exactly Anakin's greatest strength, but he could offer it. "But I think you've gotten it correct, more or less. And the first thing we can do is to work on awareness. If you want, take my hand, and I can walk you through that a bit." It was refreshing for Mary to not have someone know her name, know what she supposedly did, or will do for her. Just about everyone from this world knew the Tudor name and with it all the drama that had ensued because of them. Everything that she’d told him, and Anakin just accepted it for what it is. And was willing to help her still. Rather than commenting on it like someone from this time might, Mary inclined her head respectfully and offered him a rare smile. It wasn’t that she didn’t smile: she just rarely had something to smile about, even here. “You can learn more through touch?” Mary questioned quietly, still uncertain about it, but willing to try. Elizabeth was here and Anne was here somewhere. Mary wondered what both women thought of this. She hadn’t mentioned even to her own half-sister about the changes that had happened to her, but if Anakin was willing, so was she. Her soft palm laid out in front of her and Mary looked up at him questioningly. It took a great deal of trust on her end to allow Anakin to get this close to her. Men just didn’t, not where she was from and not when she was from. For her to go anywhere alone meant that she usually had an escort or a dozen, especially being a lady of the court and head of the court sometimes in her father’s absence. "We don't have to," Anakin said, giving her the out if she was uncomfortable. "But I think in this case it might help guide a little? Basically what I'm thinking is that right now you've got this sense - what I want to do is help you focus it a little bit into one area so you can get a sense of what it would feel like when you're engaging with the Force. And there are other ways to do that - it was just the first thing that came to mind." But since she didn't seem too bothered he reached out his hand and placed it gently on her palm. "It will probably help if you close your eyes ," he suggested, reaching out with the Force as he did so. Within the Force he could sense Mary, himself, the various things around the room, other people in the building, and much further out if he didn't focus, but for right now he focused on Mary, her palm, and her unique presence in the Force. Carefully, without pushing too much he touched that Force sense and as he did so he he lifted his hand off of hers to return to his knee, instead maintaining the connection with her in the Force itself. "Do you still feel that?" He asked quietly. Nervously, Mary closed her eyes, trusting Anakin in this moment. She had no reason to doubt that he would be respectful, even with doing this. He had been polite, honest and formal with her the entire time, working with her rather than just telling her information that went beyond her understanding. For these reasons, Mary trusted him at the moment. She didn’t pull back at the touch of a man, though it was alarming. Welcoming at the same time. She focused internally, trying to understand what he was doing, yet at the same time not really wanting to. What could she expect from this? What was he trying to get her to sense? Her eyes widened against her will as they opened in surprise a moment later. She could feel it. Whatever it was, but something was there. She was able to reach out, to sense things that she couldn’t even see. Scared, yet wondrous, Mary turned a curious gaze to the young man in front of her. Her eyes were widened in surprise and her face turned slightly pale, but she remained calm and respectful nonetheless. “I do. I...what…?” Mary questioned, not able to put her thoughts into proper words just yet. The sense of everything around her, vivid and alive. How could someone have been connected to this? How did it not exist in her time? Surely...she wondered. Did the priests back home have connection to this? The Pope? Is that how they were able to heal and make judgments to help people? It made sense. If they were able to reach out and connect to people like this, then is that...how they were able to help everyone? Realizing she hadn’t fully answered Anakin, she admitted softly, “Yes. I can. Is this...that sensation...I can’t really describe it, but it’s there.” "That's the Force," Anakin said, grinning over at her. "Specifically that's me. The Force connects everything, but people and things, they have different sort of - signatures, I guess you could say. People that you have a particular emotional connection, like parents or siblings, are frequently ones you recognise the most. The less connection you have to an individual the more difficult it can be to find them particularly. That's why I thought the touch might help. "Right now, I want you to try something else, and you can leave your eyes open, or you can close them. Again, I recommend closing them, just because - it's easy, particularly when you're first learning, to get your senses sort of mixed up - your eyes will tell you something and it messes up what the Force is telling you." Anakin glanced around the room for something that might be easier to pick out as an object for Mary to consider. "All right, I want you to find the plant over there. Find it in the Force… there's a lot of stuff here, and you can probably ultimately see all of in there - but the plant is alive… so it's going to have the signature of a living thing, more like what you just felt from me, although obviously different... " Nodding trustingly, Mary closed her eyes again, reaching out with her mind. She had this gift now. There was no turning back, no ignoring it. It was there. It was something she couldn’t avoid, something she couldn’t push back or ignore at all. She had to understand it, or she knew she may risk hurting others that were just as important to her. Like her sister, for example. And here, she had someone willing to help. She struggled. It took nearly ten minutes or so in complete silence. Mary wasn’t sure what she was trying to find. She let her mind reach out, remembering the same sensation that Anakin had mentioned before. She reached out with her mind, and through the energy field that she could sense flowing around her. And it was there. A faint sensation at the end of a long tunnel. Mary let out a gasp and opened her eyes, staring at Anakin in pure shock and disbelief. “How is it...I knew it was there. I could feel it. This...how is this even possible? This Force as you call it. How is it there?” She didn’t know if he had the answer to that. It was like asking someone how they knew if God was there. But the question was out before she could help it. Anakin sat while she worked, his own senses attuned on what she was doing and he realized that he could feel where she was going and what techniques she was trying and he suspected she wasn't aware of that just yet. He'd always wondered how his Uncle had been able to feel what he was doing when he'd been in his early training, and now as he sat her watching Mary he realized that it was simpler than he would have thought when he was a trainee. He waited, though, mostly patiently, and as he felt her find it a grin spread across his features. "I knew you'd find it. And that's your first step into a much larger world," he offered with a smile. "Next we can try something inanimate, you should be able to find those, and even lift them if you want." Her questions though gave him pause and he considered. "Truthfully, I don't know for you. I suppose it may be the tesseract at work. In general though, it's an energy field that binds all of us together - it's just always there, what you have now is the ability to see it, to sense it." He turned to the sofa and he reached out with the Force towards one of the cushions. "See the pillow over there?" He used the Force to lift it, turning it above the sofa and then returning it to where it was and he glanced back at Mary. "I'd like you to do that. Reach out, find it, and then see if you can move it." Her eyes went wide when he lifted the cushion straight from the sofa. If her father were here, she’d be burned at the stake for being a witch. No second questions or doubts. Simple as that. For all intensive purposes, she was a witch, and that terrified Mary completely. “Dios mio,” she murmured quietly, letting her mother’s tongue slip out as she spoke the words. Spanish was as natural to Mary as English or Latin, having been raised mostly by her mother, who insisted she’d learn it from when she was a young child. Her eyes stared at the cushion, then she blinked disbelievingly. “No es posible,” she breathed, shaking her head a moment. But it was possible. It was very possible. How could she deny it? She’d seen it with her own eyes. It went beyond everything she’d ever understood about the world. Two things kept her from running or fainting. Anakin was a gentleman, through and through, very polite, formal and understanding. And he hadn’t jumped right in with lifting things with the Force. Those two things had kept her grounded up until this point. “I don’t know if I’m ready for that yet,” Mary admitted softly, but the curiosity was behind her eyes, even if she didn’t want to admit it. Giving Anakin a small smile, Mary inclined her head politely. “Gracias, Anakin. Thank you. It’s been very insightful learning what I have thus far. I do not know if I am ready to try anything further with this just yet, but when I am ready, would it be quite all right to call upon you for assistance?” She was turning pale even as she spoke, her fears overcoming her bravery that she’d shown so far. Feeling and sensation were one thing, but actually lifting something like that was something that Mary wasn’t so sure she was ready to handle just yet. Truthfully, Anakin was startled at the reaction. And the words were not ones he understood - language other than English he supposed and not a language from home. Typically lifting things up in the Force was something people tended to find impressive rather than frightening, but even without the Force it was clear to Anakin that Mary had been very uncomfortable with the display. He supposed that her question earlier about the 'powers of a witch' should have clued him in. Maybe he should have started somewhere else, but he had promised her that they would go slowly. In her favor, there was the fact that her emotions were very controlled, despite the startled look on her face. They were undeniably there, but her reaction externally was polite, controlled, and that did put Anakin at ease. He probably didn't need to teach responsibility and keeping emotions controlled and all of those things quite so heavily, when she clearly already had some practice with it. And who knew how long this would last. He nodded, and gave her a smile in return. "You may," he said. "I'll send you my number so you can text me, and I'm on the network more often than I should be probably. And… here - I do want to leave you with one last thing. I know that this is all a lot, and it's probably louder in your head with all of this awareness. So - if it gets to be too much, you can sit down, or stand if that's more comfortable, close your eyes, or find something in the room to focus on, and just focus on your breath and your breathing. It's the most basic of meditations, and if you want you can expand it to things like we did with the plant - to focus on one object, or one person… It's a good way to reduce all of the extra." He stood up and he reached a hand down to offer it to her to help her stand as well. "Whenever you're ready to do more, just call. We can do this together." Mary was part of a world where showing emotion was a weakness, something that someone could use against her. She wasn’t used to this world yet, but she was slowly growing accustomed to letting her emotions show, among other things. The idea of texting someone, reaching them in a moment instantly, was still very new to Mary. She couldn’t really understand how it all worked, but she did know how useful it would be to be able to instantly communicate with someone who may be thousands of miles away. She did, however, reach out to take his hand gracefully and pulled herself to a standing position. “Thank you very much, Anakin,” Mary breathed quietly, the fear already gone from her. The concept of lifting something with just her own abilities was almost too much for her to comprehend, but she knew it was something that he did on a daily basis. Perhaps if she retained these abilities, then in time, perhaps she’d be able to accept that she could do this. But for now, this was enough, this awareness of something greater than herself. “I’ve appreciated your assistance in understanding this Force of yours. I hope that I do not cause it much trouble in days to come.” "It's genuinely been my pleasure," Anakin said quietly and he offered her a smile. And it had been. He wasn't certain he'd done the best job ever considering all of the questions that she had directed towards him and his utter lack of knowledge towards her background and where she was coming from, but it didn't seem as if he had done too badly after all. "I don't think you'll cause any trouble at all, but if you get overwhelmed you know where to find me." |