Post by Marshall on May 2, 2019 6:36:32 GMT -5
He nodded confirmation that he understood... He sank down to the ground to kneel besides the Amidi woman so that he could have easy access to her once the Meld was initiated... It wasn't hard to see when he meditated. It took a few moments, but it was a blossoming of awareness and openness... Usually he didn't leave himself so open, but he was here. He was calm... And open to her touch, offering her a hand laid across the Dreamer's torso to gently rest there.
A shift in her position brought Ava’s legs tucked beneath her body in that same uncomfortable looking position. But if it was uncomfortable, the Jedi was not fazed by it. As she had done before, her left hand was freed from its glove and slipped beneath the collar of the Amidi woman’s shirt. The grainy feel of red dirt still lingered on her skin. Fingertips stretched out across the familiar scar until she found the slow beat of her heart.
Her eyes closed. Her posture eased but not completely relaxed. The world fell into static until she slipped beneath the water-like feel of the Force. Her physical senses drowned away as something else awoken inside of her.
Ava sensed the familiarity of Solomon first. The Mandals and Hapans that moved about. The other Dreamers who floated in their slumber. The Amidi woman. And Jeryndi.
She felt his openness. The sincerity of his conviction. Ava reached out to him like she were throwing a rope to bind the two together. To pull him towards her own faith and tenet where they would be tied to moment. That rope was the Force and, with it, they were one within the Force.
Mostly silent, all but for the sounds that his boots made against the grit of the world around them as he moved, Solomon stood at the edge of awareness -- the edge of contact -- with the meld and those within it. In every being there was a sense of one's self and its existence could be considered self contained in some ways. A person was who they were because of that sense of self. He had to wonder, looking at the sleeping forms, just how much of that sense of self was preserved in the Dreamers. If loss of function snapped the body into a state of critical being, and all bodily systems suffered, did that include the sense of self that made these people who they were? Was the Ori'ade included in that? Did the dreaming state affect them the same way as it was affecting the Mandals? Quiet, considering, and watchful, Solomon felt the air around him shift as if the world, too, were contemplating and growing quiet with the heavy thoughts and the actions of the Force Sensitives at work here.
That rope... He was ready to catch it. In his mind, in his openness, he wrapped a hand around that rope and pulled it tighter... Closing the distance between himself and Ava... Depending on how deep she cared to look, there was much tragedy and trauma in his past... But he seemed oddly okay with it. It wasn't something that ate him alive like it had in the past... And also, she might sense something much deeper-- more than one person inside him... But none of that did he dwell on. His focus, here and now, was to connect to Ava and this Mandal in front of them... Here and now, his mind was wanting to help these people and learn as much as he could... The last time he'd delved into the other human Mandal, it hadn't felt like he'd accomplished anything at all until he'd woken from it... He hoped this time would be different. Being an Amidi, being identifiable, and knowing what she looked like, that might help to reach for her spirit self. To reach for her mind... But right now, he connected.
Ava wasn't there to look into Jeryndi's past. Her eyes were not there to see the turmoil his life had suffered. When he caught onto that metaphysical rope and tied it to himself, Ava would give him just a moment to adjust to the sensation.
It was the idea and feeling of oneness. That vast and endless openness of the Force and the life that bested all around them. Ava waited until he was ready before directing her focus on the Amidi woman.
She narrowed in on the dreamer and reached out in the Force to tug at her subconscious - starting there first.
And what did that mean to Ava? It mattered, here, how Ava conceptualized the "subconscious" of the physical woman between her and Jeryndi. It mattered how Jeryndi and she perceived the woman's self in relation to her body, and in relation to what was happening to her, and what she dreamed. It mattered because the Force flowed through everything, and yet not everything could wield the Force, not everything could consciously ride or direct it. And it was methods of perception and clarity that determined why one legendary Jedi Master of old might be strong in one area, yet weak in another. Ava--but never just Ava, in a meld--narrowed in on the dreamer and reached out in the Force to tug at her subconscious-- Was it helpfully labeled for her?
While Ava and Jeryndi focused on the woman Solomon had previously attempted to help Ava with, Sol moved toward the other sleeping Mandal. The floating form, suspended as it was, reminded Solomon of a puppet who's strings were all held at the same height, the same level of tension running through all of the dreamer's strings. They lived, they breathed, but what was left of them beneath the surface of that? Was there anything of themselves left to bring back? Or did The Red eat away at all of what had been contained in earthly bodies until nothing was left? Was that what had caused the other dreamers to disappear? And if that was the cause, why was evidence of such damage unable to be picked up through The Force? Could it even be considered damage at such a microscopic level of change? Was it even change at all? Or was it something else entirely? The Force, the breath of all life within the galaxy was everywhere around them. Even with The Red settling heavily, even with the enemy from unknown places, and even with life choking on both on this little planet known as Mandalore, The Force was there. The bridge between life and death and everything in between. All was connected. Everything here was a part of everything else. One built the other, and in return it came back again. But where were the dreamers in all of this? Not their physical selves, but the inner self -- the part of self that seemed to be so tightly bound up within the grasp of The Red, whatever it may be? He looked toward where Ava and Jeryndi worked, and watched for a moment before removing the glove from his left hand awkwardly with his right. He found a thin patch of wrapping on the Mandal's body, an area where the padding was simply not as thick as it was in other places, and rested his left hand there. Silently, Solomon shut his eyes and began to breathe deeply within his suit. As he had with the Mandal woman, Sol felt for a pulse, he felt for the life-beat within the warrior. He felt for the breath and being of the Mandal. It was more than the physical. There was that line, the indicator they made this Mandal who they were. Within The Force, connected as all life was, there were signatures. These were little differences between beings, between personalities, between a rock and a tree. Sometimes they were subtle, and sometimes not so much. How did a Jedi move something with his mind when all is connected and one within The Force? It was by finding the small differences, the defining lines between things. He looked for that now, within the Mandal, and it went so much deeper than the breathing physical self. Who was -this- person, and how were they different from the Mandals who surrounded them? How did they differ from the other dreamers? He looked for that little kernel of being, the little bud of self that every being carried -- plant or animal -- both the animate and the not. All was connected through The Force, and once the bridges that held his mind to his own physical self were crossed and his body fell away from being the focus of his awareness there was an entirely different kind of world to be aware of.
That subconsciousness was not where Jeryndi started, though... After giving it about a minute to adjust to the Meld, he sat down fully on his knees... He had his cloth ready-- and it was a swift and practiced motion to slip his hand under the cloth to touch bare skin and wrap it back up. Only to be followed by his still-gloved hand to put the other glove away into the small bag on his belt... He knew the human body. Other species, too... So it wasn't reaching towards the human consciousness that he was doing. No, he synchronized his breathing and heartbeat to the Mandal's. Because to be at one with the body was to have easier access to the mind... Through the Meld, Ava might sense what his intentions were-- he'd anchor and monitor the body while Ava sought the mind... Proverbial tethers in the Force that were the Mandal's life force were being woven together into his own-- not so tightly that they couldn't slip their knots if Jeryndi needed to let them go, but tight enough that if Jeryndi felt them slipping, he could tighten that grip... If there were physical dangers to the Dreamers with seeking their consciousness, he was there and ready to help.
Dorara stood; Breis crouched alongside Captain Black. Before them were rows of nine empty pod husk, with three left over. Breis stirred one of them back and forth with a gloved finger. The pod looked like a pod, to him. It was scalier, by a little. It was bigger, by a little. The main difference was that these pods--every single one of the forty-eight--had three sections, three seams, instead of two. Other than that, they were still ovoid, still scabby, with clumpy hints of fuzz.
Breis twisted enough to look up at the zabrak. "If you see any more of these, keep them separate. Pass the word around: Let's call these something else."
The world around them was busy like the air-ways on Coruscant. Ava could sense all of it. Solomon’s movement towards the Mandal. His quiet work as he tugged on the individual strands that would connect him to the Mandal Dreamer. She could sense the motion of Jeryndi focusing on the woman’s body. His concentration towards her vitals and well-being felt and understood within the meld. There were still the Mandals and Hapans and their own thrum of life.
But what about Ava?
How could she quiet all this busy noise? Where would she look?
Thump. Thum-thump. Thump. Thum-thump. Thump.
Beneath her fingertips. Beneath that dusting of red. Beneath the skin and muscles and veins was the Amidi woman’s heartbeat. Ava did not know the woman’s name. She didn’t know her like she did Solomon or Darien. Under normal circumstances, this woman would have been a faceless being in a crowd. Another stranger with no ties to the Jedi. But in the here and now, she’d come to know one thing about her.
Thump. Thum-thump. Thump.
Ava heeded to the call of her heart. The speed. Its rhythm. The vibration beneath her fingertips. It filled her senses and drowned out the noise until it was the only thing Ava knew – the only thing she was certain of. Ava anchored herself to it and followed that chord as if it were a melody only she could hear. A quiet note to draw the Jedi deeper into the Amidi woman’s subconscious.
It was good to start grounded.
All three Jedi-trained individuals began once more by getting used to the physical rhythms of the bodies with which they worked.
Once aligned and once open, what materialized into their awareness was what Jeryndi had felt before, and what had been related by the Mandals (who had, themselves, each been asleep at one point since the Red Plume had first obscured Um-Shara Yaim). The sleepers dreamed. They dreamt suspended, they dreamt suppressed. The Amidi warrior was isolated within her dream, yet not. The unidentified man was isolated within his dream, yet not. The same, too, for the invader who dreamed with them. Through them came a sense of others.
The sensation of being so connected like that, so aware of others like the dreamers were, made his skin crawl. It was one thing to hear about it, to know that with the suppression through which they dreamt there really was an almost vast sensation of some connection to others. Isolation was not what it seemed to be with that connection to others in mind. Alone, and yet not. Was it not the same with all life? What was different here was that these who dreamed did so against their own natural rhythms. It wasn't natural to sleep as they slept. The more he breathed with the sleeping Mandal man, the further away his fingers felt and the closer that connection to others who dreamed seemed. It was a dry world this one dreamt of, just as arid and decaying as the one Solomon had left behind to find him. Solomon had brought water with him, or rather he had brought the flow of life -- the cooling waves of The Force that were beyond miraculous in many ways. It was like a gentle rain, how The Force felt to Solomon just then with every drop filling an empty pool that had no limits. Every drop added to its brothers and sisters, drawing into puddles to fill the link between himself and the sleeping Mandal, and beyond that. The connections he felt to other dreamers were like bridges over parched rivers and there seemed to be dozens and dozens -- an uncountable amount, really -- that sprawled out from the center where he stood within the sense of awareness he had just then of the Mandal.
Distantly Ava felt Solomon slip further away into his own work. And as he ventured off, so did the safeguard of him watching over Ava and Jeryndi. Though, now that Ava had found ground with the Amidi woman, she did not pull away.
The Dreamers were there connected together like a tangled web. Acutely aware that she was not there for all the Dreamers, but one in particular, the Jedi envisioned the cohesive unit as a tangled knot; like a spider’s web that had gone terribly wrong. Within her minds eye, it was slow work. It was as if invisible hands were meticulously picking at the jointed web until she could find but only one thread.
The Amidi woman.
Those ‘fingers’ wrapped around the strand, tugging not to unravel it from the others – for it was too early to try such a thing, but to follow that wire deeper into the woman’s subconscious where she dreamed suspended and suppressed.
For Solomon, a sense of direction. Waking, it would be as Jeryndi reported it, as the Mandals had already reported sensing from their own sleep. In concrete terms, the direction was northward, northeast. Crater-ward, for the bulk of them. Solomon, alone in his connection, would drift. He, too, isolated yet not. As it had for Jeryndi before him, back at Tal Ruus, the Force communicated profound suppression, as from an enormous weight.
For Ava and Jeryndi, each bolstering the other and the meld, they became greater than the sum of their parts. Ava/Jeryndi rooted and steadied and Ava/Jeryndi also sought the particulars of the dreamer before them as Solomon had. Ava/Jeryndi, too, sensed that massing northward, northeast. Ava/Jeryndi, too, felt the united presence of the dreamers and how each one was alone. Ava/Jeryndi followed a thread of metaphor into dreaming, where the Amidi woman slept.
The heaviness hung over them. Ava/Jeryndi might be aware of Solomon and his questing, so close in some ways, so far in others, and their awareness of him hung to the side, interconnected and disconnected. Together the meld helped them reach beyond the lone desert of the woman's dream.
The manifestation of that enormous weight was a slump to his shoulders, the physical self of Solomon slouching under what felt like the weight of a galaxy pushing down against him. It was difficult to hold that weight up, to keep it from feeling like it was pushing him down further and further within. It would have been even more so without The Force as a buffer of sorts. The gentle rains that fell were building up, those little pools and puddles becoming something bigger. There was a river here, and its current was unstoppable. It flowed and mingled with the awareness he had that the sleepers were north - northeast. It took some of the weight from his shoulders, carrying enough of it in unseen hands that he could breathe and remember why he was there. Every branch of life had its own bridge to cross, its own vein within The Force. It was the bridges he was looking for, one in particular among them for the moment. He continued to physically breathe in time with the sleeping Mandal, his heart beating with the rhythm that was now becoming shared between them. He was himself, and yet as close as he could be to feeling what the Mandal felt, what he saw in his dreams, and there were still bridges that needed to be crossed to get where he wanted to be. One step after another, the more he moved for it the heavier things seemed. He was not untouched by the weight that The Force was helping him handle, but being alone in his searching there was only so much he could handle. This was something entirely different...
Solomon explored. What stretched out before him, above him, all around, was more of the same. More of the same sensation of isolation and shared burden; more of the sense of suppression and vague direction. The pools were the pools and the rain was the rain, and still they did not change this desert.
A shift in her position brought Ava’s legs tucked beneath her body in that same uncomfortable looking position. But if it was uncomfortable, the Jedi was not fazed by it. As she had done before, her left hand was freed from its glove and slipped beneath the collar of the Amidi woman’s shirt. The grainy feel of red dirt still lingered on her skin. Fingertips stretched out across the familiar scar until she found the slow beat of her heart.
Her eyes closed. Her posture eased but not completely relaxed. The world fell into static until she slipped beneath the water-like feel of the Force. Her physical senses drowned away as something else awoken inside of her.
Ava sensed the familiarity of Solomon first. The Mandals and Hapans that moved about. The other Dreamers who floated in their slumber. The Amidi woman. And Jeryndi.
She felt his openness. The sincerity of his conviction. Ava reached out to him like she were throwing a rope to bind the two together. To pull him towards her own faith and tenet where they would be tied to moment. That rope was the Force and, with it, they were one within the Force.
Mostly silent, all but for the sounds that his boots made against the grit of the world around them as he moved, Solomon stood at the edge of awareness -- the edge of contact -- with the meld and those within it. In every being there was a sense of one's self and its existence could be considered self contained in some ways. A person was who they were because of that sense of self. He had to wonder, looking at the sleeping forms, just how much of that sense of self was preserved in the Dreamers. If loss of function snapped the body into a state of critical being, and all bodily systems suffered, did that include the sense of self that made these people who they were? Was the Ori'ade included in that? Did the dreaming state affect them the same way as it was affecting the Mandals? Quiet, considering, and watchful, Solomon felt the air around him shift as if the world, too, were contemplating and growing quiet with the heavy thoughts and the actions of the Force Sensitives at work here.
That rope... He was ready to catch it. In his mind, in his openness, he wrapped a hand around that rope and pulled it tighter... Closing the distance between himself and Ava... Depending on how deep she cared to look, there was much tragedy and trauma in his past... But he seemed oddly okay with it. It wasn't something that ate him alive like it had in the past... And also, she might sense something much deeper-- more than one person inside him... But none of that did he dwell on. His focus, here and now, was to connect to Ava and this Mandal in front of them... Here and now, his mind was wanting to help these people and learn as much as he could... The last time he'd delved into the other human Mandal, it hadn't felt like he'd accomplished anything at all until he'd woken from it... He hoped this time would be different. Being an Amidi, being identifiable, and knowing what she looked like, that might help to reach for her spirit self. To reach for her mind... But right now, he connected.
Ava wasn't there to look into Jeryndi's past. Her eyes were not there to see the turmoil his life had suffered. When he caught onto that metaphysical rope and tied it to himself, Ava would give him just a moment to adjust to the sensation.
It was the idea and feeling of oneness. That vast and endless openness of the Force and the life that bested all around them. Ava waited until he was ready before directing her focus on the Amidi woman.
She narrowed in on the dreamer and reached out in the Force to tug at her subconscious - starting there first.
And what did that mean to Ava? It mattered, here, how Ava conceptualized the "subconscious" of the physical woman between her and Jeryndi. It mattered how Jeryndi and she perceived the woman's self in relation to her body, and in relation to what was happening to her, and what she dreamed. It mattered because the Force flowed through everything, and yet not everything could wield the Force, not everything could consciously ride or direct it. And it was methods of perception and clarity that determined why one legendary Jedi Master of old might be strong in one area, yet weak in another. Ava--but never just Ava, in a meld--narrowed in on the dreamer and reached out in the Force to tug at her subconscious-- Was it helpfully labeled for her?
While Ava and Jeryndi focused on the woman Solomon had previously attempted to help Ava with, Sol moved toward the other sleeping Mandal. The floating form, suspended as it was, reminded Solomon of a puppet who's strings were all held at the same height, the same level of tension running through all of the dreamer's strings. They lived, they breathed, but what was left of them beneath the surface of that? Was there anything of themselves left to bring back? Or did The Red eat away at all of what had been contained in earthly bodies until nothing was left? Was that what had caused the other dreamers to disappear? And if that was the cause, why was evidence of such damage unable to be picked up through The Force? Could it even be considered damage at such a microscopic level of change? Was it even change at all? Or was it something else entirely? The Force, the breath of all life within the galaxy was everywhere around them. Even with The Red settling heavily, even with the enemy from unknown places, and even with life choking on both on this little planet known as Mandalore, The Force was there. The bridge between life and death and everything in between. All was connected. Everything here was a part of everything else. One built the other, and in return it came back again. But where were the dreamers in all of this? Not their physical selves, but the inner self -- the part of self that seemed to be so tightly bound up within the grasp of The Red, whatever it may be? He looked toward where Ava and Jeryndi worked, and watched for a moment before removing the glove from his left hand awkwardly with his right. He found a thin patch of wrapping on the Mandal's body, an area where the padding was simply not as thick as it was in other places, and rested his left hand there. Silently, Solomon shut his eyes and began to breathe deeply within his suit. As he had with the Mandal woman, Sol felt for a pulse, he felt for the life-beat within the warrior. He felt for the breath and being of the Mandal. It was more than the physical. There was that line, the indicator they made this Mandal who they were. Within The Force, connected as all life was, there were signatures. These were little differences between beings, between personalities, between a rock and a tree. Sometimes they were subtle, and sometimes not so much. How did a Jedi move something with his mind when all is connected and one within The Force? It was by finding the small differences, the defining lines between things. He looked for that now, within the Mandal, and it went so much deeper than the breathing physical self. Who was -this- person, and how were they different from the Mandals who surrounded them? How did they differ from the other dreamers? He looked for that little kernel of being, the little bud of self that every being carried -- plant or animal -- both the animate and the not. All was connected through The Force, and once the bridges that held his mind to his own physical self were crossed and his body fell away from being the focus of his awareness there was an entirely different kind of world to be aware of.
That subconsciousness was not where Jeryndi started, though... After giving it about a minute to adjust to the Meld, he sat down fully on his knees... He had his cloth ready-- and it was a swift and practiced motion to slip his hand under the cloth to touch bare skin and wrap it back up. Only to be followed by his still-gloved hand to put the other glove away into the small bag on his belt... He knew the human body. Other species, too... So it wasn't reaching towards the human consciousness that he was doing. No, he synchronized his breathing and heartbeat to the Mandal's. Because to be at one with the body was to have easier access to the mind... Through the Meld, Ava might sense what his intentions were-- he'd anchor and monitor the body while Ava sought the mind... Proverbial tethers in the Force that were the Mandal's life force were being woven together into his own-- not so tightly that they couldn't slip their knots if Jeryndi needed to let them go, but tight enough that if Jeryndi felt them slipping, he could tighten that grip... If there were physical dangers to the Dreamers with seeking their consciousness, he was there and ready to help.
Dorara stood; Breis crouched alongside Captain Black. Before them were rows of nine empty pod husk, with three left over. Breis stirred one of them back and forth with a gloved finger. The pod looked like a pod, to him. It was scalier, by a little. It was bigger, by a little. The main difference was that these pods--every single one of the forty-eight--had three sections, three seams, instead of two. Other than that, they were still ovoid, still scabby, with clumpy hints of fuzz.
Breis twisted enough to look up at the zabrak. "If you see any more of these, keep them separate. Pass the word around: Let's call these something else."
The world around them was busy like the air-ways on Coruscant. Ava could sense all of it. Solomon’s movement towards the Mandal. His quiet work as he tugged on the individual strands that would connect him to the Mandal Dreamer. She could sense the motion of Jeryndi focusing on the woman’s body. His concentration towards her vitals and well-being felt and understood within the meld. There were still the Mandals and Hapans and their own thrum of life.
But what about Ava?
How could she quiet all this busy noise? Where would she look?
Thump. Thum-thump. Thump. Thum-thump. Thump.
Beneath her fingertips. Beneath that dusting of red. Beneath the skin and muscles and veins was the Amidi woman’s heartbeat. Ava did not know the woman’s name. She didn’t know her like she did Solomon or Darien. Under normal circumstances, this woman would have been a faceless being in a crowd. Another stranger with no ties to the Jedi. But in the here and now, she’d come to know one thing about her.
Thump. Thum-thump. Thump.
Ava heeded to the call of her heart. The speed. Its rhythm. The vibration beneath her fingertips. It filled her senses and drowned out the noise until it was the only thing Ava knew – the only thing she was certain of. Ava anchored herself to it and followed that chord as if it were a melody only she could hear. A quiet note to draw the Jedi deeper into the Amidi woman’s subconscious.
It was good to start grounded.
All three Jedi-trained individuals began once more by getting used to the physical rhythms of the bodies with which they worked.
Once aligned and once open, what materialized into their awareness was what Jeryndi had felt before, and what had been related by the Mandals (who had, themselves, each been asleep at one point since the Red Plume had first obscured Um-Shara Yaim). The sleepers dreamed. They dreamt suspended, they dreamt suppressed. The Amidi warrior was isolated within her dream, yet not. The unidentified man was isolated within his dream, yet not. The same, too, for the invader who dreamed with them. Through them came a sense of others.
The sensation of being so connected like that, so aware of others like the dreamers were, made his skin crawl. It was one thing to hear about it, to know that with the suppression through which they dreamt there really was an almost vast sensation of some connection to others. Isolation was not what it seemed to be with that connection to others in mind. Alone, and yet not. Was it not the same with all life? What was different here was that these who dreamed did so against their own natural rhythms. It wasn't natural to sleep as they slept. The more he breathed with the sleeping Mandal man, the further away his fingers felt and the closer that connection to others who dreamed seemed. It was a dry world this one dreamt of, just as arid and decaying as the one Solomon had left behind to find him. Solomon had brought water with him, or rather he had brought the flow of life -- the cooling waves of The Force that were beyond miraculous in many ways. It was like a gentle rain, how The Force felt to Solomon just then with every drop filling an empty pool that had no limits. Every drop added to its brothers and sisters, drawing into puddles to fill the link between himself and the sleeping Mandal, and beyond that. The connections he felt to other dreamers were like bridges over parched rivers and there seemed to be dozens and dozens -- an uncountable amount, really -- that sprawled out from the center where he stood within the sense of awareness he had just then of the Mandal.
Distantly Ava felt Solomon slip further away into his own work. And as he ventured off, so did the safeguard of him watching over Ava and Jeryndi. Though, now that Ava had found ground with the Amidi woman, she did not pull away.
The Dreamers were there connected together like a tangled web. Acutely aware that she was not there for all the Dreamers, but one in particular, the Jedi envisioned the cohesive unit as a tangled knot; like a spider’s web that had gone terribly wrong. Within her minds eye, it was slow work. It was as if invisible hands were meticulously picking at the jointed web until she could find but only one thread.
The Amidi woman.
Those ‘fingers’ wrapped around the strand, tugging not to unravel it from the others – for it was too early to try such a thing, but to follow that wire deeper into the woman’s subconscious where she dreamed suspended and suppressed.
For Solomon, a sense of direction. Waking, it would be as Jeryndi reported it, as the Mandals had already reported sensing from their own sleep. In concrete terms, the direction was northward, northeast. Crater-ward, for the bulk of them. Solomon, alone in his connection, would drift. He, too, isolated yet not. As it had for Jeryndi before him, back at Tal Ruus, the Force communicated profound suppression, as from an enormous weight.
For Ava and Jeryndi, each bolstering the other and the meld, they became greater than the sum of their parts. Ava/Jeryndi rooted and steadied and Ava/Jeryndi also sought the particulars of the dreamer before them as Solomon had. Ava/Jeryndi, too, sensed that massing northward, northeast. Ava/Jeryndi, too, felt the united presence of the dreamers and how each one was alone. Ava/Jeryndi followed a thread of metaphor into dreaming, where the Amidi woman slept.
The heaviness hung over them. Ava/Jeryndi might be aware of Solomon and his questing, so close in some ways, so far in others, and their awareness of him hung to the side, interconnected and disconnected. Together the meld helped them reach beyond the lone desert of the woman's dream.
The manifestation of that enormous weight was a slump to his shoulders, the physical self of Solomon slouching under what felt like the weight of a galaxy pushing down against him. It was difficult to hold that weight up, to keep it from feeling like it was pushing him down further and further within. It would have been even more so without The Force as a buffer of sorts. The gentle rains that fell were building up, those little pools and puddles becoming something bigger. There was a river here, and its current was unstoppable. It flowed and mingled with the awareness he had that the sleepers were north - northeast. It took some of the weight from his shoulders, carrying enough of it in unseen hands that he could breathe and remember why he was there. Every branch of life had its own bridge to cross, its own vein within The Force. It was the bridges he was looking for, one in particular among them for the moment. He continued to physically breathe in time with the sleeping Mandal, his heart beating with the rhythm that was now becoming shared between them. He was himself, and yet as close as he could be to feeling what the Mandal felt, what he saw in his dreams, and there were still bridges that needed to be crossed to get where he wanted to be. One step after another, the more he moved for it the heavier things seemed. He was not untouched by the weight that The Force was helping him handle, but being alone in his searching there was only so much he could handle. This was something entirely different...
Solomon explored. What stretched out before him, above him, all around, was more of the same. More of the same sensation of isolation and shared burden; more of the sense of suppression and vague direction. The pools were the pools and the rain was the rain, and still they did not change this desert.