"Not just in an actual fight. This seems like the kind of thing they want to avoid."

He prods at the little ripple.

"Ah. That, yeah, but - little one like this isn't corruptive, but the bigger ones are; if you've heard of Sith tombs and stuff being dangerous, that's this guy's big brother. Even if you know what you're doing, it's risky being in a place like that long enough to do anything about it."

He nods.

"...I want to do what you can do. But I don't know if I want to...hurt it, like that."

Is it really different from what he did to his own aura? Is this just left over from Jedi training?

Squeeze. "Yeah. Once you know what you're doing it's not so hard to avoid it, if you want to, but it takes a while to get there. There is stuff I can teach you that doesn't need it at all, though, if you'd rather just focus on that - lightning does, but the sense stuff doesn't, and the headache blocker and things."

"...that stuff first, then, I guess."

He can definitely deal with her being the one with the lightning for now, and he's equally excited about learning the other stuff. It gets rid of the internal conflict when he decides to delay the...pulling-apart.

"Sure." She ruffles his hair. (Gosh he's cute.)

"Anyway, I though that'd be worth a try, with your healing, but I guess not."

"–I could still try!"

The reluctance to tear apart the threads of the Force is instantly replaced by the intense desire to show her he can.

He reaches out and twists, with no real regard for the safety of what he's doing, mimicking what she did before.

There's a moment of resistance, and then it twists apart, weakly echoing his emotions back to him as it does. The threads writhe distractingly; individually, they're easier to control than the natural Force, but it will obviously take some practice to get them working in concert this way.

He moves them one at a time, trying to block out the others to focus in on each one, and then tries twisting them back together differently, forcing them into their previous position but with a clear mark of interference.

When they echo back to him they tell him you're right.

He can do that, easily, but they don't quite come together in the right way to do healing; every time he gets close, something slides out of his grasp.

The emotional echo continues, faintly and easily missed.

He tries to focus in on the echo.

It shifts under his attention, echoing back his hope, and his curiosity, but also, more strongly, his frustration at his failure and his fear that he will continue to fail.

Maybe if he–

He starts feeling at the places where he feels his own life woven in with the Force.

"Hey," Dusk interrupts, reaching over to take his hand. "No experimenting on yourself today."

He jolts out of his concentration.

"–but it wasn't working."

"-yeah? It might not, that way. You've still got to be careful of yourself."

"...yeah. I guess so."

Slightly disgruntled. If he wasn't supposed to take himself apart with the Force, the universe shouldn't have made it so easy. Mostly he sees her point, though.

She nuzzles the back of his head. "We'll get you some livestock to practice on, or something."

There is an instant feeling of alarm at the idea.

"- you were going to try it on yourself, you're worth more than some chickens or whatever." The arm she still has slung over him goes tense, restraining.

"I guess so. Just seems...I mean, I don't need it. I don't want to fuck up some poor bird who doesn't know what's going on."

The arm helps.

She relaxes a little, and gives him a squeeze, keeping her grip on him as she talks. "Sure. But that's still better than fucking yourself up. I might not be able to fix it, y'know."

"...yeah. That's true. I guess they'd be somebody's dinner otherwise, anyway."

"Mmhmm."

"Speaking of which - you goona be okay with it if I go hunt, this afternoon?"

"–this is going to sound really weird, but I want to come with you."

The prospect excites him in...a very weird way. A slightly aggressive way.