"It may take three standard weeks to fully complete."

"Oh... well when you get back then, I don't mind working for Teynar. The swoops are cool and I sometimes get to keep broken parts to sell or reuse. And I guess it gives me time to say goodbye to everyone..." He was still sure he wanted to be a Jedi now the option was in front of him, but still, he was going to leave his whole life behind for this.

"Good luck on your mission ms Jedi"

She stood and bowed deeply, then turned and left, leaving him alone.

3 years later...

The binary suns shone brightly on Aden as he sat on the tall, thick, white-speckled purple and green kaluthin grass, among eight other younglings. He was the only one who looked like a plain human, the others with scales, or beaks, or headtails, or merely green skin. They sat among a garden of carefully cultivated trees, standing out among the purple-white-green multicolor grasslands of Almas, near the main paved structures of the Almas Academy.

In front of each of the young students was a flattened patch of grass on which sat a pile of several small rocks, gathered from the ground around them. In front of the class was a teacher, a humanoid jedi with a wrinkled face, sitting cross-legged.

"Now relax yourself, feel the presence of the force, and reach into it, guiding the rocks upwards."

Some distance away, the edge of the Academy grounds could be seen, on which was a farming neighbor's speeder. As the teacher spoke, the adult Tarasin lifted his smaller humanoid reptilian child out of the speeder, as the other clambered out, both of their skin bright red with excitement. They stood at the edge of the Academy grounds and eyed the Jedi younglings intently.

The teacher chuckled. "It seems we have observers. But let only the presence of the force fill your mind, young ones. There is no emotion, there is peace; if you focus on our guests, you will not feel the force. Let the code be your guide. Now guide the rocks upward and form a sphere."

Aden, the now 13-year-old padawan learner was doing his best to ignore the droning voice of his instructor lecturing him about the Jedi code and peace. He had heard it all before and he needed all his focus to try and pass this latest test of his abilities, trying to keep 30 pebbles in a perfect sphere. 

He kept bulging out the sides of the sphere or dropping pebbles at the tiniest distraction, he was starting to resent the lecturing Jedi that kept distracting him and that just made his efforts even less stable. And he was getting a little self-conscious about how he was doing compared to the other padawans, they had all been here years longer than he had.

He tries to clear his mind by thinking of something simple and pleasant like the sun on his skin. It wasn't properly emptying his mind but it always seemed to help focus him anyway. Getting lost in the sensation, his pebbles formed into a loose sphere, still not perfect but less shakey than before. His mind floating along on memories of times in the sun feeling at peace until it brought him to a picnic with Jumen and Gers from his childhood, He gets a smile on his face as the pebbles wobble a lot less without him even realising it as he remembers.

As he reached into the force with the good memories on his mind, his hand out to control the pebbles, something tweaked around his arm, and suddenly his pebbles stopped moving, locked in a perfect sphere. The upper sides of the pebbles was glowing the color of the sunlight, and the kaluthin around him glowed slightly brighter.

Their teacher spoke. "Padawan Tarren, calm your emotions."

As he heard the words, before he'd really processed them, the force pushed back on him hard, and he fell over backwards, his head landing on the soft kaluthin, his pebbles flying everywhere.

"Ow," said a student with a single head-tail, picking up the glowing pebble. "Huh, it's different."

"Hey, I was doing it! I felt it it was a sphere! for just a moment I had it!" Aden pulls himself back upright and dusts off his robe, very proud of himself for getting it just right for that moment before he lost control. But seeing one of his pebbles had hit someone he looks very bashful and apologetic at them. "Sorry Tarso... I didn't mean to lose control like that and hit you with them..."

Tarso smiled. "It's all right. What happened, Master Fost?"

Their teacher looked between the students. "I do not know the mysteries of the force. I know only that it can be dangerous to feel strong emotions when in touch with the force, young padawan. Let the force fill you and guide you, and only depart from its guidance make the slightest motion of your command. You do not need to demand the force obey."

Several students looked thoughtful.

"We shall try it again." Their teacher waved a hand and Aden's pebbles returned to a neat pile in front of him.

Aden continued his practice without emotion as the teacher said but all he could manage was a very wobbly sphere like before, doing no better than his peers at the task. It was never as stable as when he had been remembering that happy memory of a picnic in the sun with his friends.

All-day long he was thinking of the sudden control he had in that moment, and how the teacher only wanted him to be empty and clear of emotion when that obviously was less effective. The warnings about falling to the dark side were all about negative emotions like fear and anger but this was just a happy memory! 

He decides to try replicating what happened during training again even if he wasn't supposed to, he needed to know if it wasn't a fluke so time to recreate the variables from before. Plus he wouldn't become a dark Jedi just by thinking happy thoughts while using the force surely. 

So he gets some training stones, sits down in a patch of sunlight on the floor, and tries to focus on the nice feelings of sunlight and the good memories associated with that while floating up the pebbles. Getting sort of meditative as his mind goes back to happy moments playing in the sun as a child with his friends.

His sphere stabilizes with little effort, the force flowing with his thoughts. After a moment the the stones slowly start glowing slightly, and he floats into the air as well. Across the room, a piece of flimsy on his bed floats into the air next to the pen he'd been writing with, crumpling into a sphere, and various loose screws and bolts from around the room float into the air and form a sphere near his head.

Oooookay...that was too much, time to dial it back a little. Aden tries slowly letting go of everything he is holding except for one pebble. All the while trying to remain in that state of being in a happy memory, Having his attention split like that was getting kind of difficult though and floating himself was not something he was used to.

The spheres sit in the air for a moment, then crash downward as if pushed, making a mess.

Too much power! not enough control, maybe the teachers were onto something, at least for smaller things like floating pebbles. Lots of power wasn't always more useful.

What if he thinks of just a slightly happy thought? nothing as powerful as a childhood memory. Does using an eating a tasty sandwich memory change anything?

He finds it harder than he expected to remember the taste of food, and his control is shakier than normal. As he notices this, it gets shakier, and some of the rocks disappear from his force awareness and fall to the ground.

Well, guess that memory wasn't strong enough or the right kind of memory. He thought the power boost from before was neat but didn't appreciate the loss of fine control. Like a high powered swoop, it was powerful but harder to steer, maybe? He hadn't experimented much but he didn't exactly want to send the pebbles crashing around again.

Something else happy but stronger than a sandwich, but less than playing as a child. Tarso telling him he had good lightsaber form during practice? He tries thinking about that while controlling a single pebble and very very slightly trying to move it around hoping it doesn't fling itself through the window or something.

He feels a creeping sense of emptiness and the feeling that he remembered from the praise isn't present in the memory like it should be. The pebble movement is delayed and slow, but goes exactly where he intends.

Nope time to cut that out, He cuts off connection to the force immediately. He thought positive emotions would be safe but whatever was happening seems to be messing with the memories he was using and that screamed dark side shenanigans. Nope nope nope. He tries to clear his mind completely as well just to be safe. No force, No emotions, Just blank safe meditation to try and stop whatever this was.

He initially had a hard time meditating like he hadn't since his first year at the Academy, his thoughts spiraling around the idea of meditation as though it were just a word, but after a moment his focus returned and he was able to meditate as normal.

After a moment, there came a knock on his door. "Hey Aden, are you okay?" it was Kaskin, the older human Padawan with the room next to his. "I felt a - presence? - in your room, almost like a child." She sounded very uncertain.

Aden gets up and goes to the doorway. "Hey uhhh... I didn't notice anyone? I was just practising the pebble exercise in here by myself, I'm fine Kaskin." He probably shouldn't tell her what he was doing really, what if she tried it herself? But he was going to find someone to tell about this eventually, if he found an adult who wouldn't get him in trouble for it. This seemed like something important and someone who could deal with it safely should know.

She furrowed her eyebrows. "That's strange," she said. "I thought I felt a sense of loneliness, and ..." she trailed off, then shrugged her broad shoulders, looking up at him - even four years older, she was a half head shorter than him. "I will return to my meditation." Before he could respond, she had bowed and moved towards her door.

Steeling himself in the force to protect himself in case of more shenanigans. Aden leaves his dorm to go see if there were any knights or masters around that didn't have the reputation of being a serious hardass, and wouldn't come down on him like a Rancor for experimenting with the force. Definitely not Master Frost.