trans_9 | Bene Gesserits for Dummies

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Bene Gesserits for Dummies

The day after the Hannukah celebration, Katara had time to think about the last twenty four hours. The idea of a challenge, the training Sheeana was taking about, was still fresh in her mind. There was no avoiding it: she WANTED to be a Bene Gesserit, wanted to be trained well enough that she could move as the Mother did. She didn't know how enthusiastic she had seemed then, but she had even replaced one of her usual Yoga practices with trying to move a limb independent of all other: to no avail, sadly, but she was getting closer, she knew that well enough, but it wasn't enough for her to do the exercises, she wanted to know more about them too. So naturally, the Media library was the best place to go.

She made her way to the place and poured through the material, avoiding several interesting books about martial arts and looked up specific sisterhood paths. There were several interesting goddess ones she wanted to research later, and one called "Dianic Wicca" that would probably have bothered Sokka, but she was finally at the Bene Gesserit, and engrossed herself in her readings.

Thus spoke St. Alia-of-the-Knife: "The Reverend Mother must combine the seductive wiles of a courtesan with the untouchable majesty of a virgin goddess, holding these attributes in tension so long as the powers of her youth endure. For when youth and beauty have gone, she will find that the place-between, once occupied by tension, has become a wellspring of cunning and resourcefulness."

"Interesting," Katara said to herself aloud, reading on.

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"That kind of drive and dedication is certainly admirable. But you should always leave yourself open to learning little things along the way." Never know what little nuggets of wisdom you'll find that way.

"Normally I'd answer with 'what personal life?', but Claire and Sherry are making me maintain one.

"Darn women," he muttered jokingly.

"Sherry's doing great, really getting into her schoolwork now. She kind of has that same eagerness for learning you do, only its directed more towards science."

"I plan on it," Katara said, smiling. "In fact, that's why I'm doing this now. If I weren't open, I'd probably be satisfied with just being a waterbender. I think that learning this will help with what I already know. I'm hoping I can be a better asset to the ship this way."

Katara giggled. "Hey, even if they're not your real family, it doesn't mean they won't become that in a way. I only thought I'd have to deal with my brother on this ship, but now I have a LOT of brothers, several sisters and a mom. I would never have thought that was possible!"

She smiled. "I'm glad to hear that. She seems like a smart girl. She's doing what I hoped my older brother would be doing, to be honest."

"That's good. There's a lot this crew can learn from each other. Sooner or later, everyone is going to have to go through training, we just need to get the infrastructure for that set up." Because, dear god, did this crew need to be trained from the ground up all over again.

Somehow, the idea of Katara being adopted by about twenty different people didn't surprise him. "For now, all we have is each other. Makes sense that people would latch on to each other. Who's your new mom?" He was curious about that.

"Your brother not taking any classes or anything?"

"I'm learning a bit rom the crew already," Katara said, smilingm then frowned a little. "Listen, I should have told you, though I know you probably heard: there was a disagreement back then, when we were going for the bridge. It was about that Luthor guy, I'm sure you heard. Well back then, I made a mistake: I did argue then. I did it because I'd seen what I'd become at the time of the Yeerk: I want to correct that, you know? But this situation was difficult: even though I argued, it was because Luthor knew the way better, and I was scared. I didn't want any more of the crew to come close to dying, the way I thought Jaime did and Paco losing his arm. I just wanted it to stop, and if trusting Luthor then meant we could get to the bridge quicker, I would do it. But I wanted you to know that, because I won't do that again if it means we lose time. We can't afford to think the people we're fighting won't strike at us when we're weak."

She sighed. "This good guy-bad guy stuff sure isn't as easy as everyone thinks."

Katara gave a small smile. "Yes, but some people make it easier than others. There's all these stories, and they're not all happy, but here, if we just talk to each other, a little of that hurt goes away. I don't really hate being here."

It wasn't something she would say outloud to anyone, especially when it came to Sokka, who wanted out.

"No, he didn't think he needed them. Our worlds being gone, well, its a little harder on him. It's not an easy thing he can adjust to."

Leon had heard about the arguing, but didn't get too many specifics about who said what. All he knew was that it lasted longer than necessary. He quietly thought for a moment how to respond to that.

"It's usually never that easy. That's..." He decided to cut himself off there, and take a slightly different angle.

"Look, when I took over Security, I got a lot of flak for kicking out everyone under the age of eighteen. And I don't know if you noticed, but a lot of the people I've taken on since were all people who spent years being either police officer, a soldier, or both. I didn't do that because I think any of you kids are stupid or untalented, or anything like that. A lot of you are very good fighters, but there's more to being a soldier than knowing how to fight.

"What you learned, that time is very precious, and sometimes expressing a contradictory opinion mid-mission isn't worth the amount of time you lose arguing; I'm glad you did learn that, but everyone who works for me learned that ages ago. They understand that, they understand why the chain of command is there, why orders are given the way they are, and about a million other things that make up the difference between a fighter and a soldier.

"So, while it's important for you to become a better fighter, you also need to learn how to be a soldier. Especially if you want to do more than just fight.

"And we need to learn how to teach you." So it's not like this was all on her. Everyone had work to do.

He frowned a bit, hearing that Sokka was having trouble adjusting. "It's not easy for anyone to adjust to, truthfully. And not everyone is willing to open up about it right away. Especially since we're not entirely sure if everything we've been told is true or not."

Edited 2009-12-23 09:17 (UTC)

Katara sighed. "I certainly understand where you're coming from, and I think you're right, mostly: there is more to learn about being a soldier than fighting. But the thing to take into account is also that it might not have to do with being a kid OR being a soldier either. I know with me, I wanted the best direct route to where we needed to go. I've fought in wars before, I know how to take orders. But it isn't as cut and dry as you would think on this ship either. With Luthor for instance: people looked at him, before a word was said out of his mouth, with malice. I'm not saying he improved their impression of him, but if you're a solider you remain impassive to some situations. I didn't think that was happening, so I reacted. Isn't part of being a soldier is making sure you don't become the enemy too?"

That was what she thought anyway, and she was certainly not going to give Leon the impression she argued for arguments sake. "I'm not just doing this to fight anyway. I've lacked focus, and now I want my training to move to the next level. That means I train my body, my spirit and my mind. If I weren't doing that, I wouldn't even be joining the Bene Gesserit."

But keep in mind, Katara is not refusing to be taught. She'll just be very very busy.

"It's more than just that," Katara said. "In my world, Sokka had to keep up with us benders in our group: he had no bending ability, he was just a watertribe boy who had to take on the responsibilities of being the only full grown teenage male when all the men went off to war. That meant he took on greater responsibilities and even learned to fight with a sword. To be brought here, away from his home and all of the things he worked long and hard for...I think that's weighing pretty heavily on him."

"That's part of it, but another part of it is learning how to deal with the unexpected." And Lex was, above all else, unexpected. "Not everyone handles surprises well."

There was more to it, but he was willing to leave it at that for the moment.

As for Sokka, that would be more difficult to deal with. Particularly since Leon didn't know a whole lot about the boy. But seeing as how Katara did...

"So what do you think would help?"

"Yeah, I think I'm still going to need help with that," Katara admitted sheepishly. "I may be able to deal with things better than my brother, but he's a little better at expecting the unexpected, mostly."

Katara thought a moment. "What he needs is a way to feel useful again, but more specifically, he needs to train again. Sokka needs to remember that he doesn't know everything that there is to know. That was why he had to train in sword fighting in the first place. Sokka is actually really smart, he just is very set in his ways."

Leon smiled a bit. Well, if you can call it a smile. More of a subtle quirk of his lips that wasn't entirely a lineface. Which is about as much as he smiles at anyone not named Claire or Sherry.

"Don't worry, we'll help you with that."

Sokka, however was going to be a more difficult problem to deal with. Though, that she mentioned it, Chris might be having similar troubles.

"'The Outsiders' haven't shown him that there's just that much more for him to learn?"

Katar returned the smile, though it was considerably less forced than Leon's, since it came more natural to her. "Thanks. I don't feel like I'm doing my part here if I'm not at least trying to understand the way other people think. I guess you could say that it gets me in trouble a lot, though. But I'd appreciate any help that you could give me."

Katara looked thoughtful. "Well, we've been training of course, but so far Static and Slobo are trying to play to Sokka's strengths. Sokka needs to be challenged, needs to remember that there's a lot to learn that he doesn't know. That, and I hope he can see that the people on the ship are going to be his new family now, and they need him too."

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Bene Gesserits for Dummies

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