Chapter Text
Ezra understood the theory behind meditation, he understood why the Jedi had done it and how it had helped them; and by extension, he understood why Kanan did it and how for him it wasn’t just a complete waste of time and a good way to give himself leg cramps. But that was Kanan, and that was the Jedi of the legends. And for them, it made sense. Ezra was… he just wasn’t made that way, and perhaps if he had been trained since very early childhood, his relationship to the Force would have been different.
As it was, he had never even heard of the Force until he was almost fifteen years old; he hadn’t grown up with it as a constant companion with whom he could happily sit in contemplative silence. The Force was a tool; a very useful one, and one that he now felt he would be lost without, but a tool nonetheless. His training was about how to use that tool to his advantage, whether Kanan meant it to be understood in that way or not. They had meditated together before, and he could do it, he just didn’t see the point.
He shuffled slightly on the ground, trying to find a comfortable position; sitting with his legs folded underneath him was fine for the first few minutes, then it began to get progressively more uncomfortable until it was all that he could think about, as though he had attempted to fold them into a completely unnatural position. Which he had, actually.
He checked Kanan’s position, and then his own again. As far as he could tell, they looked exactly the same, yet somehow, Kanan managed not to squirm like he was trying to keep himself from losing feeling in his feet. Ezra had to be doing something wrong, but he couldn’t work out what it was. He couldn’t ask Kanan to check for him, because Kanan couldn’t see what he was doing.
He shuffled again, allowing his feet to move out to the sides, knees bending at what looked and felt like another unnatural position, allowing him to sit on the ground with his feet spayed at either side of him.
“If you’re not comfortable, find a position where you are,” Kanan said.
Ezra slid open an eye and glanced at him, not exactly surprised that he noticed, but… okay, maybe a little. He wasn’t sure why; nothing that Kanan did really surprised him anymore.
“If you’re distracted by an ache or you make your foot go numb, that’s not exactly going to help your focus. Sit cross-legged, sit in a chair, lie on the ground if it works for you. How you’re sitting isn’t important.”
Ezra looked at Kanan again. He always sat in exactly the same way. If it was so unimportant, why would he do that?
“Don’t get too comfortable though,” Kanan added. “One time at the Temple a Master told us the same thing, one boy thought lying on the ground sounded like a great idea. Halfway through the session, he started snoring. The rules about how to sit changed after that.”
Ezra smirked. “Okay, not lying on the ground.” The ground was pretty hard anyway, he couldn't imagine himself falling asleep. Well, unless he was really tired.
He unfolded his legs and stretched them in front of him, before shuffling backward to lean against the wall and crossing his legs in a position he remembered from early childhood. It was better than sitting on his feet, just. “Okay, comfortable but not too comfortable, check,” he said.
Kanan nodded. He was unmasked, and his eyes were closed, but he wasn’t yet deeply into the meditation. “Okay, good. Now concentrate on the Force. Feel it surrounding you, moving through you, through me, and the objects surrounding us.”
Ezra closed his eyes and took a deep breath in through his nose, feeling his chest expand as he filled it, not quite to capacity. As he exhaled, he followed Kanan’s instruction, turning his awareness outward, into the room around him.
For all his complaints about meditation, he was capable of doing it, and he had done it, not only under Kanan’s instruction, but even by himself once or twice. It did seem to strengthen his connection to the Force, even if only while he was actually doing it. It also helped him relax after a particularly bad day, giving him a few moments to sort out his thoughts. Sometimes, he even did it while laying in bed, to help him fall asleep. One time it had even proved a valuable piece of ammo during an argument with Zeb, allowing him to feign calm serenity at just the moment that Zeb was expecting him to yell. As a bonus, that had also been particularly frustrating for Zeb.
He felt himself smirk at the memory, him sitting in an exaggerated meditative pose, eyes only half closed so that he could watch Zeb’s reaction, he had kept his breathing slow and even, and actually genuinely managed not to care about the thing that Zeb was doing — he couldn't even remember what it was now, only that it had been designed to irritate — he had kept his expression neutral. “Not right now, Zeb, can’t you see I’m busy?”
“Something funny?”
Busted. Somehow. Ezra’s eyed jerked open to find Kanan still seated in front of him, eyes closed, and a calm expression on his face. Ezra raised a hand to his face and actually wiped away the smirk that had settled there against his knowledge. “No. Sorry.”
“That’s okay. If your mind wanders, just recognize that, and push your thoughts back to the meditation. Think of this kind of focus as a muscle, the more you use it, the stronger it’ll get, and the longer you'll be able to maintain concentration for. Just steer your thoughts back, start again if you have to, concentrate on your breathing, them refocus outward into the Force.”
Ezra tried not to sigh as he released his breath, turning his attention back into the room around him. He could feel the Force; his connection to it. Through it, he was aware of Kanan’s presence nearby, familiar and sturdy. He tried to refocus slightly, searching for objects. He knew this room, he had seen it many times. To his left were the bunks, built into the wall. Keeping his eyes closed, he attempted to see them, or feel them, through the Force.
An image drifted into his mind, one that he instantly recognized as taken straight from his memory and nothing at all to do with the Force. He could still feel the Force surrounding him, but it was exactly as it had always been; it gave him no insight into his surroundings whatsoever. If he didn’t know where he was, he doubted that to Force would be of any use at all.
He sighed quietly, and attempted to refocus again. He concentrated instead on Kanan, on his presence within the Force. As a living being, and as a Force wielder, his presence was larger, brighter than anything else. Through closed eyes, he tried to imagine how he looked, his position, seated on the ground. The expression on his face. The result was the same, he could ‘see’ him only inasmuch as he could remember him.
He slumped slightly, spine curving as he leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. He sighed again, his frustration audible this time. “This isn’t working,” he muttered.
“You’re doing fine,” Kanan assured him. “You just need to keep it up for longer periods of time. Don’t give up because your concentration slips once or twice.”
Ezra shook his head. He unfolded his legs and allowed them to stretch out ahead of him. “It’s not working,” he repeated, more firmly this time.
Kanan turned his face in Ezra’s direction. “What do you mean?” he asked.
“I’m sensing the Force, but it’s not telling me anything new. I can’t work out anything from it.”
Understanding drifted across Kanan’s expression. He frowned. “All we’re doing right now is meditating. Just a normal meditative exercise. You’re not supposed to be trying to sense your surroundings, just be aware of the Force; feel it, grow comfortable with it.”
“I’m already comfortable with it,” Ezra told him. “What I need is to use it like you do. I need to be able to use it to see.”
Kanan’s frown deepened slightly. “Ezra…”
“If we’re just doing stuff that I already know how to do, what’s the point?”
“Well, you don’t know how to do it, do you? Or you’d be able to keep your mind on the task at hand, not drift off into trying to do something completely different!”
Ezra blinked, taken aback by the forcefulness of Kanan’s tone.
“This kind of meditation strengthens your connection to the Force, it helps you experience that connection for longer periods. Right now, it’s fine to be able to feel and be aware of the Force in short bursts, when you happen to need it, but what happens when you need it all the time? Do you think it’s going to be any easier if you put this off and try to do it in a few years’ time? Or do you think you’re going to look back on this time and wish you’d done it now instead?”
“I…” Ezra shook his head.
Kanan sighed, then shook his head. He reached out and rested a hand on Ezra’s shoulder. “Sorry. It’s just, I know you were hoping to get straight to the advanced stuff, but it doesn’t work that way. You have to do the groundwork first. What would’ve happened if we’d skipped the first part of your Force training and leapt straight to the advanced techniques?”
But that wasn’t the same thing. Surely most of the groundwork had been done over the past few years of training. Kanan was stalling, and he couldn’t work out why.
“That wasn’t rhetorical, I’m genuinely asking,” Kanan told him. “What would’ve happened?”
Ezra sighed. “I guess it wouldn’t have gone so well?” He smirked. “But hey, at least it might not’ve have ended with Chopper pelting me with stuff until I fell from the ship.”
“Fine, good point. But still, you’d have assumed you couldn’t do it, you’d have gotten frustrated, and you might even have given up on the whole thing. Tell me if I’m wrong.”
Ezra resisted the urge to do just that. There was no way now to find out how he would have reacted to that, he liked to think that he would have risen to the challenge, succeeded, and been better for it, but he couldn’t help but suspect that Kanan was right, at least partially. “Well, I’m not going to give up on this, am I? It’s not like I have any choice in the matter.”
“There’s always a choice, but trust me when I tell you that this is the best way. I know you want to be able to do it all now, but if you try and you can’t, it’s going to make things worse. Pace yourself; don’t try to run before you can walk.”
Ezra sighed and closed his eyes, ready to try again. “Okay, fine,” he said. “Just don’t make me wait too long. Okay? I want to be ready before…” he tailed off. He didn’t need to say it, it wouldn't help anything, and Kanan already knew what was at stake.
“I won’t, I promise,” Kanan told him. “You know, in the meantime, while we’re working up to that, remember that the Force isn’t everything. It helps. It helps a lot, but it’s not the only tool you have.”
Ezra frowned. He opened his eyes again and looked at Kanan. He had said that before, or something similar, and Ezra wasn’t sure how much he believed it. He could remember how Kanan had been before he had fully learned how to use the Force to compensate for his blindness; he remembered the halting, hesitant steps, the uncertainty lying beneath every action. He remembered his disappearance from missions, and practically from the crew itself. For a long time, Kanan had just been… gone.
But he couldn’t say that; even if he wanted to bring it up, he didn’t think he would be able.
“Back on Lothal, there was this man,” Ezra said. He took a deep breath and resisted the urge to fidget at he spoke. “He was a beggar, a pretty good one too, he made enough to get by, I don’t think he even had to steal. Probably a good thing, too. I don’t think he’d have been very good at it. Not because he was too honest, because he was blind.”
His eyes had been cast down, looking at the ground. He dragged them up to search Kanan’s face for a reaction. He gave none. His expression remained neutral, simply listening, waiting for a conclusion to the story.
“Anyway, I guess he managed to get around alright, he lived a few minutes’ walk from where he used to sit and beg for credits. He felt his way with this wooden stick, sweeping it in front of him wherever he walked, and I guess he’d memorized the route or something. But sometimes, some of the street kids — not me, but others — they used to take some of the coins from his pot. I… don’t think he ever even realized it was happening.”
Kanan’s expression changed to a frown.
“That’s what happens without the Force, Kanan.”
“No, that’s what could happen, but did you ever stop to think that maybe he knew exactly what was happening? Maybe he had his reasons for letting them take the coins. You said he made enough to get by, maybe he didn’t mind sharing with those who didn’t.”
Ezra shook his head. “I don’t think so. He wasn’t exactly the forgiving type. One time, I saw someone spit on him, he tripped him with his stick, then got up and ‘accidentally’ stood on his knee. The other guy walked with a limp forever after that.”
Kanan smiled, clearly amused. “You’re right, it sounds like he was completely helpless without the Force.”
Ezra folded his arms. It hadn’t been like that. Well, it had, that one time. But his point still stood.
“And how about your aunt? You said she had Sacul Syndrome? Could she use the Force? How did she cope?”
“I…” he thought about it. “I never knew her before, when she could see. Or, I don’t remember if I did. But she…” She had been strong. She had worked, cooked for herself, lived independently. She had been fiercely critical of the Empire, possibly too vocal about it. He remembered her arguing with a stormtrooper once, poking him in the chest with her stick. The trooper had been so surprised that he had barely reacted. “She did okay, I guess.”
Kanan nodded. “Good. And I’m not asking you to do without the Force. I’m just telling you that it’s not the only weapon in your arsenal, there are other ways. Did I ever tell you about the time Hera took me on a tour of the Ghost?”
Ezra blinked, confused by the sudden change of topic. “Like, when you first came on board?” he asked.
“No, it was maybe three weeks after we got back from Malachor. I’d just received an official prognosis, and I was feeling… a little down.”
A little? Ezra might have smirked, if that hadn’t hit a little too close to home. Instead, he straightened up his posture slightly, and listened.
“She was trying to show me that you don’t need to see in a place you know well. Hera’s lived on this ship for years, she knows it inside and out, with her eyes closed. Literally. She led me around the ship, every room, every access panel; she pointed things out to me that I’d never even noticed before, and she did it all with her eyes closed.”
Ezra thought back to his own attempts just to get from one side of his quarters to the other, or the times when the lighting had been too low and he couldn’t see well enough in other parts of the ship. The idea of someone, even Hera, being able to do that… it might have felt believable if not for his own experiences, but knowing what he did, it sounded impossible. He chewed on his lip for a moment, trying to think how to express his doubt.
“I mean, sure, but you couldn’t see her, right? And — don’t take this the wrong way but — this was before you’d really gotten the hang of seeing with the Force, so are you sure she had her eyes closed the whole time?”
Kanan smiled.
“I’m not calling Hera a liar or anything like that, but is there any chance you… misunderstood, or… something?”
“No chance at all,” Kanan assured him.
Ezra shrugged. He had tried closing his eyes and walking around before, even outside of his quarters, when he knew there was nobody nearby to ask what he was doing; the furthest he had managed was twenty-two steps, he had counted each one, biting his bottom lip hand reaching out ahead of him, fighting with himself not to give into the temptation to open his eyes just a crack and check his position. “Well, that’s Hera,” he said. “I guess she knows this ship pretty well.”
“You might be surprised at how well you know it too,” Kanan told him.
Ezra licked his lips. “It sounds more like you might be surprised at how well I don’t,” he said.
Kanan shook his head. He clasped Ezra quickly on the shoulder and smiled a little ruefully. “There’s a chance I might have told Hera the same thing,” he said. “You’ll get the hang of it. I did.”
He didn't want to get the hang of it. He didn’t want to need to get the hang of it. He wanted to be able to see.
He wondered how many times Kanan had had that exact thought, and he decided not to say it. What would be the point? Instead he took a deep breath and sat up a little straighter, readying himself. “Okay, so meditation…”
Kanan nodded, but hesitated before he got himself back into his usual pose. “I’ll ask Hera if she can do the same thing for you, it might help. Ot at the very least it might convince you that it really happened.”
Ezra thought about it. He didn’t know how helpful it would be to watch a person that could see perfectly well demonstrate how they didn’t need to. On the other hand, it might be interesting. He shrugged, and closed his eyes, ready to meditate. “Whatever.”
“Whatever?” Kanan said, sounding amused.
Ezra didn’t open his eyes. “Do you mind, Kanan?” he said with a smirk. “I’m trying to meditate here.”