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Post by Vidalu Na'an on Nov 13, 2016 17:30:40 GMT -8
"I wish I could. Really, I do." She was saying anything that came to her head now, looking for some way out of what her teacher clearly intended to do. This wasn't what Rutil was supposed to be. But the curse she had half-jokingly talked about with Leigh and Adelle seemed to be real, and total, and not even the old Zabrak was immune. "But listen to yourself! 'Peace is a lie'? You know what you sound like?"
Her left hand slid into her pocket, gripping at her own shoto this time. She could draw and ignite the blade in less than a second if she had to--even less, if she reversed the order. Her pants weren't worth her life when fighting Rutil Iorek.
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Post by Vidalu Na'an on Nov 13, 2016 17:02:01 GMT -8
"I'm choosing my oath. I'm choosing not to let the past dictate my future. Only the Force can do that."
Na'an braced herself. She had had three days to prepare herself for this possibility: that the last friend from her youth, the final person who had known the child Vidalu Na'an, her teacher and her goal and her beloved Sir, had gone somehow horribly wrong. She could feel the storm far more clearly than the guards could, a gathering of energy that smelt sharply of ozone, and knew all over again that she had never seen the full force of what Rutil Iorek could do. How much worse would this be, than she had ever been able to prepare herself for? "You don't have to make me do this," she pleaded, aware for the first time that her voice sound high and thin--a little girl against a titan. "He can face his justice properly. Just let me take him to the Masters, let him stand trial."
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Post by Vidalu Na'an on Nov 13, 2016 16:47:44 GMT -8
"Tactile contact is fundamental to a healthy human psychological state," Leigh responded. "It is often the last remaining mode of expression to your species, when you are overwhelmed or lack other mediums of communication." She looked out into the hall, making sure that Na'an was long gone, then returned to Adelle with a smile that held something like mischief. "If someone like her...hugs... someone, it is because she feels that she both can, and that she needs to. Beyond that, I cannot say."
If her shoulders could move in that direction, she would have shrugged.
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Post by Vidalu Na'an on Nov 13, 2016 16:38:21 GMT -8
Leigh did not know where this was going either. Na'an never spoke of Master Tyrono Parr--ever. The fact that the man existed, and that he had been Na'an's true Master when becoming a Padawan, were only known to the droid because the Jedi kept surprisingly good records. Whatever Parr had been then, he was sacred territory now. No stories, no fond reminiscing, only a sense that there was something in that gap of time that could never be discussed, but somehow meant everything.
Na'an did not seem to notice the change in the room; her eye had taken on a strange, dreamy quality. "Yeah," she said, her grip on the saber becoming more firm. "It was one of his favorites. Kenobi and Skywalker's daring adventure in the battle over Coruscant. He loved telling me about how they defeated the Separatists single-handed and brought down their flagship, all on their own. He'd go through all the details, make sound effects and everything. Until he got to Dooku." She drew the saber gently from her teacher's hand, looking over it with an abstracted expression. "He was always so serious when describing that fight, how it ended. Anakin Skywalker with his enemy at his feet. The choice to capture him for the Council's justice, or just dispense the justice himself, quick and easy. Master Parr always said it must have been such a hard choice--all the pain the Count had caused, he deserved to die, right? Any Jedi who feels for the weak would have such anger, wanting revenge would be easy. Except that was the decision the Emperor wanted. And Dooku was helpless. A prisoner."
She stepped back from Rutil, standing between him and Aherk with her teacher's saber in her hand. Everything about her sharpened somehow, as she spoke her last few words. "He always said that that choice, right then, was when Vader was really born."
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Post by Vidalu Na'an on Nov 13, 2016 16:08:10 GMT -8
His lightsaber.
Na'an stared at it, her expression not shifting an inch as she stood. Her fingers trailed away from Aherk's face and rose almost to the worn, battered hilt her teacher held out to her. That hilt, every scuff and every scar, was just as symbolic of the man as the man had been of her youngling self's ambitions: strength and beauty and utter, perfect functionality, the sword that served as a shield to many. He was offering it to her now, to do one very specific task, and then he would take her on--not as an apprentice, but as an equal, any bit as good as any Jedi he had known.
One very specific task. One she had tried to do before, under very different circumstances.
Her fingertips ran over the durasteel the same way they had run over the face of the man at her knees, almost caressing a scratch she did not recognize. Then she wrapped her hand around it fully. "You know, sir," she said, her voice still quiet but oddly clear. "Master Parr told me a story a little like this once. It was so long ago...I'd nearly forgotten."
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Post by Vidalu Na'an on Nov 13, 2016 15:45:18 GMT -8
Leigh had moved aside to let Na'an out of the room; she smirked from the corner now, only milliseconds from real laughter. You are the one who insisted on removing the doctor-patient barrier, Ms. Bastiel," she said smugly. " But I would not worry. Given enough time, she is not that difficult to understand from this angle."
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Post by Vidalu Na'an on Nov 13, 2016 15:39:57 GMT -8
Leigh had been by the door when the guards had dragged a scruffy, half-dead man in through the main doors. If she had not known that it was Aherk in advance, she would have needed processing time to recognize him; even now, the state of her mother's master triggered a sort of instinctual horror. The man was just this side of a corpse, his broad figure having seemingly shrunk from injury and neglect. All of his coloring had been somehow muddied, from the sharp black of his hair to the blue eyes everyone who knew him, friend or enemy, seemed to linger over--all the colors except the sick purple-black veining outwards from his chest. Aherk was sick--perhaps deathly so, and had gotten so seemingly under Na'an's teacher and friend.
This was not right. This was wrong to the Nth degree, and if Leigh had been organic it would have only taken .083 seconds for her to break her composure and act. But Na'an...
Na'an had gone very still at the sight of the man. For a minute, she seemed almost not to breathe, and in that breathless silent stillness Leigh saw the Na'an she only saw rarely--someone turned inwards towards thoughts even she did not understand. When she moved, it was slow and dreamlike, a even pace until she was standing only inches from Aherk Formidonis. She kneeled in one fluid motion and reached for his face gently, tilting his chin up with two fingers until his eyes met her own.
"Leigh, get Doc," she said quietly--almost, but not quite an order, not looking up from him. Leigh did not nod, but immediately turned her auditory circuits inwards.
Ms. Bastiel, we have sight of the target. In need of your expertise.
Her friend did not speak again for a long moment. She just looked at the man before her, his head almost in her hand, her eye glancing over him as if trying to find something that should have been there, but was not. Perhaps it was anger--or terror--or even just something as simple to an answer to a question still unasked. There was a brief flicker of all those things, flitting across her expression in the space of milliseconds, but they all, in turn, faded. She breathed in, one slow measured intake of air, and Leigh wondered absurdly if she tasted smoke on her tongue this time as well. "Sir, this..." At last she looked up, first at Leigh and then at Rutil. Something in her expression finally, to some degree, gave Leigh some assurance. "Sir, what is this? Why are you keeping him like this, this is sick."
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Post by Vidalu Na'an on Nov 12, 2016 18:30:30 GMT -8
"So you do have him." If anything, Na'an looked a little wounded. Her arms uncrossed, hovering warily at her side as she shot a glance towards the door. There was nobody coming in yet, but they would have to pass by Leigh to reach her and Rutil. "...Why do you have him?"
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Post by Vidalu Na'an on Nov 12, 2016 7:23:38 GMT -8
Leigh listened to the robed Zabrak speak with no small amount of alarm. She had rarely met Rutil Iorek in person, but over the years Na'an had spoken enough of him that she knew the sheer influence he had had on her. There were only two others in her partner's sparse history that figured more largely in her mind--and the other two, she almost never spoke of. He was a brilliant warrior, an admired teacher, a leader among the Jedi despite his distaste for rank (which seemed, now, to have been forgotten). His words sounded noble; his cause benevolent. He had followers--Leigh had seen several on their way to this room, men and women and beings from multiple other worlds. His appeal to the common man's peril would appeal to her just as well, as a woman who saw no place for herself in the Jedi Order but wished to do some good. Would she ignore her worries and follow this man without getting more answers? Would she find his appeal worth the risk? And what would Leigh do if she did?
Na'an had bent her head, as if to think over her teacher's offer without the force of his eyes on hers. Her arms had crossed over her chest, making her look even smaller than usual, and her hands were flat against her chest. She bit her lip once--twice, and once she almost half-turned as if to look at Leigh for help. "I am...grateful," she finally said. "And I am at the galaxy's service. But I would like to make one small request first...sir."
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Post by Vidalu Na'an on Nov 12, 2016 6:51:39 GMT -8
Na'an didn't respond at first; just looked at the hand in hers with the same painful, helpless expression. Then she lurched forward again--not to shake Adelle's hand, but to wrap her arms around the Healer, pinning her arms to her side in a hard embrace. She buried her face in Adelle's shoulder, suddenly awash in a sweet, spicy smell like Corellian whiskey. The embrace lasted only a couple of seconds, not nearly long enough for Adelle to wiggle loose or return it, and then Na'an was backing off, turning back towards the door with a red face and a quiet mutter about going to the storage hold to check on her gun. From the corner, Leigh watched with an utter lack of surprise. Adelle was a good person. She knew Adelle was a good person, by any metric, and Na'an would know the same. Na'an would agree to this, in time, if only because they had no other choice. However, once they were alone, she had a feeling she and her partner would still be discussing protective contingencies.
They were walking into a situation where any uninvited guests could be considered expendable. It would be their job to make sure that Adelle was not.
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Post by Vidalu Na'an on Nov 2, 2016 19:00:38 GMT -8
Na'an nearly quailed at his gaze. Rutil Iorek had never taken an apprentice--ever. Every youngling at the academy that tried, including Na'an, had failed to impress him, and even Caoimhin's tutelage was more about his conversion than his education. He had been the golden ideal when she was small and dreaming of Padawanship: the invincible warrior that could never be beaten and had never been claimed. Yet here he was, holding it out practically within Na'an's grasp. The promise of a proper Jedi life, under a Master who knew her as well as her first ever had.
What in blazes was going on?
Rutil had not answered any questions. He had not explained his presence on Yavin, or at this temple, or the fact that he clearly was not here alone. There wasn't even an accounting for the dim yet unmistakable scent of smoke on the air. He had just brought her into the Audience Chamber and started talking about ideals, trying to get her to agree to...something.
She steadied herself, with some effort, and managed not to break eye contact. "Then tell me," she returned, her voice surprisingly calm, "what you want me to do."
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Post by Vidalu Na'an on Oct 31, 2016 20:01:09 GMT -8
Na'an had been too distracted by Leigh to react until Adelle was already up. Then there was no escaping it: Adelle had her by the face, using the Force in her voice in a completely unexpected move. Na'an froze like a rabbit in the grip of a fox, eyes locked on her face with a sudden helpless look. " Na'an." She tinged the name with the Force to grab Na'an's full attention. The steel grey iris met hers. "I chose to follow. I am here as support only." She released Na'an's face and stepped back to allow the woman some room. "You've had a bad feeling about this for a while. I'm coming to make sure you survive. Unless you have a complete and sterilized set of field surgery equipment." Na'an's frozen state held for just a little longer after Adelle let go. Then she blinked rapidly, and lurched forward for her hands. The healer's palms had been warm against her face, and were warmer still encased in hers, like the air around a candle in the dark. "...Don't be so good to me at your expense," she finally said, quietly. As she spoke, she couldn't meet Adelle's eye again, instead focusing on their hands. "And if you're going to follow me, don't do it uninformed. Too many people have died, or had their lives gone to shit, just for being around me."She stepped back and took a deep, breath. "Rutil and Aherk," she said again. "Neither of them should be there. Both of them are. And something's got Aherk in a bad way. Which means we could be walking into anything...and the only one they asked for was me."
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Post by Vidalu Na'an on Oct 31, 2016 12:10:41 GMT -8
Na'an's flush was barely visible through the sunset light. Even when she was little, even when she sought it, Rutil Iorek's direct attention was an intimidating prospect. The fact that he was giving it...complimenting her...only added to the strangeness of the moment, and her moment of defiance seemed to wilt under this change. "I...my choices don't inspire confidence, sir. I'm not what I was supposed to be."
Far behind them, Leigh almost lurched into motion, the processors for her camera kicking into high gear. The name of Raan Jade had demanded her attention; this new, submissive attitude her friend was taking had her mildly alarmed.
"And I don't know what it is you think I can do."
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Post by Vidalu Na'an on Oct 31, 2016 11:47:30 GMT -8
Na'an, inexplicably enough, bristled. "At least Raan Jade has actual power. He's a Senator, and his planet's been safe and happy for nearly a decade. Whatever you want me to do for you, I'm sure he'd be more useful--I never even passed my trials!"
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Post by Vidalu Na'an on Oct 31, 2016 11:01:34 GMT -8
"That's.."
Na'an looked again at Rutil, and this time, she did not turn away. Rather, she craned her neck upwards to get a good look at her teacher under his hood, as if really seeing him for the first time. On the surface, the old Zabrak was virtually unchanged from when she was a child--the craggy, weathered lines of his face, the taciturn expression, even that broken horn poking out from his forehead was the same. He was like the room around them personified, a bubble of the past kept strangely, disquietingly intact. Only...there was the smell of smoke clinging to her skin. Only his expression was distant, as if looking for something very far away that only he could see. What he was saying was good. It was correct. It wasn't hard to agree with it--the Sith were strong in the Galaxy, and their presence seemed to taint even those not directly touched. Na'an was not nearly the genius Leigh was, but she wasn't stupid. Bandits on Dantooine, more every year. Rage-filled teenagers, wandering the streets of urban worlds. News on the Holonet of the Senate dissolving at the hands of a child, leaving little more than puppets. And the kind of galaxy that could take her friends from her, then return them revealed as cold-hearted gangsters and killers...
Rutil was right.
But still.
"That's something I can admire, sir," she said finally. There's a lot of evil out there. But I'm not sure you've chosen the right person for such a task." She took a step back from the window, her arms crossed in front of her body now. "You know my record is far from clean."
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Post by Vidalu Na'an on Oct 30, 2016 20:14:25 GMT -8
"Felucia?" Na'an shot Rutil a look of surprise before responding. "Felucia is as peaceful as I remember. Lots of new arrivals lately, but no real trouble. I caused a bit of trouble, but they've been...very understanding."
They'd reached the windows, which were half-open to let the red-gold sunset light in. Na'an reached out idly to touch the slats; her fingers came away gritty with dust. However long Rutil had been here, whatever he was doing, it certainly wasn't any kind of cleaning she knew of. What was her teacher getting at, then? He should know all about Felucia; she had seen him there the day she'd arrived. If there was any news from the Felucian Jedi to be had, wouldn't he already have it? The air seemed to thicken from all the unanswered questions, hanging between them like smoke from a cigar. As Na'an breathed in, she could almost imagine she could smell them there...
But no. Na'an knew that smell all too well.
"Sir, I'm confused. Your message made it sound like you were in trouble, yet here you are, hiding in a ruin, quizzing me about Felucia and asking me to clean some kind of mess. I'm afraid you're going to have to explain things to me for once."
As she spoke, Leigh's booming footfalls could be heard. The droid entered the hall, but hovered by the door to listen to the uninterrupted conversation. Before exiting hyperspace, they'd established that she keep her participation minimal until absolutely necessary. In a game with too many unknowns, on a planet where not even she could get a clear read of the situation she and Na'an needed a trump card or two in their corner--just in case. Until she was needed, she would play the dumb robot, stand back, and watch her friend and her teacher dance around their words, framed in the increasingly scarlet light.
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Post by Vidalu Na'an on Oct 30, 2016 19:36:27 GMT -8
Sounds echoed easily in the Grand Audience Chamber of Yavin's Praxeum. Na'an had seen the place once or twice as a child, and every time the scope of the room had sent her young mind into a frenzy of imagination. The tall ceilings, the huge slitted windows letting in the sun, the elegant chairs and tapestries, the bright clean lines that seemed to evoke everything pure and noble the Jedi had ever meant and would ever mean...but it had always been the sound of the room that excited her most. Voices, footfalls, the wind through the windows, all of them multiplied in the vast empty space until it no longer felt empty, but as full of people as it had been years before her. Those sounds, they had made it so easy for a youngling like Na'an to imagine the noise and glory of events like when Skywalker himself had been here, in the days of the Rebellion--and to imagine herself there with him, fighting for the Light as a hero of the galaxy.
The sounds echoed so easily then. That had not changed. The room had been emptied of the chairs and tapestries, the bright clean lines had muddied over with time and disuse, but the echoes--her boots on the marble as she walked in with Rutil, the sound of her breath in the air--those remained.
The effect was...unsettling.
"If you called me here to help you restore this place," she said, half-laughing for some absurd reason, "you've made a terrible choice, sir. I don't think this place has even seen a cleaning crew in almost five years."
She shifted the strap of her rifle as she waited for her teacher's response, as if already knowing the joke wouldn't take.
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Post by Vidalu Na'an on Oct 30, 2016 19:15:33 GMT -8
"The...audience chamber."
Her hand free, Na'an rested her arm uneasily against the bulge at her hip. Bothering with the audience chamber was unusual for Rutil Iorek, to say the least; he and Na'an had never had such ceremony between them. She looked back to Leigh, who shrugged in an oddly sympathetic gesture and gestured to the captain to indicate that 'for his own safety' was probably a phrase to pay attention to.
"...Okay," she finally responded. "Yeah, let's go. I think I still know the way."
Without waiting for the others to point the way, she strode through the hangar and vanished into the hallways of the once-abandoned Praxeum. Leigh followed a few yards behind her, the click-clickof the human's boots quickly masked by the thump of her feet against the stones. If the others wished to disregard the warnings the hooded Zabrak had given, the sounds provided an easy enough path to follow.
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Post by Vidalu Na'an on Oct 30, 2016 18:03:10 GMT -8
"There will be no need for that, captain."
The voice behind the Zabrak was low, and feminine, and quite pretty. As it spoke, its owner came into view--a droid with a custom-made chassis, humanoid save for a few outstanding details. One of those details was the dome that served as the droid's head, which shone dully as it came into contact with the light of Yavin's sun. The other was cannon that, for whatever reason, had been installed in place of a second arm. The droid was only somewhat larger than the ship's captain, but she seemed to loom behind him like a giant, casting a dark shadow behind her into the ship.
"From what I have been told," she said smoothly, "Our host is not the kind of man to perform tricks on demand." She turned to the hooded figure below them in the hangar; the dome remained blank and expressionless, but something in that blankness read of caution rather than disrespect. "That is, if this is indeed our host. Na'an?"
From behind the droid, another of the ship's passengers stepped into the light. Much smaller than the droid, and even shorter than the captain, the young woman was compact, sharp-featured, and dressed simply in leathers. To the untrained eye, she seemed oddly delicate due to her size...until the light fell on the rifle strapped to her back. The trained eye, however, focused first on the hard lines of her mouth, or the bulge at her hip, or the scarring still visible at the edges of the patch over her left eye. She stopped at the droid's side, resting her hand on her hip as her good eye--large and slate-grey, and ringed with dark lashes--lasered in on the figure who had greeted them. She hesitated, but only for a moment. Then she shouldered her way past the droid, and offered her arm in greeting.
"Sir. You called for me."
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Post by Vidalu Na'an on Oct 30, 2016 17:23:38 GMT -8
Na'an staggered as Adelle latched onto her fist and locked her arm, losing her leverage. Her knees hit the steel hard, and she could feel the skin on one split and start to bleed a little, but for the moment there was no pain. She still had an arm free, and she used it to latch onto Adelle's nearest foot, yanking it out in front of her to pull Adelle down too. Almost immediately she could feel her arm break loose of the lock, letting her use it to push back to her feet.
"It's not just that he's there that's the problem!" she said, breathing hard. "It's that he's there, and he's hurt, badly. And he's there with Rutil. They're together, I'm sure of it, and neither of us can figure out how any of that fits."
She cocked her foot back for a kick, but did not release it; her arms came up in front of her again in the defensive position. "Don't tell me you'd drag someone you cared about into that mess willingly!"
Leigh had been silent from the moment they entered the bunks, preferring to watch the scene as it unfolded, but Na'an was being unfair. "No one is dragging anyone into anything. She chose to get on this ship, same as you and I did."
She didn't expect Na'an to round on her in response. "That's not the same and you know it!" she said heatedly. "Is it just too goddamn much for me to want to keep one thing sacred? Rutil's the last one left, and I'm just supposed to throw Adelle in after him?"
"That is not what I mean."
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