Tatooine

[Darth Nyrys]

The sudden lecturing of the twins would have made Ailbasí jump, but ironically she was too tired to do much more than turn her head and listen. They wanted her to connect to the Force and it made her happy that Sheog had given her the training wheels version back when they had first arrived at Onderon, otherwise she wouldn’t even know where to begin. She tried to relax into some form of meditation like you always see spiritualists talk about on the holonet, but that only invited more fatigue. Feeling herself start to drift off further, instead she focused on the things keeping her awake. The nausea from all of the meds. The burning sensation in her eyes. The fear of what would happen if she fell asleep in front of the twins.

 

All color except for red drained from the world around her, and voices and the humming of ship machinery were replaced by howling and screaming from throats that had no physical counterpart. Drifting somewhere outside her body in the currents of the ether, Ailbasí saw small clusters of dim motes of light across the planet. For the first time though, she saw the fuel behind the lights, untapped potential squandered by mediocre minds.

 

From dust to dust they achieve NOTHING! Claim what you deserve from those that rot in the caged torpor of their lesser minds.

 

The bonds of sanity and rationality slipped, and the world became a blur.

 

--Two months later--

 

A rough and burning fit of parched coughing brought the world back into focus from shades of red and black, replacing it with dull white and howling tans and browns whipping across Ailbasí’s face. She tried to suck in a breath of sweet air, but she ended up with more sand in her mouth than anything else. Spitting out the clumped particles, she brought up the sleeve of her tunic to her mouth and used it as a filter, finally finding the air that her lungs were in searing pain without. Taking several deep gasping breaths, Ailbasí started to try and make sense of where she was and what had happened to her.

 

The howling of what she now realized to be a sandstorm was dying down now, revealing her surroundings. It was some sort of hab unit, a quarter submerged in sand that the viewport glass failed to keep out. Had she fallen asleep and been left to die by the twins? She certainly didn’t feel tired anymore. She pulled herself up out of the sand that had partially submerged her while she was prostrate and began to move around. There was no more agony in her limbs, but at the same time she didn’t feel the chemical warmth and drowsiness of pain meds.

 

Ailbasí tried to call out, someone must have taken her inside from the sandstorm. Her pleas were met with empty silence at first, but then from somewhere else in the hab unit she heard a dry and throaty voice, someone else calling for help. She gingerly made her way through the remains of the building, calling out to the other person and hearing them call back. They finally crossed paths in a hallway connecting multiple hab units. Black smears of fluid splattered some of the wall panels and at low points in the sand’s accumulation she could see parts of bodies protruding upward. In the dim flickering light of the hallway, Ailbasí could see a teenage girl moving towards her in an awkward shuffle, perhaps in some stage of shock?

 

“Do you know what happened?”

 

Not looking back directly at her, the girl responded with a fragmented repetition of what Ailbasí had said, coming out as “Do… you… happened?” Ailbasí grabbed her wrist firmly to try and snap the girl out of it, but the skin, sinew, and bone flaked and crumbled into dust under her touch. Ailbasí screamed, and the thing that she had thought was a girl screamed too, before exploding in a wave of particulates. Ailbasí vomited, and what came up was bloody and smelled like raw flesh. She charged into a hab unit in search of a refresher, and found a dessicated huddle of corpses on a bed. Behind them on the wall rending cracks like a claw writing in the stone spelled out words.

 

This is who you are.

 

“I don’t want this!”

 

You will...

[Darth Nyrys]

The moment was interrupted when an armored man entered the room, his hand already on the hilt of his sword. A moment of panic coursed through Ailbasí before it dawned on her that she recognized the man from earlier on the Marie. He had been a representative of the Onderonian nobility during the meeting… Maybe he had been sent to find her? If Gypht had kept her actions a separate consideration from her master’s, maybe he had sent someone to look after her? But here she was, waist deep in corpses of people that she didn’t remember killing, but somehow knew she had. Something beyond her ability to control had derailed her life, but if she kept running from it things would only continue to spiral further out of control. It was time to find her footing and learn how to take the reins of this strangeness. She couldn’t claim that she wanted this yet, but she definitely needed it.

 

“Did something happen? I passed out and woke up here, and everyone was dead. We were on the Marie together earlier today… or yesterday, I don’t know how long I was out.”

 

Ailbasí checked her comm in an attempt to orient her sense of time only to find it out of charge. She placed it on a nearby wireless charge pad that still gave a green glow of functionality, and was shocked when she saw the date. Once the device restored service, it also mentioned that she had missed over three thousand messages and calls.

She quick tapped out messages to her ship’s pilot, her bodyguard (who apparently was already enroute and deserved a bonus), and the Sith, to let them know that she was still alive. She was pretty sure that the man wasn’t here to kill her, since he hadn’t yet, but he was still an unknown variable. A sound from out of sight but not as distant as she would have liked echoed through the room, barging in on her thoughts.

 

“...That’s not a good sound.”

[Darth Nyrys]

"I... I don't remember, but at the same time I know that it was me that killed them. I think I was in a trance state, and my subconscious and the Force were doing whatever was necessary to keep me alive. Otherwise without my medication I wouldn't even be able to stand right now."

 

Receding a moment into her thoughts, Ailbasí rummaged through her memories on the pre-invasion briefing data on Tatooine. There were two primary predators on Tatooine in this locale able to make so much noise, sand demons and krayt dragons. However, sand demons were pack hunters and this sounded like a solitary bellow. Stealing a glance through a broken window, she saw the creature stalking closer, a subspecies of krayt dragon called a canyon krayt dragon.

 

"Good news, it's only the 30 meter long murder machine."

[Darth Nyrys]

Already nose deep in her newly recharged comm, Ailbasí was reading an article on Krayt dragons and their anatomy and physiology.

 

"If we leave the building we're just exposing ourselves to it, and according this, it's faster than us. However, apparently it has a weak spot, a soft nasal cavity that leads to the brain. See, there's even a diagram picture thing."

 

The hapless Sith apprentice held up her comm to show the hunter.

 

"I can distract it while you line up the shot... I think anyway. If I'm wrong its not like I'll be around for you to yell at me though."

 

It was like sticking her hand into a roaring river. Before she had jumped in without holding back, and had been swept away in the current as a result, but this time she needed some measure of control. Whatever she had done while trapped in that irresistible sweeping force still lingered to some degree on the bodies, waiting to be tapped into. She didn't understand yet, but the fear of death made her willing to gamble on guesswork and instinct. Earlier when she had been calling out, the corpse of that girl had been calling out too, mimicking her actions. Ailbasí plunged her hand into those dark waters, and immediately was nearly carried away by the freezing pull of their embrace.

 

Digging her claws into her palm made a beacon of pain to tie her to riverbank of consciousness. The depths pulled, pleaded, demanded, and whispered seductively to her as she fought to stay in the here and now. Through the pain she managed to avoid sinking back into the waves, and instead steadied herself against the pull so that she could focus. Gossamer strands of ephemera, just like what had connected her to Sheog, and then the officer on Onderon, now drifted on ethereal winds throughout the building, each tendril leading to a dead body. She could feel their fragility through the binding, they were consumed shells no more resilient than a flaky puff pastry, but she only needed them to distract, not to fight.

 

"Get up!" she cried out, and the dead obeyed her order in a disjointed and awkward stumble to their feet. "Run out there and circle the beast!"

 

Ailbasí kept her orders simple and direct, not having any concept of where the boundaries were for what she could do. Some of the corpses didn't even making it outside of the building before their crumbling sprawl was terminated in the dusty explosion of a desiccated husk. Those that did make it outside began harrying the krayt dragon in a way that made its movements predictable for the hunter. With each swipe of a claw or lash of its tail she lost more puppets though.

 

"If you're going to do something do it now, hunter!"

 

Somewhere in the back of her head she felt a voice from the river, beckoning to her. She let it know that she would join it after the threat was gone.

[Darth Nyrys]

Where before there had been the sound and fury of nature personified, now lay a wounded and fading beast. It had taken a few drunken and confused steps before collapsing heavily on the ground and rolling on its side. It tried to breathe but the blood in the nasal cavity turned the action into gurgling, wet snorting noises that offered no comfort. Finishing it off would be a kindness.

 

“I don’t have any answers for you about the restless dead, at least not any that will provide any form of satisfaction. I barely understand what’s going on myself. What’s important though is that we aren’t among their number.”

 

Ailbasí tentatively approached the dying the krayt dragon’s spine. She knew better than to think that just because the beast was almost dead that there was no danger from its mouth and claws. The depths of the dark river called out for her to feed on the pain, but another presence urged her to bear witness to its passing. Unlike the river, this presence was focused to razor edged sharpness. It radiated calmness but not of the benevolent sort, rather a clinical detachment permeated with a familiar idle curiosity.

 

“Who are you?”

You aren’t ready for that yet. You need to understand that you don’t need to blame yourself. Then you will know me.

 

“Blame myself? Did I kill you?”

 

No, you didn’t kill me, but I really need you to understand that it isn’t your fault.

 

“Oh Pfassk you, Yoda. Aren’t you just a fething fount of knowledge.”

 

Language, and I am a goddamn treasure.

 

“So was that you in the hab block, and earlier at the house on Onderon. Why are you following me?”

 

That was actually your instinctive subconscious. We all just sound the same because you’re new to using this sense and can’t differentiate tone yet, although to be fair you knew I was separate from the rest of the darkness. In time you will come to understand a great deal more.

 

“So it won’t always be terrifying and full of surprises all of the time?

The Force will never stop being a great and terrible cosmic energy, but you’re strong enough to saddle that cosmic energy and ride it to wherever you want to go. At least for a time.

 

“And what if I don’t want that?”

 

Nobody misconstrued or lied about what you were getting into, and you always could have said no. Don’t act like you didn’t know what was coming, or that you didn’t already make a choice. You’re not a child anymore.

 

“Then why do I still feel like one?”

Because that’s what becoming an adult is, the realization of how unprepared you are for life, while simultaneously losing all of your safety nets. Transition isn’t easy, even with help. Speaking of, are you going to do something about the giant dying murder lizard next to you?

 

“I don’t know what to do, I mean, I’m not exactly packing heat here.”

Forge a bond with it. All sentient things fear impermanence, be its final witness. When it has said its piece, push it over the edge into oblivion.

 

Ailbasí reached out with her hand and her sense of self gingerly to the krayt dragon. At first it roared at her on a metaphysical level so loudly that her hand recoiled instinctively and her soul reverberated, but she pressed forward and secured the link. It was different than connecting to a person, more honest and with a distinct lack of shame. Thoughts, memories, and instincts began flowing into her mind like sand through the center aperture of an hourglass. The transition converted mass to energy, and for several seconds Tatooine had a third sun. When the light subsided all that remained were bones and five crimson dragon pearls.

 

“Soooo, is this where I discover that I’m some sacred protector of the desert and I use my connection to krayt dragons to avenge the wronged?”

 

…

 

…

 

… You read too many comic books. Keep the pearls, you will need them, but split the eggs with your two protectors. Always reward those that prove to be both capable and loyal. Do not go with them however, a tutor specific to your needs is coming here to further your studies.

 

Ailbasí nodded, collected the dragon pearls, and walked back over to Parangor to catch him up.

 

“It was a mother krayt dragon looking to stockpile food for its unhatched young. The nest is in a cave over that ridge about a quarter of a kilometer. I’m sending you bodyguard’s contact details, he’ll meet you there and together you can take the three eggs to Black Sun for the bounty, which will be split between the three of us, one million each. Thank you for protecting me, good hunter, but our paths diverge for now.”

[Darth Nyrys]

The world throbbed with the silent calls of the past to be remembered. The landscape turned spectral green with the memories of verdant plains of grass that once covered the planet. Through forgotten trees the young woman looked up and saw carrion creatures circling something in the distance. She set out through the phantasmal landscape to find the path the voice spoke of.

 

She came to the edge of a pool of long lost water, and found herself drawn to its depths. Phantom fish swum by her head as she tread along the pool's floor towards... her own memories... the sounds of rushing water... screams coming from a familiar face... She stumbled back but the floor of the pool gave way under the disturbance and left her tumbling into into darkness as the world swallowed her whole.

[Darth Nyrys]

The sinkhole had dropped Ailbasí into a maze of natural tunnels, an underground network that resonated heavily with still and forgotten energies. A lethargic darkness threatened to overwhelm her and swallow her whole as the tunnels filled with the faceless forms of the ancient dead. Called by a power that she could not control, driven by fear and beyond counting in number, they would be upon her soon and overwhelm her.

 

“I’m not ready for this, not yet. But when I am, I will return.”

 

Ailbasí climbed out of the earthen tomb and made her way to a clear landing spot. From there, she hailed her ship and it wasn’t long before she was on her way to Korriban, no longer content to have her training be left to a string of unreliable encounters. It was time to take her fate into her own hands. There was a sense of trepidation in the crew when she boarded, but a fake smile gave them a false assurance that everything was fine. With the coordinates locked in, she excused herself to go take a much needed shower and sleep for what she hoped was an amount of time measured in days.