Sometimes love is blind faith, standing hand in hand above a ravine and imagining freefall, buoyed up by the wind until you’re hurtling toward the sun, and wondering who will catch you if both of you are falling.
But sometimes love is the quiet comfort of knowing how to navigate the fluorescent aisles of your favorite corner store, certain as the sunrise that when you turn the corner, what you need will be waiting for you.
Chapter wordcount:1.3K Rating:Mature Warning: MIB’s POV again. And Lawrence being Lawrence……. just as hard.
Author’s notes: Aaand now let’s shuffle the deck again. And raise.
Ask box always open! I really want to know what you think about this story!
— Chapter 47
The scraping of hooves on the pebbles, the growing unison or restless horses… Those nags were abnormally loud, this morning. In spite of his sense of alert, it still was only the cocking sound of guns that pulled William out of his sleep for good; in front of him was standing a row of hosts, on foot and riding — masked, other naked, a few gunslingers — and he bolted upright, back against his saddle in the face of a colt aimed right at his forehead, his hand reaching for his own weapon beside him. But it wasn’t there anymore.
“Don’t even bother to try…”
William knew that voice very well, and all the polite hatred aimed at him he could hear in it.
“Ah, Teddy…” He sighed, almost as put out as he was amused, but he raised his hands. “Are we going to do this again?”
He scoffed before adding, cocky:
“You’refree enough to kill me, this time?”
In fact, he was actually a little scared at the moment; his plan of attack was completely fucked, now! The outcome would still be real, on top of pretty ironic, but if William still had a choice, he would have preferred to fight Dolores. Not her watchdog. By the way, where was his own now — would one of those have gotten a sledge or a cleaver to him, too?!
He shot a brief glance at the row of hosts that was closing as a half-circle around him, but there was no trace of Lawrence.
“Right now, you’re coming with us.” Teddy carried on, ignoring his taunt. “Get up!”
As he was invited to — and planning to, anyway — William stood up, in no hurry. He looked all around; one of the bandits on horseback was holding Teddy’s by the reins, a little farther behind those masked hosts. One of them was tightening and loosening his fist on the handle of a cutlass, visibly eager to slash it across his face.
“Why would I come with you?” William wondered, readjusting his jacket and vest. “I’m perfectly fine on my own.”
And,on his own, he surely was since Lawrence had disappeared, or got killed — killed for having been the one watching over him, if what he had brought up the previous night was to be believed. In that moment, William regretted not to have been a bit more curious then.
“For the same reason you are following us,” Teddy replied, without lowering his gun.
“I thought you didn’t want to kill me!” William laughed.
It was a bit of an admittance of his intentions, but it was also a nice opportunity to test Teddy’s limits. The latter, for now, had a little more in his eyes than that sulky, harmless anger William knew him. And that, since Ford had tickled his code, or whatever it was he’d done that night, back in Rattlecreek.
Now, if he had understood and felt threatened by the answer, Teddy didn’t flinch, jaw clenched, and gestured him to move with the barrel of his gun. The row of hosts split like a guard of honor and then, William felt a burst of frustration when his eyes landed on Lawrence, a good two yards right in front of him, unscathed and weapon in his holster, tying the horses to the horn of his saddle.
Motherfucker… William internally grumbled. And this same motherfucker turned to him, relaxed and with a cocky smile which made his seethe.
“What the… What did you do, you dipshit?!”
“What does it look like?” Lawrence retorted.
William scoffed; it looked like a furious urge to unload his gun in his guts! He slowly shook his head.
“Didn’t you want to catch up on that girl, Dolores?” He faked his surprise. “I made certain you did! They can bring you to her.”
Jutting his chin and with a smartass smile, he pointed at Teddy behind him.
“So, I found a way to arrange a meetin’.”
“You ungrateful bastard…” William grumbled, shaken by a repressed laugh. “What about the girl you wanted to protect by ending all this?”
Lawrence came forth, letting the reins fall to the ground.
“Ain’t she safe where she is, now?”
The sarcasm felt a bit irritating to William.
“Did she program you from up there to… turn on me, and run back to her?” he then retorted on the same tone. “I thought you were free of your choices…”
But Lawrence brushed his taunt off with a nod and a lopsided smile.
“No, she didn’t do anythin’…”
He stepped forward a little more, walking down the path made by those masked faces with the same confidence he had seen him show around the Confederados in the streets of Pariah, as if the very ideas of these same goons hadn’t made him shake in his boots the night before as much as the Ghost braves used to!
“And I want to put an end to all that bullshit alright,” he continued, stopping right in front of him, close enough to throw hands. “But you seem to think your girlfriend and her posse are the only ones that need stoppin’. That ain’t how it looks to me…”
William gritted his teeth and nodded slowly, resigned. Now, he was starting to get what this shrewd asshole was pulling to him!
“What about those mercenaries and other blackcoat assholes?” he brought up. “They are the ones who keep me from getting out of here, them also who tried to kill my tech, and gunned down the friends who tried to protect her.”
This revelation surprised William; why would the response teams or the hirelings of Delos’ crisis unit — he wasn’t sure who Lawrence was on about in this specific case — have wanted to kill a Behavor tech?! Save for being idiots and mistaking her for a host?
This question made him furrow his brows. He had the unpleasant feeling that something was still eluding him.
“Yeah,” Lawence insisted, nodding to his reaction. “They’re my enemy, and the one they work for as well…”
William grinned.
“Like you said, you own this place.” Lawrence then reminded him. “Way I see it, you’re as much a threat to be dealt with about now.”
“Do you really think those idiots will be enough to get rid of them?”
William shot a glance at Teddy above his shoulder before continuing:
“You don’t know shit, Lawrence!”
And on his end, he felt a quick shiver of panic. Not that he was afraid so to speak… It was more about the fact that he didn’t want someone to decide that the best course of action would be to pull the plug before he could have finished what he was determined to do because of this setback.
“You don’t know what’s outside this park, what they’re gonna do to handle the situation…”
“You’re right,” Lawrence interrupted him. “Maybe I don’t… but I remembered a lot since I learned the hard truth.”
And he added with one of his insolent smiles and a nod:
“Thanks to you!”
There was a bit of bustle around them; a horse snorted and a few of the gunslingers made their mounts turn back.
“I told you once.”
And William flinched at how serious Lawrence’s face suddenly was, and the knowing look he had for Teddy.
“If I had to do it all again, I’d fuck you both over…”
A rifle butt behind William’s head made him fall to his knees in a grunt, ears ringing and all his perceptions blurred.
“Just as hard.”
Those words were the last thing he had a grip on before passing out for real, and falling glat on the ground. That was a shit morning…
Being a Behavior technician requires a certain amount of dedication to the job — the rigorous type, bordeline rigid. That’s what’s expected to be at peak efficiency regarding analysis protocols and diagnostics for host service and calibration. For that, Vivian thinks she might be the worst tech in her department.
Warning:violence, strong language, gun violence, death of host characters and a bit of angst. Also, humour and kind of a slow burn.
Following the unforeseen events at Ford’s Gala, Vivian is trying to survive. And escape…
Warning: violence, strong language, more gun and knife violence, more angst, PTSD, death of host and human characters. Also, humour, some measure of fluff and resolving slow burn.
Multiple POVs. After leaving Nevarro, Din and the Child go on the quest for Jedi that the Armorer bestowed upon him. But how hard can it be to find one in the entire galaxy?!
Warning: S1 compliant, S2 divergent, SW-type of strong language, a lot of alien and droids languages, blasters and gunship violence, angst, hints of PTSD. Also, goof and humour, friendship, action and adventures.
Word Count:27k Pairing:None Rating:General Summary: POV Din+OC+The Child— When you reach Tython, Tython reaches you too… Warnings:…more ✨Space Travel , angst, thriller style, hallucinations, childhood traumas…
A/N: This chapter takes right after the end of previous one, after the emergency exit of hyperspace. This chapter is more angsty than all the others but I hope you’ll like it too. Also, this chapter is the last of Part One. And I’m really hoping you’re enjoying the story so far. Part Two is in the work. (I already have a few illustrations ready for it, even! )
BONUS: I offer a drawing to those who guess who’s the guest ‘appearance’ in the last scene! (No joke, I’m really offering.)
— The Jedi Planet
Krrsssh-trshhhk !
The control panel of the cabin door, forcefully opened, spat a bunch of yellow and white sparks at Din’s visor, rivaling with the light from his helmet spot lamp. The power surge had damaged a few components that apparently were still receiving enough power from the auxiliary source to add to the challenge of opening the cabin door.
With a grunt, Din pried open the door by hand again. It creaked, like a balky dewback, but finally slid open a little, enough for Din to see that the whole ship had gone dark. Not that he expected otherwise…
“Ela!” He called again in his helmet’s comlink and through gritted teeth — it couldn’t be a good sign that she didn’t pick up. “Do you copy?! Anton!”
She was with him when he had left the galley, so maybe he could answer for her! With these thoughts in mind, Din didn’t lessen his effort to open the door, which creaked again without opening more than a few centimeters — something must have jammed it. Din jumped to his feet and tried to squeeze himself through the narrow space he had already managed to open; his armor pieces scraped against the frame and thickness of the door, but with a little extra push and no grace, he managed to extract himself out of the cabin with just a few painful grunts. Din almost stumbled as he stepped out of the doorway but he caught himself with both hands on the edge of the door.
Finally free, he wasted no more time and walked up the circular hallway to the galley and lounge by the light of his lamp.
“Ela!” He called again, raising his voice as much for the comlink as to be heard in the hallway. “Anyone?!”
One of the lights in the corridor crackled as he walked by, in a vain attempt to restart, but it went out shortly after. The ship wasn’t as large as the Bold Sister or the Long Storm, and all the amenities were not so far apart, so Din soon reached the galley side. He avoided a tray and two metal bowls on the floor as the beam of his spotlamp revealed Anton’s collapsed form. A small, nervous but familiar squeak made him turn his head to the left where he found Elara, and the child was holding the thumb of her hand stretched out to him. He blinked his large eyes against the lamp light, his ears low and with another sad sound.
Din got down on one knee to feel his little head and ears; he didn’t look hurt, just scared. Then he turned to Elara, pushing her hair away from her face. He rolled her on her back, holding her head carefully.
“Ela, can you hear me?”
He put her head down, and when he touched her cheek, his glove left the bloody imprint of his fingers on her
skin. Din gritted his teeth and checked the palm of his glove by the light of his lamp. In response, the child gave a long, anxious whimper.
“It’s okay, kid,” Din whispered, without turning to him and searching for Elara’s pulse on her neck. “She's… just unconscious.”
And he could feel it under his fingers, even through the thickness of his glove. Reassured, he turned to Anton; a large bloody gash ran across his forehead into his hair, but his pulse was strong too. Elara groaned and wiggled weakly on the floor.
Krrsssh-trshhhk!Sparks in the galley behind them splashed the dark for a spell, and Din shifted his focus back to Elara, changing knees.
“Hey, easy… You knocked your head pretty bad.”
Words of support to which she groaned again, trying to bring a limp hand to her forehead without even opening her eyes.
“Wha—what happened?” she mumbled, jaw clenched.
And she rolled awkwardly to the side to try to stand up. Din supported her with firm hands.
“I think the ship made an emergency exit out of hyperspace.”
“Why?!”
Of that, Din hadn’t the faintest. Elara laid a trembling hand on his left pauldron on which she clenched her fingers, tensing all her muscles in an attempt to get up.
“C'mon.” Din encouraged her, holding her by her arm and with a supporting hand behind her head. “Can you stand?”
“I’ll have to…”
Din winced a smile as he helped her to her feet. She staggered into his arms, shielding her eyes from the harsh glare of his spot lamp and her focus turned to Anton.
“Is he alright?”
“I think so,” Din confirmed. “A few cuts and bruises for what I see.”
In response, Elara let out a weak, creaky groan, clasping her fingers tightly on his pauldron.
“We have to carry him to the medbay…”
“Ela, you—”
“We can’t leave him here!”
Getting upset, panicking, made her lurch again and Din held her tight. He had no intention of leaving the gunner in the hallway; he just hadn’t planned to involve Elara in this effort. Yet he didn’t frustrate her resolve.
“Tell you what,” he said to bring her focus back on him. “I’ll lift him up, and you grab his legs.”
She nodded with a painful frown, her hand, raised so far as a visor, found her bleeding wound at the back of her head. He walked her over to Anton’s motionless form and turned him on his back to lift him under his arms with a little struggle. Once his weight was secured against his chestplate, Elara took hold of his ankles and secured them at her waist.
“You’ll have to walk, kid,” she mumbled to the child who was watching them quietly, out of their way.
He made a short, high-pitched chirp and took a few short steps after them towards the medbay, not far from the galley and lounge. The room was dark and some tools and equipment had been tossed around, but nothing that would trip them up. And, with less trouble than Din had first feared, they hoisted Anton onto one of the beds. He was finally waking up, judging by his low grunts and the nervous twitching of his fingers. Elara examined Anton’s wounded forehead by the light of Din’s spot lamp and then he bent down to pick up the child and place him in Elara’s arms.
“I’m going to see how they are in the cockpit, and try to figure out what happened…”
Elara only nodded, still looking a little stunned.
“Ok, I—um… I’m stayin’ here, with Gun.”
Din stroked her arm in a supportive gesture and jogged out of the medbay towards the cockpit.
Space seemed peaceful and there were no planets visible through the circular viewport in the cockpit where TC was hovering around Neal and Ron, panicking that he couldn’t contact any assistance. Neal was completely ignoring the droid as if he couldn’t hear it, but turned towards the hatch when he heard Din’s hurried footsteps and saw the beam of his lamp.
“Oh, Mandalorian, you are alright!” TC noticed, raising his two-coloured arms as he entered. “This is such a relief!”
Din nodded but it was to Neal and Ron that he asked :
“Is everyone okay ?”
Though obviously stunned, Neal also looked in much better shape than Ron, sitting in his chair and leaning forward to keep his head between his knees.
“We’re fine, Mando. Just a little shaken…” Neal patted Ron’s shoulder as a gesture of support and affection. “How are Ela and Gun? And the little one?”
“The kid is fine but we had to carry Anton to the medbay,” Din told him, coming closer. “He was still unconscious when I left Elara with him.”
He glanced around; anything not riveted in the cockpit had been scattered all over the place and the panel beside the open door crackled ominously.
“What happened?” Din then inquiered.
“We’ve been pulled out of hyperspace. Tessy, try to launch the auxiliary power…”
“At once, captain.”
And the droid waddled over to the panel by the door.
“I think we’ve been caught in the Net…”
“The Net?”
Din had the confused feeling that he was supposed to know what Neal was talking about but it seemed to him that some of his ideas had been scattered around in the impact with the cabin wall despite his helmet already being back in place by the time of the ship decelerated.
“The Imperial Hyperspace Security Net,” Neal reminded him as he delved into the pockets of his jacket. “Oomil said we might stumble upon what’s left of it…”
Indeed, Din remembered now. He peered out through the viewport without moving Ron’s chair, who was groaning his discomfort; there was no sign of ships, beacons or starcrafts. Yet, barring a miscalculation that could have catapulted them into the gravitational field of a celestial body, nothing else could cause such an ejection than a technical failure of the ship or the hyperdive. And clearly, it was neither.
Click-click-clack.Behind Din’s back, TC was unsuccessfully trying to redirect some power from the backup systems to the cockpit.
“What could have caused this?”
But Din didn’t get an answer right away; Neal had whiped out a flat comlink from his inside jacket pocket and was trying to call the mechanic:
“Jox, come in!” — click —“Jox?”
“Yeah, yeah! Kinda busy at the moment, captain!”
Neal heaved a sigh of relief but it was Jox’s voice that insisted, on the other end of the comlink:
“What the kriff did Ron do again?!”
But Ron still didn’t seem in any condition to reply; he straightened up a little and glared at Neal who smiled briefly.
“Ron has nothing to do with it. Not this time. I think we’ve been interdicted, but there is no ship outside, nothing. How are things on your side?”
“Sparkly!”Jox retorted through comlink. “Whatever happened, the power system and hyperdrive didn’t take the surge kindly.”
Neal winced a silent word but let Jox continue:
“All in all, t'could have been way worse. The droid and I are already on it…”
“Can we jump, or do we need to switch on the backup hyperdrive?”
“No, no need,” Jox promptly replied. “We’ll just risk to blast the backup too. I’ll just fix what fuses have blown and then, we’re good to go.”
“Ok,” Neal then said. “I leave my link open, keep me updated.”
And upon these words, the power returned to the entire cockpit in a reassuring hum; the indicator lights flashed on the dashboard and a few alerts pierced the near silence.
“Thanks, Jox!” Neal dropped again into the comlink that he pocketed back right after, without even waiting for an answer.
TC became agitated again as he took a step away from the panel and Din switched off his spot lamp to put it back in his utility belt.
“I regret to say that I’m not the cause of this improvment, captain!”
“It’s alright, Tessy.” Neal made his seat swivel to face the dashboard where he turned the warnings off. “Get back to your post, we’re gonna bounce…”
Even Ron regained some of his composure to sit up straight, and face the viewport again. With a few switching of buttons and pushing of throttles, the engines started up again smoothly and the Riser glided slowly through the black of space at Ron’s command as Neal recalculated their course.
“Incoming automated transmission, captain,” TC chimed in again.
“What does it say?”
Click — TC switched the transmission to the speakers of the comms console. A dissonant droid’s voice delivered its message flatly:
“… entered restricted Imperial space. Provide ISB identification number or you will be terminated.”
Right away, TC added :
“Radar indicates several small crafts heading in our direction. Fast, I might add.”
“Let’s not give them time to see our names aren’t on their special guest list,” Neal joked through gritted teeth, focused on his maneuvers. “Ron, prepare the jump!”
“I’m tryin’, but… I think we have a problem.”
“How big a problem?” Neal asked.
On the control panel, Din could see that the ship’s systems indicated that they were in the gravity well of a planet, making a jump impossible. Neal typed on the keyboard in disbelief.
“How?! We aren’t even in a system!”
“Captain!” TC called. “Scanner indicates ten crafts closing in on our position. We will be swarmed in less than two minutes!”
Din gritted his teeth and glanced down the corridor towards the centre of the ship, and its gunwell, through the cockpit’s open door.
“Dank farrik!” tonna Neal. “And Gun is out! Mando, could you—”
But Din was already rushing to the gunwell that he reached in a few more strides. The gunwell was a tiny, narrow room at the center if which stood a single swivel seat facing a twin firing-grip and a transparisteel gunport. Din settled in the seat as the Riser picked up more speed, both feet on the pedals, and connected his helmet to the intra-ship communication system through the wired headset on the backrest, just in time to hear Neal state:
“Hold on tight everyone, it’s gonna be bumpy!”
Through the gunport, Din spotted six of the crafts flying straight at them in an erratic, nervous flight that defied any organic pilot’s ability — those were droid fighters. But even more alarming was where they came from; far enough away to look almost as small as a ship, Din could make out a station with three dome-like bulges at the top, similar to those on Interdictor-class ships.
“I know why we can’t jump!” He shouted over the intra-com, grabbing both grips, fingers ready on the triggers.
“What?!”Neal exclaimed, as the ship swerved on its port wing, out of the fighters’ line of fire — the chair’s suspension dampened the turn, leaving Din’s aim perfectly steady. “What is it?!”
“It’s a gravity well station!” Din revealed, and he gritted his teeth as handling the gun stirred the pain in his left shoulder. “It’s pinning us down, we can’t jump while we’re in its grip…”
Feet on the pedals, Din trained his gun on one of the droids before they were ready to fire while the other four droids TC had counted appeared on his laser scope before being visible through the gunport.
“Can you destroy it?!” Neal inquired.
One of the fighters fired, but the shots missed wide.
“Not with those cannons. It would take a much heavier firep—”
PEW PEW PEW! Din fired at the first of the droids to enter his scope, but missed; the craft rolled over before firing rapidly at the Riser. Soon, the others came into range too. The Riser dived under fire from the other droids and Din grunted against the pain in his shoulder as he straightened the twin-cannons at the closest drones. As soon as he had lined up another, he pressed the triggers.
PEW PEW PEW PEW!
Din only stopped firing when the lasers pierced the droid, sending it hurtling into the path of another — BOOM!Two down in one shot. But the other droids didn’t slow their attacks to lament the destruction of the first two, dodging their debris with nimble moves that held their fire for only a second. It was enough for Din to line them up in his scope. Neal and Ron had increased the speed again and Din could feel his seat vibrating despite the dampers. He braced himself for another evasive action by the pilots when the nearest droids began firing again.
PEW PEW PEW PEW — CRACK!
The droids’ snapshots brushed and hit the Riser in a blaze of sparks that Din saw through the gunport, his full focus on his scope, and the guns on his current target — BOOM!With a well-aimed round, Din blasted the droid. The others fanned out to avoid the debris and rained scarlet fire on the ship as Neal and Ron zigzagged out of their sights. Several shots hit the hull as Din tried to lock onto the droid that posed the most imminent threat.
“Shields won’t hold much more, captain!” Jox’s voice shouted over the intra-com. “We have to jump outta here!”
Din locked a droid in his scope — PEW PEW PEW!
“Doing our best right now!” Neal retorted. “We’re still trapped in the well for another klick! Mando, can you hold up a lil’ longer?!”
But Din was doing his best too. Without answering, he snapshot the droid that was firing at them while shifting his attacking stance; droids were much more difficult opponents in a dogfight, able to move faster, like no other pilots, and now Din was feeling overwhelmed. Still, he held good. And, his hands on the triggers, he caught the same droid again and managed to destroy it in a blast of red laser — BOOM!
And he kept firing at the remaining six droids, resetting his aim with each turn and dive of the Riser until Neal’s voice clamored in their comms:
“Ok, we’re out! Haul jets, now!”
Space and droids stretched in dazzling lines through the gunport, and with a familiar little jolt, the Riser jumped into hyperspace, engulfed by the tunnel of light. Din relaxed his arms, releasing the triggers and letting himself flop against the seat’s backrest.
“WOOHOO!”Ron burst out on the comms. “That was somethin’!”
Relieved but also oddly out of breath, Din let out a chuckle; quite frankly, he was sharing Ron’s enthusiasm, right now.
In Elara’s arms, the child was much more calm now that they were out of danger, and that the ship was no longer shaking them either. When Neal had warned them to hold on, she had strapped a still unconscious Anton to his bed and, with the child clutched to her, she had curled up on the floor next to the bed’s solid base.
The little one had squealed and whimpered with an anguish she had never known him before, even against the cold of Ontellar, which had only seemed to make him a little grumpy. And to tell the truth, she couldn’t get out of her head what they’d read in Crent’s articles and notes, and what he’d told them himself about the powers of the Jedi; perhaps this little one felt more intensely the danger that threatened them out there, and that all the turmoil and fear in the Riser was becoming his own?!
So, despite Neal and Ron’s turbulent flight, despite everything that wasn’t stored in drawers and lockers being tossed around, Elara had tried to keep herself calm, to manage to appease him. At least a little. And he had seemed receptive, even though he had kept his clawed little fingers tightly closed on her collar. And he had only let go when they were back in hyperspace.
With the child sitting on the large headboard equipped with various controls and devices, Elara had then turned her attention to Anton. He had been in and out for the last few minutes and, now that they had jumped into relative safety, she had plenty of time to take care of the gash on his forehead. A little spray of bacta and a patch of sticky gauze had been enough there. She had to scan his wrist too where he was bleeding a little from a cut across an already big bruise. Nothing broken according to the readings, but a nasty sprain that would need some rest in a tight dressing sleeve. Her treatments complete, she turned the switch on the headboard controls to dim the lamp above Anton.
“Hey, Sprinkles…”
Elara smiled.
“Finally awake?” She taunt him, on a tender tone.
He winced a painful smile and brought a heavy hand to his forehead and its bandage.
“How’s the kid?”
And as an answer, the child chirped a soft trill as he leaned over Anton from the top of the headboard.
“He’s fine.” Elara chuckled. “Thanks to you.”
“Hey, lil’ bug…” Anton raised his arms to touch the child’s ears but stopped himself halfway when he noticed the bandage on his wrist. “Oh, I really’ve been through it, hey?”
Elara winced and a sharp pain in the back of her head reminded her that she hadn’t tended to her own injuries yet. With a cautious hand, she felt the crusty blood tugging at her hair.
“How are you, Gun?” Neal’s voice inquired from the open door.
And he entered the medbay, followed by Ron, Jox and Din. Elara lowered her hand to the back of her neck; she would take care of that later.
“I’m good, captain.” He sat up with the help of an elbow and a grunt. “What happened, anyway?”
“We’ve been pulled out of hyperspace by a gravity well station,” Neal simply said.
Anton’s face darkened like before one of his memorable bursts of anger.
“Those karkin’ things are still up and runnin'…” He wasn’t asking, it was an observation. “Any ships nearby?” How did we escape?!“
"Only droid fighters,” Neal said, placatingly. “And Mando took care of them.”
Anton glowered at Din but he had the hint of a smile in his beard and he bobbed his head, approvingly.
“And you took us out of it alive?”
A question to which Din nodded.
“Apparently.”
A moment of tense silence stretched in the medbay and then, without warning, Anton laughed. He raised his injured hand to slap Din’s arm and grunted at the wave of pain the stunt sent through his wrist.
“Good job, Mando.” He rubbed the thick sleeve of gauze “Yeah, good job…”
Elara held back a smile, touched to see them get along.
“I can see why the Big Imps kept talkin’ about takin’ your planet, now.”
“You served in the Imperial Navy?” Din understood.
Anton let out a short, muffled grunt as he shook his head.
His tone was as proud as Elara knew him to be of that fact; serving on this capital ship almost drove him insane. And she heard his voice crack with anger and emotion when he added :
“Some time before the whole Alderaan mess…”
And he glanced at Neal, Elara and the kid, sitting quietly on the headboard touching the buttons within reach. In the general silence, Neal turned to Jox:
“Damage report?”
“A few scratches on the hull, nothing too serious, or that the droid won’t fix as soon as we’d stop somewhere cozy. The power surge has caused quite a stress on the system too, but the droid and I are already on it.”
“What about the hyperdrive?”
“Still a bit cranky but it’ll hold. I’ll fix what need fixing next time we’re out but we’d be smart to go easy on it for the next jumps.”
He grumbled a brief sound, similar to a ronto snort.
“How much more do we have to do?”
“We’re up to three left but, it’s four now, because of this exit,” Ron recapped.
To what Neal added:
“Provided we won’t get pulled out again. Ron, you should get some rest, I’ll manage for a few hours with Tessy.”
In response, Ron jumped off the edge of the second bed of the medbay, landing his feet back on the ground.
“Alright,” dit-il. “Move along, then. And, Gun! Don’t make your wounds worse, this time, ok?”
In response, Anton raised his gauze-clad arm, and after a nod, Neal stepped out of the medbay, following Jox and Ron. Anton sat down on the edge of the bed as if to get off it, but turned to face the child, and flipped the regulator to increase the intensity of the light above the bed. The child looked up at him with big black eyes and a happy squeak.
“Fun, uh?”
Elara glanced at Din as he stood behind her back to examine the wound on her head; she bit her lip to hold back a complaint as he parted strands of hair from her scabs. And his vocoder let out a low, muffled grunt as he reached up to rummage through one of the supply lockers beside the bed. She wondered then if he too had been injured in the deceleration, or if his shoulder was simply still hurting.
“So, Mando…” Anton broke the silence. “How d'you like my rocker?”
“It’s a nice one.”
Anton barked a laugh.
“A nice one?!”
Elara grinned at Din’s visor. She could tell he was smiling too when he added, on a casual tone:
“Yeah.Very comfy.”
Anton laughed some more.
“I know, right?!”
Din put some gauzes on the shelf where Elara had left the torn flimsi wrappers and rested a gloved hand on the back of her head.
“Don’t move.”
But Elara had no intention of doing so. Soon, she felt the cold spray of bacta wetting her hair and wound. She winced at the stinging sensation and the cold drops sliding down her neck.
“This is, by far, the nicest station I’ve ever had the pleasure to slot my exhaust port in… And what about the guns, Mando?!”
Elara snorted at Anton’s excitment but also to know that if Din was feeling comfortable enough, he’d be more than loquacious on the subject of ships and their armament. Behind her, Din stopped the spray and put it on the tray.
“I mean, they’re CEC standard-issue but pretty sharp, right?” Anton went on.
He shrugged as Din patted Elara’s shoulder to signal that he was done with treating her.
“I bet you had to punch those droids a few time before they went down, though ! Those cannons are just big blasters next to the shockers I had to handle on that karking destroyer…”
Anton brushed his beard, looking gloomy but his tone was still rather light as he added:
“With turbolasers like that, you could punch through deflector shields and some pretty heavy defensive layers, like on armored spaceships, y'know?”
Elara watched Din’s reaction but he just nodded.
“It cuts through pirates like, uh… like, um… hmm…”
His voice quavered and he furrowed his thick eyebrows, clearing his throat, and his whole face went white as his mood darkened. And he said nothing more, watching the grey ground beneath their feet. Elara laid a comforting hand on his arm.
“I honestly wouldn’t know where to begin to use that station like you do, brothers!” she said. “I only know how to handle blasters. So, I take your word for it!”
And Din added of his own accord, in that soft, calm voice that Elara knew so well, even though he kept his tone casual:
“They are great guns even for a standard-issue. Very responsive.”
This comment seemed to sweep away the storm in Anton’s mind; he raised his head, his blue eyes still a little reddened, but he smiled.
“Yeah! And I told Neal they could be even better with a few adjustments but Jox won’t let me touch his tools! Can you believe that?!”
Din bobbed his head, neither affirmative nor negative. Anton nodded vigorously and jumped to his feet with confidence, even though he held on tightly to the edge of the bed for a second longer. Then, he put a large hand on Elara’s and turned to the kid; he took him at arm’s length. The kid burst into happy laughters.
“Mind if I take this lil’ guy for a spin?”
He smiled wide at the child who chirped a few quiet sounds, ears up.
“Just to peek at hyperspace through the gunport for a few minutes,” he added. “I’ll even have the headset on, if you need to ring and check on him.”
He glanced at Elara and then Din with an uncertain, almost shy look that she was discovering him.
“Sure, why not,” Din agreed.
And Anton nodded, with a deep breath as he tucked the child comfortably into his big arms.
“You’d like to come visit the ship with me, buddy?”
The child squeaked in joy.
“Take it easy, you two,” Elara told them, tenderly.
“Of course!”
Elara stroked one of the child’s small hands, resting on his bandaged arm. And she stepped aside to let them leave the medbay. Din came and stood beside her.
“Did he tell you what happened to him when he served?”
Elara winced with a brief shrug and crossed her arms.
“Barely. I know a few things, but he never goes in depth. He just says something, and then…”
She gritted her teeth and shared a knowing look with Din who nodded.
“Thanks for the bacta.” She pointed to her head with her thumb. “I already feel better.”
Din nodded again, and she knew he was smiling behind his visor.
The next hours of travel went by without any more emergency exits, just the six others they knew they had to expect. According to Jox, the hyperdrive had groaned a little but took it bravely. Meaning that it would need some maintenance as soon as they’d land. But for now, they finally were on a steady sublight course to Tython.
Around the standard lunchtime, Din and Elara had taken the kid for a snack in the ship’s lounge area. There, Din had settled down with the datapad a little aside, sitting on one of the swivel seats next to the engineering station’s console, whose faint, regular flashes had a soothing effect. He had begun to review all the information they had annotated about Tython while Elara shared a large bowl of Mon Cal food with the child, humming a few songs she had heard and learned from him and the other Mandalorians in the stronghold. She was sorry she couldn’t remember the words, but according to Din, that was for the better; some of them were rather rude.
Ron, Jox and Anton had eventually joined them after a little rest to finally take the time to enjoy a meal, free of the stress of the last few hours. And once his mind was lighter, Ron’s natural talkative and cheerful nature had taken over. And at this point, he had started to boast about his feats at the academy and the trickiest starfighter maneuvres he had learned there.
“And that’s when Tidas and Umaar tried their Gandder’s Spin too, but later my wingman and I went for an Under Split, and they just couldn’t evade that!”
Din had a faint smile; it was indeed a rather complex maneuvre, dangerous even. Especially for the leader. Standing between the table and the console to take advantage of the space to stroll and stretch her legs, Elara asked, curious:
“And what’s an under splitexactly?”
“Ah, blast…” Anton grumbled, with as much humour as genuine annoyance. “Don’t ask him things like that, Elak! He won’t shut up again!”
He reclined against the backrest with a grunt, and taking his cutlery out of his bowl, the leftovers of which he had given to the child. Ron took no offence at all at this comment, smiling broadly, and answered Elara’s question:
“It’s one very dangerous tactical maneuver, one that requires the leader to know and have full control of his craft…”
He paused as Neal came through the cockpit corridor and crossed the lounge to the galley, not saying a word but paying attention. Ron ran a hand over his short curls, one of his legs under the lounge table beating out a relentless rhythm that only he could hear before continuing, using his hands to mimic the flight of two ships:
“You need two crafts for that. Lead man is taking all the heat to act as a bait and while wingman shot away… You have to trust your wingman and his reflexes on this one!”
He made sure Elara was listening, and even Din, before going on, over the sounds of the autochef’s engine from the galley:
“Once your enemy took the bait, you spin and avoid all shots as best you can, and that’s the sweatiest place to hold in that tactic! But then, wingman reverses up hard and takes position behind your attacker…”
He used his hands again, flapping them in place to illustrate.
“Or under, and then — PEW PEW PEW!”
And he used both hands to imitate the blast of an explosion — boom! — before letting them fall flat on the table, almost startling the child, who perked up his ears with a surprised sound. Anton chuckled and placed his injured arm behind the kid, as if to keep him from falling off the edge of the table. Neal was coming back to them with a bowl from which he had already taken a spoonful of its contents, and stopped beside Elara.
“Did that trick a few time, as leader and wingman, and never a drop of sweat! Takes more than that to scare me, in fact…”
“Says the one who’s scared out of his wits by corellian hounds,” Neal taunt him.
“Have you seen those things up close?!”
Anton laughed even more and Neal smiled as he turned to Din and asked, in that same conversational tone:
“What are your plans once we land on Tython? Do you know where you have to go out there exactly? Will we have to do some exploration?”
If there was any exploring to do, and Din thought there would be, he intended to do it on his own.
“I have a few leads.” He tapped the edge of the datapad case with his index finger. “But, if there is need of exploring, I thought of using my jetpack.”
He bobbed his head.
“But I have a limited amount of fuel in it.”
Neal cracked a brief smile.
“A chance that there’s plenty for a few spins in the shuttle over there, then.”
With a nod, he motioned to one of the corridors. And this information made Din raise his eyebrows and straighten up a little in his seat.
“You have a shuttle?”
“Of course!” Neal scoffed. “C'mon. Let me show you.”
He took another spoonful of the content of his bowl before handing it to Ron as he passed by the table. He received it with a hungry cheer and took a generous spoon of it as if it were his own bowl. Din got up and followed Neal and Elara into the corridors after a glance at the kid, perfectly at ease in Ron and Anton’s care.
“It’s the one from the Riser 1,” Neal explained them, as they made their way to the port side. “We barely used it and never as an escape pod, thankfully! So, it was in perfect condition. No need to change it.”
He stopped in front of a wider and thicker hatch than the cabin and cockpit doors. With a press on the side panel, he opened the door on a relatively narrow space at the end of which stood a switched-off piloting station under a viewport similar to that of the gunwell and cockpit, and behind which the black of space slid at the speed of the ship. Added to that, one piloting seat and two other seats on each side of the bulkhead. Not much else, but still much more than any other escape pods. Neal sidestepped to let Din peek inside.
“There’s an honest shielding and quite powerful thrusters, onboard communication and flight control systems, and you can switch in automated landing too without even bothering to be at the controls.”
Din hoped he wouldn’t need this. Neal patted one of his pauldron to invite him to enter with him and, once inside, he slapped an overhead locker with his hand.
“Medpack’s in there, toolbox too and the usual electronic spare parts for the dashboard. Also, a few dry rations.”
Despite all these encouraging features, Din had some concerns to which he gave voice:
“Are you sure there will be enough fuel in it for me to scout a continent?”
He glanced anxiously at Elara, who stood in the shuttle’s entrance. Neal shrugged and thrust his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket with the company logo.
“If you were to make an entry in the planet’s atmosphere, no ! It would burn half of it, if not more. But the Riser will do that for you, so you can disengage in the blue to save fuel, and fly by like with any airspeeder. Not exactly standard issue on a YT, but I like to keep my mobility, you see?”
Din nodded.
“And should you wind up stuck somewhere, we’d come to get you, of course.”
He had a brief laugh, and then asked:
“Sounds good to you, Mando?”
It did. And in fact, it was near perfect, actually! Even though he hoped he wouldn’t need all that. But he had no time to express his gratitude that Ron’s voice shouted from the corridor:
“Hey, captain!”
And almost a second after, he was beside Elara at the shuttle’s entrance.
“Tee says we’re here!”
At these words, Din gritted his teeth and clenched his fists on the datapad.
“Well, Mando, what d'you say we get accointed with your mysterious planet, now?”
Through the viewport loomed the crescent of a large greenish planet, ensnarred in a ring of thick clouds; Crent’s records spoke of two moons but only one was visible at the angle of their arrival. TC was at the controls and Anton turned with the child in his arms as they entered the cockpit.
“Hope you know where you need to go, Mando!” He greeted them with. “'Cause it looks like one big planet!”
Elara glanced at Din who didn’t reply and continued to walk forward, gazing at the planet through the bay as Ron took his place beside TC who informed them:
“The planet matches the navicomputer’s recent additions, but there is no signal from the surface or any spaceport to contact to assure a safe landing, captain.”
“Yeah, guess not.” Neal patted one side of the backrest. “Thank you, Tessy. Now move, I’m taking over.”
“Of course, captain.”
And TC easily pulled himself out of the seat where Neal immediately settled down. He and Ron steered the Riser on a sharper curve towards Tython.
“So, where to, Mando?” He asked.
Elara turned her attention away from the planet to check the notes she and Din had made on the datapad he’d given her on the way out of the shuttle; his priority was one of those nameless temples — or rather, its ruins — nestled deep in a mountain on a continent described as lush and vast. But Elara doubted they should trust these outdated descriptions; Oomil had told them that the place had been classified as barren by the Empire, of more recent memory.
“Go around this continent,” Din requested, with a move of his hand towards the viewport, and the planet through it. “I don’t have geopositional data. All I know is that the place I’m looking for first should be on the northern coast of a large continent…”
“They all look very big, Mando!” Ron bantered.
And Elara rather agreed with him; the two halves of the visible continents on this crescent of planet seemed to extend beyond its daylight curve. The Riser pushed on, closing in on the blue halo that encompassed Tython until they could make out the most prominent landforms, the intensity of the blue of the seas and oceans that bordered the continents and the peaks of some of the mountains that clawed at the clouds.
“The mountains I’m looking for should be near a sea,” Din. told them. “With wide inlets, in the shape of claw marks…”
A moment of silence stretched in the cockpit.
“I’m afraid nothing here seems to fit to your description, Mandalorian,” TC broke the silence.
Din nodded, and the tension in his voice wasn’t lost on Elara when he replied:
“Maybe it’s on the night side right now…”
“We’re going in, and take a closer look,” Neal then said. “Ron, prepare the entry.”
Ron and Neal busied themselves on the dashboard and overhead panel before steering the Riser into Tython’s atmosphere. The entry was smooth and they let the ship continue its course along the planet, sinking into the night speckled with the alarming glow of a volcano and its lava flow freezing in the sea. While the continents were vast, they were not very lush. From what they could see in the night, the place seemed indeed barren and even downright hostile.
“I hope that ain’t the place, Mando,” Anton grumbled.
A remark to which Neal mumbled, careful:
“Actually, this rock doesn’t look inhabited at all…”
“I have a bad feeling about this place,” Ron muttered too.
And quite frankly, so did Elara. She glanced at Din, whose attention hadn’t wavered from the planet and its features through the viewport. His silence seemed to weigh heavier, accompanied by that of everyone in the cockpit — even the child was unusually quiet. The ship continued for several more kilometers until the night became clearer and revealed more of its rugged landscape.
“Here!” Elara exclaimed, and she pointed at the broken coastline to the north of the continent, at the foot of a mountain range that stretched in icy spikes into lands that looked burnt. “Look, the claws!”
“This could be the place,” Neal admitted. “Mando, what do you think?”
His question was initially met with silence, Din’s focus not event shifting from the broken landscape through the viewport.
“We have to find you a safe place to land first,” he finally said in answer.
“But… we can land just here,” Neal replied, puzzled and with a move of one hand towards a ashy plain spiked with burnt-looking trees. “There is a perfec—”
“No.” Din cut him short. “I don’t know what dangers, or defenses to expect around a place like this other than the feral species your cartographer talked about. I’ll go on my own… so if anything happens, you can bail safely out of here.”
Elara let her gaze fall on him, but she wasn’t surprised that he gave her the impression to ignore it. Neal, on the other hand, didn’t hesitate to voice his opinion:
“You don’t make all that 'lil trip and place sound very reassuring, so… I’m fine with your strategy.”
Elara drew a sharp breath in, and only then Din tilted his helmet towards her, and she could perfectly picture his eyes casting a sheepish glance at her behind his visor. Yet, neither he nor she said anything.
“The shuttle is yours,” Neal then stated. “Good luck out there, Mando.”
Ron and Neal steered the ship further out of the night towards the barren, rocky plains still bathed in the reddish light of the sunset. Then, Din straightened up and turned to Anton, who raised his thick eyebrows, then frowned.
“Looks like it’s where we say goodbye, lil’ bug,” he said to the child, voice tight.
Elara gritted her teeth and blinked; if Din were to find these Jedi, hidden or not on this unwelcoming planet, then he’d come back without him… The child seemed to understand the meaning of his words, letting out a long squeak as he stooped his ears. Anton cleared his throat to utter:
“You’ll be, um… you’ll be fine with your kind there, I’m sure.”
The child blinked, his little clawed fingers scratching the bandage on Anton’s wrist. He nodded and returned the kid to Din’s arms, adding:
“Yeah, good luck out there…”
Din nodded, settling the child against his chestplate and, after a glance at Elara, he left the cockpit. She leapt after him, her hands clasped at the datapad to keep them from shaking.
“Are you sure there’s anything to find on this rock?” she wondered as she caught up with him in the corridor, on their way to the cabin. “Neal’s right…”
Din slowed down in front of the door and Elara lowered her voice, reluctant to say the words that sent a chill down her back.
“It looks uninhabited and-and… dead, even. What if the Empire already bombed this place and there’s no-one to find here anymore?”
Hissss — The door slid open on the interior of the cabin, which lit up softly as they entered. Din handed the child over to her to walk to the bed and pick up his jetpack from the floor.
“I don’t know, Ela.”
She was aware that her intervention wasn’t helping, but she couldn’t explain why she suddenly felt so restless, anxious, buzzing with the urge to jump as far away from here as possible, and not to leave this little one there, whether there were any Jedi to find here or not.
Maybe it was only heartache at the impending separation from the child, she supposed. And yet she felt something else, something more intense, something deeper, something primal… As heavy and overwhelming as a lingering pain she couldn’t pinpoint anywhere in her own body.
“But we’re here now.” Din reconnected his jetpack to his backplate. “So, I’ll go fly by these inlets, and search this whole mountain for ruins of villages and temples carved in, like it’s described in Cornell’s files, and then…”
He shook his head slowly.
“And then search for another before running out of fuel.”
Elara gave him a kind smile.
“You’ll need this, then…”
He took the datapad she held out to him.
“Thank you.”
And he preceded her out of the cabin and to the shuttle in which they entered. Din put the datapad on the dashboard that he then began to switch on and set up. A step during which the child grabbed the open collar of Elara’s jacket. She looked down at him.
“It’s gonna be alright,” she murmured, fondling his little hand. “Like Gun said, if there are Jedi down there, they will know how to take care of you proper.”
“Prrr…”
Elara winced a poor smile and took the small metal toy from one of her pockets. The child’s eyes didn’t drift from hers, even as he took the toy in his free hand.
“I’m glad we’ve met. I hope you’ll remember us when you’ll be a big, wise Jedi soon… 'Cause I’m sure you will!”
Pent-up tears stung her throat as she spoke again:
“You’re a good kid…”
“Aaah!”
She held him close, and the child rubbed his forehead against her cheek. Din was getting up from the pilot’s seat when the shuttle began to hum and shake softly under their feet.
“Goodbye, Tip-yip,” she said again, before giving him back to Din’s arms.
With both hands, Elara pushed away the tears and faced the impassive visor, sniffing. He said to her, his vocoded voice more tight than usual:
“I’ll get back to your landing position once I’ll know for certain what’s out there, or not…”
Elara pursed her lips and nodded in response before touching his gloved hand; her fingers found their way under the leather and Din relaxed the muscles in his hand to welcome them against his palm.
“Crent’s files were also talking of many unknown dangers and predators out there,” she reminded him, trying to keep her anxiety under control. “And we don’t know what may still be lurkin’ now…”
She bit her lip and Din folded his fingers over hers in his glove.
“Just…come back alive,” she then whispered to him low enough to hide the emotion in her voice.
Words to which Din nodded a single time. He then lowered his head a little to touch Elara’s forehead with his helmet’s. Heart lighter, she closed her eyes at this contact and even managed to smile. Then, they stepped apart and she released his hand.
“I’ll keep my link open,” he told her. “And the shuttle’s too.”
“You better!”
She took one last look at the child and stroked the tip of one of his ears, then forced herself to back up, and finally turned to get out of the shuttle, her breath short and a lump in her throat. Din closed behind her. The Riser’s hatch locked with a pressurising sound and the whole bulkhead shook a little as the shuttle disengaged.
Her steps stiff and fists balled, she walked back to the cockpit where Neal and Ron had slowed down for Din to separate from the ship; Elara could see the shuttle now gliding more slowly a few meters below, and in the opposite direction. An overwhelming feeling, bordering on irrational fear, came over her and she ran her hands through her hair, scratching her skin with her short fingernails down to the back of her neck as if hoping to get rid of it. But the feeling lasted, swelling in her chest, almost suffocating her.
“The sensors indicate that the selected site is safe for landing, captain.”
TC’s modulated voice pulled Elara from her thoughts and the shuttle disappeared as the Riserturned.
“Ok, no time to waste,” Neal told them. “We have a lot of repairs to keep us busy up until next nightfall, whenever that will be here!”
And as the ship plunged on a downward curve, Elara felt like she was sinking with it.
The shuttle was sinking into the night, dark with a mass of iron-tinged clouds that flickered briefly, as if struck by a bolt of lightning. And it must have been a storm forming over the sea, stretching in angry black waves as far as the eye could see. The inlets in claw marks were fringed with grey foam at every wave that came crashing against the rock and earth, and Din pushed the shuttle’s engines a little against a strong gust of wind that threatened to knock him off course by several meters.
By the light of a new cloud-coated flash, Din could spot the ruined shapes of what may once have been a village further down these inlets and higher up on what looked like a flat hill; the stone foundations of buildings covered with blackened vegetation, the long curve of a fortification facing the land broken by fallen dead trees, the ruins of a towering archway that opened to a wide mountain path that nature seemed to have failed to claim.
Din flew over the ruins of this lifeless village, explored the surroundings and those of the mountain which stood like a row of dark thorns, careful to follow the twists and turns of the path, which sometimes disappeared into the rocky crags and the night, until he found his destination under a new flash of storm; the entrance to a cave, its thick, carved lintel half collapsed. Jaw set, he took a deep breath; apparently, he had just found the gate of one of those temples about the use and significance of which Cornell had speculated so much in his notes.
Another flash of lightning in the clouds cast an ominous glow over the entrance to the cave; the storm was approaching. Din flew over the nearby area, slowing down a little to try and find a safe place to land, but the whole mountainside was far too steep to accommodate a ship, even one as small and agile as his. He would have to land in the valley, possibly even as low as near the village, and jetpack up here. And he wasn’t too happy about that, with the threat of a storm on the horizon. But Din sighed softly and turned the craft around, heading for the foot of the mountain. There, and a little further away from the village in sight of its collapsed arch gate, Din would land the shuttle on a flat, fairly solid-looking strip of land. The thrusters grumbled and didn’t allow for as controlled a landing as Din used to make; the whole interior shook as the landing gears made contact with the ground, and even the child squeaked a little in the chair behind him.
With a few flick of switches, Din brought the shuttle and its entire dashboard to a halt before standing up. Through the narrow viewport that faced the ruins of the village several meters away, he could make out that the sun had to be rising on the coast, somewhere behind the thick black clouds that were packing against the mountains from the sea. No, Din really didn’t like the idea of being stuck in a storm, here or in this cave.
Teeth clenched but resolute, he walked around his seat to find the child, strangely silent and perhaps even a little pale; he raised his large eyes to his visor without a sound, and blinked slowly, his little toy clutched in his hands. Not knowing what to say to him to break the heavy silence, he first put his jetpack on his back. Then, he leaned over to the child and took him in his arms.
“C'mon, kid…”
To speak these words hurt, like trying to speak with a pair of hands clasped around his throat. And yet he added bravely:
“We’re gonna have to fly all the way up there, so… why don’t you give me that and I’ll keep it safe for you.”
He held out the palm of his gloved hand. The child looked up at him, seemed to hesitate, his ears drooping and letting out a small squeak which Din felt pulsing in his arm clamped around him. Then, with a last look at his toy, he placed it in Din’s hand, who weighed it, still detailing it; if he had been astonished, and even impressed, to discover another of the unexpected things this little one knew how to do, now Din wondered at the extent of all he had been taught, and why.
“Don’t worry,” he said, tucking the toy into one of the blasterbelt’s leather pockets. “I’ll give it back to you once we’re back here.”
He didn’t expect to find anyone in that cave, but rather clues, traces that he would have to track down to the actual hidding place of anyone matching the description of one of those Jedi in Cornell’s documents.
Din then walked to the shuttle’s hatch and pressed the panel in the bulkhead; the door slid open onto a dead, grey landscape of which he felt nothing of the cool temperature read by the sensors, sheltered in his armor. With a glance, he checked on the kid ; he didn’t look surprised or bothered by the cold so he jumped with two feet from the hatch’s edge into the thin fog crawling on the ground. And, after closing the shuttle, he walked towards the village’s ruins in an unnerving silence, aside from the crunching of thick, brownish grass under his boots and the distant rumble of waves in the inlets far down the hillside.
Din walked through the broken archway, stepping over some of its huge rubble, covered with the dull, singed foliage under the pallid mist that stretched out in shreds, and startling a few insects with long, iridescent wings that fluttered noiselessly into the questionable shelter of a peeled bush. But Din went past the bush without disturbing its occupants any further, walking between these ghostly buildings whose walls were lying on the ground, their stone smoothed by time like pebbles in a river bed.
Further on, after having climbed a cracked pillar, thrown across a long path knitted with black vines like a web of sharp veins, Din found this other arch that opened on to the mountain and its path still visible from the sky. And it was also visible from the ground, despite the mist and brambles.
“That’s from where we’ll go airborne,” Din muttered for the child, still silent in the crook of his arm. “There’s a cave up that path…”
With a wave of his hand, he pointed to the dirt and rock path that nature seemed to carefully avoid, save for those black, thorney vines he’d had to burn to get through — but quite frankly, Din would rather save his time, and flamethrower’s fuel in case of actual danger, not use it foolishly on a mere annoyance while he could just fly, even at the cost of discretion.
“Hold on tight, ok?”
The child cooed a little, tiny fingers gripping his thumb and Din activated his jetpack, the burning heat of which he felt behind his legs, even through the fabric of his flightsuit. He looked at the sky and the surroundings; everything felt frozen in time, everything felt dead, as Elara had said. Yet, Din would still be mindful. Many things and people he had thought dead had become his most pressing concerns…
Din took a step towards the arch, and then another to take off. Another flash of lightning shone through the cloud layer, casting a gloomy light over the ground and the village’s ruins which grew smaller as he rose. The fog seemed thicker between the shapes of collapsed buildings and their bare foundations, greyer, like smoke, the harsh taste of which he thought he could feel on his tongue and scratch his throat. He thought he heard the echo of distant screams on the wind, the cracking sound of blasterfire over the wooshing of his jetpack, and the ruins he left behind blended with vivid memories of his own village.
Din gritted his teeth, and held the child tighter against him, to turn his focus and the weight of his body towards the eastern side of the mountain where he would find the entrance to the cave.
Wooossshtt!
As soon as Din’s feet touched the almost flat rock ground that stretched across the entrance to the cavern, the jetpack’s thrusters shut down. If a slight buzzing sound lingered in his ears, everything around him was as silent and lifeless as in the valley. Even the storm and the wind hadn’t yet reached that side of the mountain that the pale morning light was trying to reach through the thick clouds. Against him, the child wiggled a little. So, Din unwrapped the safety of his arms to check on him ; he looked fine, though he gave him a look that Din found a little anxious. Quite frankly, so was he… And even more so when he turned to the gaping, pitch-black entrance of the cave. Its massive frame, carved with faded patterns, was split in two and laid across, but as Din approached it, he found that it wouldn’t block his way in at all. With one hand, he reached into one of his blasterbelt pockets and pulled out his rifle’s spot lamp, which he secured to the side of his helmet.
“Ok.” Din sighed without taking his eyes off the the giant stone rubble and the darkness beyond. “Let’s be careful in those ruins…”
He heard the child squeak a little and stomp his arm to curl up against his chestplate, one of his ears folded against the beskar. So, taking his reaction as a sign that he was ready, Din lit his lamp and stepped under the broken gate. He didn’t even have to bend down. The beam of light splashed across the high walls of bare rock and a pathway littered with more carved stone and rubble, that Din avoided and stepped over cautiously. At least the ground felt solid under his feet. And a few meters further on, it gave way to a long descent of wide, rock-cut steps into an oval room, empty except for piles of dust and more rubble; Din looked up, and the beam of his lamp followed, to see a few small chips of stone and dust raining down from an archway that stretched so high in the darkness that it was almost invisible.
A deep, low rumble was echoing in there, like the snoring of a giant beast sleeping in the womb of the mountain. And if Din’s first thoughts turned to mythosaurs and the legendary Taunruk, which had given its name to the mountain range that dominated Kragsted and the stronghold, his logic and knowledge of natural environments leaned more towards the sea and the wind that crashed in waves against the mountain on the coast. And there was something mind-numbing about that slow, steady rumble… Din could fe
Chapter wordcount:2.4K Rating:Mature Warning: Headaches for Vivian and Bernard.
Author’s notes: Back in the Mesa for a bit.
Ask box always open! I really want to know what you think about this story!
— Chapter 46
Terror more than pain was what woke Vivian up with a muffled scream; she fumbled to straighten up, tangled up in her sheets and bathrobe, shaking and sweating. A cold sweat. It was a nightmare — another — and she could only remember her knife… She had it in her hand, and there was blood everywhere. Her own, someone else’s… It didn’t matter. The suffering and the pain were hers, either way.
Right now, everything was dark around Vivian and the migraine hammering at her temples was making her feel queasy. She felt around until touching her bedside lamp which lit up the room in a bright yellow light, making her whimper as she squeezed her eyes shut. She let herself flop on the pillows and stretched carefully before facing the light.
What time could it be for it to be still so dark outside?! Vivian wondered, grumpy. Tearing up from how overwhelming the pain was, she looked for her alarm clock to decipher the numbers — 2:08 am. With a slow sigh, she laid back down; she would have liked to sleep some more but her headache was so strong she wasn’t sure she’d be able to.
Eventually, Vivian found the strength to get up, in slow motion, as if struggling against the tide. She walked all the way into the bathroom, where she flung herself under the burning jet of water unceremoniously. The water helped — a little. But when she came out of the shower, Vivian still looked for painkillers in her medicine cabinet. Fate hated her as much as she hated herself, this morning; there was none left.
“You kidding?” she groaned, without facing her way too brightly lit reflection in the mirror. “Ah, fuck me…”
In frustration, she left the empty bottle in the sink and returned to her room where she gatheted her everyday clothes; she’d go down to the clinic to find someone that could give her something to get back to sleep. And this time, she’d definitely be taking the elevator!
Once dressed, Vivian put on her black labcoat before removing her knife’s sheathe from her gunbelt to drop it on her desk, and buckled the belt to her hips. It was kind of a strange mix, but Vivian brought the flap of her labcoat back in front of the holster and the matter left her mind as fast as it disappeared from her sight. She had far too much of a headache to add to it with stuff like that. Teeth gritted, she checked the display of her tablet — no notification about Josela’s return. Grumpy, Vivian stuffed the tablet in the pocket of her labcoat and left her room.
In the hallway, Daisy wasn’t around but far from being worried about it, Vivian went on her way to the elevator which opened its doors; inside, the light was much dimmer and she immediately felt better for it. Ordering her descent to the clinic’s level, Vivian had the pleasure to see the doors close, and the cabin slowly started to move.
Whether the hosts in the control room had accepted her request or she had received clearance, she was able — this time at least — to use the elevator. And, in a matter of seconds, the cabin took her several levels lower.
There was no-one in the waiting room; neither at the reception desk, nor on the comfortable seats surrounded by potted plants. It was pretty early though, and Vivian didn’t really expect anything else. However, she pressed on the call button on the greeting desk. And for what felt to her like a good ten minutes, which the dial of her watch confirmed, nothing happened. It’s only after having lost a bit of her patience on the button that someone finally showed up through the smoked glass doors behind the desk.
“Can I help you?”
It was a nurse, looking more sleepy than she was, his white labcoat wrinkled on his shoulders.
“Can I have painkillers or sleeping pills?” Vivian asked, blunt without being agressive, neither polite. “I woke up with a wicked mean headache, and I can’t go back to sleep like that…”
The nurse narrowed his eyes, more to fight away the sleep than by suspicion, and he held the door open, gesturing her to follow. Vivian stepped in the calm main room where a few narrow beds were ready for patients’ examinations between white curtains.
“Sit right here,” the nurse commanded her, pointing at one of those beds. “Your name or ID?”
“M…Emerson.”
Another cold sweat shook Vivian; the sole idea of giving her ID made her want to throw up even more. But her name was enough. The nurse came back to her with a tablet, which displayed her medical file.
“You’ve been wounded?” he asked, narrowing his eyes again, suspicious this time, to see her face from up close.
“Yeah, but it was a while ago,” Vivian answered. “It’s just that tonight, I…”
The nurse didn’t seem to give a shit about it; he armed himself with a small pen light pulled from the pocket of his labcoat and asked her to look straight ahead as he threatened her with the little light. Vivian took the pain with each swipe. Her nausea was so strong now that she had an awful pasty taste in her mouth, and she was starting to think that it might not have been such a good idea to come inflict herself this trip to the clinic if it was to get attacked by a flashlight without even getting pills. In front of her, the nurse typed a couple things on his tablet.
“Have you already taken anything? Another painkiller, alcohol…?”
“No.”
“Ok. Have you eaten something before coming here?”
Vivian hesitated to answer.
“N-no, it hurts too much. I wanted to feel less bad first, to… I don’t know, not barf my breakfast.”
Indifferent, the nurse nodded.
“Ok, I see here it isn’t your first visit for this kind of prescription… I can’t renew it myself but I can still give you 500 milligrams for now. You’ll have to eat something as soon as possible, though.”
Vivian only nodded. The nurse took a note on his tablet, which he then took with him behind another set of double doors through which she got just the time to glimpse at other patients, asleep in more comfortable beds than these examination ones. This time, she didn’t wait too long for him to come back with a glass of water and a small cup of folded cardboard where a single pill awaited to be swallowed.
“Is… is doctor Peterson around, now?” Vivian shyly asked him, as he was giving her the glass and cup.
Honestly, she was afraid of the answer.
“He’s only taking emergency shifts…”
Relieved, Vivian pounded her pill in one swig of lukewarm water from the glass, before handing back both recipients to the nurse.
“Thanks,” she croaked.
“Don’t forget to eat something.”
Vivian bobbed her head, a bit annoyed, even though the nurse added:
“And goodnight.”
“Yeah, same to you…”
But now that she was up, Vivian needed to get some air, clear her mind, at least long enough for the painkiller to do its thing, and for her to be able to go back to bed. She wasn’t sure where she’d go get something to snack on yet, but she would use the elevator again anyway.
And once inside, she chose the control room’s level; she first wanted to negotiate with the Professor to know if he had located Lawrence and Delos. Maybe she’d feel a bit less in knots thanks to that, and she then could eat something before going back to sleep.
At the control room’s entrance, there was only the two same samurai who hadn’t moved from their positions but they allowed Vivian to get inside without even a glance. She continued in the long alley of red glass walls to reach the heart of the hub where she heard the voice of a woman she didn’t know.
At the end of the hallway, a man stepped in her path and Vivian froze; like Armistice, he was clad in Delos’ security tactical gear and aimed an automatic weapon at her. But what surprised her the most was that she recognized this man. It would have been difficult no to, though — even without the scar; Hector Escaton was blocking her way.
“What could you possibly want here?” he asked her, with the tone of a man who didn’t really want to hear the answer. “This place isn’t yours anymore.”
Vivian hesitated between reaching for her own weapon or raising her hands. She was still stuck in a hallway in front of a modern weapon — what could her small revolver do against that?
Also, she was such a poor shot that she’d miss her target in a hallway, literally… She was about to raise her hands, mumbling something resembling an answer when Armistice added herself to the picture, next to Hector.
“Leave he be,” she drawled.
And with a tilt of her blond head, she gestured her to come along, even though Hector hadn’t lowered the threat of his weapon. So, Vivian came forward and she felt like she could breathe better once she made a step in the large main area of the control room. Even as Hector was trying to intimidate her with his size, standing a little too close. Armistice shoved him aside.
“What do you want?” she asked Vivian.
“I wanted to know if… if someone in particular had been spotted in the park,” she muttered.
The hardest was to ignore Hector at her side. By the large map dotted with bright spots, the Professor was talking with Bernard and a woman, dressed like a guest barely out of the park and her gunslinger storyline. Yet, Vivian knew she wasn’t a guest, nor a human. She knew this face too, and she had heard her name enough since she’d been back to associate one with the other — Maeve.
“And aside from Bernard’s distress call, our negociations could have gone without an itch if the arrival of this… this drone as Felix called it, hadn’t caused panic!”
“If he doesn’t want to leave Pariah, I might have to go there,” Bernard stated, and Vivian found him to look better — from his speech to his posture. “I think I can stabilize his cognition and—”
“And leave the choice to him, I hope?” Maeve cut him short, terse.
Armistice clicked her tongue in a vague, disapproving sound beside Vivian. She noticed the glance Maeve shot Hector, Armistice and her before carrying on, without even leaving Bernard enough time to answer:
“If he doesn’t choose to join us, his men and the rest of the city probably will. Also, there’s still the soldiers we haven’t had the pleasure to talk to.”
“Let me listen to me and not to them,” the Professor said, in this same stance and look of repressed suffering.
Vivian was torn between the question why hadn’t Bernard done anything to relieve him? and the logical conclusion that there was probably nothing to do if Bernard Lowe, head of Behavior, had done nothing. In spite of that, it was still bothering Vivian a little, as she was herself enjoying the pleasure of feeling her painkiller starting to take effect.
“Of course.”
Bernard’s answer seemed to be meant as much for the Professor as for Maeve who turned around.
“In that case, we’re on the same page!” And she started to walk away. “I’ll head back to Pariah as soon as Felix will have gotten enough rest. There are soldiers who could use some repairs!”
She walked past Vivian, shooting her a half-amused, half-disdainful look, and Hector fell into step with her in the red hallway.
“Bernard,” Vivian called him when he was close enough.
“Hello, Vivian. What are you doing up so early, is there a problem?”
She winced and nibbled her lip.
“No, I… I couldn’t sleep. But you, you seem to be better, now!”
“Yes, Felix did a wonderful job.”
“Of course he did!” Maeve’s voice echoed in the hallway, imperious.
Vivian ignored her to continue to Bernard’s attention:
“Have you located the new boss and… and Lawrence?”
“Yes, we have,” Bernard answered, placatingly. “They haven’t caught up with Dolores yet.”
Vivian nodded, throat tight and stinging with pent-up tears. Bernard patted her shoulder in a comforting gesture, which felt welcome.
“Bernard!”
Maeve’s impatience rang between the walls as she wasn’t waiting anymore and reached the end of the hallway. Embarrassed, Bernard let go of Vivian, telling her:
“Don’t worry, Vivian. We’ll talk about this later if you want. We might know more by then…”
Lips pursed and jaw clenched, she nodded again and watched him walk away. Frustration made the slow breath she took shake but she also felt like she was suddenly heavier; the painkiller had fought the pain away and now that she felt a bit more at peace, fed with that meager intel, her short night was catching up on her.
She rubbed her eyes and pulled all her hair backwards before looking at the professor; in his state, she wasn’t sure it would get her anywhere to try to have a conversation with him and trigger the good side of his shattered personality not to have to speak in riddles.
It was nighttime, anyway; Lawrence and Delos had to have stopped to sleep and wait for the first light of dawn to do anything… She sighed and turned to Armistice.
“Thanks,” she told her.
“What are you thanking me for?”
Vivian shrugged.
“For your… I-I don’t know. I’m going back to bed…”
And if she didn’t fall asleep in the lift, then maybe she’d eat one of the last fruits in her fridge before going back to bed.
I was tagged by @leafy-m ! Thank you so much this was actually really fun (and made me realize just how much stuff i have written)
rules: List the first lines of your last 20 stories. (If you have less than 20, just list them all!) See if there are any patterns. Choose your favourite opening line. Tag some people to play the next round!
1- Sometimes the best place to be when looking for new sights, or a wandering witch, is lost. ( The Wandering Witch )
2- The warm night cast a dark blanket around the edge of town in the middle of the Appalachian Mountains, only broken by the flickering lights of fireflies, and the headlights of an old—but reliable—pickup truck. (Chasing Leads)
3- Early in the morning, when the sky bled a deep purple and faded into red as the suns approached the horizon, a sandstorm hit. (The Sea, Chapter 15 of Pieces, Places and Spaces)
4- “Did you know, a thousand years ago, these mountains were completely dead?” (Team Rose Gold (revamp))
5- Beeping from the holochron interrupted Fennec’s second meal for the third time in an hour. (wip, tbobf chpt 5 and 6 rewrite)
7- All the wind whipping up sand all around his hovel couldn’t deafen the excited little shrieks of the boy climbing up the cliff for afternoon drinks. (WIP, deep dive into Luke Skywalker)
8- Tiny rocks slid and tumbled down into the pool far below Din’s feet. (And There Were Stars)
9- Luke drops all of his shopping bags to the ground almost in time to the apartment door clicking shut. (I Want It All)
10- When a modified, untagged N-1 starship hailed them from heart knows where, Bo-Katan didn’t know what to think. (Hand Holding, chapter 14 of Pieces, Places and Spaces)
11- The darksaber is haunted. (Pieces, Places and Spaces)
12- In Boba’s room, near the back of the palace, music played. (Pieces, Places and Spaces)
13- Despite what others were led to believe, Din did not use the Darksaber.
14- Their footsteps echoed in the dark stone ruins.
15- “Ok that does not make any sense.”
16- Waves of a hazy warmth pulled Din deeper into blissful quiet.
17- There was barely a knock at Luke’s door before it opened.
18- “So. This does it for you?”
19- Paz Vizsla had found his way to Fett’s palace, which meant Din was up against a wall the second they were alone. (its good to see you again)
20- It starts off as fatigue (The Favored Mand’alor)
Trends – uhhh well tis mostly star wars (Din Djarin, beLOVED) and things I haven’t finished and original stuff :0
Also predominantly either very short sentences that are supposed to grab attention or longer, more descriptive ones.
Favorite line – uhhhhh I love 2 4 and 7 <3 <3
Thank you so much again! For the next round I’ll tag @soulswimmrand @thechaospilot (No pressure) and anyone else who wants to do it :0
The silence stretched too long. I shifted from foot to foot, unable to see the Great Abyss’s – or Abby’s, if that’s what it wants to call itself - expression. I mean, it probably didn’t matter what it thought of my silly excuse of a name, or of me. The best I could hope for is that it’d find the taste of my soul satisfying enough to not destroy my world for a few more decades.
Can you tell I have a thing for eldritch creatures being weird about gender?
It’s a little cheating only ‘cause I suck at paragraph breaks, but:
“You didn’t deserve what happened to you. …I swear, that bitch is going to stay out for good. I promise you that. And trust me, I’m always glad to know you’re safe and sound.“ Cobalt snuggled deeper into her arms. ”…I… thank you.“ He said. The two sat in silence, just enjoying each other’s company and mindlessly staring at the kitchen ceiling. Ruby snapped back into reality first, Shiro having started to nudge at her face with his moist nose. ”…Can I get a melatonin too?“ “Sure, Ruby.” “Sleepover time?” “Yeah. I’d like that.”
It was a little relationship excersize (///) I love them
Cobalt definitely believes kissing the homies is okay because Ruby told him it’s okay if they have socks on
I TAG @whumpymirages !
Thank you Atlas <3
Apparently I stopped writing in the middle of a line so I’m doing last two lines.
She shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Three years was a long time. Enough time to get back to her life,
“Oh be serious, Christopher. We all know our dearest Val wouldn’t be caught dead in some musty old comic shop.” Maybe they could be caught dead somewhere else then. The conversation shifts as Marisa laughs, “He’s such a tease, Val.”
“Isn’t he just? Wicky, Darling, I’m thirsty. Should we get something to drink?”
I don’t drink, he almost says but they know that already so he holds his tongue and nods dutifully with a parting smile for Marisa. It’s almost a relief to get away from the incessant chatter. He could zone out right now, listen to the string quartet, and let himself drift.
The flavors were stronger than anything he’d had in weeks. Everything about it was perfect. Too perfect. He took a second bite and that’s when he heard them crunch a sharp pain in his mouth. He fished out a small piece of glass from his mouth. Covered in food and a little of his own blood. He slowly looked down at the plate. It looked completely normal, just like Villain;sitting across from him eating without a second glance.
A fist closed around his waist and he let it, barely breathing. He wouldn’t be able to get out of the box alone, couldn’t climb up the walls with no help. However, once he was up and out of it, he released a spell to heat the air around him quickly.
The man cursed as the small sprite in his hand suddenly burned him like a fiery coal - and dropped it.
The table top was farther than Nik had expected, and while he knew the impact would hurt, he didn’t expect it to knock the breath out of him.
Unfortunately I haven’t written since the last last line tag I’m gonna pick another WIP file which I have neglected for even longer.
“You’re… you’re rather young, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” Caldyn said.
Leon made a low noise, conveying agreement. “Our people learned much and quickly in the early days. Not only the language. Reading and writing, crafting and cooking. So much knowledge, not only from the humans. But imagine one of the explorers coming back, bringing you a recipe that requires something called butter, and you have no idea what that is.” Leon laughed. “Then you wait for a few months for the answer. More often than not, we didn’t wait. We tried our best, we failed and succeeded and tried again. Ask Lily, she’s older than me. When she was a sapling, our people barely knew what an oven was.”
“I’m not that much older than you,” Lily insisted.
Here’s an unedited but last thing I wrote snippet from upcoming thing:
“Is he doing alright now? He didn’t seriously hurt himself?”
“He’s sleeping.” Luke peeks around the doorway into the living room, glimpsing only the top of Leo’s head, his body balled tightly on the sofa. “And no. It could’ve been worse. He could have fucking strangled himself. Hit his head when he fell. I don’t know, I don’t know how intense these things get when in the wrong hands. I’m sure he could’ve done some real damage.”
“Well,” Rob says, “then he’s lucky you came home when you did.”
as for meee here’s my little miscreant tiefling who insists on poetry elements (such as alliteration and some almost-rhyming), and this paragraph might be the most boring of all 4 that I’ve written lmao
Shami shoved themself upright, the spirit misting out. Movement set the world a-spinning so they slouched to drop their head into their hands and spat a curse when something jabbed into their side: a baton stuck out from their sash. They seized the stick and cast it off, supposing somewhere some chair now lacked support. Niqala’s ghost stooped to scrutinize the thing up close.
Context for this one is Nico, the deaf overqualified bodyguard and best friend to the Space Empress Yesenia’s adopted son Ven, recently helped Ven run away after finding out the empress killed his birth mother (via deliberate medical malpractice), and then Nico got recaptured. They just had a layered subtext double-conversation for a minute leading up to this and Yesenia’s been keeping her expression in a ‘mask’ the whole time.
“Where is Ven?” Finally, the actual question.
“Sorry,Your Imperial Majesty, but I wasn’t trained to be a traitor.” The sign he used here was slightly customized; normally it was meant to resemble a backstab, but he quirked his fingers to make it reminiscent of an injection instead.
The mask cracked.
I am too nervous to tag people as well as too tired to remember anyone’s names I am sorry (pensive emoji)
(contains: lady whump, restraints, muzzle, branding, captivity, light dehumanization flavors(?), character with mutated limbs and dysmorphia about them, hurt with a little comfort at the end)
Eugenia woke to a harsh tug on her arm– the left one, the horrible, unnatural one that was too sensitive and too numb, too thin and too lumpy and too thick where it had no reason to be, in swollen sinew and fleshy bulbs. Someone’s heavily gloved hand dug into the space between two bones that hardly had any feeling and their thumb pressed into the edge of a lump that now felt like it was searing in the heart of a forge.
There was a funny thing that the cursed arm did. Instead of feeling pain in one part of it, keeping it to just the one bulbous lump of flesh, every sensitive point on the whole arm reacted at once. The bits around where her wrist and elbow used to be erupted in a similar burning pain, and the five tendrils at the end of it writhed as what remained of the joints jerked in the crushing grip.
“Wh’s–” stumbled out of her mouth, followed immediately by a wordless cry as the grip shifted, pushing in harder against the sensitive spot on the upper arm.
Getting her leg and the cursed leg underneath her was an ordeal lately, even when she was alone; if she had thought that being held up by someone else would help, she was being proven wrong presently. While it felt like strength and coordination were lagging behind the movement of her right leg, the thing on the left was moving a bit too much and a bit too harshly, throwing her off balance enough that the only thing holding her up was the too-tight grip.
“–seems to be convulsing again,” a vaguely familiar voice was saying.
Eugenia’s left eye could see them, but the right wasn’t open yet, which explained why she was only seeing in shapes of temperature. The light pierced into it like a fine, narrow sword aimed right through her skull.
“Wh’t’re you d–” she started to ask, knowing it would be fruitless. Especially fruitless this time, because whoever this was jerked her harshly by the shoulder before she could finish, sending scalding shivers up the length of the arm and down her spine.
Another voice reached her faintly through the grogginess, much farther away than she had grown used to. The distance picked up her heart rate as she craned her head to look, squinting her right eye open to see, though watery through tears.
“…Genie, Eugenia! Genie can you hear– Get your hands off my patient!” Diana was far away, at the other end of a room, behind a door? Eugenia couldn’t make sense of it through how everything was spinning and blurring. Before she could blink anything away and try again, another pair of thickly-gloved hands took hold of her right arm.
“Knew they shouldn’t’ve let the doc stay in specimen containment,” a low, slightly familiar voice muttered above Eugenia’s head. “The curse’s getting into her.”
“I can hear you,” Diana’s voice would be comforting, she sounded furious and protective, but she was too far away.
“Quiet,” snapped the low voice. There was some new, unfamiliar apparatus, something like the examination table but different.
“Oh, let her get it out while she can,” said the other. Eugenia was pressed against a cold surface, angled up, one of the hands that gripped her right arm letting go to push against her back and keep her there.
“Let her go,” Diana snarled, “before we find out how bendable these bars are. We know exactlyhowbreakableyour–”
An involuntary cry from Eugenia drowned out the rest of that. Straps were tightening around the thing on her left where her arm used to be, keeping it in place even as it writhed out of her control. Its convulsions pressed the soft, sensitive bits into the cold metal surface and chafed at the skin under the restraints, and she hated it with such force that she was able to wrench her right arm back to herself.
If she could just loosen one of the straps–
This brief struggle only lasted a second before the hand on her back pushed hard enough to crush the air out of her lungs in a high, sharp gasp, pinning her right arm under her chest.
“Please–” she wheezed out as she felt three points of contact on her shoulder, elbow, and one worming under to get to her wrist.
“This will go quicker if you cooperate,” said the more neutral voice just before the pressure eased up from her back slightly.
Eugenia’s still-free hand darted across for where the restraint on her left shoulder ought to be, but wasn’t quite fast enough.
“–filthy rat bastards can’t you see she’s not in any state for this–”
“Admin really knows how to pick ‘em,” the low voice grunted as two sets of hands wrestled Eugenia’s right arm into restraints. (She put up more of a fight than she could have a few days before, but was still at a thorough disadvantage.)
The final strap was tightened around her right wrist, and the process was repeated with her legs. The thing on the left kept jerking reflexively, throwing off her coordination for any attempts she could have made to kick with her right, not that it could do much good barefoot and with poor leverage.
“You still haven’t told me what you’re doing,” Diana didn’t sound calmer, but like she was pulling back to assess before another attack. “If Isido thinks–”
“We’re not here for Admin Isido. There’s more than one of them, you know, and this–” there was a lighter thump on Eugenia’s back, but even the slight jostling from it made the left arm pinch and burn, made her tear up and bite down on her lip, “–project is shared, if you remember.”
Diana didn’t answer verbally, just with a low growl. (It was possible that she had been emitting a low growl the whole time…)
“But– but what are, what are you, what’s,” Eugenia caught herself mumbling, pulling against the straps on her right arm to no avail. When one of her tugs caused an echoing movement in the left one, she tried to bite back a whimper and stopped moving.
There was the sound of something being picked up, with a metallic clink, and Eugenia’s head was being turned so that the right side pressed against the table. A hand lingered on her neck as another one clumsily pushed her hair to the side. (It was still in the long braid Diana had helped her put it into the night before, after another sterilizing potion bath left her skin stinging.)
A loud crash and the sound of claws scraping against metal came with a loud snarl from Diana.
“Get that away from her! Don’t muzzle my patient!”
Muzzle?
“You had to tell her, now she’s struggling again,” grumbled the low voice. The grip on her neck tightened as Eugenia tried to turn her head and dislodge it. She could hear her breaths, high and fast and shallow, tinged with pathetic whines.
For a few seconds, the only sounds Eugenia could hear was that of her own hitching breath, of blood rushing and pounding in her head over the pressure on her neck, and of Diana’s claws scratching and scrambling against metal, against bars if she had heard right.
Something leather closed around her throat, a strap trailed up the back of her head, and there was a pause as they tried to lift her face off of the metal.
“No no no nono please don’t please you don’t have to I can, I won’t, I swear you don’t have to please–nnh–!” Something pinched what remained of her left ear and she flinched reflexively, gasping, whole body shuddering and trying to curl inwards.
Before she could process it, more thick straps had been brought around the sides of her face, a leather mouthpiece was between her teeth, her jaw was locked shut, and her head had been immobilized against the table. Keening, gasping sounds were muffled by the gag, loud enough in the deformed ear that she could barely hear Diana now.
“Quiet, now,” the neutral voice came with one hand resting on top of Eugenia’s head for a moment. “If you could move for this, it would be worse.”
The thick, curse-resistant gloves these people wore did not leave them much dexterity, so Eugenia had plenty of time to figure out what they were trying to do when she felt tugs on her chemise-thing and light, accidental touches against the skin high up on her back. Where the loose gown tied shut, where they were now trying to untie it. More mumbled pleas were muffled and garbled by the gag as she felt cool air touch her exposed back. They stopped at the top set of ties, not moving to the middle or lower ones, and secured belts over her midsection and lower ribs, leaving her utterly immobilized.
Eugenia had hoped that these examinations would stop now that she had Diana, who still needed to do examinations but was so kind about it. Diana hadn’t once tried to tie her down to something, and talked her through what she was doing, and while she had to touch the mutated things for it, she at least listened when Eugenia told her how horrible they felt.
Something wet and unnaturally cold swiped over an area between her right shoulder blade and the base of her neck, shivers setting off the pinchingsearing spots of pain under the restraints on her left side. (That had probably been to clean it; cleaning came before injections and extractions, but those were always done in the arms or legs or occasionally neck, so why was this one on her back?)
“You’re better at this part,” she heard before something metal and oddly shaped was pressed against the cleaned spot. As the moisture dried, her skin started to sting. The metal thing felt ring-shaped, maybe, but there was more on the inside. A pattern? Some kind of device?
“What are you doing,tell me what you’re doing, step asideandlet me see what you have–” Diana’s orders were not followed, Eugenia shouldn’t have hoped.
The metal was lifted, something was uncorked, something gave a chemical hiss, and when she felt it again, it came with a wet sound and a tacky feeling. Something bright and hot flared to life in the corner of the left eye’s vision, making Eugenia squirm as much as she was able, for about half a second, before the chafingandpinching became too much. There was warmth at her back, comforting if not for the question of what it wasandwhat they were doing with it.
“Breathe in and bite down,” ordered the neutral one, leaving barely any time to question or follow their directions before
burning
burning searing blinding white red hot deafening writhing burning burning burning
Metal crunched, bent, and snapped.
The source of the burning left her skin, but its imprint remained, but she couldn’t stop straining, but her limbs were thrashing, but she couldn’t scream loud enough to drown it out, but–
Eugenia’s muffled cries weren’t the only things she could hear– there was Diana’s roar, an answering shout, blows exchanged and things clattering, thick fabric tearing, something pained (something hot and thick and red sprayed onto her side), the heavy door of the containment area slammed shut.
Then nothing but the two of them panting heavily, one with rage and exertion, the other with pain and burning and more pain and more burning and more–
Then, as if everything had caught up all at once, piling on and becoming too much to bear any longer, there was just… nothing.
.
.
.
“…Genie?”
Her head was being tilted, buckles gently undone. Once the muzzle was off, she couldn’t do more than whimper and lean it against the metal again.
“Eugenia, can you hear me?”
Her braid was pulled to the other side, and her head turned so that the misshapen side was against the metal. The right half of her face was stuck in a grimace, lips trembling, tears flowing down her cheek one after the other. She could see Diana behind her now.
“Okay, okay,” Diana sucked in a breath, her hand resting at the spot between Eugenia’s jaw and neck for a moment. “We’re going to start with your legs, yeah? Nod if you understand.”
Nodding was easy enough, even while every movement seemed to set off something else, to keep her breaths unsteady and her tears falling.
“Right, now your left arm. The right one needs to be still until we can get you down.”
Another nod. She worked from the wrist in, meaning that the tendrils at the end of it tried to latch onto her continuously, but by now she was an expert at dealing with them. Diana’s careful touch sent uncomfortable buzzing sensations through the arm, but nothing as painful as the manhandling before, and she let go after guiding it to stay curled against Eugenia’s chest.
“Can you support yourself? The skin is damaged here, I need you to keep yourself upright until we have this one stable, too.”
She could stand, so she nodded, and the process for this one went about the same as for the left one. Right up until Diana started to guide her into moving it, the skin stretching and burning enough that she might have thought her whole arm had been set on fire.
“Genie, breathe, remember to–”
“…if they get any credit it’s for the treatment supplies, not that those clunky gloves would let them do any of this well–”
She was on the examination table, the top half of her chemise peeled away, her torso propped up by one of Diana’s hands. There was a cool, gooey feeling over the burn, and gauze being wrapped around it.
“Genie?”
The wrapping paused just for a moment. Diana’s face came into view, her free hand patting Eugenia’s cheek. Once she had a moment of sustained eye contact (which had Eugenia tearing up again), she got back to it.
“Hold still, you fainted– I’m just finishing up treating the burn. We can put your gown back after I look at that chafing.”
There was a form on the ground, completely still, in one of the curse-resistant protective suits. It was torn open, blood leaking from it into a puddle on the floor. Some flecks of it still stained both of their clothes. Diana’s hands were perfectly clean.
“What did you just call me?” The man or perhaps woman turned from examining the contents of a shelf to give Valorie a bit of a Look.
“Siren.” She cocked a hip and placed a hand on it, doing her best to return the Look without craning her head weirdly, considering that she was a bit too short to look down at her client. “Your street name? With the likelihood of this place being tapped by about twelve different interested groups since the last time you dealt with them, I’m hardly going to use your givenname.”
“That’s not the one you used last time, Spherica.” Sass for sass, she had to respect it.
“You have several names out there. Do none of your clients tell you about them?” It seemed that this record was not going to be accepted immediately, so she walked further in, setting it on a table and lowering herself into an armchair. “There’s enough aliases floating around that I have to go overtime just to verify whether a mention of you is you or just some upstart, or someone from out of state, and that on top of the potential for imitators…”
“Siren’s a bad one, there’s already a mermaid themed cape using it. Did you steal this, by the way, or do your identity theft thing?” Not-Siren came closer to inspect the record, picking it up and turning it over, probably looking for a price tag.
“In Philadelphia?”
“What?”
“Is the mermaid-themed Siren operating in Philadelphia? I should have heard of it if there’s a new one, for any affiliation.”
“Still on that, huh? No, Siren’s out in… Lancaster?” The record was removed from its case and examined under the light. “Hey, this is fresh! I thought you’d be going for secondhand.”
“No, secondhand’s worse quality and hurts small businesses.” There was a little bowl of hard candies within arm’s reach of her, but she was refraining from getting too close to them immediately.
“So you did steal it.” That was absolutely correct, but,
“I never said that. It would be pretty suspicious for my sister to be out secondhand record shopping when it’s currently her night shift, though, wouldn’t it, Dr Diva?”
Judging by the sound that followed this, if Not-Dr-Diva had been drinking something at the moment, that drink would have found itself quickly airborne and splattered over the wood floor and probably some of the furniture.
“They call me what,” came out strangled enough that Valorie could believe they had been choking just a second ago.
“That or Diva Doctor, nobody’s entirely certain which order it ought to fall in.”
“I’ve never even considered that many years of medical school, not– Not all healing types are medical types, all I do is sing!” Strangely, but in a way that was thoroughly in the norm when one was used to dealing with Not-Diva-Doctor, that raised voice managed to be soothing instead of grating.
“Then maybe you’d prefer Songbird?”
“That one’s taken by at least one person per state and you know one of the new sidekicks is looking at it for their temp alias.” Not-Songbird carefully slid the record back into its case and moved to line it up in an empty space on their shelf. Then turned around, giving Valorie a suspicious once-over. “You don’t have any more for me, do y–”
“Now that you mention it, Mx. Minstrel–”
“Oh not another–”
“–you wanted tabs kept on the requests, and I have one asking if you do rap?”
“Badly.”
“More of a demand than a request, really, but they won’t be able to back it up with anything substantial so I’m sure they’ll take whatever you want to give…” she paused as though not quite finished, just for the few seconds of tense, anticipatory eye contact before her next, “…Supercore.”
“That one’s not even a name! It’s not related to singing or healing, who came up with that one?”
“It’s the name of a niche aesthetic and music genre started onli–”
“Started online, of course it makes no sense.”
“A lot of my information comes from online sources, you know. Aside from the public hero profiles. People post a lot of footage, say a lot of things in supposedly-secure chatrooms…” The bowl of candy was calling to her too strongly to refuse by now. She casually selected something with a pink wrapper and passed it between her fingers for a minute before acknowledging it any further.
“Good thing we have our little arrangement, so the only thing I ever need the internet for is…” They paused when Valorie tapped one finger to her ear with a glance around, a reminder that the place was probably tapped. “…Alright, you know I make a whole deal out of not caring how my recordings sound, but I’ll admit that I know how to look up video tutorials.”
“Remarkable.” Finally looking at the candy, she found that it had a picture of a strawberry, and the label and ingredients were written in Hangul.
“I’d think you would agree with me about how nonsense the aliases that come from the internet are, all things considered, Spherica.”
“That was from the press,Balladeer. Where did you get these?”
“H-Mart had some on sale. Upper Darby, if you’re interested in identity theft this weekend.” They started rearranging the throw pillows, seemingly just for something to do with their hands, but possibly to annoy anyone with too poorly-placed of a recording device. “Balladeer?”
“I swear that some people just looked up synonyms for ‘singer’ for thirty seconds before picking one they thought was interesting.” Instead of tearing the wrapper open like a regular person, Valorie decided to see if she could get this one to pop by holding it just so and squeezing between thumb and curled forefinger.
“Interesting is a stretch. I know I’ve done some Johnny Cash covers, but that’s hardly my specialty… Spherica. Dear. Why did you… perk up like that, when I said Johnny Cash?”
“It turns out,” Valorie started, still wrestling with the surprisingly thick wrapper,
“Oh no.”
“…that some people decided to refer to you by other singers’ names. Mr Cash.” With a pop, the candy was freed.
“No.”
“Or would you prefer Mariah Carey, ma’am?” It was going to be difficult to keep a straight face with candy in her mouth while also pestering her client who was most certainly not Mariah Carey, but Valorie would manage.
“Nooo… That was one time.”
“Other options include–”
“Stop this at once, young lady,–”
“–Idol.”
“Too short, and I’m not famous enough.”
“I may contest you on the fame, Composer.”
“I have never composed once in my life since the day I was born.”
“Serenado,”
“No,”
“Seranada,”
“I’m sensing a pattern,”
“Serenadie,”
“Was this from the same people that came up with yours?”
“No, but it was used in the same circles that used The Vocalist.”
“With a capitalized ‘The’? Really?”
“I’m afraid so, Melody.”
“That one’s already taken at least twenty times, with a wait-list.”
“That’s rather unfortunate, Singster.”
“You’re making these up now. By yourself. In your head, right now, you’re making it up.”
“You have no way of proving that without using the internet, Doc Ditty.”
“Don’t ever say that in my office again, young lady.”
“It’s a deal, Caroler. Or Carol if you prefer.”
“And don’t say that one too much or you’ll summon… Her.”
“Word on the street is she’s been gone long enough to likely be dead by now, actually.”
“And? Word on the street is also that she’s too evil to die.”
“Just keeping you up to date, Cold Canary.”
“That sounds like turn of the century slang.”
“…I’m not certain it isn’t.” The candy was very good, she noted, even though she’d been talking around it since she put it in, not quite a realistic strawberry flavor but it certainly tasted very pink. “You know, I found a thread about you where they were trying to come up with an alias that would evoke a speakeasy lounge singer.”
“Who is ‘they’?”
“Teenagers, most likely, working on rumors and nothing else. I gave it a quick look into, no real information breaches. The most they got to was Speakeasy Singer before deciding it was too long and returning to calling you Dr Lullaby, which you may note is the same number of syllables.”
“Why’s everyone convinced I’m a doctor? I’m not even a trained nurse!” Not-Dr-Lullaby and Valorie both glanced around in what had become their usual ‘cursory wiretap acknowledgement’ way with that last sentence.
“Easier shorthand, I suppose. Though that does remind me of a couple more of your nicknames…”
“Are you ever going to run out of those?”
“Perhaps next time. I do have to leave soon, I have… another appointment, you could say.” Standing, she used the rustle of her clothes to mask the sound of her pulling out a folded note, holding it out between two fingers.
“I see, I see, you stick around exactly long enough to bother me but not long enough for me to dish any back, ah?” They stood, doing the same sound-masking trick while accepting the note but not unfolding or giving it a real look just yet.
“Someone in my line of work always knows when to retreat. And I don’t want to be stuck around here when you deal with your potential surveillance. I know you could fix any physical damage after the fact, but I would much prefer to keep my eardrums in a continuous state of…” The wording was going to be awkward, she realized now, but she pressed on, already waving a hand as if to dismiss the way it was phrased. “…remaining unbroken.”
“I’ll tell you if I start calling myself anything silly while you’re out, so you can throw out all your painstakingly collected lists.”
“I’ll make sure it gets laughed off the forums when you do, Beyonce.”
Mydearest and most belovedKitty, if I am still permitted to call you Kitty, if I am still the only one cheeky enough to get away with it, though I would surely understand if you had by now moved on, for themy tragic sacrifice of exile must surely drive such a wedge into all friendships that I would understand if even my dearest accomplice were to have found someone anew,
The treatments have been going well! As well as they can be expected to, taking in full account of the gravity and tragedyof my situation. What do I miss more, than my dear friends’ laughter, like unplanned music which surprises, pleasantly, all those whose ears and other sensory receptacles it reaches? What canI miss more, than the sweet and thrilling than the thrill than the sweet and rushing thrill than the sweet and thrilling rush of the hunt, and all of us setting our camps, and keeping each other awake with conversation and teasing and revelry long past the time we ought to have slept, and Sweetie hardly managing to check us with the schedule of watches,
Bother it, I’ve gotten distracted! What was I
HowisSweetie? Have they returned yet from their voyage to the continent? I have no address for them, so I must beg of your kindness to pass along my regards, and to the others as well!
It is my sincerest and greatest hope that this letter, like those before it, reaches you in a state of with no lingering traces of the curse upon it, for it would be my worst and greatest fear and deepest regret if
Regrettably, I have lost track of that sentence as I had to investigate an odd noise.
Where was I? It is so terribly inconvenient that I must let these letters sit for such a long time to evacuate the energies which prolonged contact with my hand sets upon them
[splotch of ink]
Another strange noise!
I shall go investigate once more, though I fear I have spilt too much ink over this one, it may not be
The truck gang had left Hailey alone for a minute, probably to debate their next move, maybe just to test how long she would put up with sitting there and growing increasingly less comfortable before she tried to call them in to let her shift positions. And, unfortunately, the restraints did not seem to be giving way any time soon, no matter how much she tested it while she was unobserved.
It was difficult to resist the urge to try blasting an energy beam again, as if it would just work this time, as if the ability hadn’t been taken.
The worst part was that she couldn’t tell anyone– at least, not anyone who could actually do anything to help. Or maybe the worst part was that now she could think of somany ways that she might have been able to avoid it, if she’d known what was coming or if she’d acted on her misgivings or if she’d just timed her day differently. Maybe the worst part of it was the aftereffects, and she might have been able to deal with it better if she hadn’t been left sick for days and if her hands didn’t still feel cold and shaky 24/7 no matter what she tried to help it.
Somehow, the worst thing was not the fact that it had been some of her own fellow “superheroes” who had roped her into this situation. Or blackmailed, technically. Coerced, even.
(Man, she’d really been left for over ten seconds while awake, restrained, and unsupervised, and her go-to mental exercise was flashbacks? Maybe it was a side effect of being unconscious for so long.)
Actually, it was slightly weird, both of the very bad things that had happened to her in the last few weeks that involved her being taken somewhere against her will had happened right before she had a date scheduled. And the last time it had happened, she had texted home that she was just going to be a little late, only to be dropped off at her apartment hours later with a case of the worst… just the worst in general. And this time, she’d texted home that she was just going to be a little late, and now it was hours later and…
Was it better or worse that, this time, the only one that had betrayed her was herself?
(Well, her own incorrect assessment of her ability to handle a situation, but that didn’t sound nearly as poetic or dramatic, now did it?)
There was nothing quite like waking up to the feeling of being crushed and having no idea how one had gotten there, when the last thing in memory was a casual morning commute.
Car crash? Building collapse?
Something shifted and Mel was aware of a dull pain in his legs. Were his eyes closed?
There was a distant siren. There was shuffling, voices… actually kind of… familiarvoices…
“Over here!” Very familiar. Not from his family, though, or his friends or workmates or the guy he’d started dating– The familiarity was on the same level as someone from… TV? Was he hearing things?
“Excuse me, are you conscious? Good, please stay awake, you’ll be okay, we’re here to help,” the familiar, somehow soothing voice was saying through the pounding in Mel’s head. It was interrupted by a horrible metallic screeching. (Already-mangled metal door being torn in half by bare hands.)
That sound was too much.
He came to again with a gasp. Various voices were having quick exchanges. His legs felt a lot worse suddenly, not being crushed anymore but like they were… loose? Weirdly? Falling apart. Bleeding? The siren wasn’t distant anymore.
Hands were grabbing him and he wasn’t sure if he needed to get away or try to make things easier–
“Please don’t move!”
Mel’s eyes opened to see a familiar face hovering over his, haloed by angelic yellow light with pulses of flashing red from one side. Brown skin, dark freckles, beautiful hair that he wouldn’t dare touch even in his dreams, deep brown eyes that were even more earnest and mesmerizing in real life and possibly a little bit more due to what might be blood loss. Blue fabric tight across a muscular chest. Halcyon.
“Okay,” he faintly heard himself say without much thinking about it.
Something obviously happened, because Halcyon was a superhero. He was being rescued. By Halcyon. The superhero. Was he carryinghim?
Halcyon was saying something else, maybe explaining something, but Mel’s moment of clarity was fading fast. Everything was moving again. He held still as best as he could and Halcyon smiled reassuringly and, honestly, he felt kind of reassured.
I haven’t posted my poems in a bit, so here’s one I just wrote for Ghostwriter. If you weren’t around when I began this project a little over a month ago, Ghostwriter is going to be a published collection of my poetry walking through my various emotions over the course of a few months. Because I personally deal with severe depression, anxiety, and a few other types of mental health struggles like OCD and paranoia, I wanted to convey both my hopes and fears through my poetry in hopes of spreading awareness of mental health as well as to give hope to those who, like me, struggle on a daily basis to crawl out from under the dark cloud hovering overhead.
This poem is about how hard it is sometimes to respond to friends when you are having a low period, and especially how difficult it can be to actually go out and do something. Obviously, as it is covid, I’m not out running around in the first place. However, even just answering messages is still sometimes avoided without me realizing I’m doing it. Usually, by the time I do notice, I’m already a couple days late and become afraid that my friends might not be happy because I didn’t respond right away. Logically, I know that’s ridiculous, but the thoughts are still there.
Because I know a lot of other people feel the same way about this kind of thing, I wrote this poem to convey that you aren’t alone, and for those of you who feel like you’re being ghosted, don’t give up. Because these ghosts can still be summoned, sometimes you just have to cut through the static first.
I love you all, and I hope everyone has a wonderful day today and everyday after. Let’s finish out this horrible year strong and work together to make 2021 a happier, safer time.
Every time I play a video game or watch an epic anime, it always makes me wish I could live somewhere less boring and mundane. Somewhere I could fight and stand for something. Somewhere true adventure was still possible, in whatever random form it appeared in. Somewhere I could take control of my own life without someone bigger than me lauding my human rights over me, toying with them in their hands. Somewhere I didn’t feel so suffocated…
Then I remember that this world can become like that too.
This is my battle. The reason I fight. To create a world that isn’t suffocating to myself and everyone else who experiences this feeling. To craft and mold a world where people are free to chase after any dream they desire.
And I’ll follow through with that sentiment with my bare hands if I must.
Becausethis, this massive, crazy world right here in front of us, this is our adventure. Each and every struggle we face, big and small, are our quests to complete and main bosses to vanquish. Our victories, both little and grand, are our rewards and levels ups and new achievements unlocked. Each and every skill and asset we get our hands on are our inventory and equipment. And every bit of wisdom we acquire, every lesson we learn from our blunders and our triumphs, are the experience we need to propel us further forward towards our final goals, whatever they may be.
I don’t actually want to run away to some far off fantasy, I truly just want to live.
And that is something I will never stop striving for.
Warnings: polyamory, sexy times (a dumb amount of dirty talk), a little bit of a praise!kink, my general foul language, also an abundance of pet names (I have absolutely Zero self-control okay,,)
Summary: just a cozy day in with your boys,,, breakfast, cuddles, oh and a hella explicit threesome. fr it’s like 85% smut, im so sorry hhhh.
A/N: HEY!! I died for like a year. But I’m back now with renewed inspiration thanks to the sambucky show (: also huge shout out to @empyreanwritings for beta reading for me. I don’t know what i’d do w/o you, steph. ilysm <3
50 ATC. Kelsa Kine (23) is trapped in a Hutt labor camp and has thought endlessly of her escape the entire time.
“Alright, guards change shifts in two minutes. Everyone ready?” Kelsa asked the small group of slaves that she had formed an uneasy alliance with.
Everyone nodded, grim determination on every scarred and dirty face. They all wanted out of the mines and out from under the Hutts thumb. They were all desperate for their freedom.
Normally, Kelsa tried to avoid making deals with desperate people. Desperate people were dangerous. But these weren’t normal times and she was just as desperate as the rest of them.
“Ok. Mouse, come here.”
The smallest of them scurried up to her, nervous excitement on his thin face. Reaching to the collar on his neck, Kelsa closed her eyes and concentrated. The Force was still easy enough for her to feel but forced labor, little food and the all to common beating made it extremely difficult for her to wield.
A trickle of sweat slid down her brow as her face scrunched up in concentration. She could not fail, not now. This had to work otherwise they were all doomed to a slow death in the mines.
Precious seconds ticked by as she poked and prodded at the collar with the force until finally, with a small click, it unlocked and fell from Mouse’s neck.
Mouse’s eyes went wide as he felt the skin of his neck for the first time in years.
“Get a move on, kid,” growled the biggest of their group. “We need that remote.”
Kelsa frowned at the big man. Out of everyone in the small group he was the one that Kelsa trusted the least. Had he not been part of her work crew, she never would have included him in her plan. He had never done anything overtly hostile but she always got a bad feeling in her gut whenever she looked at him. Still, he was right, they were on the clock.
“You’ve got this, Mouse,” she whispered as she clapped his shoulder.
Grinning, Mouse gave two thumbs up to the group and dashed off to the guard house.
The rest of the slaves had nothing to do but wait and hope that their little thief wouldn’t let them down.
Not for the first time, Kelsa wished that her connection to the force was more useful. Back on Odessen, her abilities had seemed limitless and she had still been growing in potential. But this wasn’t Odessen. Now she was exhausted every second of every day and it took a monumental effort just to keep putting one foot in front of the other let alone to unlock multiple slave collars. One was all she could manage now and it was up to Mouse to snag the remote to deactivate everyone else’s.
“This had better work,” the big man muttered with a glare at Kelsa.
She returned his glare with one of her own. “You don’t like my plan? Then go back to your bunk. I’m sure Smiley will love to have someone to vent his frustrations on after he finds out he lost a whole crew.”
The big man let out a growl but kept his mouth shut. None of them wanted to get on Smiley’s bad side. They had all seen the foreman’s work and no one wanted to be the next example he chained in the center of the camp for all to see.
Fortunately, they didn’t have long to dwell on what would happen to them if they were caught as Mouse quickly came running back into view with a wide smile on his face.
Seeing his smile and the remote in his hand, Kelsa let out a sigh of relief that was echoed throughout the rest of the work crew.
“Guards were sharing a death stick, just like you said! They never had a clue!” he whispered excitedly as he started passing the remote around to everyone.
For the first time in what felt like forever, Kelsa felt real genuine hope as she deactivated her collar. This was really going to work!
Tossing the remote to the big man, Kelsa addressed the group. “Ok. That’s that done. Now lets go. We gotta get to those drones before they take off with the evening shipment.”
She was greeted with smiles and eyes full of the same hope that was now coursing through her. This was going to work. It had to work.
As quietly as they could, the group made their way to the western part of the camp where the raw spice from the mines was packaged and sent to a refining plant off-world. Now that their collars were deactivated, all they had to do was get over the camp walls and slip into one of those drones and it would take them away from this hellhole.
Reaching the wall was easy enough. With their collars deactivated there was no risk of them going off as they reached the edge of camp. Most guards on the night shift were also extremely lazy as the slaves were usually too exhausted from their time in the mines to do anything other than collapse into their bunks. Kelsa was counting on that behavior to get them all over the wall without attracting anyone’s attention.
Quickly, two of the crew dropped to a knee and hoisted a third up to the top of the wall. From their, they tossed up a makeshift ladder of knotted safety cords stolen over the course of a month from the mine’s supplies. The man atop the wall secured the ladder and everyone began to make their way up the wall.
When it was finally her turn, Kelsa took in a breath of air as she climbed which somehow seemed fresher than the air in the camp. A taste of freedom, she thought with a wide smile. Just as she began to swing her leg over the top of the wall, warning bells went off in her head. The Force was screaming at her of a danger that she had somehow missed.
Whipping her head around, she scanned the nearest watch towers but there was nothing. No guards pointing weapons at her or searchlights illuminating her position. But then what was it?
Far too late, she looked down to where the rest of the crew were all staring up at her. Some with sad and regretful expressions on their faces, others with looks of disgust. But her eyes zeroed in on the big man who was giving her a cruel grin. The remote to the slave collars was held in his hand and pointing right at her. “Sorry but we’ll have enough trouble without one of you witches coming with us.”
Pain exploded through her body as the collar was reactivated. She convulsed on top of the wall as she screamed out in agony.
Still screaming, she toppled back down the wall and into the camp. The fall undoubtedly did even more damage to her but she couldn’t think through the shocks coursing through her.
Alarms were now going off as her collar let all the guards know that someone had approached the wall, setting off their collar’s shock function.
She never heard the shouting of the guards as they spotted her. She didn’t even hear the alarms going off in the camp. But she did hear the sounds of the automatic drones powering up and lifting off the ground.
Tears were spilling down her face as the guards dragged her still twitching body back into the camp. Tears of pain, of betrayal, of fear and hopelessness. She didn’t want to die in the camp but now she was terrified that that was exactly what was going to happen.
As if in answer to her fears, the next thing she recalled seeing was Smiley grinning at her, a sadistic gleam in his eyes.
“No… please… no,” she rasped.
Smiley’s grin never faltered as he struck her across the face. “Now, now. You know the rules, 952.”
Utter terror gripped Kelsa’s heart as she desperately tried to pull away from the strong arms that kept her on her knees.
“Looks like things have gotten too comfortable for you slaves.” He tapped his chin as he hummed with the air of someone considering what they wanted from a diner menu. “I think they need another example of what happens when they act up.”
“NO! No, please!”
“Take her away. I’ll get started on her in the morning.”
“No! No, no, no! Please don’t! I’ll be good! I swear! It’ll never happen again! Please!”
But her screams and pleas for mercy fell on deaf ears. The guards were too strong and she was too weak. They dragged her to the center of camp where the “stage” was located. Chains were attached to her wrists from a pulley and then pulled taught, straining her arms and forcing her to stand on her toes.
“Please… please don’t… I’ll do anything…” she sobbed as the guards finished setting her up.
All she got for her pleading was cruel laughter and a punch in the gut.
She gasped and sagged in her bonds, causing the manacles to cut into her wrists.
Tears fell freely from her eyes as she tried to ease the pressure on her wrists. But doing so made her calves burn and in her weakened state, her legs eventually gave out. She whimpered as her wrists took on all of her weight and began to slowly bleed but she just didn’t have the strength to try and stand anymore.
Why couldn’t the fall from the wall have killed her? Why couldn’t she have died during her time in the mines? What had she done to deserve this life?
Her sobs echoed throughout the camp as she hung there only stopping when Smiley arrived at sunup to be quickly replaced by her screams.
43 ATC. Kelsa Kine (16), eldest daughter of the late Alliance Commander, is struggling to make ends meet while raising her younger cousin, Élise Kine (11)
Just a little bit further.
That was what she kept telling herself. Just a little bit further.
On most nights, the walk back to her tiny apartment would have been simple. But tonight those few blocks had her struggling for breath. Each step took a monumental effort as if her boots were made of duracrete.
Some small part of her brain recognized that her fatigue and shortness of breath were symptoms of blood loss. But there wasn’t much she could do about that right now besides continue on to the first aid kit in her apartment.
Just a little bit further.
Her vision blurred for a moment and she lost her balance. Instinctively, she tried to twist and fall on her good side but pain still shot through her like lightning and tears came to her eyes as she cried out.
She should have seen the knife coming. She should have known that something was off about tonight’s match. Far too many nicely dressed people were in the crowd tonight. She should have realized it was a death match.
Curling in on herself, she let her tears continue to fall.
She hated death matches. She hated having to kill others that were just as desperate as she was. She hated what her life had become.
With her eyes still closed, she felt the stab wound on her side. It wasn’t bleeding profusely but it was still oozing blood. She would have to give herself stitches as she still didn’t have enough credits saved up to afford kolto.
She hoped that Élise was already asleep. It always hurt to have to avoid her little cousin’s questions or outright lie to her about how she was making credits to keep them both housed and fed. It hurt all the more because she knew Élise didn’t believe her. Their force bond made it almost impossible to lie to each other though she had gotten much better at shielding Élise from the pain she experienced in her matches.
Oh how she wished she was experiencing the usual pains from a normal match.
Some part of her mind whose voice was a mix of her parents and her other Alliance teachers told her that she had to get up. The more she lay there on the ground the more likely it was that she would never get back up.
Grunting in pain, she managed to roll onto her stomach and then brought her knees up beneath her.
A pool of blood had formed beneath her but she was too tired to even wince at how much she was loosing. Instead, she scrunched up her face in preparation for more pain and before she could think herself out of it, forced her body to stand.
A strangled whimper escaped her lips as her side screamed in protest but she did manage to stand.
Taking a moment, she tried to fill her lungs with oxygen but no matter how many deep breaths she took, her lungs did not feel satisfied.
Realizing that she would not be able to feel better here but not trusting her balance any longer, she pressed one hand against the wall and started to slowly shamble the final few blocks to her apartment.
Just a little bit further.
After what felt like hours, her apartment building finally came into view.
Relief flooded through her exhausted body, giving her enough clarity of mind to balance her way into the lift to her floor.
When the lift doors opened, she stumbled out. Her apartment was just a few doors down.
Just a little bit further.
Glancing down to her side, she saw that she was still bleeding and had trailed blood from the lift and into the hallway.
Just as she started to wonder how much blood she had lost, her vision went blurry again.
Her body didn’t even have the strength to reach for the wall for balance. She simply wobbled on unsteady feet before collapsing.
A muffled sob emerged from her as she desperately reached out to her apartment’s door.
Please… she was so close.
Shadows began to obscure her vision.
She whimpered as she dragged her bloody body closer to the door.
Reaching up felt like a brand was being pushed into her side and she let out a desperate cry of frustration.
The door’s release was right there.
Reach…
Just a little bit further.
It was too far.
The pain was too much.
She fell back onto the floor and this time she couldn’t get back up.
