Private Dream, Again

[Elle Mors]

DREAM, AGAIN
​

A blue sky over verdant fields of green, rocky shores and quaint beaches, Ossus was as much a peaceful world on its own as it was a symbol for the potential for positive change. Scars from far-flung asteroids might still linger deep beneath the green but even that memory only added to its inherent beauty, a beauty that gave temporary escape from the chaos beyond its atmosphere. So close to home and simultaneously so far, Elle lingered near a small fishing town, sitting with her feet hanging over the waves along the rocky shore, in momentarily distracted bliss. The attachments that had weighed her down seemed so light now, and memories that had begun to linger closer to the forefront of her mind now slid to the back, and most of all she felt free - an older face framed by shorter cropped blonde hair, green eyes worn with the experience of a galaxy currently on fire.

Elle Mors, daughter of two poor agri-workers in the Sith Empire and a former Sith herself, took solace in the tranquility that provided a peace that was matched only by her constant meditation in isolation. The locals didn't know her, in fact she'd only even been on the planet - or even in this quadrant of the galaxy - for a little under a week, but they treated her well. Room and board had been free in exchange for manual labor, work she gladly provided as payment. She'd forgone the traditional robes of the Jedi when she'd decided to alter her path from the dark side, opting for more common clothing, so she hardly stood out to the untrained eye; only her lightsaber, forever at her side, gave away that she was anything but normal.

A sigh escaped her lips, her head tilting back and up towards the sky as she leaned back against the hill she sat on. The serenity of the scene, the peacefulness of the town she'd decided to stay in, and the relative cheer of the locals helped greatly with the drab grind her day-to-day had turned into. As an empath she had to be a social creature out of necessity but for nearly the last year she'd secluded herself to a small craft wandering through the void of space to evade anyone that might have been looking for her from her past, sitting here, taking in the world and its people, was a pleasant enough break on its own.

"Lost?"

She seemed to speak out to the wind, but her head turned and she caught Kir Dantos in her stare. "Did the force bring you, or the scenery?" She asked, turning her gaze back to the clouds above. There was a lingering sense of tension in the air that he'd brought with him, perhaps something deeper, too, but without a close bond she couldn't read him well enough to know. "You might as well sit, easier to talk when we're both on the same level."

"I'm Elle, by the way."

 

[Kir Dantos]

DREAM AGAIN​

FISHING VILLAGE, OSSUS
OBJECTIVE: UNCLEAR
EQUIPMENT:
TORN JEDI JUMPSUIT | ORANGE LIGHTSABER
TAGS:
Elle Mors

​

The pale glow of the twin suns of Adega I and II, illuminated the cloudless azure blue sky overhead. What could he call this? An escape? Well, it sure gave off that vibe. Ossus was a planet not as densely populated as Corellia or Coruscant, but populated enough that it could at least be called inhabited. A quaint fishing village was what he could describe this place, a place of hope, and of tranquility, a conduit of the Force. Perfect for some lost soul wandering the galaxy, or a coveted stop for an adventurous spacer.

Little hut like homes were dotted around, with various boats out in the far flung regions of the ocean, fisherpeople hoping for a good catch. Kir halted for a moment, examining the depth of his injuries, the wounds he'd obtained on Felucia had almost healed, but the fresh scar on his cheek and the long scratch on his arm from the scuffle on Corellia remained, despite the locals best attempts to heal him. It was almost as if they were symbols for the current events that had transpired the past few days. Every time a wound would heal, a fresh one was sure to be on the way. And not just physical.

They still stung, but here, it didn't seem to matter too much. The young Jedi took a deep breath in of the cool, crisp ocean air, letting it fill his lungs before exhaling it out again. When last had he done something so liberating, so freeing. It loosened the chains of pain and sorrow, and allowed him to be enveloped in warmth. It was a relatively warm day, but the ocean breeze tempered it, turning it into something rather pleasurable.

Kir traversed methodically over the short hill, coming up on the shoreline. A young woman, perhaps around his own age sat on the hill, leaning back in a relaxed pose. A light breeze jostled his short light brown hair, the white streaks jostling also. Unsure of what to do, he dithered there for a moment, before she turned around to face him. Kir and the unknown woman locked eyes and he studied her features in more depth. Her face was youthful, with short flaxen hair, and emerald green eyes, not too dissimilar to his own. Also like him, her eyes seemed to hide a deep pain, to him it was telling of the current political climate.

Her clothing didn't stand out too much, it was pragmatic, common among the people of the galaxy, a least those who never really seemed to have a permanent home, like leaves in the wind constantly moving from place to place. The dress sense however was not mutual as his worn and torn grey Jedi jumpsuit evidenced. A local perhaps? The glisten of a certain cylindrical object on her belt put that thought out of his head.

Kir found a smile beginning to form as he broke the stare and looked out into the horizon. "I dunno anymore, all of the above?" He mentioned with a chuckle.

Finding his way over to her, he took a seat on the edge, continuing to look out into the distance.

"Nice to meet you, Elle, I'm Kir, Kir Dantos."

Putting out a gloved hand, he offered her it, in greeting.

 

[Elle Mors]

It was immediately clear to her that he wasn't from around here, or at least hadn't lived on Ossus either for quite some time or just recently. Clothing askew, colors drab and typical of someone that either had ties to an organized order of Jedi or wanted to, Kir Dantos could've stuck out in a crowd full of people by wardrobe alone. She reached out with a slender hand, letting him take hers in his, and shook his while she silently studied his face - wondering what his story was, or at the very least the how or why behind their crossing of paths. "Not from the village, are you?" She asked, her question, and the tone voicing it, mostly rhetorical. The comment was meant to be taken in jest, evident by the exaggerated expression of curiosity etched into her face.

"Either way, it's nice to meet you. It isn't often I run into someone else."

Leaning back all of the way now, more lying than sitting at this point, Elle drew in a heavy breath of air through her nose and held it in for a short time before letting it back out through parted lips. "It's good that you don't know, by the way. None of us are really sure what we're doing, where we're going, or why we're even here in the first place. I move from place to place, planet to planet, and I'm never really sure why I end up where I do, I just know I'll find some way to make things a little bit better wherever I go." She said, turning her head towards him as she spoke. "You look like you could use a little help right now, yourself, actually." She added with an arched brow.

"Where did you come from, anyways?"

 

[Kir Dantos]

DREAM AGAIN
Elle Mors

​

The waves crashed up against the rocks, incessant in their constant bashing, while the rocks stood stalwart for now, there was always the knowledge that eventually, one day, that rock would fall away and be gone, be cast away from whence it came. It was a sobering thought, but not necessarily comforting, not too much unlike his current headspace. Kir took a long pensive inhale, allowing the fresh air to fill his lungs, to revitalize him after a rocky past few days.

He turned to her, having been momentarily distracted, pondering on the question for a few seconds. "I don't feel like I'm from anywhere at the moment. Nowhere to go, nowhere to feel safe, to feel wanted." A grimace materialized onto his face as he tried to come to terms with the gravity of this, of everything, a slight smile soon found its way onto his face, humored by the jest. But that expression soon dissipated back into that thoughtful disposition that he had arrived with.

Hoping to relax, and wanting to let go, even for some time, he lay back also, staring up at the cloudless sky, not concerned anymore with what was beyond, or who was looking for him. Just feeling the Force around him, in Elle, in the diminutive animals that went about their daily business, the grass, in the waves, in the environment, in the planet itself.

"I guess that's what makes it fun, huh. That's a good attitude to have, a free one. Not the one I once had, not the one I had before Felucia, or even during Felucia. Do you ever really feel like you belonged somewhere, or attached to somewhere that you couldn't ever really let it go, only until it let you go." He asked her this rather sincerely, to him, the answer was hidden within the question, and his thoughts on the subject had changed, quite significantly.

"Pretty much, some help in trying to find myself in the galaxy, or find who I am." Kir once again hesitated, slightly puzzled on how to answer her last inquiry.

"A battle, one of great magnitudes, between the forces of the light and those of dark, or so I thought. My master led the charge while I commanded a troop trying to besiege Kway Teow, the capital of Felucia. I think it was a sniper, got me in the leg, and likely somewhere else, I don't know, I passed out soon afterwards." He knew his injuries spoke volumes, and so continued on with minimal narration.

"I expected to wake up in a Galactic Alliance Military Hospital, with someone at my side. I instead woke up, tied to a tree, Jungle Felucians standing round chanting while one held a blade. The helplessness, the loneliness, it was so overwhelming more so than even the battle itself. Thank the Force I managed to escaped that planet, had to steal a ship but I did it, I got away. Then it was a journey, of trying to find myself, getting beaten up and saved on Corellia, the various adventures.."

Kir stared out into the wide blue totality of the sky, rather serene. "I think it all led up.. to this, this moment of reflection." The young Jedi felt physically at ease, as if some sort of large crate had been lifted off his back. Immersed in relief that he had finally told his story, he looked to her, finally managing a slight grin, before gazing away in silence. Random breezes that came and went, pushed through his hair, as he sat there, content. He'd quite underestimated the help that being listened to could provide, the closure it gave him.

 

[Elle Mors]

It didn't take an empathic link to understand where he was coming from. Though their experiences were undoubtedly incomparable, she could not feel the lingering presence of a darker past that followed her like a cloud, the emotions that ran through his voice, the tone of his tale, told her that he'd pulled through his tribulations with a very similar outlook to her own. Her eyes wandered back to the choppy waves not quite so far from them as he spoke, visualizing the moments he described through the crests and falls of the flow of water.

Some of his words, as she tried to digest what he'd been saying, hit a little closer to home than she'd like, and whatever slight expression of humor she'd wore was now being worn down with the weight of those thoughts piling on her. "You've been through more than most." She said softly, her right hand toying gently with strands of grass that poked up through the ground beneath her. "Certainty is a difficult illusion to shake, and an even easier trap to fall into. The only thing we can be certain is of our hearts, everything else is subject to the collective will of the entire galaxy. Today we might be resting here, relaxing, at peace, but tomorrow the sky could be black with the ships of the Sith Empire, or the New Imperials, or the Bryn, and chaos could shape Ossus as peace has before it."

"I don't have all the answers, but I do understand the sort of conflicting thoughts you've gone through after having your foundations shaken out from under you." She said while slowly pushing herself up, sitting now more than leaning. "Even when things seem to be as reliable as they can get, so solid you can trust that it will still be there for you the next day or the year after, a choice you or anyone else makes can change everything. Some of us cling to the things we can rely on more than not, craving that stability, and they can find ways to still hold onto that attachment even when things become one-sided." Elle explained, gesturing to the fishing village not too far from the shore. "They can bear with the turbulence and will make things work out, even when hope is small."

"Then.. there's the rest of us." She said with a sigh, her hands coming back to her sides, palms down on the grass and sand. "We search the stars for a place to belong, a people to belong with, and we learn as we go. We see what others don't, accept what people that are tethered to their past can't grasp, and see the faults in our own beliefs and improve them where others just create apologetics for their shortcomings and mistakes."

She held a brief pause, turning her head to look him in the eyes, to study his face, as she wondered which of them was he; questioning herself again in the break from this tangent.

"Eventually we learn that what we have now isn't set in stone, that we're always falling off the right path and that we're always looking for a way to get back on it. We don't belong to any one place because we belong to the galaxy, and with the people in it by extension."

"I guess, haha, what I'm trying to say is that you're looking for something small, something close, but what you need to do is look up, for something bigger. The order you left behind, the master you followed, they're just little bits in a bigger machine - the galaxy, the force, those are what you belong to. The people here, on Ossus, are just as important as the people on Ziost or the people on Coruscant, and all of them are your people, too. You don't belong on any one world, to any one people, any singular group, whether it's an order or a nation. We don't." She said, trying, and probably failing, to put her thoughts, her feelings, and experiences into words. "Wayseeker, sentinel, it doesn't matter the name or the degree of separation; we belong to the galaxy and its people, everywhere you walk is home, every person who welcomes you, touched by the force nor not, are your people."

"If you consider yourself a Jedi, then protect your people, not just the people who want you; and protect where you belong, not just the places that recognize you to be theirs. And, when you're feeling lonely, remember that the force is always with you, and with it is all of the souls in the stars and all that ever were and ever will be. You're never alone - we're never alone."

"Our purpose, really, is to belong and make sure everyone else does, too. We can weed out the darkness by illuminating it with light, but we can prevent it in the first place by making sure that we don't cast down any shadows for that darkness to thrive and grow in the first place."

Kir Dantos

 

[Kir Dantos]

Elle Mors

​

Listening intently, he pondered on what she said, following her words as he sat there, serene, calm and thoughtful. It was an epiphany to him, her words, and her take on what it truly meant to be a Jedi, or to be a being of the Galaxy. It was truly liberating to hear from someone who wasn't an instructor or even really a teacher, someone who he didn't know, who could give him a perspective on the Force and on the galaxy.

"For years I tried to understand what it all meant." Pausing for a chuckle, he continued. "And failed. But I think I see clearer now, I see what's been in front of me this whole time, what's been staring me in the face since the day I was born. A truth that not many are willing to accept, but I think I am, now at least." He kept his eyes focused on the sky, closing his eyes for a moment and letting it envelop him in a blanket of warm comfort.

"I chose to be a Jedi, I chose the light. And I still do, yet, I realise how much bigger the Force is. I think I must analyse why I chose it in the first place? To fight the Sith, for some vain glory that wouldn't really matter in the grand scheme of things. What we do is what defines us as users of the Force, is what truly matters, I believe it is what compels me to follow the path of a Jedi." Kir adopted a lighter expression, one of quiet determination.

He nodded to her, letting that smile that had been trying to peek through finally shine. Allowing silence to take hold for a few minutes, he sat up, admiring and basking in the warm glow of the binary stars. "You taught me a valuable lesson, I think I must look further than the Jedi, or the Alliance, or the Sith. To look within the Force, and within myself." It was a feeling akin to the one he'd got when first learning how to meditate as a youngling.

When he'd first experienced that peace, let it flow through him, and shape him, it seemed mystical, and Kir had felt a sense of being a detached from the Force, of it being its own entity, and not something that he was a part of.

"I don't know if I'll return to the Alliance, or the Jedi, but I vow to protect my people, and protect where I belong. It's going to be a long journey, self discovery starts and ends with oneself, but that does not mean it is ever undertaken alone, I undertook a crusade against the Sith which I thought would help me discover who I am, I was wrong..."

"Thank you Elle." Kir turned and said, the sincerity coming through in his tone which was sombre, yet hopeful, and he just sat there, content, content within the Living Force, as he watched the twin suns, two small parts of a larger picture, yet they were just a significant as their larger counterparts, they mattered just as more.

 

[Elle Mors]

Just as he had, Elle listened while he said his piece. There was something profound in hearing someone else's stories, feeling their experiences pour out of them through the emotions in their words, and to be totally honest it was a big reason she'd had in visiting planets like Ossus - planets that had people who had lived through one great conflict and were ready for the next. Looking out into the waves, she tried to picture him in the positions he'd mentioned, her mind's eye creating momentary stills of a Kir Dantos in each of those stages in time.

Reflecting on his words, and on her own thoughts, she realized that she hadn't been the only one with an existential crisis, though perhaps her circumstance was still a tad bit different. "It's no big deal, hopefully you'll figure out what you're meant to do, or choose something for yourself." She said with a small smile, glancing over towards him curiously. "I'm still trying to figure out what I'm supposed to do, y'know? Thought I was supposed to be with someone from the day we met until the day I turned to dust, but you never really know, I don't think." Elle offered as her gaze returned to the sea.