Private Echoes of Home, Echoes of Water

[Zenitha Chuma]

(Post Soundtrack: "Carnival of Rust" by Poets of the Fall)

"It doesn't look like anything at all!"

It really didn't. She, herself, might have been the first to point that out if someone hadn't spoken up first. The old building squatted at the end of a bypassed main street in Bar'sin Rest, a place the young teenager hadn't even heard of —and she had lived less than thirty kilometers away for most of her life. Coming back now, and seeing the bleak decay of the facility was hard. Everything she knew about Belazura told her this should be a happy place, the wall's painted language offered cheerful platitudes and diligent rules for the empty pool at the center of it all. Now it was a beggar's refuge, makeshift trappings of the nomadic life strewn around.

"It will," Zenie promised. She had to believe, or none of this would work. "Just imagine it filled with plants, we're here to bring life back to the lifeless!"

The outspoken Z-Runner gave the teen heiress a look, but didn't say anything else. That left an uncanny sensation in Zenie's body, and she spared her glance elsewhere. The other dozen occupants of the room found their attentions suddenly captivated elsewhere, as if she hadn't just said a word. She found the deference unnerving, prompting a look over to Tanja. ZINO's Head of Strategy was speaking with a man with wild hair and a single wing on his right side, his skin scarred in a manner that wasn't so unnerving as it was off-putting. Zenie decided to leave them be for the moment.

She stuffed her hands in her pockets, meandering around the edge of what had been the pool. The sloping tiles and duralumin ladders made for a haunting invitation to the empty space. The Belazuran girl made a seat for herself on the side of the pool deck, clearing the garbage with her foot first, perching over the edge with her legs dangling over the drop to the deep end. If she closed her eyes, Zenie could almost smell the treated water and the warm air the building once hosted. She could feel herself grinning and damp all over, ready to jump back in the pool at the urging of that day's friends.

A hand touched her shoulder, startling Zenie as if she'd been splashed. Her eyes opened to the empty pool first, and then to the sightless man who sat down next to her. Maylon's clothbound eyes turned toward her, a gentle urging in his deep voice adding the wisdom of decades his body hadn't yet earned, "It's not that they don't like you, you know that right?"

Zenie nodded, the bob of her blonde hair bouncing against the back of her skull. Her eyes stayed locked on his face, even knowing he couldn't see her looking. "I know. I'm young and they think I'm only here because of my dad."

"That's one way of looking at it." The Miraluka's head tilted from side-to-side, bouncing the seed of an amused smile between the corners of his mouth. "I like to look at it this way: you're the unexpected to them. I think most of them know who you are, but they don't know you. Give them a chance to learn the Zenie in Zenitha Chuma."

"Yeah," the girl groused for a moment, "But they want Zenitha."

Maylon chuckled, and Zenie almost shivered at the sound. He pointed at something with his chin, his hand clapping her shoulder a couple times, "Then show them Zenitha."

She looked where his head was pointing, back to Tanja and the avian man with a missing wing. Now she noticed the containers behind him, filled with seedlings suspended in some kind of solution. Zenie glanced down at the pool beneath her feet, and then nodded to herself. "Thanks," she uttered to Maylon before getting up, and making her way over to the pair.

"Ahh, and here she is." Tanja's cool voice massaged Zenie's nerves as she approached, putting her at ease as she studied the scarred man. "Anakin, you're already familiar with Ms. Chuma here from her holo-vids. Zenitha, this is Anakin Stormrunner from Denon, and he's brought some special plants that could help our waterways and the people living nearby. We're going to make a greenhouse out of this place before we plant them in the wild, what do you think?"

The young heiress gave the man a broad smile, pulling her cheeks into dimples. "Welcome to Belazura, Anakin." She offered her hand to him, extended in the manner she had watched her father do thousands of times before, and looked into his eyes. "Your plants sound exactly like what we need, thank you. I feel like I can already see what the place is going to look like when we're done, and I'm really excited to get started."

Anakin Stormrunner​

 

[Anakin Stormrunner]

“I brought enough fertilizer for this bunch, but we may need more for the rest of the seeds.”
Anakin looked around the derelict pool. “This place should be perfect for the seeds.”

Tanja nodded. “How long will they take to grow?”

“A couple months, I’ll show you how to recognize when they’re old enough to start harvesting.”

“Good. Thank you for all of this, again.”

“It’s no problem. After seeing Zenitha’s holovids, I knew I had to help as much as I could. Maybe we can stop this before the corpos take everything from you.”

Just then, Zenie approached them. She was young. It was the first thing he noticed. Her youth only accentuated by the anxious tension that simmered beneath her composure.

"Welcome to Belazura, Anakin." She offered him her hand in a practiced motion.

“Thank you. I’m glad I could help.” He took her small hand in his calloused one, careful to keep his talons from ripping into its tender flesh.

"Your plants sound exactly like what we need, thank you. I feel like I can already see what the place is going to look like when we're done, and I'm really excited to get started."

He smiled at that, pupiless eyes crinkling with joy. “Let’s not keep you waiting then.”

His eyes lingered on Zenie as he called the other volunteers. She was so young, and already she had lost so much. Perhaps she wasn’t the one in charge of this crusade, but it was as much hers as any others’.

“Listen up.” The volunteers began to crowd around him. “As you know, we’ll be using this place as a nursery for the senilo’la seeds. They have a growth rate of about a month before you’ll see sprouts, and two more months before they’re big enough to become harvestable.”

The crowd shifted around him, clearly not expecting the long wait time. “The plan for today is to set up the fertilizer and growing conditions for the seeds and then distribute the sprouts I’ve brought with me. Those are ready to use and simply need to be placed in a continuous contaminated water source like a river or lake.”

“Anakin here will explain how this works.” Tanja spoke up beside him. Her calm voice carried over the still restless crowd. “After that, I’ll break you up into teams where the work will be divided. When the grow bed is set up, everyone gets a crate of sprouts and a list of locations and quantities to drop off.”

Tanja gave the floor back to Anakin with a nod.

He ran the group through the mechanics of the grow bed, explaining how the pool would be filled in with a mix of contaminated soil and toxic fertilizer that he brought with him, before submerging and waterlogging the soil. After which, a team armed with gloves and boots resistant to the acidic waters, would go through planting seeds in the two inch deep waters.

All the while, his eyes drifted across the room. All these people come to help- would it be enough? He had to hope it would. He had to, because right now hope and sheer spite was all he had.

He was still recovering, and though he could spend an entire day on his feet he still tired easily and his strength was only a fraction of what it was before. He’d gone from malnourished to haggard and his skin had gained some of its previous dark coloring back. Yet his missing wing still ached with phantom pains.

“This won’t heal your water ways.” He wouldn’t let that stop him. “It won’t purify your waters, because it doesn’t release water. It creates juice. It’s drinkable though, and can provide hydration in areas where you have little to no options.”

Spice blue eyes shot to Zenie. “If Manfloon is as much the rat we say he is, once he realizes the only safe water is from his taps the costs will skyrocket. You may not need these now, but you will soon.” How much had she already endured? She lost her father so young, and now she fought to keep from losing her home too. In a way she reminded him of amavikka children, suffering so much so young. You either grew in spite of it, or it broke you. Ar-amu knew it almost broke him. Hopefully she’ll face it better than he ever did.

 

[Zenitha Chuma]

Before the decommissioned pool could become a floral nursery, it had to be cleaned up. Zenie was eager to volunteer for the pool team, joining a trio of Z-Runners climbing down into the bottom of the duracrete hollow. The mess there came up to her knees, and stank so badly that the girl had to cover her paled face with the sleeve of her flannel shirt to stop from gagging at first.

Hazel eyes assessed the task before her, looking at the piles of discarded belongings and refuse that had landed down here. Beneath the grime and discards, this place had once hosted life; laughter and playful swimming, the fruits of competitive labor, the deepenings of friendship or perhaps the budding of a romance. Even the swarm of dirty and broken objects around her feet had once been the glimpse of life for beings that had camped here before moving on to some other shelter.

With some hard work, there would be life here again soon.

"Head's up!" A call resounded down into the pool, and Zenie looked up to see Maylon at the top of the deep end. ZINO's Head of Risk Management held up several pairs of rubber gloves, a victory grin on his face. He tossed them down to the Z-Runners beneath him, the sightless man's aim was so good Zenie barely had to make an effort to catch. "Just put the big pieces onto the deck in the shallow end, we'll take care of them up here."

The teen heiress nodded, donning the roomy gloves over slim hands. The other three Z-Runners got to work quickly, tag-teaming an operation to lift one of the heaviest items as a group, walking off with it just as Zenie was ready to help. A dejected sigh came out of the girl, who caught a wink from Maylon as he turned back to the rest of the clean-up work, and decided to make herself useful picking through pieces small enough for her to carry.

Zenie worked like that for a while, climbing her trash items up the steep grade separation between the pool's deep and shallow end. Her head just peeked over the edge of the pool's walls at its highest point, so sometimes it was simply easier for her to hand the item up to someone on the deck above. The lone teenager always seemed to be back at the grimy end when the older members of her crew were making their deposits on the pool deck, playing a silent game of ping-pong that she was trying hard not to take personally.

Ultimately, the Z-Runners were all here because of her campaign, Zenie knew that. Even with Maylon's advice from earlier, the young heiress didn't have a clue how to show them Zenitha when no one would give her the chance to do it.

She found herself struggling with a particular piece of refuse when the trio returned once, thinking the shredded end of a sleeping bag should have come free with less effort than it required. The portable heater pinning it down was too heavy and set too precariously reach from any point of leverage, which left Zenie attempting to wiggle or simply rip the shreds free. As she let out a grunt of frustration, the girl felt a presence nearby. "Need some help?"

A moment of skepticism was over in a heartbeat, and Zenie eagerly nodded to the Z-Runner who had offered. The Zabrak woman returned a short nod, before holding up a finger and walked off. The young heiress watched her go, skepticism creeping back onto her face, but the Zabrak stayed inside the empty pool to call to someone on the deck. Zenie took the moment to wipe her brow with the sleeve of her shirt, swiping moisture from the side of her cheeks as well. The room had a chill when they began, but now she sweated from all the exertion.

The Zabrak Z-Runner returned with a long pole and a smile on her face. Zenie wasn't certain that a pole was going to help dislodge the heater, especially one lodged into the pile like it was, but optimism ruled as he woman stepped up next to her. The woman slid the pole underneath the broken heater parts, and then turned to look at her, "You ready?"

Curious, Zenie asked, "What are you going to do?"

"When I lift the heater out of the way, you need to pull the whole bag out. And fast, so it all doesn't come down on your head." The woman wasn't exaggerating, Zenie's wide eyes could tell.

She nodded quickly, grabbing hold of the frayed edges of the sleeping back again. On a count of three, Zenie was surprised to see the Z-Runner push down on the pole, which leveraged the broken heating unit up on precarious legs. The girl moved quickly, leaning in to grab at the edges of the bag that had gotten caught underneath the heater's coils, unraveling and gathering its shredded remains. She gasped at hearing a piece snap, ducking her head and body back out to safety, the torn sleeping bag clutched against her chest before the heater collapsed onto the pile again.

"Whew, that was quick work!" The woman beamed at the girl, leaning the pole she had stood up beside her again. Zenie grinned back, nodding to the helpful Z-Runner, who explained, "I'm Mayri."

"Zenitha," returned the young heiress.

"I know. Everybody's talking about how great your holo-vids were."

Zenie blinked in surprise, caution tempering the excitement in her voice, "Really? You watched them?"

"Oh yeah. We were talking about that waterfall one on the way here, maybe we could plant some of these in the water there."

The girl's face fell a bit, "If it still had water." She watched the realization strike Mayri, quickly adding, "But I'm sure Tanja will have plenty of other options."

Zenie felt the conversation grow as awkward as she felt about it, and reached out a hand to Mayri. "I can take that back now. I need a break anyway."

"Good idea," Mayri agreed, handing over the long pole which Zenie hefted by her side. "Grab me a water while you're out?"

"Sure!" Delight played over Zenie's face at the opening, letting Mayri return to the other two Z-Runners before she brought her haul to the pool deck again. Laying both of the items on the deck, she placed her palms on the deck to climb up herself. Fatigue blazed ahead of her, and her arms wobbled when she jumped up to get some footing, landing her back into the empty pool floor.

Zenie tried again, but this time a pair of hands reached under her arms, pulling as she pushed herself up until she could gain a foothold underneath. Her shoes were slippery from the grime, and she gripped the second pair of helping arms that day to steady herself. "Thanks Maylo—" Zenie began as she looked up, and had to correct herself mid-sentence. "—oh hi, Anakin. Thanks for the lift."

She tested her shoes, rubbing them against the duracrete pool deck until she could feel friction beneath her feet again. "We're almost done down there," she reported. The young heiress looked back to survey their work, several of the piles were depleted, leaving just one beside the pile she and Mayri had struggled with. Zenie looked up at the avian man, not so distracted by his scarred face any longer. "I just came out to get some water..."

Anakin Stormrunner​

 

[Anakin Stormrunner]

Anakin smiled down at the girl, fanged teeth glinting against his sickly face. “It’s no problem.” His words however, we’re undercut with labored breaths. He was healing, but his muscles weren’t what they were before. It was likely he wouldn’t be in fighting shape for a long time.

“We're almost done down there," Anakin turned to look at the old pool. Most of the debris had been removed, leaving the bottom grimy with dirt and muck. “That’s good, maybe we can start planting soon.”

They stood in silence for a moment, Anakin catching his breath and Zenie watching his weather worn face. "I just came out to get some water..."

“Let me join you then, we’ve just about finished marking out supply drops for the saplings I brought.”

It ached how much he had lost in that cell. More than just his wing, his legs burned from standing and simply walking over to the water cooler sent waves of fire through the muscles. He all but collapsed onto the table when the reached in, eyes pinched closed. He could hear Zenie pouring herself a glass, and moved to make one for himself when she finished.

“You know…” he began some time later. “I see how the volunteers treat you. You’re their speaker, but they don’t know you, and don’t know how to act around you.”

He looked at her, at her youthful face and wide hazel eyes. So young for something like this, so determined to see it through. “You’re younger than they are. It confuses them.” A fact, one that she would have to work around.

“You’re trying to connect with them, but you need to get past all that. It’s… difficult.” Clawed fingers scraped against the plastic cup, leaving little lines in their wake.

“Try talking to them. It’s not something I see often here, with your culture. Learn their names, ask about their day, find out what brought them here. Seeing them as people is important, and learning their stories is a part of that.” He smiled at her, before taking a sip of his water. “I don’t know how much it’ll help, but it will be a start.”

Zenitha Chuma

 

[Zenitha Chuma]

When the Belazuran girl offered a smile to the one-winged man, it was Zenitha smiling. Zenitha could fall back to a practiced ease of speaking with anyone, even the one-winged man named Anakin smiled, a toothy grin that exposed his sharp fangs. They should have startled her, exposed on a gaunt face set atop a body worn, scarred and out of breath. Instincts more ancient than the discovery of hyperspace told her to step away, to flee, to avoid becoming a snack for this desperate, veteran hunter. Zenitha could stand there smiling, even stepping after Anakin as he led the way to the water cooler.

"Have you considered somewhere near Brookstin for the saplings?" That was easier for the young heiress. Professional, like her father and Ms. Sun had taught her to be. Fierce-looking alien or not, Anakin had something that ZINO wanted. That Belazura needed. The young heiress could make nice for a while, it was almost preferable to earning the respect of the clique in the pool deck below. "There's a dried up river there, but there must be something nearby that could help the towns-beings."

Zenie nodded affirmatively, a brimming confidence behind the motion. She took one of the empty vessels from a box nearby, and began to fill it from the water cooler. Her heart pulsed a calming warmth through her veins, turning the smile warm on her flushed and sweaty face. As she took a drink of the water, feeling its cooling effects rushing down through her body, the young heiress felt more at ease with the scarred avian man.

She was good at this part, talking to people. After watching her father do it for years, and practicing methods with Ms. Sun, the teen heiress was getting even better at it. Zenie refilled her container after drinking her fill, plus one more for Mayri before she stepped aside to let Anakin use the cooler. She watched him from behind, noting his world-weary look that made the avian man seem just as in need of ZINO's efforts as Belazura did.

That thought kept the Belazuran girl smiling softly to herself until the man surprised her. Zenie was caught, her jaw slack, as Anakin described her circumstances in detail. At one point she remembered to close it, to stand up straighter, to lift her chin. The girl that the avian man saw was the one she had been taught not to be, the one Tanja and Ms. Sun and even Maylon tried to steer her away from. "I know all of this," Zenitha told him, more of a reminder to herself than a defense. "I'm young, and it makes people uneasy. They want a leader with experience, not just a voice, and that's why it might take years to achieve my goal."

It was easy to recite Ms. Sun's words to the man, too. They weren't always as easy for the teen heiress to hear herself say. Years would deepen her experience, but also the scars of her world. Zenie saw them in this very room, and far more in the dry riverbed of Brookstin and elsewhere. She lifted her chin a little higher, looking up at Anakin's scarred face. He was older, and certainly more experienced, but somehow he had the wrong advice.

"The people in ZINO believe in me, though, they just have to get used to me." Her hazel eyes watched his iridescent blue ones, everything about the man's appearance seemed extreme, and now Zenie was the one uneasy. Deep inside her head, she heard what sounded like a bell, sharp and discordant. His words didn't connect with what Ms. Sun had taught her, and they didn't seem like what Maylon had been encouraging. Her eyes drifted off to the side as Zenie felt her face falling, Anakin's way ringing close to the words she'd just spoken.

How could people get used to her if they wouldn't even talk to her.

Zenie took a drink of her water, feeling Anakin's eyes on her. He was talking to her, though in a way she was the only reason he was here. Maylon and Tanja had organized this, but the teen heiress was the face behind the cause, so talking to her was just expected. The avian man was just doing the same expected things, like offering advice from his experienced perspective. The young teen felt her cheeks grow warm, realizing how disappointed Ms. Sun would have been at forgetting one of her constant lessons.

"Thank you," Zenitha told the man, and looked back into his face. She paused, needing something else to say. It was important that the young heiress said something to demonstrate how much she appreciated the advice, how much it wasn't just going to be discarded the moment she walked away. Even if it was, although Ms. Sun seemed to know better when to discard advice and when to keep it. Without her guardian here, Zenie decided that she could figure that part out later. "So Anakin, I wanted to ask. How is your day going?"

It felt awkward to the uneasy girl, but somewhere inside her mind, she could hear a bell ringing clear.

Anakin Stormrunner​

 

[Anakin Stormrunner]

"To be perfectly honest, my day's been kinda horrible. Nothing against you and ZINO of course. I'm glad I can help here, but after my-" He paused, just for a fraction of a second. "accident, I get tired so quickly." Perhaps it would be best not mention that he'd been in a corpsec prison for well over two months. Zenie may be a good kid but her father was a corpo and he was sure that she wouldn't look kindly on that part of his life.

Anakin clutched his shoulder with his hand, brushing up against what little remained a wing there. "It's difficult, you know?" He shot her a sardonic smile, closed lipped because it was obvious his fangs made her uncomfortable. "It used to be so easy to do things. Now I get winded if I walk too long."

He sighed, glancing over Zenie. "I'll get by though, and its not as if its all bad. I'm here after all, and being able to help means a lot to me." He sipped at his water, desert trained keeping him from chugging it down. It was better to go slow, instead of over loading his body. It was best not to dwell on the things he couldn't solve. He was here, and he could help.

"You mentioned Brookstin earlier. I don't know how much we can do there if the river is already dried up. It's hard, but you can't help everyone. Not all at once anyway." It was a lesson every slave learned young. You couldn't help those that Depur beat in the streets, and you couldn't help those cast out into the storm. Often you couldn't even give water to someone in need because you had none yourself.

"Maybe I can see about getting some moisture farms for them though? They're common out on Tatooine, and with how humid the air here is, one or two should be enough for emergency support. They can be expensive though, so I wouldn't rely on them too much." Not to mention no body out here would know how to fix one if it broke, but that was an easier problem to solve.

Zenitha Chuma

 

[Zenitha Chuma]

Anakin was right, the exercise seemed to soften the man's demeanor toward him. His words came directed to her, instead of at her, with a gentler smile and a warm gaze that nearly put the young teen at ease with the scarred man. Zenie found herself offering a smile at him, her eyes laced with concern for someone putting too much of himself into the day's efforts.

"You're doing a good thing just by being here," Zenitha offered encouragingly. She leaned against the same table as Anakin, shifting her view to take in the volunteers here with them today. In her absence, the Z-Runners had cleared more of the debris from the pool deck, and she cast her smile onto them as well. Zenie's voice lifted higher, almost chipper as she told the man, "Let us do the heavy lifting today."

She lifted her chin to look up at the man's battered appearance, wondering just how much he could lift normally. He sipped his water slowly, and with her initial thirst quenched, Zenie found herself doing the same. For a few minutes, the pair stood in companionable silence to watch the operations around them, teen heiress and battered avian alike. Soon she felt the soreness in her limbs abate, finishing the glass of water Zenie had come to drink.

Anakin spoke before the Belazuran girl could move more than a couple steps, where she balanced on the edge of her tiptoes and the man's words. Zenie felt her heels slowly descend to the floor, somber face replacing a smile. The weight of his words felt heavy, and even with all her Z-Runners with her today, the young heiress wasn't sure if she could lift them back up.

"We have to start somewhere." Zenie said quickly, defensive reflexes at the ready. Her eyes flicked toward Tanja, still at the other end of the pool with eyes buried deep in her datapad. The young heiress had used the words in far too many discussions with the Head of Strategy, whose favorite word was 'No,' alongside 'NotYet' and 'Unready' that all grated on Zenie's ears. She gave her head a shake, rising back up to fill her shoulders to return her gaze onto Anakin instead. "Moisture farms could be that place to start."

Somewhere in her happier years, the teen heiress recalled learning about the planet Anakin mentioned. Tatooine was a desert world of harsh climates and harsher people, like the Hutts who had ruled it for centuries before the Gulag Plague. Not that any of the more progressive governments since could have uplifted the world from its arid climate, where agriculture of the mostly-rural planet was focused on farming water rather than foodstuffs. "Those use vaporators, don't they, that's the expensive part. Aren't they supposed to be heavy, too?"

"Expense shouldn't be that big of a problem, I have...well, no, I'm supposed to have access to my dad's accounts." Zenie didn't say more about that. Instead, her eyes lit up as the young teen came across an idea that finally seemed to give purpose in this ZINO operation. "We could fundraise for some, instead! Have a charity ball or something, if it's one thing I've learned, it's that grown-ups love dressing up and giving money away to a good cause."

At least the grown-ups Zenie knew on Belazura, in its capital city, the sort whose feet barely touched the dusty ground these days. Even if that was a very small group by comparison, most of the money on her world could be found divided among them. Zenie didn't like playing the adorable little girl with more gumption than sense, but it was the best way she could think of to fix the many problems in Brookstin.

It was somewhere to start.

Anakin Stormrunner​