Exorcising the Past [Witches]

[Sarge Potteiger]

Again, a hand appeared from under the cloak. Held within it's grasp was a eerily glowing ball of green which reflected the sunlight perfectly. She might, perhaps, recognize it as a Krayt Dragon Pearl. "You can use it in your sabers and whips." He states flatly, in case she didn't know.

"Good enough? Or do I need more?"

 

[Avalore Eden]

She squinted from her vantage point, leaning down towards him for a look at the curious bead. It took her some time to recognize the bead for what it was. There were not many that would - it derived from a creature not of their planet and even Ysan had a difficult time recalling the name. Her time spent with the Elders and negotiating trade of precious crystals and commodities for the construction of weapons such as sabers and whips had exposed her, briefly, to an item like this. They were rare. Very rare. After a moment of consideration she nodded, "That is a good gift." How he came to own one was a question burning at the front of her thoughts; another story she would love to hear, but she did not voice it. The how was not important insomuch as he was willing to part with such a valuable trinket.

"Second, I will lead you to the village and present you to the Elders. They will not trust you, it is not their nature. To gain their trust you must willingly take off what makes you unseen and give it to me as a show of your own trust in them when you are vulnerable. Because you can speak our words I will not need to speak for you, but I urge you to choose your words wisely. What you will ask them to do is not a simple task, and they may require more of you before agreeing to it."

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

He nodded, and the hand disappeared. Closing his eyes, he nods once and his hood shift, before unraveling and falling to the ground. Leaning down, he picks up something that isn't there and extends a hand to her.

Now she can finally get a good look at him. Possessed with broad shoulders but a wiry build, the man's thick beard and shaggy hair are at odds with the meticulous appearance of his matte black armor and webbing. Most curiously, he was wearing boots. Something you'd not expect on someone so quiet.

His right cheek appeared to be scarred from burns, or shrapnel, it was hard to tell, and his sleeves were rolled up to just above his elbow to expose the forearms she'd seen earlier. Now that she could get a good look at them, she'd find they looked a little dirty - it was obviously more from being outside than from a lack of washing.

 

[Avalore Eden]

"Keep it for now," Ysan raised a hand to stop him, "it means nothing if I have it walking in. They must see what it does and witness the act of you giving it to me for it to hold any meaning."

Looking at him a soft smile returned, but it was something of a sad smile, "It is good to see you, One Known as Sarge." Though scruffy and perhaps a bit careworn, his features were admirable and even handsome. His apparel was the strangest she'd ever seen on the likes of a man, but it gave him a strangely exotic appeal. The clean-cut lines of his monotone armor stood in stark contrast to her own hand-crafted armor. The scaled plating that lined the length of her arms and legs, lashed on by leather straps over handwoven cloth that covered the essentials but left behind a good deal of exposed skin. Ysan's eyes fell upon his boots to which her smile turned into a half smirk.

The Witch visibly wiggled her bare toes across the smooth surface of the boulder beneath them, happy to maintain her close physical connection to the world around her. She stooped and hopped back to the ground, settling her feet quietly upon the soil, "We are two days travel from Singing Mountain Clan."

She sighed, time to retrace my steps. Ysan had just left the clan's lands two days prior, on her way south to deliver a message. Luckily the message was not of vital importance and the travel time to the neighboring clan could often vary depending upon the weather and conditions of the several rivers she would need to cross. A few days delay was hardly noticeable.

"We will stop at nightfall to hunt and rest. It is not safe to travel in the dark in these lands."

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

With practiced ease, it was once again returned to it's place around his shoulders and head. Like that, he was gone. Their armor was quite at odds. His was duraplast, hers was far more natural. They both saw the other as exotic, and both found the appeal inherent to that which was a departure from the norm.

A faint smile creased his face once more. "The darkness is my ally. In my time here I only traveled at night. But if you wish to stop, we may. You are the guide." Despite using her language, there was definitely a curious drawl to his manner of pronunciation.

Such was the way it went when people came from offworld. "Lead on, Ysanae."

 

[Avalore Eden]

"I might travel in the darkness if I too could do as you do and be unseen," smile fading, she watched him disappear yet again and was almost sad to see him go. Her lifestyle was a lonely one and very rarely did she travel with another. Rarer yet - with an offworlder. A hint of bitterness crept upon the Windtalker.

Of course her first encounter with an off-worlder would be with a man who seemed loathe of company. She supposed she aught to be grateful he hadn't tried to kill her, though the journey was not over yet. Ysan sighed, said a silent prayer to the forest spirits to watch over her, and stepped back off into the dense undergrowth of the jungle.


Their journey north was a quiet one and strangely uneventful, Ysan remarked as she navigated the steep and narrow pass into the mountains. No sign of rancors, no sign of other witches, and even the jungles had given them little trouble. While she was used to traveling without much fuss, she had expected their path to be wrought with obstacles as was per the usual tales given by strangers, outcasts and intruders alike. There were very few things that were easy on Dathomir, travel least of all.

Reaching the crest of the pass that overlooked the small valley in which the main village reside, Ysan gave a deep sigh. She hoped the plan she had prepared for him would be enough - it was how she presented foreign witches to other clans, but there was no telling if it would be the same for him. The Windtalker looked around, waiting for her charge to make himself known as he had come to do, "You must walk with me now so they know that I bring you. Make your face seen so they do not worry what you are."

Waiting for him to acknowledge this, Ysan lead him the rest of the way down into the village. Her own presence did not draw much attention, but what little of Sarge could be seen certainly did. Soon enough they had a crowd that followed them to the village center. She stopped there and passed her gaze around the faces, noting that one or two Elders had indeed arrived.

Turning to face him, Ysan nodded, "Give to me what makes you unseen and I will present you to the Elders," she said in a hushed, faintly trembling tone. If things did not go well for him then they would not go well for her either. He knew her name, after all, and he was her responsibility.

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

That drew a smirk, but then they were on their way. By the time they'd reached the village, pausing above the village, he reached up and drew down his hood to expose his head completely. Shrugging his shoulders, his cloak shifted to serve as just a cape and just like that... he was visible.

From the front at least.

Reaching the village center with an entourage though... it hadn't been expected. He could almost feel the eyes of the women giving him all sorts of considering glances. It wasn't sexual, not with the Witches. It was pure business to them. It seemed, however, that the Elders were coming to them. A finger slowly rose to direct her attention towards the parting crowd.

A scout must have warned them they were coming.

An old woman came forward now, slow and deliberate as a grenade on a downward arc. Translucent skin clung to her bones, and she might have been tall once. She leaned on a spear, its head a lightsabre hilt corroded with time and disuse. Young witches ignored her like anyone young ignored the very old, and that meant age had robbed her of whatever magic she had claimed in her youth. Judging by the reactions of the Elders and the more experienced women, though, the tribe as a whole still respected her, for age if not power. "I am Charal Holt," she said, in a voice that barely carried at all. They kept silent. "And someone woke me up. Tell me, was there a reason?" Pale blue eyes stabbed into Sarge, and the birdlike head tilted.

Sarge felt himself pause as she stepped out and glared at him with eyes that drove daggers into his heart. Those eyes... ones he'd never forget as long as he lived. "You're still alive...", he breathes with barely restrained awe. It's a moment of silence later that water begins to roll down his cheeks, salt trails left in their wake. "Our suffering wasn't in vain." That was all he needed to say. All he had to say.

But, as ever, inner life and outer reality failed to meet up. The blue-eyed old woman squinted and hobbled closer, saber-spear tap-tapping in the dust. "Calm yourself, boy," she snapped. "Get it together. Who do you think you are, carrying on like that?" She stopped and peered up at him, lifting his chin with the saber-spear's blade emitter. Her eyes went wide. "No. He could do it, the one who carried me, but you...there was no way. No way for a Blank Man to find new flesh." The ancient weapon lowered, and Sarge found himself embraced ferociously by a woman with all the musclepower of a damp towel. "It is you," she murmured.

"It's me, little one...", he whispers back, quiet enough only for her to hear. Gently, his arms enfolded her to give her the lightest of hugs, afraid he'd break her. Breaking her would be counter-intuitive to all the pain Je'gan and he had suffered.


He wanted to ask how she'd lived so long, how she'd maintained herself for what had to have felt like an eternity, but he couldn't ask anything. A tired smile was plastered on his face, and words failed him; utterly and completely.

She inhaled, her arms tightening against him, and let out a satisfied sigh. "When we came back," she said, releasing him, "some of the Nightsisters had stories about the two of you, the men who stayed behind. Who knows if they still remember you. The tale of the Ghost Twins has been told around a hundred campfires. But...how, friend? How did you come to be here, now?"

He snorted, shaking his head, and he looked down at her with the sort of gaze that took years off how someone felt. The look that implied you were of the utmost importance to another person. "Simple, Elder." There's a grin. "I flew, then walked."

The corroded old lightsaber rapped him upside the head. "Don't give me lip," said Charal Holt, all part of instincts honed over centuries as an old and, apparently, rather crotchety woman.

A hand went to his head, brow furrowing as he gave her a look like 'really?', before he laughed softly. "A bit late for that, don't ya think?"

A low chuckle escaped her, and she leaned heavily on the saber-spear. "Maybe, old friend, maybe. But don't think I've lived this long by giving up so easily. I've lived almost half a millennium. Few things interest me anymore. Consider yourself...blessed." She yawned heavily, and seemed to lose her train of thought.

"I feel holy already... but if you must know... sleep has a way of preserving the body." What kind of sleep that was wasn't specified, but it was probably something akin to hibernation.

She nodded, as if such things were known to her, and yawned again. Her eyes refused to focus. "Come by again, before you leave. I think I..." Another Elder, this one only a century or two in age, supported her and began to lead her away.

A concerned moment passed as a brow raised, and his lips turned downward as he remembered just what happened at the end of a life. "I'll be sure to, Charal..."

With a final glance back, she gestured, her saber-spear's tip waving defiantly. In memory of old battles, perhaps. He caught a last glimpse of ice-blue eyes, and then she was gone.

Turning his head back to Ysanae, he gives her a sad smile. He'd not needed a gift after all.

OOC: This post brought to you by @[member="Ashin Varanin"] and Sarge

 

[Avalore Eden]

Ysanae's eyes followed the direction of his hand as she turned to look at the approaching Elder. She watched with quiet wonderment as the tiny woman hobbled forward and announced herself as Charal. The Windtalker's jaw dropped visibly, hanging there for several moments before she caught herself agape. She'd met the woman before, seen her plenty as well, but the truth of the matter was that few bothered with Charal aside from her own personal Caretakers. Ysanae had not even known her name.

The Windtalker stepped back, giving the two plenty of space for their exchange. All bets were off by this point and Ysanae doubted he would need to present his gift or even remove his cloak with the show of affection given him by this frail, diminutive woman. If that wasn't a clear cut sign of trust by a Witch steeped in tradition, she didn't know what was.

Watching the reunion, the Windtalker found herself smiling as the man moved to show more emotion in two minutes than he had in two days. How much he cared for her was evident and Ysan never would have guessed him capable. Her expression warmed as Charal took her leave and she looked to the sad smile of Sarge, nodded and mouthed the words "You are blessed," to him. Placing her fingers to her lips and smiling behind them, Ysan looked away and to the nearest Elder to which she approached.

Her explanation was short, now without need to garner their trust, and after a quick exchange the Elder excused her and let out a call to the villagers. The crowd slowly filtered off, though many remained to watch Ysan's quarry with interest.

"They will speak with you after they convene. For now you must stay with me. Are you hungry?"

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

Wrapping his cloak around him once more, although leaving his hood down, he gives her a nod. He'd already wiped his face clear of salt, and he seemed not to notice the lingering remnants of spectators looking at him with a mixture of restrained awe and confusion.

"Yes... I'm a bit famished.", he says absently, mind clearly in another time and place. Blinking, he looked back to her and gave her the warmest smile yet, as though freed of a burden. At least some of the weight on his shoulders had been lifted.

Things had gone far better than planned, and even if some Nightsisters were left, the Allyans were resurgent. Or rather, had been and were back to where they should be now. "I suspect we'll be here a few days?"

 

[Avalore Eden]

"Perhaps," Ysan replied, looking askance to the receding forms of the Elders, "it is difficult to say. The Elders are moved and intrigued, but what that means for you I do not know. This is so different."

Good things, I hope, she thought to herself, returning his warm smile with her own, "Come with me now and we will eat and rest."


The Windtalker's hutt was located beyond the outskirts of the village - a statement to her place of belonging. She had a hutt at every Clan to call her own during her stays, but never within the limits of the people. The Windtalker was estranged from the rest of the Clan members because she had no rite of formal affiliation. Her kinship to her people was in birthright only. When she was younger this was a great cause of confusion and sadness: being welcome but never belonging. Over time she came to accept it, though this did not make her life any less lonesome. At the very least she had something to call her own no matter where she went, and they couldn't take that from her.

The hutt was nestled into the trees along the slopes above the village to the west. It was a simple place that housed only the essentials and was kept clean and tidy. For the most part it looked unused. After handing off the torch of fire taken from the village to Sarge, Ysan moved to unbar the entrance she had just secured two days prior, having expected not to return for several weeks. Once inside she moved to the center and the stone firepit there where she began to place kindling.

"Was she... how you expected? The one called Charal..." Ysan asked somewhat timidly, not wanting to cut into something that was clearly private for him.

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

The same simply nodded, the disembodied head putting puzzled glances onto the few people who thought to follow them and perhaps get a glimpse at the manner of conversation. They were gone by the edge of the village, however, as they did not wish to go towards the Windtalkers hut.

His hand moved, taking the torch she offered as she opened up the hutt to them so they could enter shelter for the evening, as the sun was already dipping below the horizon quite steadily. Inside, he waited for her to place down the kindling before lighting the fire with the torch.

With enough illumination now, he took a slow look around the place, finding it to be about what he expected. Nothing fancy, but clearly well maintained and cared for. "No, no she wasn't." He responds, pulling his cloak off and setting it by the door.

"I expected her to be dead. But I'm glad she is alive."

 

[Avalore Eden]

Ysan maintained silence while the fire grew and began stacking split wood as the flames caught. A sigh passed through her lips which in turn drew into a baleful smile, "Your reunion, it was good to see it. To see my people can have faith in offworlders when their traditions insist otherwise. It gives me hope that one day maybe even I...well," the Windtalker didn't finish. This wasn't about her, "it's not important. What you show on this day to my people...that is important. You are a good soul, One Known as Sarge," Ysan looked up at him, the warmth of her smile illuminated by the growing flames, "and I am blessed to have met you and take part in your healing. Thank you."

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

"You wish to fit in, yes.", he says quietly. "Some fit in by not fitting in. Like me." Finding himself a seat, he lowers himself down so that he can get off his feet for the first time today. Slowly, his head lifted to regard that warm smile which made her Amazonian appearance all the more appealing.

The glow of the fire made the scarring on his cheek more pronounced, and drove home the bags under his eyes from too many sleepless nights. "Thank you for giving me a chance to make this happen."

 

[Avalore Eden]

"Not fit in, no," she shook her head softly, "I am one of them. I am of every clan, and I am welcome. But I cannot belong to any, and none can belong to me. It is ... difficult to explain, but maybe you understand." The Windtalker winced as she withdrew a charred log and rubbed the heel of her hand across her forehead, leaving behind a mark of soot. She repeated this on her cheeks and at the center of any area of largely exposed skin. When she finished she moved to the corner of the hutt and drew from a wooden barrel a quiver of arrows and bow. Shouldering the quiver and stringing the bow, Ysan moved to the entrance where she paused and looked back to him over her shoulder, still smiling somberly, "The Winds Hail You. Rest now, I will hunt."


Ysan left him to the company of the flames, hoping that perhaps these would not haunt him so. She returned some time later when the moon had fully risen and hung pregnant in the night skies. He would hear her outside shortly before the Witch reentered her hutt with several skinned ermines laced upon spits with cut fruit at either end. Soon enough they were basted in a concoction of honey and spice before being set over the flames. The resulting aroma filled the hut, issuing forth in spurts and sparks that floated upwards to the roof where it escaped in pale plumes through an open circular flue.

The Windtalker offered her guest a bladder of fresh water before unrolling a pelt onto the floor and taking a seat by the fire to tend to their meal.

"These make a wonderful stew," she began as she turned the spits slowly one-by-one, "but it takes a day to boil before it is ripe. One adds potatoes and roots, verte-spices and salt. The secret to the sweetness is-" she looked up to him, smiling toothily, "well, it's a secret."

It wasn't anything she offered with the intention of conversation, but merely words to make him feel at home. Of course she couldn't help her curiosity.

"What do you eat where you come from?"

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

Sarge watchd her prepare, and gave a simple nod of his head. There was nothing to say, not right now. He knew exactly what she was talking about. He was apart of OmegaPyre. But he didn't belong. Not at all.

They welcomed him. Valued his talents.

But he never felt like he was really welcome.

He was on the outside of the inside, a man invited to the party but with no one to talk to, so he just stood by the wall and nodded his head to the beat of whatever music was being played. She'd find him sitting where she'd left him, but with a whetstone in hand.

In the other was a nearly thirty centimeter long, double edged bayonet. The sound of scraping metal on rock filled the hut, just as the popping of flaming wood did.

It was the music of people living on the frontier.

"We eat processed foods, mostly. Some fruits and vegetables. It varies planet to planet. Some planets eat fresher foods than others."

 

[Avalore Eden]

"Pro-cessed?" the Witch lofted a brow at this word, unfamiliar mostly in context. As he continued on she thought she had the idea. Ysan wrinkled her nose, "oh..." and thought better than to comment negatively. She recalled stories of planets covered by vast metal villages called cee-tees where the buildings rose higher than even the clouds. Higher sometimes than even the mountains. She never gave these stories much thought beyond their facade of wonder, but she supposed it might be difficult to hunt or grow if all the world was stone and metal.

What would she eat here if not for the land?

"You must travel a great deal," she said, reaching in to test the tenderness of the meat and finding it not quite ready. She leaned back and to the side, propping herself up on an elbow to watch him work the blade across the stone, "what is it that you do that you journey across the stars so? Do you speak for a people, too?"

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

He smiled faintly, "Yeah. It is what you think it is." He'd paused his sharpening to speak but resumed it now for a moment before flipping the blade and whetting the other side. The word had obviously been entirely new to her, but thankfully she'd seemed to grasp its meaning real quick.

But he paused again as something caught his attention. She was in the most... curious position... on a pelt. On the floor. Blinking momentarily, he shakes his head and goes back to what he was doing.

"Generally... I kill people. Now? I just travel to travel. See the outcomes of my actions."

 

[Avalore Eden]

Ysan wasn't sure what cause the spike of hackles to flare along her back - the words 'I kill people' or the nonchalance with which he spoke them. It was likely a little bit of both.

She looked to him, now unsmiling, and seemed to regard that blade of his in a new light, "You are a warrior," the words were more spoken to affirm her earlier suspicions. She'd thought he'd been some form of warrior judging by the way he moved, how he carried himself, how he spoke and acted. He was brusque and emotionally formal, to her at least, a Witch that more often than not wore her thoughts on her sleeves as the saying goes.

Watching him, a well of questions bubbling within, she chose to go for the one that had plagued her since their first encounter. "Why do you walk unseen?"

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

"Yes. A warrior; not a soldier." The distinction was quite important to him. Only some were born warriors, but anyone could be made a soldier. A warriors spirit had to run in your blood. His ran thick. Of that he was certain.

There was something of an unsettling twinkle to his eye as he answered the next question, setting the whetstone down. "No one sees Death coming.", he says with half a smirk. He walked a fine line between angel and demon, and who got what seemed to be entirely at his personal discretion.

"Getting my job done is easier when Im not seen, if you must know." His job being, presumably, that he killed people.

 

[Avalore Eden]

Concern thick in her gaze, Ysan did not reply at first. The Windtalker wasn't sure if she was a warrior or not. Certainly the blood of her people had passed those qualities down to her, but she'd never truly been tested for them. She wasn't allowed to partake in battles of war - it was against the reason for her very existence. The Windtalker was neutral to all parties, without bias or want. Could those skills she knew so well as a huntress translate to warrior? Could she kill another if need be? It disturbed her to think about it.

On a whim and with some effort to turn her thoughts elsewhere, she pushed herself to her feet again and walked to the entrance where she had last seen him place his unusual cloak. The Witch peered curiously, trying to catch that strange glimmer of bent light that sometimes gave it away if she looked hard enough, "May I?" indicating the area she believed it to be. He nodded and made no motion to suggest it had been moved, so the Witch tentatively reached out for it.

She felt silly at first, searching blindly for this mysterious cloak as though grasping for a ghost, but then her fingertips brushed across the unseen material and she saw the faintest shift of shadows. It would have been completely unnoticeable had she not been focused on that particular area or quite so near, and in testing it again she marveled at how the colors of the cloth melded so seamlessly into their surroundings. Ysan clasped it in her fingers and gently lifted it from its place.

"It is like a feather," she remarked as she held it up and looked it over, eyes and pupils wide like a cat with a yarnball. Holding it aloft as though viewing a painting, Ysan turned on the spot to watch the cloak shift and change as the backdrop did. "How strange!"

Smiling, the Witch pulled it to her face, testing the feel of the material against her cheek before sweeping it back over her shoulders. Ysan looked down at herself and gave a bark of laughter. She spun on the spot, "I am unseen!" Well, most of her was anyways.