Private Fiery Sunset

[Shaka Musa]

Nar Kreeta,
City Outskirts

A handful of quick shuttles sped towards the planet below. Most of them possessing some kind of medical team coupled with protective retinues of soldiers, Shaka was one of those soldiers assigned to a team. On entry into the planets atmosphere, he was sat by the window, and even as flames licked up the side of the metal hull of their protective tin can, and occasionally blurred his vision, he could see the war torn planet below that had occurred on the planet below. Undoubtedly, there were still some engagements going on, even in the dead of night as it was now, at least on this side of the planet, hence the quick in and out rescue operation.

Didn't know who was out there and what they'd find if anything at all, but some of these places that they were going to were civilian homes. It was likely the inhabitants either vacated the area in the time leading up to the battle, or they had died protecting their belongings. Sad, but Nar Kreeta wasn't the only place that sort of thing happened.

They neared the surface quickly, only a few hundred feet in the air as the shuttle began its descent.

Rising up from his seat, Shaka was one of the first of the forces dropping into the field. The ready countdown for deployment began and he rose to his full height, cracking his neck to either side. And once the light turned green and the ramp opened, he moved out, datapad in hand with an active rangefinder and area of operation. In the dark, it made easier to see the flames that reached up to the skies in the distance, different when you were actually on the ground. He could smell the smoke slipping into his nostrils and his brows knitted before he moved out.

First, he'd hit what was likely a former settlement and then he'd comb some of the surrounding area. Limited time, they didn't want to be detected and further add to the casualty list.

Gianna Aegis

 

[Gianna Aegis]

Location: Nar Kreeta [Trench in the Outskirts - Next to a fallen Defense Tower]
Tag: Shaka Musa

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​

Night had fallen.

A rupture of brightness from a low hanging moon sat starkly in a cauldron-black sky. As if the weight of the wars the skies had witnessed was somehow pulling it closer, bringing it down, while simultaneously shedding light on the remnants. The vast emptiness of the Nar Kreeta wastes seemed to echo. Whispers filled the air and a subtle chill had fallen with the setting sun. No longer did the heat beat down on the surface of the planet. No longer, did explosions sound. But the fires burned.

The fallen remained where they were. Still, broken. Red blood, twined with deep, profane-black drenched the dry earth. Those who had been beaten, crushed, and broken prayed for an end. Death was rarely quick. Even when a cold sword came definitely down; it was rarely quick. The spirit circled the mists in a haze of confusion. Trapped by confusion and uncertainty until they were inevitably drawn back to the beginning. Back to the energy from which all things were bound.

There was a defense tower on the edge of the outskirts that had seen its fair share of carnage. It was in ruins. The light of the stars, of the moon, ran along the smooth flat plans of broken duracrete that had settled. It exposed the dark stains along the ruddy top-soil that would be hard to discern from a distance. It would take a trained eye or a connection to the Force to realize that these scorch marks were actually victims of a crash. Bodies, burned, and mangled so much so that only genetic inquiry would be able to prove which remains were human and which were not. The remains of the Bryn’adûl gunboat would peek up from the depths of a dark crater beside the destroyed tower. It was a gaping hole, a mouth, that seemed to be full of menacing durasteel teeth.

Something about it would ward off any visitors. Something within the bowels of that crater had gone terribly wrong. There was nothing left of value there. Nothing left alive.

In a space that would have been the shadow of the defense tower, not far away, was a deep trench. It was fairly wide and seemed almost crescent-shaped with debris strewn all over the place. As If some great weapon had thought to swing down from the heavens and leave a gash in the earth. The oppressive feeling from the crater would seem to fade when growing closer to the great furrow left by the tower falling. The night would feel less dark. The terror, the blood, and the phantom sounds of clunking axes and crashing war hammers would feel distant. As if they were the wispy leftovers and bits of smoke from a dream.

A hazy light rose from the small blue flowers that climbed unabashed from the depression in the ground. They seemed to have bloomed with bioluminescent pollen that drifted this way and that as the moon came to fill the sky. The illumination was subtle. Enough, to be noticed. Not enough to completely erase the shadows within the trench itself. If one ventured into the unknown they would find that greenery had overtaken what had once been a dirt floor. Grass—That Nar Kreeta did not have—was thriving along with vines of blue flora that glimmered almost merrily as it twined up the shrapnel and metal from the defense tower.

It was peaceful.

While the battles raged and fires burned on the ground above, this trench remained in a state of sleepy torpor. The light of the flowers would be brighter toward the middle. Greenery wrapped around something pale and seemingly fragile. A delicate hand, covered in soot and blood, lay palm upward with small curls of trailing plants wrapping sweetly around thin fingers. Patches of seared muslin cloth would peek through along with a shock of red hair. The trench hid her. Kept her safe.

The flowers would continue to bloom for her. She was wounded. Her blood saturated the soil and a veritable God, a Titan, had left her in this place to die. The soft petals whispered to the other in wordless promises. They would keep her close. Light the way.

Until her heart finally gave. It beat slower now. Soon, it would be silent. They would stay.

Until the end.

 

[Shaka Sunstar]

Gianna Aegis

---

---

​

War torn.

It was the only suitable description that he could give to their surroundings. Thousands had died, on both sides. Amon could not say that he was sympathetic to the Bryn'adul. No, they were undoubtedly a dangerous force that carved death and pain wherever they went. Nar Kreeta being their most recent victim

He climbed, cresting on to the top of a slight incline to be met with... nothing. Sparing a glance to the Datapad, it read that there had been a village here, or at least a handful of buildings. In its centre, was the small crater of a crashed starship and dozens of smaller indentations littering the ground around it, burning metal, from the looks of it.

The sigh that he had been close to releasing was suppressed and he descended into the crash area. He held little hope to find any life. There were no other standing structures, and before he knew it there was an audible beep that warned him he was at the limit of his area of operation and he slowed to a stop.

In his mind’s eye he could imagine the battle lines and the towers pointing high into the sky, spitting fire out at the assaulting forces. His mind drawn off to imagine the same happening on his own birthworld of Thyrsus. He hadn't been there, but he had seen footage over the HoloNet of the events. A bloody affair. Thousands amongst the Echani garrison being put to the sword until there were no combatants left. But where the Thyrsians, his people celebrated victory of reclaiming their home, the people of Nar Kreeta were evacuated, not yet seeing the devastation of their homes and the world they called home.

This time, he didn't stop the sigh that fell from his mouth. He was prepared to depart, the sight of a devastated outer defense enough to ruin his mental before he heard a voice call out urgently. To his hand came his hilt as he took off running.

Past the perimeter that his datapad repeatedly beeped at him, warning that he had crossed it. It was shut off. Enemies could've been in the area patrolling. Besides, he didn't need a piece of tech to tell him that he was going past mission boundaries. As a Jedi, those didn't exist, unless there was a threat to innocents. And if the person calling for help was an innocent? Then he was definitely within his duties as a Jedi.

At first, he hadn't noticed when his Force enhanced stride brought him trampling over grass, too unnatural to be sprouting fresh and untrodden at the foot of a toppled over tower. "Over here!" The voice said again, and when he got to the man, one he recognized from the ship, he knelt next to him, and what he saw was the protruding hand. "I can't free 'em! Anytime I cut, it grows over and thickens." Amon's hand tightened on the mans shoulder and he reached to feel for the bloodied and blackened hand protruding from the ground, feeling for anything that would hint to life.

"Get back to the ship. This..." Was a puzzle, one that he had never encountered before. In his ears he could feel his heart thumping. His breath slowed as the mercenary got up to his feet and headed back in the direction of their landed ship. Amon didn't wait to see if he was gone, his attention snapping right back to the womans hand. "Alright..." The womans hand held firmly as he forced his senses to calm.

This sort of thing was not what he was used to. Swing a saber, dive head first into a battlefield? He was your guy. The internal senses and feelings? They didn't come out, not unless required by his use of Vaapad. But still, he would try. In the personal valley of greenery that grew from this woman, he remained, reaching for that proof of life and he'd attach himself to it, quietly muttering words of encouragement and prayer to both the Moon that shone bright that night, and the Sun that slept. But for whose benefit? His own, or for the dying soul at his feet? In those moments, the answer was one and the same. And to the Force, he drew on as he spoke -- the Force a connection between them both. As he held onto her hand physically, so did he metaphysically on her presence, and with the Force as his medium, he called out to this woman on the brink.

As a comrade...

As a friend....​

As the thing that was the foundation of all that stood for good in the Galaxy. The thing that promised better days to come in the future. It was a sure thing, destined to shine bright upon those that remained true. A thing that even with their backs against the wall, the Jedi of Old and of today had. Needed to have, in a galaxy that was in a constant state of war waylaying its people. He called out to this woman...

As Hope.​

"Wake up."​

 

[Gianna Aegis]

Amon-Olu
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They wound tighter.

Small blue blossoms seemed to shine just a little livelier while a sable-skinned soldier tried to cut through them. The haunting light that glimmered from bioluminescent pollen seemed to be flaring with neuron-like activity and movement. Soft petals rubbed against each other in a breeze that was sweetened by their scent, stifling, the stench of rotting corpses that had spent all day baking in the unforgivable sun of Nar Kreeta. Barely audible sounds rose from the flora while vines began to grow and wrap around the human woman, they held so close.

It was almost a chorus of whispers. Hundreds of tiny, barely audible voices, all chiming together to make an indistinct hum. It was almost as if they could see the soldier. Feel his attempts to tear them away from their moorings. Root and stem. They did not know him. Did not trust him.

Should they?

No, no. Not yet.

The vines wrapped around a seemingly fragile form that had long since taken on the evenings chill. As they moved, they dislodged twin objects that would be unmistakable to anyone that had any combat experience in the galaxy as a whole. Lightsaber hilts. It was obvious due to the celestial patterns that they had been made to match. They pulled toward one another. Sisters. Sol and Astra.

Sun and Stars.

The shining pollen seemed to still when someone new entered the trench. Uncertainty caused sapphire blooms to shake. Now, there were two of them? When the second individual reached toward the hand of their protected the vines coiled out and snapped around his wrist as well. They moved faster than the eye could follow, slithering, while seeking to immobilize and entangle him. As the soldier retreated from the green furrow, they seemed to relax. Exhale. They loosened, though, they did not let go.

For a long time, whilst the new visitor prayed, they remained still. Unmoving. The call to awaken caused a visible effect to roll through the trailing vines. They shifted and little blue blossoms all turned their faces toward the Jedi Knight and seemed to stare. Unnervingly, so.

Hope.​

The fingers within his grasp twitched. She was cold. Everything ached. As if a stone had broken the surface tension in a flowering pool—The florals moved and shifted in a green wave. It was a ripple. The vines slid away from them slowly. First, they released his wrist. Then her hand. They retreated from her face and away from her torso. Still, they held her head aloft. It was delicate. Injured.

The flame-haired woman was striking, even, from beneath layers of ash, grime, and dried blood. It wasn’t simply pixie-esque features that were slowly revealed. Nor was it a trick of the soft illumination that dotted the trench from the pollen. It was something more, a sense, for which words would always fall short. Even as her breathing shuddered and halted her connection to the Force remained palpable and strong. It flowed from her in the same way a river flowed due to gravity. Inevitable. Certain. From this impromptu coffin did she glow with an inner light. With peace, untouched, and unbroken. Her love of all things would be realized when her hand curved, slowly, around his. The young woman shifted among the nature that spread through the wastes. It lessened the corruption in the dust and grit. It provided succor and sanctity. Whatever she was, beyond all measure, could only be called good.

So good—So full of light, that it felt wrong, mistaken, that such a light could go out. Impossible.

Jade eyes opened and slowly focused on the Jedi Knight that had braved the aftermath to search for survivors. She didn’t speak right away. The artifacts that she had on her person had lost their charge long ago. Her head had struck a rock, twice, and her fractured skull had taken all they had left to mend. The Nabooian female could feel her eyes begin to burn. She had failed. She could feel the truth of it on this lonely, empty, planet. No soul would return to her shores, to her sand and dust, while the enemy began to break it down and crack its core.

The Bryn’adûl would burn this world. Their Titan would kill it.

“…F-Forgive…Me…”

Her throat was still hoarse from having her windpipe crushed. The achingly sweet sincerity that she murmured with would only intensify when her eyes rose toward the dark-haired Jedi Knight. Gianna knew, beyond anything, that she was responsible for this. The loss. The agony. She held hope. Her heart was bursting with it; but it would not be enough to save those that were already gone.

“I could not…”, she breathed, while guilt wrapped around her everything. It swallowed her light. Slowed her heart. What right did she have to live, to breathe, while others had been denied due to her inaction. “I c-could not stop him...I could not kill him.”

“...I could not...He...H-He will try to end us all. The Titan is coming...”

 

[Shaka Sunstar]

Amon's eyes were shut closed as he focused on freeing that mystery woman wrapped up in the unnatural flora. Every part of him reached out to present himself as friend, ally, to proclaim that they were on the same side and to cast away the shield that separated them. Whoever it was, it didn't need to take a genius to know they had been broken, cast aside in a trench and subconsciously did whatever they could to shield themselves from the world.

To hide.

From... Death?

At first shuttered orbs hadn't noticed the cylindrical objects that were in the midst of being revealed. In the midst of forging that bond with the one trapped, his brows came together, furrowing as a frown sprouted from his uncertain, hopeful, even worried features. If anyone who knew the Jedi Knight had been there, they'd know the darkened look wasn't one that fit him. Almost unrecognizable it made him, the normally vibrant and shining presence prayed to a belief that he himself wasn't even sure existed. Anything he could think of to save her.

When he was certain he had done all he could, a warm brown gaze found her lightsabers resting on the ground. But his gaze was drawn to something else. The first true sign that she hadn't passed, her twitching hand triggering an effect to wipe his face of the doubt that shrouded his dark skinned face. Shifting, he watched as the vines untwined, not even realizing that they had wrapped around his wrist, to further reveal the defeated woman.

Seeing her lying there covered in ash and blood brought him to a pause. She was beautiful, even with marked and damaged flesh marring her physique. Save for the hand that he held, he didn't further touch her, observing, trying to get a sense of what had happened to her. In the midst of it, he was speechless, barely able to process how she was still alive, how... It wasn't anything that he had seen before.

It was an event he'd remember.

But there was an overwhelming pressure that pressed on his senses. A sensation of failure assaulted his senses, and his gaze was drawn back to her face. It felt like it suppressed every other feeling that raised off the woman. No relief in being found. It was pervasive, that sense of dread. There was nothing he could think of to reassure her.

"There's nothing to forgive," he started. He didn't know what else to add. He didn't know what happened to her, but Amon could feel the pain of her failure as if it were his own. She was an empath, a powerful one, and there was a draw to the devastated woman, something that made him want to protect her. To bring her peace and cast away what she felt. But he couldn't. The battle was over. Whoever had done this, long gone and likely forgotten amongst the rest of the death and destruction that danced on the edge of the horizon.

The words that fell from her lips replayed in his mind as he tried to piece them together. At first he was silent, thinking, unsure as to what words he could even give to bring her peace. But for the first time since he had found her, he found himself.

"...Then we'll rise up and face him. Again."

It was what they did. Lose? Get up and fight again. It was the tried and true template that their Jedi forebears had repeated time and time again. Recent memory drew on the Republic casting down a Sith Empire before the One Sith rose to beat and defeat that bastion of the light side, just to be shattered by the Galactic Alliance and then finished off by a gathered force of all the superpowers of the galaxy in the days of the Omega War. But this was the Bryn'adul she spoke of. They were new, powerful, and brought death and despair everywhere they went. Why? Amon didn't know. This new enemy may not have been Sith, but they... They were still Jedi.

"Can you drink?" A bottle of water was produced from one of the pouches that extended down his thigh, and he unscrewed its top, waiting for that confirmation to aid her in the efforts of drinking, should she accept.

The Jedi Knight sought to be a beacon of Hope in their tarnished Galaxy. To shine as bright as the twin suns of Thyrsus in the night.

Gianna Aegis

 

[Gianna Aegis]

Amon-Olu
___________________________________________________​

There were far worse things than death.

Something seemed to want her to stay; to wake from the fevered dream of a world on fire with her failure the cause. She wanted to resist. Watching Nar Kreeta burn was the least of which she deserved. The Knight had tried to find a better path. A way through all of this, without hate, without anymore blood spilled senselessly into unforgiving earth. Her heart broke for the fact that gentleness had been swept away with a wave of untold violence that raced, almost unchecked, through the Eastern Reaches of the galaxy. “Can’t you hear it…”, she whispered, softly, both to him and to the merrily twinkling stars above.

They didn’t know. Cold and distant. They couldn’t know—And their light fell regardless.

When her eyes opened, she hadn’t expected to see soft, brown eyes, looking back. She had expected to see the aureate eyes of the Bryn’adûl Chieftain boring holes into her. She had expected to feel his weapon cleave into her, destroying her physically, while his utter detestation took care of the rest. She could still hear the sound of the vapor rising from the axe, the wicked song of the weapon, while it spun through the air. The crushing pressure of a massive foot to her chest.

Her body hitting the ground. Her head hitting rock.

The man that watched her claimed that there was nothing to forgive and her eyes closed. She mourned. She grieved the way a mother wailed for the loss of a child. It was improper for a Jedi Knight; but it was a deeper well. The deepest void she had ever known. “If you cannot hear it…You cannot understand…”, she returned, ever gentle, with the patience of a saint. She was almost glad that he had been spared. That not everyone heard what she heard; felt what she felt.

The screams of billions whilst they died by Draelvasier hands. Literal, billions.

The echoes crossed the emptiness of space and rolled around in her chest with a thundering wail. It was powerful enough, emotional enough, that it felt like her heart had shattered. The pain of that great wound was far more than what she had endured, far worse, and everlasting. She had just let the perpetrator go free. There had been the chance to end it. The option to destroy the Titan before he could bring ruin to another civilization. Only, she couldn’t do it.

She couldn’t kill.

Gianna would never forgive herself for holding her morality over the lives of innocent people; but it was her cross to bear. Her folly. Her failure, to become the monster, the evil, that she had been trying to defeat.

Her eyes opened and she blinked softly. Tears squeezed unbidden from her eyes and created twin paths along her dirt-stained cheeks. They turned to diamonds as they fell, glimmering, and aching. The friend that visited her in this darkened place seemed to be trying to reassure her. Yes. They would rise up to fight once more. Yes. Of course, they would. That was the problem. “We do what we must.”

“And more will die.”

She knew what would happen without a shadow of a doubt. The Jedi would rise from the ashes and bring with them a strength to rival the sun. Gianna had warned the Titan that hope would never die. She still believed that. But, hope came in many forms for the people of the galaxy. In this instance it simply meant that the wars had only just begun. They would do what she could not.

The flame-haired woman could feel what had been, what was, and what would be. That was the reason she wept. That was the reason her heart went out to all those who fought, rather, than to think of her own injuries. They would mend. Or—They would not. She had tried to prevent this area from being swallowed by the mass grave that had been left in the crater. Tried to leave it with something more; if it was to be her last stand.

A question on if she could handle liquids drew her back from the Force. Enough, so that she could focus. Her mind felt fractured. Perhaps it was just as fractured as her skull. Perhaps it was the blow, the blood loss, or perhaps it was something more. His lightless, his hope, tried to rekindle her own. To boost her spirits without word, or thought, but simply by being present. Slowly, she acquiesced. “I-I can try.”, she murmured softly, so quiet, that even the whisper of the flowers chattering might hide it.

She tried to sit up but could not. “My head…It feels like it weighs a ton.”

The blood that caked her robes would take credit for that. The only reason her body hadn’t given out sooner was because of the healing artifacts she wore. It was the only reason she was alive. Her lightsaber also held a healing element but she needed to have it, hold it, and her enemy had knocked it out of her grasp. She wanted to ask the status of the battle; but it was likely too early to tell.

Part of her didn’t want to know.

 

[Shaka Sunstar]

Gianna Aegis

She received a more or less blank, but concerned look in response when she spoke up again. What she heard... Echoes of the lives that were being lost all across the planet. Ones that had past in their proximity, and ones that were continuing to die, all at the same time. He knew of things like this, exceptionally strong empaths could feel for thousands of miles, across solar systems if the events were large enough.

Not him.

His range on emotions varied for each person that he knew. There was part of him that yearned to save everyone, to care for everyone, but with a militaristic childhood, being sold to his races own sworn enemies as little more than a ward... Even as a Jedi, the concept of caring about those that you didn't really know was still new to him.

It was one of his failings as a Jedi, and the part of him that was true to his Jedi teachings, to protect and serve those who couldn't... The young Thyrsian wanted to be like her.

But seeing her like this, in a constant turmoil of emotional pain that the regular person would never be able to comprehend... He didn't wish it on anyone.

“If you cannot hear it…You cannot understand…”​

She was right.

More will die.

He knew that these people would die eventually. There was no saying how much time one got in this world before it was so abruptly snatched away. Warring Jedi, Sith, Imperials, and now Bryn'adul rampaging across the stars? A chance to kill their leader, he had come to understand from her words. Was she familiar with them, their culture? Did assassinating their leader put an end to the warring species crusade? Doubtful... The wars would continue, another would rise up to claim the cause of the fallen.

There was no blame to give to her. She was in no condition to hear it.

Broken. When they were safely off the planet, maybe, or when it was clear that she'd make a full recovery.

Likely, he wouldn't tell her at all.

His confidence continued to radiate off of him, even as she accepted to drink. "Alright," he says in a low voice, briefly stumped as she tried to sit up. He shuffled closer, across the ground as he placed down the bottle. A hand slipped behind her head, raising her slowly from the plant pedestal that cradled her head so gently. Her head was set down onto a padded thigh, with better elevation for her to drink as the bottle leapt up to his hand. "Yeah... You do have a big head," he'd say, his lips curving into a grin as he teased.

As long as he could keep her mind off of the pain, the destruction and atrocities around them. He'd be happy.

"Okay. Ready?" The bottle of water was held close, waiting for her go ahead before gently slanting the bottle and allowing the water to pour out.