First Tango on Tython

[punchsmith]

The headaches were happening again. The dizziness, the feeling that the world was jumping out at Dev from all angles, the fear, it was back. The last week saw Dev held up in his office battling a wicked tightness in his chest and a feeling that his environs were strangling him, quite literally.

It did not help that this time of year was slow, as if every criminal on the floating city took off to the country to recuperate. Maybe they'd come back with some new plans and a couple of friends? By this point, Dev had tried the usual tricks; holomovies, long walks, hikes through the old historical refinery districts, speeder rides to Tibannopolis where he'd smash discarded machinery with large clanging pipes and scream into the cacophony. It only got worse. Every other time he felt this, it went away within a day or two. This time, it seemed here for keeps. And Dev didn't have time to feel this raw and overstimulated when the rent was due, which he explained in great detail to the Gran across from him.

"Get the hell out of this place, will you? Do it for me," pleaded Gruubz, his favorite bartender. Dev was holding tight to the bar of The Dutchman that particular evening, afflicted by a sudden spell that was causing his equilibrium to take a holiday. "Gruubz, I can't leave. I gotta make rent. It's too thick in here," Dev bemoaned into his tangled arms. The Gran chuckled and slid an ounce shot of bitters and chak-root his way. It tapped his fingers on impact.

"Sooner or later, you're going to be walking down a ramp-less bridge and just like that," Gruubz tried to punctuate it by snapping his meaty paws, but it didn't take. He continued, "They're power-washing you off the gantry's weather vane. Listen... because you've done me some solids, I'm not gonna settle up your tab. But I'll put up half the rent this month."

"You're a crazy man, I won't stop you, and thank you very much," Dev said all in one labored tone, gingerly dropping the shot down his gullet. "Where would I go?"

"Well, I have a theory. You've been to doctors. You've been to psychiatrists. This isn't a biological problem, Bex," He held up his hand and waved it around in the air, building to his point. "This is... a supernatural one."

"What? No. Hell no. I don't have no damn blood disorder," Dev dismissed his friend, mostly out of fear. "Besides, I like being ordinary. I'm perfectly happy being me. Perfectly fracking happy!"

"Sounds like it," Gruubz shot back, sterner than before. He drew close to his friend, "This is a possibility you can't afford to deny. These things manifest, this could be yours. Take a week, go somewhere... force-ful? That ought to sort you quickly enough."

And so it was - with great care so as not to disturb the poor boy's mysterious malady - Dev and his floating Prowler 7000 named Pal charted a course into the deep core. His destination was Tython. If it were home to the Force, perhaps he stood a chance to find out if he was open to it. Dev couldn't help but consider the possibility that this affliction was a disturbance, if it were true.

Skystar's Promise docked on the tall stone island of Mahara Kesh, and Dev did not feel relief. Though Dev's first instinct was to get down to the heart of the matter - head right into the Temple of Healing and see if he could maybe feel less sick - he felt his symptoms intensify. Within that, the pit of dread in his belly grew ever deeper. Still, he soldiered on.

Dev hobbled out of the Arakyd Helix wearing thick sunglasses, a long navy robe (hood up) and Pal as his floating elbow rest. The sky greeting him outside the ship was a heavenly blue, something that barely salved the cosmic migraine that enveloped the man. All he could do now was keep walking. Step by step, eventually he could make it there or collapse on the way. Either way, he reasoned he'd make it there. If Jedi could sense someone in need, maybe his answers would come sooner than expected.

 

[RC 212]

[member="Bexel"]

She was on leave again. In fact she was considering the possibility of it permanently. The Gallactic Alliance was no longer what it had once been. A gutted Jedi Order, with only a few of the Old warriors left. The Grandmaster was dead and soon to be replaced. And she had slipped very far from their graces, spending entire battles in the Darkside.

Couple that with a few trips to old places to seek out forbidden fruits and treasures, and she was as good as gone.

Which is where she was headed, right to her StealthX to blast off Tython and leave the Core behind when she stumbled upon him.

He of the dark robe and sunglasses, head splitting so bad she could feel his pain sandwich her gut like a lead brick.

Leave. Leave now and never look back Karren. Leave it all behind. The Jedi, the Sith, the War. All of it.​

She paused, feeling the connection between them intensify. The force guided her steps, forcing her closer and closer until they intercepted and she understood. She was meant to find him.

But for what?

She reached out her hand, fingers open and spread and pressed it to his chest.

"Whoa buddy. You got a storm raging inside of you the likes of which....."

Well? Don't you?

"Hold up. Sit down. Let's have a chat."

 

[punchsmith]

Dev relinquished the use of his legs to a nearby bench. He would have fallen at maximum weight if not for the efforts of Pal and the urging of this stranger. She could have only been a Jedi, he reasoned. Perhaps his distress had reached out to her, if that's how this whole thing worked -- he had a willful ignorance of it. The Force scared him. And that fear, whether he was aware or not, led him to this predicament.

"I feel... I'm, it's real heavy," Dev managed. "Everything is talking at me, metapphhorically."

He referred to what seemed like the growing call of all living things to his attention, demanding it all at once when he only had so much to give and no idea what it meant. All this time he'd spent believing his life was fairly rote - look for the facts, keep an eye on the small details - and the facts seemed to be looking back at him. He could only look down and focus his eyes on the smooth alabaster ground.

"Do you do this stuff," Dev motioned a limp arm out at the expanse of ancient Jedi architecture that intimidated him so. "Listen, do the thing, I'll pay you, I don't care. Just shut it up, please."

He was weak and pleading and quite embarrassed. But sitting, so he was a bit better off. The woman's presence lent a measure of comfort, for he had hope that she could provide a way out of this maelstrom.