Forty Days in the Desert (open to one, or a small team)

[Ashin Varanin]

OOC/ Been running a tournament, sat the last one out, felt like a fight. I'm fine with fighting one-on-one, but if anyone wants to put together, I dunno, a small team or something, I've got nothing against being dogpiled if that's how it turns out.

IC/

YINCHORR
EDGE OF REPUBLIC TERRITORY

Little recommended the desert planet of Yinchorr. Its inhabitants resisted the Force, and they'd been glorious in their day, but their descendants kept their distance from this place -- a decades-old Jedi enclave, long abandoned and forgotten. In its day, before her father had been born, her paternal grandparents had built this place for the Jedi Brotherhood, complete with a replica of the Squall. She'd trained here for part of her first apprenticeship, but that was two decades back. In more recent years, only her grandfather and [member="Darron Wraith"] had remembered or used this place, mostly for attempting to teach Vaapad and Soresu to Jedi Masters. But as both men had become Jedi Grandmasters and then, in time, vanished, the Yinchorr Jedi enclave had lost its last inhabitants. Her own duties and the vagaries of fate had taken her elsewhere. She'd forgotten the power of this place.

Wearing only the undershirt, spacer's vest and trousers she'd always preferred, durasteel warming her feet right through her boots, Ashin ran through technically perfect Shii-Cho velocities in the centre of the replica Squall. Her yellow sabre blended with the sunlight, becoming just one more emanation of the desert's heat and light. Around her rose the old structures of the enclave, and the tall hoodoos of wind-carved rock. They made the wind erratic, untrustworthy. A mistake could send her on a long fall, reminiscent of the time she'd jumped down an endless Thrella well on Mimban in pursuit of the Kaiburr Crystal.

She wasn't one whose Force connection manifested as omniscience, but in time she became aware that she wasn't alone. She drew her velocity to a close and looked to see who'd rediscovered the Yinchorr Jedi enclave.

 

[Talon Vosra]

[member="Ashin Varanin"]

He had not seen this place in a long time. A long time. His bright green eyes scanned the area. Light bent around him as he walked onto the squall and he finally saw the presence he felt. He had not sought her. It had been knowledge that drew him but he found her just the same.

He let the cloak of shadows drop as she looked at him and raised an eyebrow.

"Hello." He said calmly.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Talon Vosra"]

"You're going to have to help me out here," she said after a moment. "I swear I know you from somewhere. You'd think I could remember someone who can turn invisible, but you'd be amazed how much that talent gets around."

Her hand tightened on the sabre, more for tactile reassurance than tactical reassessment. She held the weapon low, angled out, casual -- no stance involved.

"Sightseer? Or was I a little casual with my wake? Are you a Jedi Shadow -- am I meeting the latest attempt to bring me to quote-unquote justice -- or are you just passing through?"

 

[Talon Vosra]

[member="Ashin Varanin"]

"Don't I know it." He said in response to the comment about invisibility, "I'm, Talon."

He looked at the yellow blade and thought of his little friend, Kira and A bitter sweet thing the thought was at that.

"Jedi sh...no. No not me." He said eyes narrowed sd he gave a grin, "I'm sorry but have we met?"

He cocked his head to the side.

"I usually remember a woman's name." Eyes flicked to the saber, "especially armed ones."

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Talon Vosra"]

"I think," she said slowly, "you were in the garden. The Jedi Temple garden, when Dista tried to shut down my wife and I, and when Darth Vazela wandered in -- you were the one who took care of it." A dossier floated to the top of her mind. "Vosra. Jedi Council. You helped Grayson pull Vazela off me on Ossus."

 

[Talon Vosra]

"Jedi [member="Ashin Varanin"]." He said "I remember you now, but I am far removed from any temple duties these days."

Talon put his hands in the pockets of his tan cargo pants.

"And your wife is Spencer, delightful lady." He added simply, "you've changed some."

He took a couple steps forward as a gust of wind whipped across the dessert. His lightsaber, a seldom used tool was on his belt more for utiliy than as a weapon. She had been working so had for the lightside when he saw her last. However, something seemed less...in tune when she spoke. Brought to Justice? Hadn't she had enough of that by now?

"It's odd you're not on Manaan...it's all I've heard on the holonet since I left hyperspace. Is everything still ok between you and the jedi?" Typical investigator never knows when to mind his own business.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Talon Vosra"]

She barked a laugh, felt an unexpected sting at the corners of her eyes. "No, the Order doesn't have much use for Force Drain addicts. Not once they've had their faces shoved in it enough to relapse. Used to call myself 'recovering.' Used to take pride in that, Master Vosra. Lost Watchman of Korriban, with no replacement, and then I realized just how many important, dangerous things the Jedi have just plain ignored while chasing personal power. So I dealt with a few of those things, the hard way."

The Sith temple on Odacer-Faustin, and its surrounding infestation. There had, it turned out, been some very stupid Jedi and Republic personnel near the temple when she blew past and dropped the incendiaries. The valley of black orchids on Shri-Tal, now a miles-wide scar from similar weapons. Protectorate-held Belsavis, even, though that hadn't been so successful. She'd burned her way through the 'pacified' outer rim in the past few months, handling problems the hard way.

 

[Talon Vosra]

[member="Ashin Varanin"]

"I see." He said unsure if he was disappointed at her relapse or at the fact she was right about many of the Jedi he had seen. "It's just Talon or Vosra by the way. I left the Order."

He took a few steps closer to the woman and looked out across the desert before looking back at her.

"So, here for clairity then?" He asked, "I had hoped for something of that sort as well."

He cast another glance at the yellow bladed saber in her hand.

"Were you going through velocities before I came?"

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Talon Vosra"]

"Shii-Cho, the Drallig cadences, as a cooldown. Ran through Faalo's fifth cadence first." She'd invested a really ridiculous amount of time into lightsabre combat, all or most in Shii-Cho. Nothing said I commit ridiculous amounts of time to the sabre like Faalo's cadences. The fifth took three hours for a single run, and required the Jedi to cultivate presence of mind on the order of the career martial artists who held a single stance against a hurricane while standing on a roof. She'd done that too, more than once, and found it generally more effective and worthwhile than Faalo's cadences. But sometimes one needed stillness, and sometimes one needed to think. Faalo's fifth cadence required mental math.

"I'm afraid of rust. Too many people know my name, though I've got no-one to blame but myself." She raised her chin, squinting inquisitively and against the desert light. "What made you leave the Order?"

 

[Talon Vosra]

[member="Ashin Varanin"]

"Faalo's fifth took me a few tries." He said with a breif nod, "it would have likely been easier had I used only one saber."

He looked out as she looked up and asked her question. How do you explain that a Sith-Vahla preistess infected you with a dark plague causing you to see visions of your, friend, crush, love?, being tortured in such a way as to nearly drive you to the darkside. How do you explain that the order would not allow you to go after her and refused help until a Mandalorian that had himself turned you over to sith to be tortured went after her and subsequently disappeared? How could he say that he had watched jedi preserve archives on Alderaan and allow them to be stolen by the sith rather than destroying them and then scolded him for being the only one willing to destroy an already over run building rather than give up? How did he explain all the terrible things he had been forced to watch while being encouraged to do next to nothing other than teach in a class room? He had not a clue. He had loved Kira dearly, not for sexual attraction, not for appearance and self satisfaction, but the self sacrificing kind of love that one simply could never hope to find if sought, and she was gone.

"I don't think there is enough time in the day to give you that run down." He said simply. "I was infected with the one sith's dark mark and it was best I find a cure alone, and going back was no longer appealing."

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Talon Vosra"]

"And did you find the cure?"

 

[Talon Vosra]

[member="Ashin Varanin"]

"You'd be surprised what you can find when you get up and do things yourself." He replied, "means yes."

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Talon Vosra"]

"That's almost a pity. I'm restless, Vosra. I was hoping to be found, and by someone who'd give me a reason to fight. Instead I get someone who, well, I owe. Someone who's only a threat if-" She grimaced. "I'd have liked a reason to fight you with something at stake. Nothing personal. But that's the Sith in me, or maybe just a decade of waiting for someone to come hold me accountable."

 

[Talon Vosra]

[member="Ashin Varanin"]

Talon gave a simple nod of acceptance as he looked down at his bare feet.

"Well i didn't expect to find you here, or at all for that matter, but there is one thing I had wanted to ask." He looked up to meet the woman's dark eyes, "do you have any idea what happened on Anobis?"

He watched for a tell as he spoke. Republic records said she was in the area around the same time as a massive wound in the force was created. Anobis was a tragedy and so was the small village of dead farmers that happened to bepreviously on the opposite side of the mountain, previously but Anobis was a neutral world so no one bothered to dig. Well almost no one.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Talon Vosra"]

Her fist tightened around the sabre; he'd catch the grip adjustment. Anobis constituted the most shameful and incriminating moment in her life. Fear and anger tried to paralyze her, but she'd been the Dark Lord of the Sith. She could control those emotions. Her jaw knotted, but the rest of her body went loose, relaxed for faster movement.

"If you know enough to ask..."

He'd started the conversation in the circle of the Squall, and moved closer twice now. That made him close enough to hit her, and close enough that winding up for a swing would leave her open. Her right wrist spun, down by her side, and her sabre lashed up between them in a flat pane of yellow light. The intent was to cut off or intercept anything he might throw at her as a result of seeing or intuiting her changed intent. The wide upward sweep became a clockwise slash, and now her elbow and wrist got involved, slicing down at the top of his left shoulder. That left her gut and left side vulnerable; she brought up her left palm, ready to project a quick Force-shield if he countered in that direction.

 

[Talon Vosra]

[member="Ashin Varanin"]

The woman's blade hummed through the space between them in a flash of yellow as she cut off his plan to simply take her into custody. His instinct kicked in and he dropped low. His left foot spun across the ground as he moved stirring small billows of dust and sand as it made the three hundred and sixty degree sweep toward her ankles. He wasn't the type to kill an enemy without extreme need so his standard blue bladed saber remained yet undrawn. The force swelled in him as he prepared for her well known strength and endurance. The blade in her hand would no doubt find his head or body if she didn't fall or move back. He had to be ready for anything.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Talon Vosra"]

Moments like this revealed the downside of her specialization. She was used to being immovable, and her first instinct wasn't to take her weight off that leg, but she'd guessed wrong about the direction of his response. With a moment's notice, she could only muster the barest skein of Force protection around her right ankle, enough to prevent damage but not enough to stop the sweep nor break his leg with the force of his own blow. A cold fury rose in her -- he'd moved too quickly for this to be anything but a planned attack, as opposed to a response. In the realm of intention, anyway, even if his technique compensated for hers. And just like that, a potential friend was an enemy.

Welcome to the Dark Side, Ashin.

She fell hard, and her sabre rattled from her hand, the price of a decent breakfall. The Squall afforded no room to roll upright with any kind of grace; she got up into a crouch, left forearm before her face, right hand out to the side as she attempted to call her weapon back before it rolled over the edge. The crouch was a transitional stance, but too slow. Talon had a chance to get to her before she could straighten up and before she could get the sabre back. In which case, all she had was trakata, and trakata was a grab-bag of probability. She'd gone blade-to-blade with grandmasters and emperors as an equal, but bad luck could kill her in seconds.

Memento mori.

 

[Talon Vosra]

[member="Ashin Varanin"]

His foot continued it's arc and he was pressing back to his feet as she got to a crouch. She was fast. He had been told as much as a sith apprentice so he knew enough to attribute her slower than expected rise to the terrain and surprise than anything. His hand went out and the pulled at her weapon even as she did then made a quick front kick at her forearm. He was here to help a sick woman that had once wanted redemption not as a Jedi attack squad or much of anything else. Just a man that wanted to give a woman the chance that she had wanted before. The likely hood she would accept it however, was another story.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Talon Vosra"]

She was lunging forward, at least a little, by virtue of coming up from the crouch; the front kick slammed into the underside of her forearm, right in the meat. Pain exploded through her arm as the bottom of his shin impacted her arm. His booted foot scraped her forehead; in her first bit of luck yet, it didn't bleed. But nor did the contact leave her much room or time to fight his telekinetic grip on her sabre, so she didn't fight it, just exercised her bond with it to spin it a few degrees and turn it on in midair. The force of his pull became the momentum that might just skewer him -- or lose her the sabre she'd wielded since before she took the throne.

The push took a moment too long, a little too much attention, to pull off anything interesting with the leg that had just kicked her. She couldn't help but admire his efficiency. Some men tried to cram a wide variety of actions into a single moment; it rarely worked. Vosra, on the other hand, just did the right thing at the right time. Straightforward. Efficient.

She finished straightening up, hands before her, as he dealt with the sabre in one way or another. In a second-by-second fight like this, she didn't dare try to look too far ahead.

 

[Chupa La'Roi]

[member="Ashin Varanin"] [member="Talon Vosra"]

Chupa was pretty sure he'd never been here before. Old, musty buildings that reeked of purity, chastity and gods know what else were certainly not his regular places of occupation. He wasn't even sure he had gone to the right place until he heard people talking. Since swearing his life debt to Ashin, the crazy fool had tried his best at keeping track of where she went; naturally, eventually he lost her right after the news she had died. Apparently. Maybe. Kind of. He didn't know, and if he did, he certainly didn't remember.

But Yinchorr came up on occasion, as he had rooted through as much information on her as he could after she passed away. Maybe. Appar- oh bother, let's continue, shall we? When you have all the time in the galaxy to look up the family history of someone who might or might not have died, one discovers it is difficult when the target of your history check has...well...gone into incognito mode, as it were. Especially when they were so powerful in something like the lunatic fringe fringe group, the Fringe. Anyway, after some extensive library research (tack up one assault and battery of a Jedi Librarian on holiday to the list of Republic crimes he had committed over the years), Yinchorr's sandy pelt showed up enough that it deserved checking out.

Turning around to look at the wreckage of the smuggler's ship he had repurposed some miles away in the dusty desert, the smoke rising up only to be blown away by the desert winds, he stood and listened carefully for where the voices could have been coming from. And so, after a very short and sand-in-your-eyes-painfully-regrettable-why-didn't-I-just-land-on-the-planet walk, he was about thirty to forty meters away from two sparring Force Users. They had sabers, they were fighting on a desert planet, and they weren't smiling. Great, more Jedi.

Looking for a crumbling old pillar to lean against (speaking of the Jedi Order), he instead found a nice boulder sticking out between two low dunes and plopped his rump down to watch. Just as Ashin was straightening up, Chupa gave a quick and loud, "WOOO!" before billowing sand found a nice space in his mouth to roost in, and the Arkanian started spitting out sand.

One of the reasons why they lived on a snowy planet, probably.