Private Glass Castles and Crystal Forests

[Davron Feln]

(The misadventure continues)

After an impromptu driving lesson out on the flats beyond the cities of Christophsis—more than a little strange, combining Davron's inability to see and Auraya's lack of experience with piloting vehicles in general—the pair eventually developed enough confidence in their inability to avoid a crash to continue along with their goal for the trip. At least, Davron was confident enough; as plagued with self-doubt and timidity as Auraya seemed to be at times, he wasn't sure if she was as confident as he hoped she was. He was trying to project some extra confidence to make up for any possible lack there.

With Chaleydonia a ways behind them now, and their rapid approach to the forests, hopefully they both of them could at least breathe away from so many curious eyes.

"How close are we to the edge of the forests?" he asked, resisting the momentary urge to try and peer out into the distance like he might have...centuries before. "It might get too thick to keep riding this in there, but there should be a good spot to park it and hide it out of the way, I would think." And if there were to be any Kyaddak's hiding along their path, the sound of the speeder would probably attract them even faster than normal. Not a fun thought, even with a blaster and training saber for Auraya to deter the beasts...or whatever he might manage to pull out of his backside, if it came to it.

Auraya Irath-Ur

 

[Auraya Irath-Ur]

This was fine.​

​

Everything was fine.​

​

So she was behind the wheel of a speeder, so what..? There wasn't anything wrong with that, right? Padawan's drove such things all the time! Of course, they had practice first, had taken lessons and earned their permits and licenses, but none of that mattered because look, she was doing it! Mostly... She was mostly doing it.​

​

Slow and steady and all of that, she got the hang of it in time though the journey was still more than a little rocky. At first she'd been horrified, hated every second of it, but the further they got from the city and out toward the crystalline forest the more her confidence began to blossom. It was a strange feeling for one such as she, who was always anticipating the worst, who expected to fail no matter what she did.

But she'd managed it. She'd brought them to the edge of the forest.​

​

"Not far, Master," she responded, only the fainted sign of a quiver in her voice - quite the improvement! "I can see it coming up. It's... beautiful."​

​

She had quite forgotten about the threat of the Kyaddak's, was not at all thinking about how the sound of their approach might draw their attention, though of course when warned that the speeder would only be able to go so far she began to look around for somewhere to park it. A little ways in, she reckoned, before it became too dense.

Davron Feln ​

 

[Davron Feln]

"Sharp, too. Don't lean on anything without making sure you're not on an edge first."

He'd made that mistake once. He probably still had the scar somewhere on his arm. He wondered if the 'tree' he'd cut himself on was still around, or if over the course of centuries of Force-only-knew-what going on it had gotten itself knocked down. Certainly, none of them had grown large enough to be worth carving out into new cities...probably.

How quickly did the crystals on Christophsis grow, anyways?

"You said the map showed that this tract stretched into a ravine, right?"

Auraya Irath-Ur

 

[Auraya Irath-Ur]

"Sharp..." Yeah, that made sense didn't it? With a very slight grimace she nodded her head. "Noted..." She wouldn't be reaching out to the trees for support any time soon then. She could only hope she wouldn't stumble and fall at any point in time, she wasn't known for being the most graceful after all.​

​

"How far in should we go?" she inquired, "I don't want to lose the speeder..." The poor guy back in the city would be unimpressed if they returned without it, it was already bad enough that she was driving it without a license... or training... or a sighted instructor at her side.​

​

His query had her glancing back to the holomap, and she scrunched up her face a little in consideration. "Yeah, about a league that-a-way..." She gestured ahead of them before realizing that it was a pointless endeavour. "Heads up, Master, we're coming into the forest now."​

​

As sharp as these trees were supposed to be, the last thing she needed was for him to bump his head or whatever on a low lying branch.​

​

Davron Feln ​

 

[Davron Feln]

Davron pursed his lips, thinking for a moment as they sped along into the forest proper. "Far enough in it's out of sight. I don't want anybody trying to take it while we're gone, that always looks bad. Don't worry about losing it, though, there should be a way to link it to your datapad for automatic tracking." Said datapad would, undoubtedly, come in useful on their way back out, as he doubted either of them would be able to backtrack particularly well through endless spires of branching crystal.

Especially when one of them couldn't see.

"That ravine will be our first goal—getting to the bottom of it. With any luck, we'll be on a side that leads down into it, rather than coming up to a high edge and having to walk around." And from there, the ravines often held entrances to cave networks that spread throughout the crystalline planet's crust, just as sharp and angular as the surface. A very strange planet.

As Auraya brought the speeder in for a stop, Davron first swung out his new cane to make sure there wasn't anything around for him to run into or slice himself open upon, before hopping out, the strap of one pack already loosely slung over his free arm, waiting a moment for Auraya to gather her things from the speeder.

Auraya Irath-Ur

 

[Auraya Irath-Ur]

Her datapad. Oh yeah, she'd quite forgotten she had that. Raya almost made the mistake of turning to reach for it before remembering that she was, in fact, in control of the speeder. Her heart leapt into her throat, and she closed her hands tighter around the wheel. In that moment she was sort of glad Davron couldn't see.​

​

"Okay, I'll figure out how to do that once we get further in" she assured him, sounding more confident about that than she felt. After all she had no clue how to link it up. It was to be a day of on the spot learning, wasn't it?​

​

Soon she pulled the speeder to a halt as the crystalline forest up ahead grew denser and denser. She probably could have gone a little further in, but she didn't exactly trust herself to maneuver the vehicle well enough for that. Davron was quick to ready himself, while Raya rummaged through her pack and pulled free the aforementioned datapad.​

​

She had a map of the planet pulled up soon, but she had no real clue how to do what he'd suggested.​

​

"Uh, so, how would I link it up exactly, Master?" she mumbled. In the meantime she slung her pack over her shoulder and exited the vehicle, staring down at the datapad as though it could somehow magically read her mind and do the process for her.​

​

Davron Feln ​

 

[Davron Feln]

"If it's anything like the ones I was used to, there should be a locator somewhere on it, and I'd think you could activate it from the console? After that it's just double-checking the frequency and making sure your datapad is keyed in to track it."

He had yet to even see how much the typical control scheme of many of these things might have changed in the centuries since he'd last been out and about in the galaxy, thanks to the hibernation sickness. "I suppose it isn't the most necessary thing, though. With the maps, you might be able to just mark down where we are now and we can navigate the old-fashioned way when we get to it." He'd had plenty of experience with that as well, though again, when he could see. See the landmarks, see the sun, see where he was putting his feet.

Relying on a Seeing-Eye Padawan certainly complicated it.

"We did pack snacks and such, right? This might be a while." Not that he'd even told her exactly what his plans were for this outing. "I'd hate to have forgotten something like that and starve my new Padawan."

Auraya Irath-Ur