B E A C O N
Yellow Flicker Beat
Planet Toprawa
Far from the reaches of the First Order, and thus further still from the planet of Panatha, lay the forested world of Toprawa. It was beneath the canopies of the towering trees on the cloud-covered planet that Irina stalked her prey - her footfalls as silent as the sound of the breaths that she took. She wasn't searching for an animal, and she carried no gaudy weapons of the Sith or Jedi - not a lightsaber or sword on her - but was rather scavenging for ingredients suitable for an elixir of sorts. Fungi, flowers - it was the undergrowth that had attracted her to the distant world, not the things that walked and crawled over them.
She wasn't a warrior by any means - she stood hardly over a meter and a half in height, and her build was lithe but certainly not athletic - and there was no intimidating factor about her, physically, that might lead one to believe she was even capable of posing a threat. And yet there was not an animal to be found, not in the trees or the bushes that littered the forest floor, for nearly one hundred meters in each direction. The woman, to the naked eye, was nothing more than a young woman meandering about in a forest as if she'd grown to know the very trees themselves - and yet to those who were more perceptive, those who could see further than the surface, who could feel the rippling in the force and comprehend the subtle auras that surround every living thing, it was clear that she was different. It took a sharp mind, a practiced eye, and connection to the force to see what truly made her mere presence feel so wrong.
Those who were sensitive to the flow of the force, an unseen and pervading energy with a will of its own, grew used to such differences that they, alone, could perceive. The subtle shimmer in the air, the welcoming glimmer of the eyes, and a compassionate wrinkle at the lips - the aura of a benevolent person might even be described as bright, aided so by the body language of the person that helped one discern how the force that flowed through them might be read. A Jedi might appear as so, perhaps in varying degrees of welcoming colors - though never quite so obvious, as many practitioners of the force learned to mask or at least dampen their aura rather than flaunt it so openly - and the light in their eyes could almost be described as palpable. Those who knew what they were looking for could tell a so-called lightsider apart from their malevolent counterparts quite easily, so long as the two were willing for it to be so.
And then there were those who walked the path covered by the shadow of the force, its darker side. They came from many walks of life, the Sith, Nightsisters, and Dark Jedi alike. Sinister at times, openly malevolent when it pleased them, they seemed to appear distant - occupied. Their darker emotions boiled away beneath the surface, begging for a reason to erupt. A corruption that tainted the pallor of the flesh, that colored the iris of the eyes, and an unseen shadow that clothed their form, it was nearly easier to discern whether one practiced the darker arts of the force simply because many did not have the same humility as those who walked in the light. Sith, almost as a rule, took pride in their strength, and those that allowed their arrogance to steer them, or their confidence to rule them, allowed this dark power to flow freely.
And, though one could certainly see a looming darkness that hung over her like a wedding veil, it was no mere shadow that clung to her so tightly - far more twisted and perturbing than one might find wrapped around the Sith that wished only to intimidate others with sheer force of will. Like the fearsome Sith Lords that tended to linger far from such remote regions as this, she seemed more a part of the dark aura that ebbed and flowed from within than an acolyte that called it forth from without, and within her, if one dared to even glimpse beneath the surface, was an abyss so deep that it was a wonder she had not consumed herself with the corruption that ran far deeper than the flesh.
"I know you are there," Came the barely audible whisper of her voice, an accent that was far harsher than the lips it sprung from. She turned as she spoke, her gaze sweeping over the forest floor until it rested in the direction of her observer - [member="Monokna Attauwei"]. She wasn't certain when, exactly, she had been made aware of his proximity to her, or if she'd ever truly registered him as a threat, but as the only living thing for quite a distance, aside from the trees and the plants that grew beneath them, his continued presence eventually drew her attention away from the specimens she had been combing the forest floor for. "You have.. talent. You walk with the shadows as if you knew them, and were there a rodent in the trees I might have never paid you mind." She said, making an awkward attempt at a compliment - one directed to his measure of stealth. She, truthfully, did not know if he was stalking her like an assassin its mark, and she certainly would not have put it passed the other subordinates of the Sith lord she served under to have tried to have her killed to remove a formidable rival with no physical prowess in so remote a place, but she gave him the benefit of the doubt - any assassin that had hunted her would have tried to make their move sooner, and she would have either been nearly dead or unleashing the full extent of her abilities with the force long ago.
"Are you an assassin, or have we happened upon each other by chance?" The woman asked, leaning back to rest her shoulders against the tree she had been facing some moments before.
Planet Toprawa
Far from the reaches of the First Order, and thus further still from the planet of Panatha, lay the forested world of Toprawa. It was beneath the canopies of the towering trees on the cloud-covered planet that Irina stalked her prey - her footfalls as silent as the sound of the breaths that she took. She wasn't searching for an animal, and she carried no gaudy weapons of the Sith or Jedi - not a lightsaber or sword on her - but was rather scavenging for ingredients suitable for an elixir of sorts. Fungi, flowers - it was the undergrowth that had attracted her to the distant world, not the things that walked and crawled over them.
She wasn't a warrior by any means - she stood hardly over a meter and a half in height, and her build was lithe but certainly not athletic - and there was no intimidating factor about her, physically, that might lead one to believe she was even capable of posing a threat. And yet there was not an animal to be found, not in the trees or the bushes that littered the forest floor, for nearly one hundred meters in each direction. The woman, to the naked eye, was nothing more than a young woman meandering about in a forest as if she'd grown to know the very trees themselves - and yet to those who were more perceptive, those who could see further than the surface, who could feel the rippling in the force and comprehend the subtle auras that surround every living thing, it was clear that she was different. It took a sharp mind, a practiced eye, and connection to the force to see what truly made her mere presence feel so wrong.
Those who were sensitive to the flow of the force, an unseen and pervading energy with a will of its own, grew used to such differences that they, alone, could perceive. The subtle shimmer in the air, the welcoming glimmer of the eyes, and a compassionate wrinkle at the lips - the aura of a benevolent person might even be described as bright, aided so by the body language of the person that helped one discern how the force that flowed through them might be read. A Jedi might appear as so, perhaps in varying degrees of welcoming colors - though never quite so obvious, as many practitioners of the force learned to mask or at least dampen their aura rather than flaunt it so openly - and the light in their eyes could almost be described as palpable. Those who knew what they were looking for could tell a so-called lightsider apart from their malevolent counterparts quite easily, so long as the two were willing for it to be so.
And then there were those who walked the path covered by the shadow of the force, its darker side. They came from many walks of life, the Sith, Nightsisters, and Dark Jedi alike. Sinister at times, openly malevolent when it pleased them, they seemed to appear distant - occupied. Their darker emotions boiled away beneath the surface, begging for a reason to erupt. A corruption that tainted the pallor of the flesh, that colored the iris of the eyes, and an unseen shadow that clothed their form, it was nearly easier to discern whether one practiced the darker arts of the force simply because many did not have the same humility as those who walked in the light. Sith, almost as a rule, took pride in their strength, and those that allowed their arrogance to steer them, or their confidence to rule them, allowed this dark power to flow freely.
And, though one could certainly see a looming darkness that hung over her like a wedding veil, it was no mere shadow that clung to her so tightly - far more twisted and perturbing than one might find wrapped around the Sith that wished only to intimidate others with sheer force of will. Like the fearsome Sith Lords that tended to linger far from such remote regions as this, she seemed more a part of the dark aura that ebbed and flowed from within than an acolyte that called it forth from without, and within her, if one dared to even glimpse beneath the surface, was an abyss so deep that it was a wonder she had not consumed herself with the corruption that ran far deeper than the flesh.
"I know you are there," Came the barely audible whisper of her voice, an accent that was far harsher than the lips it sprung from. She turned as she spoke, her gaze sweeping over the forest floor until it rested in the direction of her observer - [member="Monokna Attauwei"]. She wasn't certain when, exactly, she had been made aware of his proximity to her, or if she'd ever truly registered him as a threat, but as the only living thing for quite a distance, aside from the trees and the plants that grew beneath them, his continued presence eventually drew her attention away from the specimens she had been combing the forest floor for. "You have.. talent. You walk with the shadows as if you knew them, and were there a rodent in the trees I might have never paid you mind." She said, making an awkward attempt at a compliment - one directed to his measure of stealth. She, truthfully, did not know if he was stalking her like an assassin its mark, and she certainly would not have put it passed the other subordinates of the Sith lord she served under to have tried to have her killed to remove a formidable rival with no physical prowess in so remote a place, but she gave him the benefit of the doubt - any assassin that had hunted her would have tried to make their move sooner, and she would have either been nearly dead or unleashing the full extent of her abilities with the force long ago.
"Are you an assassin, or have we happened upon each other by chance?" The woman asked, leaning back to rest her shoulders against the tree she had been facing some moments before.
