Private Homesteading

[Velok Brokentusk]

JAIBREK, NAGAI TERRITORY
FIREFIST


Every morning, Velok fed the fowl and cast the bones just before sunrise. It worked better that way: for all the distance he'd come, the dark still favoured him in little ways like that. The bones had been suggesting that a doom was coming, maybe not to Jaibrek, maybe broader. He'd tried meshing his foresight with the maps that showed the Sith expanding, and saw nothing. Casting bones and holomaps were speaking different languages. He'd found springs, ore, neighbours, megafauna in need of taming or cooking, but no quantifiable future.

This morning, the bones said Lily Rhodes was coming home. He put his unsettlement aside and started cooking. The homestead had grown since they built the first of it together. A landing field of cleared bedrock; earthen walls and windbreaks; well-traveled dirt roads and the signs of frequent company. He got on well with his neighbours. He had friends.

 

[Lily Rhodes]

It was a tug deep in her soul that drew her back to the Firefist galaxy. She hadn't even thought twice as she set aside the robes of red and black that marked her as a member of the House of Marr and slipped into old spacer gear, simple slacks and a jacket with it,s dozen hidden pockets. It was like stepping back into the shoes of a familiar friend. She opted to fly, to remind herself of where she had come from.

The Niathal-Class shuttle's hull glinted in the early morning sun, the faded paint on her nose marking her as the Pilgrim's Rest. A strange nervousness settled over her as the homestead came into view. She hadn't called ahead, she didn't need to. Yet maybe she should have? Chewing on the inside of her cheeks, the shuttle let out a hiss as the landing gears settled upon the duracrete, pistons whirring as the landing ramp descended.

Her boots stepped lightly on the metal as she stepped from within, eyes grazing over the changes that had been made since she left, though taking none of it in. How long had it been? A year? Two? It didn't matter. When her eyes settled on the giant lump of fur that complied Velok Brokentusk , the tension she'd felt washed away, a wide smile spread across her face as she closed the distance jumping to throw her arms around his neck in a tight hug.

 

[Velok Brokentusk]

And Velok crouched to make that possible. "Welcome back," he said to one of his great friends. "Welcome back, Lily."

When he straightened up, he wiped at an eye and gestured around the homestead's various upgrades and petty livestock. There was even a ship resting under one of Jaibrek's huge flat stone pinnacles: an old Nagai freighter modified with a large, large airlock door. The pilot chair inside was similarly scaled.

"You're looking well. Healthy. The bones told me you would be." He scratched his neck, thought about how to phrase this, and went with simple. "You smell like Sith - are you keeping safe?"

 

[Lily Rhodes]

Lily's eyes lingered on the new ship, modified to fit his enormous frame, something he had been long overdue, though she would forever cherish the memory of him settled on the cushion beside her in the space the copilot's chair should have been. She still hadn't replaced it. His question drew a bark of laughter from her, bringing her gaze back towards him.

"Well, that depends on your definition of safe." She paused, picking her words with care. "I have the protection of a member of the Dark Council within the Sith Order. Does that meet the definition of safe?"

Lily didn't think so. Just because you had the guardianship of one viper, it didn't mean sitting in the middle of their nest was safe.

Velok Brokentusk

 

[Velok Brokentusk]

"Sounds as safe as Sith territory can get," he admitted, "as long as you keep your head down. You know how I feel about being beholden to Sith Lords, and what they can do to others' minds. While you're here, would you be willing to sit down with the telepaths, make sure nobody's embedded any surprises?"

That was the enclave of Nagai telepaths closer to town, a place that had been transformative a couple of years ago. Since then, he and they had maintained a line of communication as two of the three most significant Force practitioner presences on Jaibrek. The third was a longer story.

"Are you staying long? Can you? I've made up your room and all the homesteads in twenty miles want to meet you."

 

[Lily Rhodes]

Keep your head down...

"I'm not beholden to anyone." A truth, though her cousin Darth Malum of House Marr would have her glued to his side if he could. Safest where he could see her.

Self-preservation had been her natural state for so long. The longer the war went on, the more orphans were made and the harder it became to stick her head in the sand. Lily had access to resources and funds she never had before, she was in a position to help people, to truly make a difference. Raising her head above the parapets would come with a price.

She nodded in agreement to visiting the Nagai temple. It would be good to shed the stench of the sith and remember her roots where the force was concerned. Maybe she'd find some clarity. "I'll stay as long as I can."

"Twenty miles?" She grinned, darker thoughts falling away. "What have you been saying about me to make so many people eager to meet?"

Velok Brokentusk

 

[Velok Brokentusk]

"Oh, all the stories. Maybe we came off a little better than stowaways and looters. You've walked on Gadma Station! Fought a Tof destroyer! What's not to brag about?"

Not all those times had been pleasant, and the homesteaders around here — Nagai mostly, Maccabree, even some fringe Sharuka — understood times like that as well as anyone.

"You'll have to watch yourself around some of the grandmothers, though, the real hardscrabble matrons, or you'll be set up with a Nagai husband before you can blink."

Lily Rhodes