Private It Starts

[Miriam Tachi]

The waves lapped against the beach with a dull yet oddly calm splash and hiss. Water rose up above Miri’s ankles, and then it went away again. Then it rose up to cover them once more, and then it ran away. Her eyes had been staring at the blue sky above her for a few solid minutes now, her muscles weary from the swim that had brought her from certain death to uncertain survival. Despite the circumstances that had brought her here, it was really quite a nice break. A couple of flower dancers and a coconut bar and things would be right as rain.​

But those dancers were far away, and rain was already looming on the horizon. The white-robed priestess, Miriam, sat up with a groan to look over at her friend. When they had set out it hadn’t exactly been in their plans to end up crashing into the ocean so close to their destination, but something had quite clearly shot them down. Not a cannon or even gun but something more sinister. It had seemed to have been a lightning bolt. One moment their ship was fine and then in the very next it was plummeting towards the ground, their as-of-then fried astromech whining all the while.​

“You okay?” Miriam’s usually soft voice rasped under the weight of exertion. She let in a deep breath and then let it out again with a somewhat relieved sigh to see her friend alive still. “Seems someone didn’t want us to come knocking.”​

It was the same old Miriam, always stated the obvious, always seemed chipper about it. With her hand to her knee she pushed from the ground to pat at the dagger on her belt. It would need a good lookover once they were out of here, but for now it would work just fine. With a quick glance around the beach she figured the coast were clear, at least for now.​

“Think we should get out of here before the welcome committee shows up?” She joked and shook her head. “Figure they’re not all too keen on sharing something called a ‘Mask of the Betrayer God.’ Huh?”​

Elani Demaris​

 

[Elani Demaris]

Miriam Tachi​

"Oh aye, Ah'm jus' bleedy peachy." Danae groused back, turning her head slightly to return another mouthful of grit and sand back to the beach in a wholly unladylike hawk. Stars above, how she hated the ocean. The sight of it, the sound of it, the smell of it, and most of all the damned taste of it! The entire ordeal reminding her far too much of her childhood on Weik, where her elder siblings had delighted in tossing their all too often infuriating tag-a-long baby sister into the frigid harbor waters of Drylaw. "Ah suppose any landin' ye can walk away from be includin' swimmin' nae too, eh?"

She shouldn't complain. They were beyond lucky. That crash could have played out very differently if they'd been over land instead of water. A frantic swim and a mouthful of gritty seawater was a small price to pay in the grand scheme of things. They were both alive, which was more than could be said for their unfortunate droid. She certainly wasn't looking forward to having to explain the loss of the ship to the Temple quartermaster any time soon...

"If they be set on bringin' us some towels while they at it, Ah cannae say ah'd object." She smirked despite herself, forcing some of her normal cheer back into her voice as she pulled herself up into a half-seated, half-lent position. "But somehow Ah have a feelin' we won't be as lucky."

She brushed a hand through the bedraggled mess clinging to her face that was her hair as she spoke, her gaze sweeping their surroundings as she tried to get an idea of where they were. Seemingly endless miles of beach stretched out as far as they eye could see, encircling an almost equally pervasive and daunting looking thicket of a jungle. The only thing that looked promising was that meager outcropping of black stone that jutted from the sand like a gnarled fist of broken fingers.

There was an ominous rustle in the denser part of the jungle. A flock of suitably tropical colored bird-like lizards abruptly taking to sky in a screeching cacophony of protests and warning cries that set off a chain reaction. Something or someone was definitely out there. As curious of a girl as she was, she wasn't too keen on finding out what. Discretion was the better part of valor, right?

"...Aye, ye know what? Ah be thinkin' we should maybe check out that outcroppin' over there." She murmured, rising slightly stiffly to her feet. Trying to downplay the trepidation she was feeling by nonchalantly brushing off the sand that clung to her embroidered jerkin. Her movements a little too hurried and perhaps a touch frantic to really succeed in either endeavor. "Ah'm sure these fine fellas be jus' hankerin' f' some fun time at the beach an' Ah dinnae want tae intrude."

 

[Miriam Tachi]

Elani Demaris

Any landing you walked away from, indeed. Although her damp robes had turned from an item of comfort into something cumbersome, Miri refused to shed it. In part because it would leave an all too evident clue to their survival, but mostly because it held sentimental value. Intricate golden patterns adorned the hems and collars, each stitch had been put in place by the precision of her tribe’s most spectacular weavers. As one of a select few representatives for not just their tribe but world as a whole, Miriam had been put in a special position and they were not afraid to show it.

Not that the golden details mattered much when caked under a layer of wet sand and mud. Her eyes instinctively set on the colorful wildlife as the duo set off towards a nearby outcropping. As beautiful as they were their flight spoke of oncoming danger. Miriam would agree with Dany’s assessment and follow closely behind, hands patting at the pockets spread across her outfit.

“I’ be hones’ wit ya. I don’ geddit wit these cults.” Miriam chimed up before she tried to clear her throat of the lingering taste of salt. “Ya’d expect them to be in a place mer gloomy if they’s holdin’ onto this ‘Mask o’ the Betrayer’, rite? I’ mean, wer’ not exactly lackin’ for colors in ‘ere. There’s colourful berds, lively flawra. I’d almost argue that my white robes ain’ all too inconspicuous.”

Well, the robes were undoubtedly conspicuous save for a precious few spots that had taken on a more natural color, albeit not by any choice of Miriam’s. As the flora began to fill out the space beneath their feet the contrast was all the more obvious. A small curse parted Miriam’s lips before they spread into a grimace. She considered her options and there really were none. The robe was non-negotiable, an essential survivor in all this. Wear and tear was inevitable, but salvage was better than absence.

“We’re gon’ta need a plan ‘ere.” Miriam said as the two pushed deeper into the foliage. “I get the feel’ we ain’ ‘boutta talk this out wit them., ‘tho I wish we could.”

“Unless, maybe... ‘Could always do wha’ we did on Corellia. If we's lucky.”

 

[Elani Demaris]

Miriam Tachi
​

There was no real sense of division between the beach and the jungle. No gradual transition from idyllic white sand to garishly green thicket. Instead the terrain seemingly switched abruptly and without warning, as if stepping from one decorated room in to another. Even only a few meters in, it was already impossible to see the beach they'd just seconds ago departed. Jarring to be certain, but at least they would have cover from unfriendly eyes. In theory anyway...

"Bein' this far out, away fram all o' the trappin's o' civilization, does funny things tae folk." Dany replied as she ducked under an errant low hanging branch. Pausing if considering the topic at hand, but really buying herself a second to work out which way they were headed. She chewed the edge of her lip before shrugging and began shuffle-squeezing her way between two gnarled trees. "Messes wi' their 'ead. Makes them grab hold o' whatever stability they can, y'know? Somethin' tae give theem hope. Somethin' tae excuse what they do tae survive out here."

There were many reaches of her own world that shared a similar issue. Where people found themselves falling victim to fear of the unknown, easily swayed by anyone or anything that offered even the smallest sliver of light at the end of the tunnel, all too often in return for a piece of themselves. On Weik, that was a myth about a fallen star. Here it seemed to be some force forsaken mask.

She snorted softly as her companion brought up Corellia, her smirk widening for a second at the memory before a face full of leaves and vines abruptly wiped it away with a splutter, an oath and a wild wave of her hands as she brushed it aside. "Oh feth, Miri, Ah dinnae think these people are bleedy music lovers, ye ken? They're cannibals. Ah dinnae aboutyu, but Ah don't feel like singin' for their dinner, eh?"

She shook her head dismissively and pressed on.

"Nay. We get to higher ground first. Ah reckon, what, top o' that hunkin' black rock we saw from t' beach? We should be able tae see t' temple, clear as a glass, rite? Get us ours bearin's an' then maybe make a plan from there."

 

[Miriam Tachi]

Elani Demaris

Isolation, insanity, and inbreeding. The three I’s that was all too common in the Outer Rim even after the Gulag Plague had come to an end. Miri was lucky that her particular force sect hadn’t reached that level of desperation just yet, but from what the historians had told there were pockets that had at the very least started to consider it by the time the Republic had re-initiated contact with the outside world and brought things back to a relative normal. Not that Miri herself understood what normal was, she had only ever known the end of the plague.

Ducking under the very same branch that Dany had passed under she gave a lighthearted shrug to her friend. She ‘kenned’ what her companion was talking about, but that didn’t mean it was a bad idea, right? Well, obviously it was, but hey a crowd was a crowd, right? The priestess grasped at the branches that threatened to whip at her face as they moved through the brush with an uneasy grimace. She hadn’t ever really been one to explore the wild, always was one to linger around the temple to practice her arts.

“Good thinkin’, ‘new I kept ya aroun’ fer some reason. Guess tha’s why they call us,” Miri laughed along with her friend as she placed her hand on her chest. “Beauty,” And then she extended it towards Danae. “And the brain.”

The good times were however cut short. An unfamiliar voice called out from the thick of the forest and Miriam went low on sheer instinct. Her hand motioned for Danae to do much the same as if she hadn’t already.

“— I don’t care what the Reverend said. There’s no way they survived a crash like that. The water has to be at least a hundred fifty feet deep. No way they could surface in time, much less avoid getting pulled down by the sinking craft.” It was a man’s voice, imperial, seemed frustrated, young. “If you ask me—”

“The reverend just wants us to be careful, Brent.” A second voice, more gruff yet clearly in agreement with his friend. “Let’s just get to that beach and make sure and then report back before dinner.”

Miri threw Dany a quick glance and shuffled to keep her balance. The younger man quickly stopped and began to look around.

“You feel that?” He asked his friend and scanned the surrounding area.

Miri raised a hand towards Dany again to keep her from doing anything stupid such as ambush the two men.

“It’s those damned birds the Rev told us about, let’s just get to the beach.”

“... Yeah, you’re right. Kept the Jedi off of us so far, huh?”

Their conversation continued as they left and Miri let out a deep sigh of relief.

 

[Elani Demaris]

Miriam Tachi
​

Oh, the lip on this cheeky mare!

"Oh aye, it's li'ah' is it?" Dany replied in her thick Weik brogue, bristling even as she held a branch up for Miriam to duck under. "Well, Ah hate tae be the one t'bleedy break it tae ye, Miri., but ye ain't exactly anythin' tae write aboot, ye feel me? So maybe it is jus' as well we got me big ol' brain tae see us through, eh?"

She had all but dove behind a broad based tree even before Miriam gestured, hand falling to one of the throwing knives she kept strapped to her left outer thigh. Hoping beyond hope that it wouldn't need to draw it. Cultists or not, death was not something the bard was comfortable with. Just as everyone could fall, so too could they be redeemed given time and the right opportunities. Idealistic, certainly. But what was the point of the Jedi Order if not to fight for the ideals they supposedly stood for? Thankfully they seemed to be too distracted with one another to put just how far her idealism went. Her ears straining to pick out every word over the hammering sound of her heart.

Reverend?

She mouthed the word silently to herself, features drawing into a confused frown. That sounded a lot more formal than she would have expected for bunch of backwater, cannibalistic cultists they had been expecting to find out her. Their accents, too. Not the usual rough twang you normally heard on the Rim. You only had to look at Miram or herself for a fine, upstanding example of what happened to galactic basic if you left it unattended for more than a generation or two. No, if anything, these people had almost the distinctively crisp notes she had come to associate with the core worlds.

They way they moved definitely seemed awkward and out of place amongst the jungle, as if they were still trying to adapt to the environment. Certainly explained their apparent lack of even basic woodcraft - Junglecraft? - you'd expect from someone borne and raised in this dank, humid green labyrinth.

Just what was going on here?

"Ah dinnae think we're dealin' wi' jus' cultists here." She murmured after a minute or so, having counted down the seconds before stepping gingerly out from behind her cover. Her hands rinsing each other nervously before she swallowed, ducking her head and returning to their slog. Focusing on the task of navigating the jungle far more preferable than wallowing in the fear spiking in her chest. While she doubted it, she was a Jedi Knight! Fear wasn't supposed to be in the job description. "Mibbe if they came here in a ship, we might jus' have a way out o' here after all."

 

[Miriam Tachi]

Elani Demaris

“I don’ like the idea’ tha’ we might be lookin’ at spillin’ their blood, yeah?” Miri frowned at her friend. It wasn’t the same with a dagger, the visual feedback and the guilt was all the more evident. It had happened before, it was inevitable in this galaxy, but that didn’t mean Miriam would ever truly get used to it.

The duo pushed deeper into the foliage under the protection of the overgrowth. Above their heads flew birds that with each wingstroke seemed to cause the air around them to blow with an unusually fierce wind. Upon first glance the colorful birds seemed to tease the eyes with a cacophony of colors. The longer her eyes lingered on the bird the harder it became to see, as if the bird had a cloaking effect around it.

Had Miri been good at sensing things through the force she would have noticed their force signatures. Instead she patted Dany's back to point at one of the birds that sat on a nearby branch, it’s form seemingly pulsing in and out of existence with a constant rhythm.

“Those mus’ be them birds they were talkin’ ‘bout.” She whispered to her friend and continued to stare up at them. “Think maybe we could use’em in any way?”

“Ya know how to talk to birds? … Actual birds, Dany.”

 

[Elani Demaris]

Miriam Tachi
​

"Trust me, Ah wasnae set on havin' it be plan A." Danae replied with a faint frown of her own. Sometimes the Force moved in mysterious ways, placing you in situations where you had very little choice in the matter. Didn't pardon the guilt, nothing ever would, but if the choice came down to Miriam or one of the cultists, it was a weight she would simply have to learn to shoulder. "We jus' gotta be smart aboot it, yeah? We wen' an' los' the element o' surprise wi' that landin', but 'opefully they'll buy we drowned. I mean, prac'ically truth."

The thicket up ahead narrowed once more, prompting another bout of squeezing, ducking, crawling and more than a little bit of shuffling awkwardly through some cramp spaces. More than once the bard was tempted to pull out her lightsaber and just go full on ham; blaze a trail through the forest in a few minutes what was taking them the better part of an hour to traverse normally. Not subtle or stealthy, but it would be therapeutic as all feth. Certainly stop all the gnarly roots from stabbing her in the arse if nothing else.

Her hand twitched towards her saber before Miri's sudden question dragged her back to reality.

"Nah, but I kin whistle rite proper. Think that'll werk?" She replied with just a touch of sarcasm filtering through her Weik-brand brogue, glancing back over her shoulder and following the other woman's gaze towards one of the small flocks that seemed to be following them. Letting her mind reach out towards them with the Force for a few drawn out seconds before giving a dismissive shake of her head and pulling it back. Animal empathy was hardly her forte and they were simply too foreign and wild for her to make any sense of what went on behind those beedy little black eyes. Best she could piece together was a deep seated, almost predatory hunger that did little to ease the sense of trepidation this jungle instilled.

"Ah dinnae think they're friendly, Miri, so bes' watch yer fingers, eh?" Dany brave faced, pushing through another patch of smelly vines. Unable to resist a parting shot with an opening like that. "We'd hate fer yer love life tae take such a loss nae."

Perhaps karmically, she quickly paid for the crudeness of her own joke as she clipped her elbow on a rocky protrusion that lurked just beyond those vines. The blackened string of curses that threatened to spring forth dying on her tongue as she realized they'd finally made it to their destination. Or rather, the foot of it.

Blood and ashes, it was a lot taller than she had realized spotting it from the beach.

"Well, Ah guess... " She murmured, mentally calculating the height and coming up dry. A long way up and a long way down if they messed up. "This is the part where ye tell me ye've got a cripplin' fear o' heights."

 

[Miriam Tachi]

Elani Demaris

“Oh, I don’ kno’ ‘bout tha’, Dany. They don’ call me silver tongued for nothin’.” Miri tsked at her friend and shook her head. They had found themselves at the base of a cliff. The white-robed priest slowly let her attention drag along the surface of the mountainside until her white hood fell off her head with a wet thud against her shoulders. A hand moved up on instinct to tuck the wet locks of hair behind her pointed ears as her lips pursed with a smack of her lips and a quiet curse that parted under her breath.

“I’m not ‘fraid o’ the height. It’s more the fallin’ down part, ya kno’?” She grimaced and began to look around their immediate vicinity for any alternatives to this. Anything at all would do. “There’s godda be a better alternative than this tho’, righ’?”

Miri tried, she truly did, but nothing seemed to be a faster route than this. Between getting spotted on the way up, the force-sensitive birds with murder in their eyes, and the general state of things since they had arrived it felt like a massive risk. Never mind that they could slip and very well draw their last breath before they hit the ground, this was all but a preferable route.

But what other choice did they have?

Miri let out a frustrated sigh and grabbed a hold of the nearest ledge with an unpracticed grab. The kind any true climbing novice would have. A quick glance shot out over her shoulder back at Dany.

“Don’ look at me like tha’! I’m an artis’, no’ a’ drekkin’ athlete’, lil’ miss jungl’ explor’a.” Miri frowned and pulled herself up to the first ledge. Another grin spread on her lips and she let out a quiet chuckle before she turned back around towards Dany again. It was clear she had something to say, and it was most certainly not about to be something responsible. “Race ya to the top?”

 

[Elani Demaris]

Miriam Tachi
​

There was an eyewateringly audible snapple-pop as the Jedi Bard interlaced her fingers and flexed. Moving on to pop each each knuckle and joint of her digits separately as she watched patiently from below, allowing Miri to pull ahead with a decent lead as she made a visible show of limbering up. Working out all the kinks and stiffness traipsing through the jungle with sea-sodden clothes had left her with. After being so tightly cramped in the over gown thicket, the chance to cut loose was not one she would pass up.

"How aboot we make it interestin', eh?" She called up when she thought the other woman had enough of a lead to at least give her a fighting chance, if not a false sense of confidence. "Last one tae the top hasta explain' tae the quartermaster back at the temple what happened tae the ship."

Not even waiting for a response, Danae was already on the move before the last word would have even registered. In stark contrast to her apparent lack of ability in the animal empathy arena, art of movement was most definitely more her wheelhouse. Excelling there far more than anywhere else; her mother's savage daughter to the core. In the blink of an eye, she had already covered half the ground Miriam held with her lead, a set of practiced hands quick to hone in on holds that had been overlooked by the robed clad woman. A wide grin stretching across sun-kissed features as she passed her a few seconds later.

Sure, they might have been possibly marooned on a backwater planet, hunted by a cult of whack jobs, pursued by a mangy flock of deranged birds... But that didn't mean she couldn't take the time to enjoy herself, right?

"In yer own time, Miri. Slow an' steady does it."

 

[Miriam Tachi]

There were moments when Miri knew that she was out of her depth. Many times she put herself in the position to learn or to hinder someone the chance to give her a ‘I told you so’ since, well, she had also known it from the start. In this particular case Danae was a Jedi, she had a stricter exercise regiment than Miri did. Which in reality was to imply that Miriam had any real regiment at all. Miri was a lean figure with a self-proclaimed ‘perfect silhouette’, but that was not so much on account of any plan she had made as much as a metabolism that she knew many envied. Well, that and maybe the fact that work kept her on her feet enough to help her out. And the fencing, but that was mostly for self-protection, it didn’t count.

All this was to say that when Danae surpassed her as if it was seemingly nothing, all that Miri would do was to grunt as she pulled herself up by the steadiest grip she could find. Her eyes wandered up to her friend, already well aware by the fact that she would be the one to talk to the quartermaster about the lost ship, again.

“Yep.” She strained under her breath as she pulled herself yet again. “A priestess of—” She grunted yet again and caught her breath for a moment. “The—” Miri’s groan drowned out the name of her goddess as she pulled herself up to another ledge. “Is never late.”

“She arrives exactly when she intends to.”

The climb went on, but in time they would reach the top. As her hands grasped at the top Miriam would pull herself up by the last few slivers of strength that still remained in her arms. With a gasp for air she rolled around onto her back to let her legs dangle over the edge as she caught her breath again.

“Ferrek,” She cursed. “I really oughta workout mor’”

Her chest slowly rose and sunk as she laid down on the ground. The fact that she was here was certainly proof of something. Miriam had no clue what that was, but a climb like that would have had to mean something, right?

Propping herself up by her elbows she slowly crept away from the cliff’s edge to get herself back on her feet again and stare out at the jungle below. In the near distance there seemed to be a light fixture, some sort of structure that poked up just above the trees with a barely distinguishable sheen.

“Jus’ great.” Miriam exhaled with a displeased groan, her eyes not picking up on the vague noises and lights. “What are we suppose’ to look fer?”

Elani Demaris

 

[Elani Demaris]

Miriam Tachi​

She sat patiently for her friend to finally join her. One leg hanging perilously over the edge of the cliff-like face which offered the best view of the jungle, the other half folded beneath her to retain balance as she surveyed the seemingly endless sea of green. Idly dusting the fine grit and sediment from her hands on the hem of her long coat as she made a mental map. From here, the Temple was a good two and a half klicks as the weird native lizard-bird would fly. Call it a full three or four when you factored in a few diversions on foot. Assuming they covered ground at the same pace… It would be likely dark before they arrived.

Question was, was that to their advantage or not?

"More? Ah think ye need tae even start 'fore ye kin actually increase it. Ah've heard o' Hutts wi' more strenuous werkout routines.“ Danae teased as Miri finally made it, clearly not even having the good grace to pretend to be winded from her own ascent. If anything she actually seemed more alive from the experience, as if she had somehow left all their troubles on the jungle floor below. “Now sit down, eh? Yer standin’ out like a sore bleedy thumb wi’ that white robe of yers.”

They would have to do something about that. It was already a small miracle those cultists hadn’t spotted her hiding in that bush of all things. Just another fact that seemed to confirm they weren’t used to the jungle climes.

"Not so much lookin' fer what, but what ain't, ye ken?" She continued, leaning in to draw the other girl’s gaze with her arm, casting it out to where the temple roof just crested the treetops. From there her hand gradually blazed a trail a little further on to a section of the jungle where the canopy seemed to suddenly thin and appear anemic compared to the rest of the foliage. "See that rite there? The way the trees jus' seem tae dip? That'll be a clearin'. Ah betcha a credit tae a song that'll be where these folks made themselves a landin' zone."

Hopefully one that was a straight shot from the Temple. If they were lucky they could grab the artifact, steal a ship and be off the planet before anyone was the wiser. The keyword being if. A lot of things could go wrong in between here and there - and there was still that lightning weapon that had blasted them out of the sky to contend with.

She clicked her tongue irritably. This is why she hated planning. It was far easier to ignore the glaring holes in your ideas when you left them vague and stuck to just winging it. “What ye reckon? Roll the dice an’ see or ye wanna set up camp here fer the foreseeable future, maybe get a taste fer lizard-bird while we’re at it?”

 

[Miriam Tachi]

Elani Demaris

Tired brown eyes glanced up at Danae with an unamused frown. Although they both came from places well beyond the Core, it was all too clear which one of them had led a pampered life of a cloistered artist, and which of them had been perhaps a bit more well equipped to handle situations like these. Miri’s head shook as she took a knee to glance down at the junglescape below.

“It’s hardly ‘een white, anymore.” The once-white robed priestess said and looked down at the extensively dirtied fabrics that clung to her frame. As she stared down at the landscape below again she threw a few extra careful glance at the spots pointed out by Danae, or rather what hadn’t been pointed out. The knife-eared woman blinked at her friend and then went back to looking at whatever Danae was pointing at.

“Ah, okay, ya mean lik’ that.” She said and finally understood what Dany meant. “Right, right.”

And with it the options put before them both seemed equally unappealing. One of them because it meant pushing onwards so soon, and the other one because it wouldn’t push on soon enough. As much as Danae enjoyed Miriam’s company, no doubt, Miriam herself wasn’t exactly about to propose that they stay and get even dirtier on a planet that wanted them by most accounts dead.

“I’d say we’ve a betta’ chance at ‘tastefully reposessing’ the mask if we get in there under cover of the dark.” Miri said but slowly began to weigh the other option. “Altho’,” She said and began to truly consider it. “A break after all tha’ climbin’ would certainly be welcom’.”

“How ‘bout we take the nite to observ’ their movements? Take th’ scenery in, see how we can use it agains’ them? Maybe rig a distract?”

 

[Elani Demaris]

Miriam Tachi
​

“Ah’m no likin’ the idea o’ us spendin’ a night here if’n Ah’m bein’ honest.” Danae replied with a tiny frown as she held up a hand towards the horizon. Measuring the distance between the slowly sinking sun and the lush verdant green canopy with her fingers. It was hardly an exact science, especially on a world so unfamiliar and vastly alien, but she estimated maybe another hour or two of semi-decent light at an absolute stretch by the current rate of descent. She chewed the edge of her lip as she continued, letting her hand fall to her side. “Ah dinnae aboot ye, but sommit tells me birds will be the leas’ o’ our problems if we stick aroun’ here tae long.”

And she wasn’t just talking about the cultists, the mask or the jungle and its no doubt endless supply of predators lurking below. There was something dark and twisty about the whole planet. She could feel it in her bones. Like a pregnant pause before a stormfront rolled in, the very air itself felt heavy and charged with possibility. Ancient possibility. Somewhere out there, out beneath the sprawling junglescape, lurked something as unfathomable as it was forgotten. A vestige of something from the dark years long before the rise and fall of the Republic’s fortunes. Slumbering fitfully, only to now stir...

The young Jedi shivered abruptly and yanked back her senses, retreating in on herself before she became lost in the recesses of the shadow. Clutching at the scarf around her neck as if it would ward off the chill she knew was down to more than an ebbing sun.

“Nae, longer we’re here…” While her voice sounded stronger than she felt in that instant, she nevertheless found herself trailing off as she tried to find the right words to articulate the wrongness that surrounded them. For someone who fancied herself quite the skald, it was a miserable silent failure that stretched for several drawn out seconds before she simply shrugged. Maybe she didn’t need words. Miriam had to feel it too. How could she not? “We jus' gotta git gone an’ git gone quick.”

Without waiting a moment longer, Danae tugged at the utility belt she wore beneath her coat. Yanking a spool of mono-filament cable free from the liquid dispenser and affixing it to the collapsible grapple. At least going down would be a hell of a lot easier. Small blessings, arriving few and far between, but blessing all the same. Enough to spread a small, feeble yet warm smirk across her lips as she cast her friend a sidelong glance. "Yer down fer a quick tumble in the dark, Miri?"

 

[Miriam Tachi]

Elani Demaris

Well, naturally Miriam wasn’t exactly a great fan of the idea either. Flesh eating birds, a cult that shot first and asked second, the feeling that something was watching them the deeper into the jungles they got. From up here the cliff seemed like a fairly safe spot but there was no denying Danae had a point. Maybe not the part where she wanted to go down again right away, but Miri had long since come to understand that Danae acted and then asked, and there was a comfort in that too.

Sure, the woman seemed bothered by something and it wasn’t exactly hard for Miriam to understand why. On top of the previously mentioned obstacles there was also the fact that they just survived a crash, resurfaced intact, and felt the waking stir of something Miriam lacked the words for. It was malevolent apathy, a deep sense of careless and outright carefree disdain for all things equally. It was alive, and it did not appreciate that they had come knocking.

“Thinkin’ o’ the escapade on Contruum already, hmm?” Miri played into Dany’s joke in the hopes of lifting some of the worry off her shoulders. “Goes’ta sho’ tha’ they ain’ all too differen’ than people like us, e’en on these mor’ ci’ilized planets, ‘sposedly.”

Miri hooked herself up to the edge and gently leaned over the edge to look down at the heights below. Her heart skipped for a second, a curse parted her lips under the flow of her breath. Sure, down was easier but that didn’t make these things any more fun than the climb.

And the climb was not fun at all.

“You’re lucky I was ther’ to play it off, and yu’kno’ it.” Miri said and took a seat on the ledge to ensure she was truly hooked up. “Ne’er seen someone wit’ a face quite so red. Either of ya’.”

 

[Elani Demaris]

Miriam Tachi
​

There was an indignant, strangled noise from the Redhead as her gaze whipped up from the task at hand, that earlier sense of oppressive foreboding momentarily forgotten as she found her good name being so well and truly abused. Her face a flush of embarrassment that was quickly overridden by affronted ire. "'ey! Contruum was nay my fault an' ye bleedy knae it! 'ow was ah supposed tae knae they were usin' that changin' room, eh?"

Really, if anything, she had been the victim that day.

She gave another indignant noise, this time much more reserved and controlled in the form of a borderline huff. "Yer jus' jealous ye never made a girl that red faced wi'out pissin' her off first." Dany muttered as she resumed her preparation, making an all too obvious show of looping the rope around her thigh to better control her descent in the hopes Miri would catch on and do the same, even going as far as undoing and repeating the process a few times just to make sure. As much as she wouldn't mind seeing the other girl become the butt of the joke and embarrass herself right now, they were a little too high up for the punchline to be anything but a resounding splat.

"Nice an' easy, yeh? Slow is smooth, smooth is fast." She said once she was satisfied she wasn't going to have to scrape the girl off the jungle floor, edging her way to the brink of the ledge. She of course had no clue what that really meant, but she'd heard one of the GADF Commandos espousing it religiously and it sounded good in the moment. "Jus' follow my lead an' try not to land on me, eh?"

The last word was punctuated with a gentle shove with her shoulder, already diving sideways over the edge with a VROOOOP of the rope along the rough hewn black stone as she vanished from view before Miri could object.

 

[Miriam Tachi]

Elani Demaris

The jab had worked. One could even argue it had worked far too well. Danae quickly responded to it with the same old indignant frown that Miri had come to know her friend for. Cute, but not something she would make Dany aware of if she could help it. And then there was the retort, the attempt to poke back at Miri. Not a bad one, but ultimately one that came from a reflex more than an instinct. Miriam raised her brow to question her friend’s choice of response.

“No’, sure I’ve ever gone fer makin’em red, but if tha’s yer thing I ain’ gon’ shame ya fer it.” She let out a chuckle to further poke at her friend who in a sign of solidarity would show Miri what to do next. Admittedly the loop around her thigh was one that took time to get the hang of for the uninitiated. As much as Danae might have liked to climb mountains, Miri was much more inclined to climb — well, something else entirely.

“Wha’?” Miriam blinked at Danae before realizing that the other woman was already gone over the edge. Her body hunched over the edge to see her friend descend into the dark with a quiet, “Oh ferrek, that woman is insane.”

From behind her she could hear a slight rustle in the bushes. The hair on Miriam’s arms stood for a second as the slow footfall of whatever had come out to play began its approach. Calm and steady breaths, she told herself, that was the way. The goddess had a purpose for them all, safe-harbor in the face of death, a—

Nope, screw all of that. The force cried out in warning and Miri plunged over the edge, her hand grasping at the wire that pulled taut around her thigh with a cramping grasp. From above she heard the sound of the beast as it plummeted down the cliff with a whine. Miri, now upside down with a hand that hurt like a mother, glanced down at the jungle below her, the locks of her hair providing a tunnel-like viewport into what she knew could have been certain death if this wire had not been prepared properly.

With a deep breath she proceeded to lower herself, eyes closed as she slowly descended down towards the ground.

 

[Elani Demaris]

Miriam Tachi​

“What took ye so bally long, eh?” Danae groused softly as the other woman finally descended, her voice every inch as impatient as her body language would have suggested. Arms folded, shoulders taut, feet shifting balance from one to the other and back again. A state of murky gloom had started to seep in now that the sun had begun to dip below the canopy line and day slowly gave way to civil twilight. Why it was called that, she didn't know. Certainly didn’t seem very civil right now. Whatever uneasily feeling she had experienced above was now in full effect, with that sense of trepidation and dread seemingly magnified down here. As if it was rising up from the ashy soily below - or something was, anyway.

Now there was an unwelcome thought.

One she fought hard not to dwell on as she all but hopped from one foot to the next, waiting for Miri to untangle herself from the makeshift harness they’d wrought. Not even seemingly the least bit surprised that the girl had somehow ended up upside down and a tangled mess. If anything this was par for the course for the more delicate of the two. “Blood an’ ashes, it twas only sexty bleedy feet, girl. Mos’ o’ that strait fethin’ down no less. ‘ow in the six blue hells didja find a way tae mess even that up?”

With an exaggerated sigh she leaned in, unfolding a vibro-pocket knife to slice the last few knots and tangles to speed up the process. Waste of a good rope, but they weren’t planning on needing it again. She hoped. “Get yer arse on the ground an’ in gear, yeah?”

 

[Miriam Tachi]

“Oh well, ‘am serry, a fechen bees’ came a’ me oudda’ no’ere.” Miri glowered at Dany and slowly, very slowly, readjusted to having her feet planted against the ground with a shake. “Na’ why did ah le’ ya talk me in’a this again?”

She brushed the mud from her coat with a frustrated groan and a headshake before her scrunched up face turned back towards her friend again with a clearly displeased grimace. Delicate was one way to put it, pampered and spoiled was in many ways another. In some ways they differed a lot, but in the end Miri really just boiled their current companionship down to an appreciation for the arts.

Something she seemed to find was otherwise lacking amongst Dany’s folk. Nonetheless, even the most unpolished gold nugget was worth a million in the ground, right?

They had an enduring friendship, no-one could really ask for more than that.

Getting her gear on, Miri looked back up at the cliff they had thrown themselves off of. From down here it really didn’t seem as tall as it had from up there.

“Tha’ thing came fallin’ righ’ down ‘ere, so be careful.” She glanced back over at her friend with a slow grin. “So, ya kno’, migh’ jus’ be there’someone more catty than you in’a thes’ forres’s.”