On Our Way to Dust

[Darth Osano]

​

DATHOMIR

Dathomir was a miserable planet. Maleagant did not have to stay here very long to figure that out. To understand it, though, to really come to terms with just how godforsaken this whole place was, you had to camp out on a hill infested with radical, renegade Nightsisters for over a month and a half in pursuit of their eldritch knowledge. Which was exactly what Maleagant did. His results were... Decidedly mixed. Mixed in the sense that they kept trying to murder him and refused to barter. Initially they had just sent him nightmares and threats while he was sleeping. Then they started with hexes. Maleagant had caught several common diseases and then several others he had not dealt with before. Not a pleasant experience.

Then they sent out the spiders to kill him. When that didn't work, they sent larger spiders. When that didn't work, they sent out rancors. But at least they kept talking to him, so there still wasn't no chance. Eventually Maleagant decided he would have to do something a little more creative. Creative-slash-coercive. He was beginning to think he should have just done that from the get-go. These days it was the only thing that worked. Flies might have liked honey, but these spiders were going to need vinegar. They clearly didn't have much in the way of numbers, otherwise they wouldn't be hiding or sending monsters to do their bidding.

Still, he wasn't prepared to deal with any more of it. Just looking at him would reveal that much. One of his eyes was swollen shut and he was marked with an assortment of large scars on his chest, back, and arms where he had been clawed at by rancors or bitten by giant spiders. Not to mention repeated bouts of randomized diseases left him rather... Frail looking. He might His clothes were in tatters. If it weren't for the lightsaber at his belt, he could've been mistaken for a leper. In any case, Maleagant moved his campsite. Not before doing something that would surely lead to the Spiderclan's destruction if they continued to refuse his assistance, however.

Maleagant prodded the campfire from where he sat, bored and miserable. A portable beacon had been erected behind him, the satellite dish rotating in slow circles as it transmitted. He certainly hoped his reinforcements would arrive sooner rather than later. Largely because he had run out of rations.

 

[NightSister]

Aria didn't suppose she had much reason to be fond of Dathomir - the bloodred planet, remote and teeming with swamps and wild beasts, was everything she went out of her way to avoid from day to day. But she liked the planet all the same. It housed knowledge (the first way to pique her interest) and entangled with a wonderfully dark sense of the otherworldy (the second). She made a point of exploration whenever she hadn't other things to do, and she found that Dathomir did rather well.

Something blinked at her on a screen on her ship's control deck. Aria frowned as she veered sharply to the right, hastily hitting buttons until the screen morphed into a grid where a signal sent out digitalized red waves from on the planet's surface. With eyebrows raised, she studied the screen half over her shoulder, mentally mapping the distance between the signal and her craft as she contemplated its interest.

Eyes left the viewing port and her grip on a lever eased.
The ship dropped several yards, jolting forward with momentum.
Rapidly, she brought the vessel back up.
She really had to get a pilot.

An unceremonious landing was quickly forgotten as she hurried down the landing ramp, eyes hunting for something noteworthy. She'd landed as closely as she could to the signal--which was considerably less close than it had been in her head, truthfully--regardless, it couldn't have been more than a few moments of scouting the area before a beacon and flames caught her eye and she was off.

Curious and apprehensive (as always, the latter had taken a backseat), she neared a relatively small campfire and eyed the grey-skinned man sitting glumly opposite. To say that he didn't look in good shape would've been an understatement, but Aria wasn't so quick to judge as to miss the lightsaber, to miss the force's indications that she wasn't the only one of them both with connection to its movements.

Still odd.

Blunt amber gaze swept across the scene momentarily and then flicked back to the man.

"What's. . . happened?"

[member="Maleagant"]​

 

[Darth Osano]

A ship roared overhead. Maleagant assumed it was one of his own, but he questioned why they had landed so ludicrously far away. There was also an issue with the fact that he did not sense the appropriate number of life forms. There was only one and it blazed with the taint of the Dark Side. Definitely not someone on his payroll, unless someone in the Syndicate had hired one of his own Seyugi Dervishes to kill him. The joke would be on them - his Spirit would be both vengeful and maintain its ability to strangle people with telekinesis. He stood up a split second before Aria burst through the undergrowth, gawking at him like some kind of beast. Not that he could blame her. He had seen better days, and that was even including the day of the Dorn familicide.

Happy memories.

His hand coiled around his lightsaber. He had spent the better part of the last forty-five days being issued death threats by a cabal of Dark Sided women. His caution in dealing with one who just darted out from the undergrowth on a planet filled with them would have to be excused. She didn't look like a witch, though. Not enough tattoos. Or rough, tribal clothing. Then again, Witches in space weren't exactly unheard of. Just rare. That one coming home to visit Dathomir would show up at his campsite to make a pit stop would be extremely unlucky for Maleagant. And since he was now painfully familiar with the effects of various spider venoms on the Shi'ido body, it would really just be par the course.

His tongue was swollen and his voice hoarse, but he replied like most cynical Sith would. "Who's asking?"

[member="Aria Vale"]​

 

[NightSister]

Cynicism was a learned habit in Aria's experience, and she hadn't learned it yet. One could either take precautions or risk consequences, and Aria favoured the latter by miles. But when you reached the stage of consequences that called for distress signals she could understand the need for precaution; it didn't surprise her that Maleagant was more cautious than she.

Regardless, she didn't think to be concerned. She was no great presence, had no significant enemies (except for perhaps Braxus Zambrano, but she didn't fear him enough for it to matter); circumstance was yet to make Aria's identity a thing to guard closely. For now at least, it didn't trouble her to give out her name.

"I'm Aria," she began evenly, "but I doubt my name will mean much to you." Eyes spotted him reaching for his lightsaber; wary, she felt for her own without taking hold of the hilt. She didn't like confrontation - it was inconvenient, all too often pointless - but she did like knowing she'd be able to hold her own if that was what it came to. If years of dealing with Sith had taught her nothing else, she'd learned that they weren't all so reasonable as to ask questions first and shoot later.

"I saw your, uh, signal-" she motioned vaguely towards the beacon behind him -"and got curious." It wasn't elaborate, did little to prove her non-threatening, but she only lied when the truth was inconvenient and it was as good an explanation as any.

"I can help, though," she added thoughtfully after a pause. "If I think there's a point."

@Maleagant

 

[Darth Osano]

Maleagant raised an eyebrow. Or, more accurately, the singed remnants of what had once been an eyebrow. "Do you usually offer help to strange men alone in the wilderness?"

There was no missing her own lightsaber now. That made her status as a Witch somewhat less likely. The Nightsisters preferred more crude instruments of death dealing. What were they called again? Energy bows? Perhaps the upcoming battle would be more one-sided than he thought. It really depended on just how many tamed rancors showed up, how many of the Nightsisters in the attack force could wield actual magic. They really disliked the Spiderclan, or maybe they didn't take their threat seriously enough any more. Maybe they'd only send a few scouts.

Well, these sorts of plans were made to be adapted around random circumstances. Kind of like what was happening right now. For instance, this woman clearly had a ship that was capable of picking up his beacon. And since she didn't look too stiff from sitting crammed in a small cockpit, it was probably a shuttle. Well, he had head the thing fly overhead. Of course it was a shuttle. No need to analyze her posture to figure that out. He wasn't some kind of detective. More to the point, she might not have been flying a luxury yacht, but even the cheapest shuttles tended to have some basic emenities. Things that Maleagant hotly desired right about now.

"How far away did you land your shuttle?" He glanced to the campfire, which was sadly bereft of a meal, the back to Aria. "Has it got a shower?"

Testing the generosity of others was always good for at least a little entertainment.

[member="Aria Vale"]​

 

[NightSister]

"Only the strangest," she replied, half grinning.

The accurate answer, of course, would've been to correct him to strange darksiders. Aria wasn't altruistic, she wasn't selfless - when she did good things, she did them for a reason without fail. Too often curiosity, sometimes profit, sometimes investment (for want of a better word). But she'd ceased to be the sort who rushed to save the day from the goodness of her heat and she was glad of it; charity was a young woman's game.
In this case, curiosity had brought her to the scene and the concept of reciprocity - a system she liked to live by often - had brought her to offer help, although it was only sensing that uninjured he carried a measure of power that made the notion worth entertaining whether he was aware of it or not.

"Um," she went on, glancing to one side, "not a long walk. A few minutes." Not a long walk was obviously relative. Aria was used to parking her starship in a foreign planet and wandering its lands for hours before hunting the craft down again as the sun went down (incidentally, she was also used to her less than stellar piloting ability) - Maleagant did not appear in the state to enjoy long walks through the countryside to say the least. But all things considered she could've easily wound up landing much further from the campsite.

"A shower? Yes, it does. And food." An eyebrow lifted as she looked back to his dismal surroundings.

"But I asked a question," she added, amused: "what's happened?"

[member="Maleagant"]​

 

[Darth Osano]

She was grinning? Oh, Force below. She really was a lunatic. But she was a lunatic with a shower and maybe a washer-dryer if he was really lucky. Maleagant glanced around, expression pensive and suspicious. If there were others with her, he could not sense them. So they were either not there or very deadly assassins. If the latter turned out to be true, he was probably dead anyway. Might as well get a chance at dying clean and refreshed instead of dirty in rags. The ragged Sithling locked eyes with Aria Vale once more and, rather reluctantly, decided to impart some information onto her.

Maleagant said, "My master brought me here for training. A... Rancor cornered us. I escaped. He did not. But then I got lost." He inhaled sharply through the nose as if sniffling. In reality he was testing a theory and - yes, it was true - his right nostril was now stuffed. Something had bitten or stung him. Or maybe it was a nearby plant? What a miserable planet. What use was being strong in the Force if he still got all these nasty side-effects from prolonged exposure to the agonizing wrath of mother nature?

"I am waiting for the rest of my Order."

[member="Aria Vale"]​

 

[NightSister]

"You must've gotten pretty lost."

She lifted an eyebrow, seemingly quite aware of the latter Sith's state. Utterly lacking in any ability to read people (though that was something she truly ought to worry about at some point), Aria had no idea of the sincerity of his words beyond figuring that they made sense enough - and frankly she didn't care if he'd pulled the answer from a hat - but regardless if he'd gotten lost or if he found it genuine fun to go camping on Dathomir the planet had not been kind to Maleagant.

But that wasn't her problem yet. Aria got curious when she saw distress signals and stayed curious when they tracked to Sith, but she'd survive if the story was dull. Maybe make sure he didn't know the way to some fancy caves or nexus, and then be on her merry way.

Until she decided, though, no reason they couldn't talk. (Not that Aria liked talking as a general rule. But in theory, she supposed, no reason at all.)

Eyes fixed on the Sith, and their owner's cheer stayed in place. "What Order would that be, then?"

[member="Maleagant"]​

 

[Darth Osano]

Maleagant blinked. Once, twice, then his eyes narrowed somewhat disdainfully.

"The Order of the Showerhead." He was clearly in no position to negotiate, but a hygienic Maleagant would clearly be more likely to depart with such highly coveted information. Highly coveted information that was, of course, completely fabricated. You don't just tell people you're a crime lord. Not if you didn't want to end up being held for ransom. Would his lieutenants pay? Mount a daring rescue? Not a test he was willing to give them.

He folded his arms, looking every bit as stubborn as he was disheveled.

[member="Aria Vale"]​

 

[NightSister]

"The...Order...of the...Showerhead."

If she hadn't been so bemused, Aria would've burst into laughter.

Instead she confined herself to rolling her eyes, but there was mirth alongside her incredulity. (And impatience. Aria was a very impatient creature. But she kept that off her face.)

But regardless, she was having enough fun to keep at it a while longer so she stayed put. If she'd been judging usefulness based on entertainment value they'd be off already, but supplies were expensive these days.

"Alright, then," she went on after a moment, eyebrows half hidden by unruly waves, "what exactly do you plan to do once the Order of the Showerhead arrives?"

No reason to let him have all the fun, after all.

 

[Darth Osano]

Maleagant was very happy to be the source of bemusement for another person. Not really. He had never been happy and he wasn't about to start. Especially not while Aria Vale was sitting here asking silly questions when he desperately wanted to clean and ready himself for the coming battle. Completely useless. Maleagant spit into the dirt and scowled. "I'm going to leave and never come back." Lies. All lies. Never-ending lies. But you didn't divulge that kind of information to strangers regardless of whether they took pity on you.

"Are you going to help me or not?"

[member="Aria Vale"]​