Quiet The Longing

[Preliat Mantis]

"Evils that I face and have faced and the evils that I intend are beasts of different natures." He said simply to Hazel's query, but truthfully he found his answer stood on sand pillars even in his own mind. He turned his head towards the sounds of death. Even as peaceful as it was, the grim reaper still got his. He signed, leaning back in his position. He slid off the chair, settling onto the steps of the porch. He positioned himself in the sitted shooting position, with the stock of the rifle between his thighs and the barrel going over his left shoulder.

"No, personally, I think you're a cliche." He turned his head towards her, his eyes narrowing ever so slightly. "You speak differently than those around you. Where are you from, exactly?" He said, letting his fingers rap along the receiver of the rifle. His brown eyes gazed outward towards the beauty of the setting sun, but darted rapidly, searching for danger amongst the tall grass. Preliat however, was unaware that he should have asked Ivy when she was from, rather than where.

"My old home looked like this. It lies barren now. I would imagine it came to another Mandalorian's possession." He said bitterly, before sitting forward slightly. It would seem he was getting a better, more comfortable seated position. But an experienced shooter and marksman would note that Preliat was automatically adjusting his position to get a better shot, and to Hazel, it wasn't clear if he saw something or was just doing so out of habit and practice.

[member="Ivy Lasranae"]

 

[Hazel Scheler]

"Mm," Hazel narrowed her gaze, "I'm not so sure..."

Hard to split hairs on the issue of wanton death and destruction, far as she was concerned. This was the sort of man she often took jobs to put to justice, but that wasn't her job today. Like many times before she found her career took her down strange and interesting paths to strange and interesting people. No small wonder she rarely managed a good night's sleep anymore.

Another sigh, no use arguing semantics. Seemed the man had a curious definition of cliche.

"Panatha," she said quietly with the same tone someone might use to speak of a lost loved one, though she noted his shift of attention and demeanor. Hard to miss the stiffened posture of someone readying for a fight - he was about as subtle as a coiled cobra. Hazel wasn't quite so eager nor concerned. With her blackstalker about she would know of skulking predators.

"You could always take it back, make it yours again....or you could stay here. I wouldn't blame you."

[member="Preliat Mantis"]

 

[Preliat Mantis]

Preliat thought for a while on Hazel's words, then smiled. Panatha. "Forgive me for being rude, but do you happen to be an epicanthix yourself?" He asked curiously. It was because of Preliat's race that he owed his darker skin tone and jet-black hair. However, he was born and raised on Ordo, and thus had a different dialect and rarely spoke Epicant, and he wondered for a moment if he could even remember the language at all.

"You would not blame me, but others would. I imagine I will be called many things when I make my presence known once more." He thought for a moment, adjusting the grip on the rifle. He felt a predator beyond lurking, but he felt it was further away- or perhaps in his mind. Then again, a man on edge for the last decade or so, always was looking for that predator. Whether it be the Sith, the Jedi, Republic assassins...the list could go on and on for ages of whom did not like Preliat. Especially Vong. They really didn't like him. Especially since he really didn't like them either. Especially since he removed Dredge's head from his body. And had his helmet as a trophy somewhere. He genuinely forgot where.

He noticeably became more tense at remembering that he was now found.

[member="Ivy Lasranae"]

 

[Hazel Scheler]

Hazel blinked at the question, curious as to the nature of it, "I am, yes. Born and raised." She said nothing more than that.

"Never struck me as the sort to care about what people thought or said, but what do I know?" Only the records provided and the last hour or so interacting with him, that's what she knew. Nothing. She knew practically nothing about him - or perhaps she knew more than she realized, given the information he'd shared. But how could one possibly hope to measure a person based on old records and a chat over dinner? There were a lot of people in this galaxy that were real good at playing face, that much she did know for certain.

Visible tension drew his shoulders inwards, creased his brow. Hazel found herself frowning in response, regretting this job.

"Were you happy here?"

[member="Preliat Mantis"]

 

[Preliat Mantis]

'Were you happy here?'

Was he? A look of realization and deep thought crossed Preliat's worn features as his mind danced over the question. He tapped his foot, thinking over a million and one things. He had once shouldered the Galaxy- now that the weight was gone, the weight of the responsibility of his men, his people, his child, his wife, the load was light but the memories weighed him down like a ship with its anchor out.

He recalled the dream he had so often. His hands gliding through the wheat field. His body healed and no longer ached from fatigue and war. Then, a voice would always call to him. A voice tamer than a choir of angels to him, more soothing than any rivers flow or any gentle breeze. And he could always feel himself smiling in that dream, looking to the silhouette calling his name, flanked by what he always assumed was children.

And he felt happy in that moment, before his eyes open and his day began. He turned back to Ivy to answer her question.

"Happy enough." He said with his gravelly tone that usually indicated he had more to say about it than he admitted."But I wouldn't ever call myself happy anymore. I'm not in a position to be so anymore." He sounded bitter about his own words.

 

[Hazel Scheler]

"Happy enough is closer than not at all," Hazel replied quietly, feeling a faint smile tug at her lips. A short sigh followed - the sort of expression of breath one gave when finding themselves at the conclusion of a journey. The Merc had done her job and, she felt, she was beginning to overstay her worth and welcome. With a peripheral scan of the wheat field beyond where somewhere her beast devoured his own meal, she turned and headed back inside.

"You're right, it is a nice sunset," she remarked on her way in.

The sound of running water followed shortly after as she finished cleaning up and began packing away her things.

[member="Preliat Mantis"]

 

[Preliat Mantis]

Something tugged at Preliat's mind. It wasn't panic, but it damn near felt like it. Panic that he was again, going to be alone for an undetermined amount of time. He was going to leave, but there was plethora of affairs to get into order. But for now, after meeting someone else, the very thought of loneliness was almost like living a new nightmare.

He played it cool though.

He inclined his head and gazed over at her, watching the dog run about."You wouldn't be hurting my feelings if you stayed a bit longer." He said, again, with the 'not exactly not a request' tone. He wanted her to stay, and a familiar feeling crept up the back of his neck, softly as a gentle wind. And it terrified him.

 

[Hazel Scheler]

Hazel smirked from where she stood at the counter, packing empty ration containers into her bag. The woman lofted a brow and glanced back over at him sitting beyond the front door, "Why? Are we going to have dessert and sex?"

That seemed to be the direction this might go, given her experience with others she'd lump in with a generic hardened warrior sort.

The Merc chuckled and shook her head, "Or maybe we can play chess."

 

[Preliat Mantis]

"Only if you were so lucky." The Preliat that was sly and witty shown through at times. He tapped his fingers on the rifle, before glancing back at her after looking towards the field. "However, the idea of chess..." He said with a momentary pause for thought, thinking and picking his next words carefully.

"Sounds wonderful." He stood, the setting sun casting him in a silhouette. He held the rifle at his side, walking back into the house. For a moment, the smell of food and humor caused him to feel the heavy weight of the wooden floorboards of his old home. And for a moment, he thought he heard Yasha cry out in happiness.

But he was brought back to the dimly lit cabin, with a killer packing away food and he waiting for her decision to stay. But it would seem that she already made it.

"Do you have a game with you?" Obviously, the man who lived alone did not have a game lying about.

 

[Hazel Scheler]

"Ohh, hard to get eh?" another chuckle as she scraped food trimmings into a nearby wastebin. Wiping off her field blade she resheathed the weapon and zipped her pack.

"Ehh...I might have something." Hazel traveled only with the company of her blackstalker and kept the company of others so infrequently that things like games weren't something she typically had handy. But--the Merc opened a secondary tech sleeve in her pack and withdrew her datapad--she had a few programs on here that she used to keep her mind sharp and access to the whole of the galactic holonet. Technology.

"I play Moebius Chess on my downtime between jobs," she took her seat at the table again and sifted through the various applications on the datapad, "I'm sure this thing has a game set that comes standard...hm," Hazel reached into her pack and pulled out a holoprojection lense with adjoining cable and hooked it up.

"Not as fancy as dejarik or holochex, but-" a holochess board appeared in glimmering blue over the table, "-ta da."

[member="Preliat Mantis"]

 

[Preliat Mantis]

So she did. How sometimes he loathed technology, and how he loved it at times. His eyes scanned the board the same way he scanned for targets. He was on the white side, the side that moved first. He shifted the pawn in front of the castle forward one space, in lieu of the usual two. He smiled at her.

"I have not won many of my battles by tactics, truthfully." He admitted. "Many of the time it's simply because I'm just a better killer." He paused, finding himself filled with dread at his own words. "But I like to challenge myself." He locked eyes with her. "Tell me, Hazel..since you know my file and how my scars came to be.." He tapped his Beskar leg. "May I ask about yours? And more importantly-" There was a flicker of what appeared to be mischief and curiosity. "Where you came from."

 

[Hazel Scheler]

The Merc spent a few moments considering the man, thinking that right about now would be a good time for a smoke, or better yet... a drink. A bad habit to couple with what should be a relaxing, friendly game of chess seemed the perfect end to this otherwise strange evening. She had neither and, given his question, she wished she did.

Hazel leaned back in her seat with her right natural arm rested on the table, the metallic fingers of her left cybernetic arm lightly curling across her lap.

"Well I told you where I'm from," said the woman as she looked down to the holographic game. She lifted her right hand and gestured for her first move, "Panatha. Ysannam Mountains of Fersithi, from a village in the norther peaks called Egris, founded by my ancestors. And these," she pointed to the luminescent red scars on her face, "are from various run-ins with Sith lightning. Had 'em for years and I don't suspect they're gonna stop glowing any time soon."

[member="Preliat Mantis"]

 

[Preliat Mantis]

"I remember my home. Desert and moreso desert. We grew up in a homestead, the Mantis' responsible for the crop that fed the who's who and poor alike. Ordo was an unforgiving place. I learned to be..." He thought for a while. "Cruel and unforgiving in that place. It became so dark during the night, such filled with warring clans of Mandalorians and of the beasts that prowled the plains, that I learned quickly of why men lit fires." He said, moving a piece to appear a sacrifice, a false move, but later on, would pay dividends in deciding victory for him later on in their game.

"You had to be, at times." He said, running a hand over his chest. His hand was cast with the beauty marks of a pugilist, of a fighter. "It's what made me so successful at Null-Hockey." He said, drumming his fingers on the table. "Men played that sport, but in me...they did not just find their goon, they found their animal." He seemed blissfully reminiscent of his time as a celebrity on the Outer Rim. A semi-celebrity, before everyone forgot that Preliat was the man who punched in faces, and then he was known only as the man who burned worlds and took the lives of men in great, terrible numbers.

"I remember my scars. Especially..." He tapped his leg, the Beskar leg that he lugged around as a painful reminder of when a building collapsed on it. "This one. My wife designed the leg. I forgot how it feels, to run unaided by its enhancement to my stride. And the weight feels unnatural still. Such is my burden." He said solemnly, staring longingly at his leg, moreso thinking of its creator than of the leg itself. He turned back to face Hazel, cracking a knowing grin.

"It seems we have a bond over scars from Sith." He said dryly, waiting for her to make her next move.

[member="Ivy Lasranae"]

 

[Hazel Scheler]

"I would rather not have that bond," Hazel replied, making her next move a simple one. Subtlety wasn't exactly her thing.

"They're just proof of my greatest failure. If I could do it all again I would have died instead of lived, but it wasn't my choice to make."

[member="Preliat Mantis"]

 

[Preliat Mantis]

For a moment, he forgot where he was. He forgot how angry he was, he forgot how much hate existed in his body, he forgot all the horrors of war, the horrors of the Dark Harvest, the loss, the defeat, the constant string of failures in his life- all forgotten.

And he smiled, however briefly, as she made her move. She was either baiting him, or terrible at the game. Either way, he took it, to determine her weight in salt. Then, that smiled faded, and Preliat's reality set back in. His eyes flickered back up to Hazel the same way he sighted in on a person through a scope.

​"Failure does not define you. It is what you do with that failure that defines you."

[member="Ivy Lasranae"]

 

[Hazel Scheler]

"I'm still living aren't I?"

Truth be told, Hazel would not admit to having done anything reputable with that failure. What did you do when you were sealed away in a frozen box for several hundred years? You woke up and you kept on living, apparently. Or you died trying, like her sister. Hazel had tried dying as well, but it never seemed to work out in her favor for one reason or another. Always pulled back from the brink by someone.

Her thoughts briefly went back to the visions. The ones she had while soaking in the bacta tank. The ones that kept her going. Somewhere out beyond all the stars she knew, eternity waited.

She claimed her opponent's first piece with a bold move forward.

[member="Preliat Mantis"]

 

[Preliat Mantis]

Living. What a concept, he wanted to say. He closed his eyes for half a second, and entered the last place where he felt alive. It was in the kitchen, with Yasha gurgling and Aditya taking a picture of the two of them. It was still in the cupboard, tacked onto the aging wood of the cupboard, cracked and frayed by years of constant admiration.

He saw the picture move, Yasha's eyes, full of life, full of joy- full of potential cut so tragically short, dart happily between her loving parents. He saw his wife in her radiance, in all her angelic grace mixed with her strength in her physicality. He blinked, and the darkness overtook the image, and reality hit him harder than the building that fell on his leg. Preliat glanced at the piece taken.

She made the kill move. It would be difficult to maneuver out of the situation that he placed himself in, but not impossible.

"I recall being alive, Miss Hazel." He glanced at the board in the same predatory way he sighted in with his rifle. And he moved his piece, a challenging move that would force her to attack back or defend, either of which, he could maybe salvage the game.

"But nowadays I live. With nothing much to do but bale hay and tend fields and take these peoples petty cash to remain here on this..." He gestured around him. "Abode." Preliat then realized it was the most he had spoken in months.

And he found himself enjoying the company of another person. And for once, he didn't have the temptation to cleave her skull in like he did for most of the people he met here.

"Did the locals say anything about me?" He asked slyly, staring at Hazel with the tiniest hint of a smirk. He was curious as to what the people around him thought of him. Then again, he was just the strong-as-an-ox farmhand, but then again, tumors amongst the bored and unengaged stirred many rumors and stories. "One of the men I work for thinks I am a serial killer or some evil man hiding out here." The smirk faded, realizing that there was no way he could consider himself the good guy- he was the villain, the bastard of the story- he wasn't a flawed antihero. He wasn't a wayward son of Mandalore. He was a bad man who did bad things. And lately, for no reason other than to not rinse his mouth out with a blaster bolt.

But right now, he was playing a game with the woman who was going to drag him back into the fray of the Galaxy.

 

[Hazel Scheler]

Hazel took in a long, slow breath as she listened and watched. In this move she did not hesitate, reaching for a side totem that could move diagonally to intercept the piece he brought forward. Not to take, but to bait.

"They say you're grumpy," the woman replied with a half-hearted chuckle, "but a hard worker. Actually I think they were more upset by the prospect of losing your strong arms and back than raising your ire. Can't blame them. Dedicated workers willing to break a sweat and earn a paycheck are hard to come by anymore. Everyone wants double for half...that's why I have a dog."

Well, beast, she thought to herself with a faint glance over her shoulder to the front door. Where was he anyway?

[member="Preliat Mantis"]

 

[Preliat Mantis]

Grumpy. So he was just grumpy. He gave a faint of a smile, waving his hand."I thought you would at least say mysterious loner...at least, that's what I was hoping for at least. Oh well, I guess I'll never be...'cool'."He said dryly, before leaning forward towards their game curiously. He cocked his head. She was baiting him, that much he could tell, but the strategy was new to him and he wanted to see what he could do with it, and how to use it effectively. He scanned the board, memorizing the patterns and the way that their pieces were, before taking her bait.

Brown eyes flickered up to Ivy. He smiled fully for a moment and gave a light chuckle."Strong arms? Would you be inclined to agree?"He said with a roll of his tongue, a trait picked up by his habit of speaking in Mando'a.
"I haven't worried for money since I put Dredge in the dirt, truthfully. That bounty set me up for life. And yes..."A rare instance of a nervous Preliat showed through as he glanced around, without moving his body."Where is your dog?"

[member="Ivy Lasranae"]

 

[Hazel Scheler]

"Well I wasn't talking to the local ladies," her natural hand lifted to run through her hair. Hazel leaned back in her chair, tipping it off its forward legs to rock it idly back and forth upon the back two. She smirked, Preliat took the bait.

"Agree...?" green eyes flecked with gold and grounded by dark earthen hues looked the muscle-bound man over, "look pretty strong to me."

Thunk. Chair dropped forward as the Merc stood from her seat, activated by the curious nervous glance of the man that had followed her own. Her game pieces remained as she left them, to think more on her next move while performing the idle task of retrieving her beast. Footsteps carried her to the front door and beyond, then, out to the front porch. A cursory glance gave nothing but the view of a meadow'd field against the backdrop of a forest. A dark sky loomed overhead pinked faintly at the horizon by the last vestiges of the setting sun.

Hazel lifted her arm of flesh, pinching thumb and forefinger at her lips and gave a shrill whistling call.

[member="Preliat Mantis"]