Solitude

[Tia'Ilandra Shaasa]

[[‘Maelstrom‘ Unknown Moon orbiting a red gas giant]]

Maelstrom. The ominous moniker given to the storm wracked moon had never ceased to be apt. Some quirk of astronomy, perhaps it’s intimate adjacency to its huge patron planet or some feature of unique planetary geology had rendered the troubled a satellite eternally cursed with scourging, vicious electrical storms and near constant torrential rainfall. The churning gnashing ocean tortured the sharp volcanic island chains constantly, and the indigenous life of the distressed landmasses.

On Maelstrom the thunder never appeared to fade; each resounding rumble seemingly replaced by an ever greater roar. Even when the tempest was at its least violent the white noise of constant rainfall never ceased.

If felt like eternity to the stranded survivor, the storm had been her constant companion for the duration of her stay on the forsaken rock. From the modest shelter afforded amongst the cliff side rocks the troubled sky was as a vista of an apocalyptic world. She had named it Maelstrom, remembering a story she had once read, at the time her imagination could have scarcely pictured anything close to the seething sea before her eyes now - the flares of jagged blue-white forked lightning and the violent bruised skyline of purple, black and blue thunderheads.

The basso snarling to her rear brought the lost travellers attention back to the immediate, her head flicking to look back into the recess of the cave. Tia’Ilandra watched the scrawny outlines of the small pack of indigenous canid hunter’s rousing from their rest, each blinking a quad of gently glowing white eye’s toward her and the storm beyond. In the next flash of lightning their vicious outlines were revealed to her in full, the ambient static in the air causing their matted fur stand on end.

The carnivores were of little threat to the survivor, and after the first tense encounters an odd symbiotic relationship had emerged between the pack and the pilgrim, her presence kept the pack at bay, their hunts had led the Togruta to prey of her own. The creatures seemed especially fond of the glowing rock which Tia had taken to heating with her training sabre.

Restlessly one of the hunting pack rose and padded past Tia’Ilandra close enough to brush alongside her flank, a new practice which had only recently emerged and she assumed meant that she had been accepted as a member of the pack. Slowly the Padawan dropped her hand to stroke through the creatures thin mane and returned the gesture of acceptance looking back to the tormented sea raging beyond the cave.

It was soon time to hunt again, perhaps visit the ship remains and fumble again with the technology of the communications system, though its technical components were beyond her ken. Soon. But not yet.

She rose from her haunches and padded back to the rear of the cave, dropping down to kneel before the dimly glowing rock and once again drawing her training lightsaber to heat the dark stone until it glowed a deep ruby, and the little cave was once more bathed in soft red light. The last of the pack returned to her side and settled about her protectively as the Jedi Padawan settled by the fire and let her body slip from her consciousness, instead falling into the familiar world of her inner self.

With methodical steps she descended within herself, closing off each sense one at a time, until she reached the first plateau of her meditation, the empty silent space where the thunder was finally gone; nirvana, tranquillity, Solitude.

It was from this place she reviewed her memories. The crash, the struggle. Her flight from the larger beasts of this realm, a dangerous dive into the swirling crashing sea from which she had been sure she would never emerge. Finally her thoughts turned to her hope. One word offered up to the Force, willing it to find the one she hoped was still out there.

Master..

[member="Kana Truden"]

 

[Kana Truden]

[member="Tia'Ilandra Shaasa"]

Something in the force wasn’t right. Kana had tried so many times to pinpoint what it was, but she just couldn’t figure out what it was. Thoughts of Corvus had started to flood the blonde Jedi Healer’s mind like a venom bearing memories. It were in moments like these that Kana felt like she was at her lowest. The time she had spent with the Order was one she had been the most happiest during, yet she had tainted it with the greatest shade of remorse from her failure to keep to the light. Now she was on Sulon and the circle of healers, picking up a habit of deep meditation to ponder her place in the galaxy, the events that had happened to her, what was already happening to her and where it was all going.

All pointers lead towards the Circle of Healers. It had for the last few months and that was fine with her. Though that didn’t mean she would suddenly stopped. If anything it pushed her into trying to reach even further. During her first ever encounter with a Jedi she had accidentally entered this state, but back then she had no control over her own abilities. She did now and that meant she was able to harness more of her potential, more of the focus needed to truly understand the force.

And right now, in the light of everything, that meant memories of Corvus. More specifically it meant every single moment in which Kana had ever trained with her as if it had received a new kind of importance. Kana remembered the first time she had tried to force jump and face planted the dirt. She also remembered watching Corvus teach a group of padawans about saber combat. Which, out of all things Kana remembered Corvus for, was one of the things that managed to stand out the most.

Ironic when you considered the former grand master’s affinity for defense.

But there was something else in there. The harder Kana focused the clearer a rather blurry blue image got before her. As did the sound of thunder and rain. A darkness lit up by flashes of blue and white. Nothing was clear, but the imagery felt too real to be a dream, and if it was Kana felt as if there was something familiar with this… Existence. As if she knew whoever the blue blur was. There was a vague feeling similar to that of Kana’s own connection to Raaf.

Maybe it was Corvus. Kana gasped and focused further. Tried to insert herself into the situation as best she could without being present in person. The force was vague, but she could sense danger. She wouldn’t be able to tell what it was, but it was coming closer.

Kana tried her best to channel her unease to the other end in the hopes of guiding them back. She would get them to her. If this was Corvus, praying this was Corvus, Kana would find her to have her nearby again. To catch up again. She just needed to survive long enough for that.

 

[Tia'Ilandra Shaasa]

The pangs of hunger where no longer unusual to the stranded youth, though she had managed to hunt and scavenge enough prey to survive on since arriving on the storm wracked orb the same troubling feeling of emptiness seemed to linger on.

Her training robe had been extensively damaged in the crash landing, and so the Padawan had resorted the patching her garments with animal skins from her prey. Her work was not pretty nor was it efficient, but the hotpotch hooded cloak she sported was proof against the rain at least.

The struggling twilight of the day's final moments had begun, and the Togruta stalked silently into the stinging storm of rain, hood pulled low and arms drawn up into her sleeves. To her rear and flanks the canid creatures emerged, from half a dozen or so shelters in the echoing rock face. She gave a hard look to the alpha creature, the matriarch of the group, and it eyed her warily in return.

The ritual was ever the same as she closed slowly with the creature, listening to the low growl deep in the storm-wolf’s throat. She reached out to the creature - not only physically, offering the thing her hand palm open - but with her connection through the force. Blinking, Tia felt as if she could feel the whole of the pack speak to her soul.

Run, Fight, Hunt, Die.

She smiled softly as the alpha’s dripping muzzles found its way to rest against her palm, before turning wordlessly from the pack and the tumultuous seascape before them, plotting a path inland toward the crashed shuttle and the packs regular hunting ground.

She had lived as these creatures before - as a child lost and alone, free from her sith captor and living by wits and instinct alone. The rain never ceased on Maelstrom, and so the local fauna had adapted to tune out the rhythm of the falling water. It had taken the Padawan some time to achieve even a semblance of the self same skill but just at that very moment the Togruta stopped still in the deluge and scanned her head left and right, trying to identify the errant interference she believed she had hear.

Nothing moved but water and what debris the wind could carry on the barren blasted heathland. Then she was blind, the lightning strike so close to her as to steal her vision for the moment. All was white light and the padawan recalled her first mistaken belief that perhaps that was what pure emptiness might feel like.

The dissipating heat of the fulminating bolt washed over the padawan and she felt the bare skin about her nose and cheeks dry in an instant and she fell back to the damp earth in an unceremonious heap.

For the briefest of moments as her vision cleared and her eyes recovered from the intense light Tia’Ilandra believed that she had recognised a shape, a mere silhouetted of darkness cast up against the searing blast of pure brilliance. She breathed a moment later, sitting up and looking to the scattering canids as her vision slowly returned to normal.

Struggling for a moment she sought her feet once more, hands ever threatening to lose their grip on the slick rocks beneath her grip. As she rose unsteadily, precious few of the canid hunters returned to her side, wary and reluctant, but with a look she urged them onward, and the small pack again forged a silent path to the downed freight ship.


-------------


The old girl had come down hard, the impact had be barely controlled and though she would never fly again the battered ship still resembled something of its old glory. Frowning grimly the pale blue skinned Togruta crouched beneath the upturned nose of the vessel and sheltered from the rain. She focused herself and willed what strength and composure she had left to her limbs, picturing herself ascending to the ruined cargo portal now suspended some 13 feet up and inverted 180 degrees.

Trusting to her training and her belief in the force had aided her survival thus far, and though the practice was both draining and difficult she pushed herself to leap far higher than she should have been able to, leaping and reaching to catch the slippery edge of the opened cargo door and hauling herself up into the darkness above.

The compartment of the ruined ship resonated with the sound of the barrage of precipitation outside, heavy droplets of water from the exposed damage seemed louder still. Still - beyond the movement of water sloshing within and the growling hounds without - everything in the chamber seemed still.

Tia moved to the inverted console hanging above her, and hesitantly activated a trio of buttons, half expecting the console to explode in a shower of sparks as many of the others had already. Instead a dull hum emitted from the powercell somewhere beneath the console and an inverted image of a pair of star charts flicker to life, showing the final charted course of the ship before the navigation system shorted. She had tried to resync the feed, and did so once again without much hope now, but the system stubbornly rejected her commands without further explanation.

She looked to the shattered frame of a crushed astromech droid sandwiched between the remains of a dislodged console and the co-pilots chair, and the details of the crash rushed back into her mind again.


---


“.................... no we won’t make it back R9-” she argued, shaking her head and flinching away as an incandescent spray of flaring sparks burst from the engine monitoring station to her left blinding her. “We aren’t going to make it to any port at this rate..” she added looking over the charts and shaking her head.

The astromech unit chirped a series of concerned bleats and flashed its warning lights, signalling its displeasure at her negative attitude to the situation.

“That one.. ” she jabbed a slender digit at the blue glowing lines on the chart. “We could make that..”

--- Flash ---


----


The image burned in her mind’s eye again, an incandescent light of the astrochart display erupting in flames at her side. And there in the midst of the light again, the silhouette, like a wraith watching her from beyond the veil.


---


She was back in the ship, shaking her head slowly and pulling back her hood to look around, there had been no silhouette in the flames the first time around, she had recalled that memory several times before without seeing it, no, without seeing her.

Her eyes scanned the dark and she moved slowly about the dim, inverted chamber pausing when she felt her foot brush against something solid and felt the heavy thunk of wood. Stooping slowly to investigate the discovery, Tia already knew what she would find. The old wooden box was surprisingly solid, seemingly just as battered and old after the crash as it had seemed before, she lifted the lacquered wooden case with something close to reverence and tried the clasp, finding it jammed shut following the impact.

She knew precisely what would be inside, the candles and ball bearings, a gift from her master, Faalo’s Cadences.

Tia’Ilandra had often considered the old philosophers following when she had been allowed to study in the Jedi archives, and had fancied herself the stoic in less than modest moments; Despite all of her urges to bottle the frustrations away and bury them she heard herself moan a soft, sad whine as she ran her fingertips across the wooden box and thought of her old master.

She turned to regard the broken consoles again, feeling the frustration and rage she buried so so deeply burning up deep in her core, the knot of fury stoked again. The corners of her lips quivered and turned to a scowl as she found herself gripping the hilt of a training sabre she had had no intention of drawing. The Padawan stood in furious silence for long moments, taking short shallow breaths through her nose and listening to her heart thunder behind her chest.

Eventually, just as she thought she was ready to relent to the rage she felt the knot in her core slacken, and the icy cool of the cold dripping water suddenly returned to her as she felt the warm wood of the box against her skin again, and on the edge of her perceptions she fancied perhaps she could feel her master, somewhere far off, offering her aide.



Only a moment later she realised, already far too late, that the growls of the canid hunters had ceased outside, and she had been abandoned alone. There were far more dangerous predators to be found on Maelstrom, and now she was to be prey.

[member="Kana Truden"]

 

[Kana Truden]

[member="Tia'Ilandra Shaasa"]

The blur wasn’t what Kana wanted for Corvus. She wanted to see her friend, but it seemed it was impossible. Then again, it might not even have been Corvus, but Kana kept her hopes up. She needed to guide her out of this and she needed to be strong. There was a sense of defeat in the air, a feeling that Kana knew well and a feeling that had once devoured her whole. There was both a darkness and sense of anger in the air. Hopelessness in light of the situation.

Kana focused on the woman in her vision and tried to project part of her courage to her. To let her know that it was all going to be okay and that she would fix this. They weren’t alone and that at the end of the week they would be seeing each other.

Maybe not quite that detailed, but she brought hope for being found again.

The ship might not have been in a state that allowed it to take flight again, but with hope there was a communications panel around. Kana would try to push her friend towards it. Urge her to seek it out for their own sake as much as hers.

She needed to meet this person. Fascination demanded it.

“Survive. I believe in you.” The words would whisper through the aether.

 

[Tia'Ilandra Shaasa]

The relentless drumming of the rain had dulled the lost travellers senses, the rhythm of the storms interfered with the Togrutas natural echolocation, and the padawans force senses were still in training. She stopped moving, stopped breathing, then closed her eyes to help herself focus on the sounds from outside.

The creature that approached was larger, her vague sensory impressions suggested that the thing outweighed her, more than a match for the canid pack she had led there. It was likely one of the bigger carnivores, she thought, seven foot tall flightless avians with unique whisker tendrils hanging from savage beaks. They hunted alone or in pairs and seemed adept and picking off the canids.

Sparks flickered in the shell of the old freighter once again. For the briefest moment she heard the static crackle through the comms system and turned her head sharply toward the smoking panel, noting the sudden acrid scent in the air. She had assumed the comms system inoperable, so severe had been the damage to the console itself, but a low hiss betrayed life in the machine.

The hiss of electricity in the system might be enough to reach out to the galaxy. Or it might simply be enough to attract the predator’s attention.

Tia glanced back at the entrance to the freighter, the streaming liquid still cascading through the myriad rents in the skin of the craft. The creature, no creatures, were closer now, still wary of the rumble of water on durasteel sheeting but attracted to the site nonetheless.

She had time, perhaps, but she needed to make a decision soon. A few steps brought Tia to the console, she reached around the casing until she found a pair of metal clasps. The first hung loose but the second required some force to shift

As the catch fell away the upper section of the console dropped open on its hinge like a dead weight revealing the ruined innards of the main panel and beneath a rudimentary maintenance screen that flashed dull red messages.

.#MainComm - ERROR
.#SetComm - ACTIVE
.#Array - ERROR
.#Beacon - ERROR

Her brow muscles twitched and she reached for a cluster of studs to manipulate the console. After a moment she found herself lost in the workings of the panel, trying to shunt power to the beacon.

.#MainComm - ERROR
.#SetComm - ACTIVE
.#Array - ERROR
.#Beacon - LIMITED ACTIVITY

Tia’Ilandra grunted as through blind luck she managed to achieve something useful with technology. Now what? A universe of infinite possibilities and no idea what communications settings she needed.
The Padawan closed her eyes and opened the old wooden box she had found, smelling the oil and wax within and smiling to herself as she saw her masters face in her mind’s eye. Her fingers slipped over the buttons blindly, focussing on a memory of her old Master and the Master’s ship, searching for the correct combination of channels Corvus had used.

[member="Kana Truden"]

 

[Kana Truden]

[member="Tia'Ilandra Shaasa"]

The insistent blur of vision brought no small amount of discomfort to Kana. She didn’t know who this was, but it rung of familiarity, of someone she had once known a long time ago. They had a determination to them that felt familiar, a strong aura of good that she couldn’t help but let her mind divert its thoughts unto Corvus and her unknown whereabouts. It was one of those thoughts that Kana just couldn’t seem to drop. Where was Corvus? Why did she go? Why didn’t she say anything? There were times when she had considered it an insult, but with time came acceptance and with acceptance came apathy.

Corvus was gone. But maybe, just maybe, this was her shot at getting her back. A feeling of surprise filled the metaphysical space in which Kana had inserted herself alongside the sound of a comm device sparking back to life. Which was perhaps the absolute worst part. She could hear mumbles, but certain sounds were still as clear as ever. The sounds that she knew and understood herself. The rain, the sparks, the footsteps. Everything else seemed dulled out, unthinkable to those that did not understand or comprehend it. In this case, that was Kana.

What Kana did however understand was danger. There was something lurking about the premises and whoever it was that she was observing seemed to be somewhat aware that they were there.

——————

A low growl seemed to call from outside the ship through the rain’s clanking. Whatever was outside had caught attention of the glimpses and had decided to investigate. Heavy footsteps seemed to patter outside before,

BAM!

The door to the ship was assaulted by the creature. The sound of which made it all the more obvious that it was a big one.