Something Else...

[Philip Guycharde]

[member="Nessarose deWinter"]


Galidraan

Philip sat on the edge of the precipice. Far below Jessith Falls roared; a faint touch of its misty breath occasionally reaching this high and teasing… taunting… daring.

Further up the valley when he could stand to look upon it, his home sat in its gloom. Guycharde Manor, a glorious home for a growing Philip what seemed in a different life, was no more. Philip had no idea what its new masters named it… or if they bothered. The manor wasn’t their goal. The destruction of House Guycharde was all that they had desired. Philip’s father’s governorship was the ultimate prize.

Malthorne’s administration had put Galidraan back into the dark ages. Philip’s approach in his Baudo went unchallenged; his landing seemingly unnoticed. Commerce and trade were grinding to a halt under the man’s corrupt rule.

Perhaps Philip shouldn’t have come. Seeing the state of his beloved Galidraan and his lost home were near more than he could handle.

A wafting of mist… a tease… a taunt,,, a dare.

Philip leaned out over the edge. If he leapt and joined the waters at the base of the falls, no one
would know, no one would care, no tears would be shed, no grief would be wasted.

He looked at his former home again and his head drooped in defeat. Despite being wealthy, he had nothing. In a galaxy of trillions, he had no one. He had only one thing that drove him ever forward.

His eyes raised and found the far distant spot on the shore of Lake Jessith where his father had been killed and found the only thing he had – that unquenchable spark of rage memories of that day stoked.

Rage. Rage focused Philip. It sharpened him. If drove him on when he had no other reason to move. Much less live.

Philip pushed himself to his feet and retraced his path to his landing spot. Kestril’s Fall awaited him faithfully as it always did. His small Baudo had basically been his home since the fall of his home. It was a gift from his father from before and one place he could fool himself into believing everything was all right.

He was too distracted to fly and opted to have the auto-pilot start their journey to their next destination – Philip’s next target.

Philip’s rage made him the perfect tool for others to use to eliminate problems. For the right price - a very high price for Philip would accept the most dangerous assignments – Philip would maim, torture, terrorize, or kill – whatever the employer needed. All for the sake of rage.

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

The cold winds of Galidraan's mountain tops threatened to penetrate into the protective gear she wore. Nessarose had always hated the cold. Her life as a child on Spira and then her ascend to the Queen of Endelaan had ensured that she would most often be found in tropical weather and heat, which was just what she loved most.

Her presence concealed through the Force, the teenager went down on a knee, picking the snow up between her delicate fingers, bringing it to her nose so she could have a sniff. Snow... She wasn't very good at dealing with it. Snow was always new, always fresh. The only way to get to old snow was by digging, and hoping. Nessarose's forte was dealing with the past and the future. Fresh was... Harder. Demanded an entirely new way of thinking.

But after spending so long being a rock, perhaps it was exactly what she needed.

"Dig here," she ordered as she rose from her spot. Three men, clad in more layers than she was, immediately began to do so with tools and machinery they had brought with them aboard the Shiny, Nessarose's Sith Infiltrator. Since her return to the Galaxy, she had been careful with where she want and what she did. Yet the news of her mother having been captured by Mandalorians had left her questioning too many things.

The 'verse offered no cold trail that she could follow. But no, it was not Lady deWinter that she was searching for. Finding her mother would not yield the answers she wanted, for it was not her well being that concerned her at the moment. What did was, where had her mother been, and how she had permitted herself to be captured at all. Nessarose had a feeling that it was knowledge she needed to have. In the eternal war between the Mandalorians and the deWinters, it was only a matter of time before they came for her as well.

And unlike her mother, who had let herself be captured several times over the centuries, Nessarose would commit no such foolishness.

Galidraan was a place with history. Wars that involved the Mandalorians had happened here in times gone by. If the present was to be saved... She would go into the past and see what she could find there.

"Deeper," she said, her voice deep and serious, lacking that hue of childishness and bubbliness that it seemed to so often carry.

[member="Philip Guycharde"]

 

[Philip Guycharde]

[member="Nessarose deWinter"]


ESTARIA


Estaria was just a short hop out the Perlemian from Galidraan which really didn’t give Philip time to recover from the emotional funk that resulted from his visit to his home world.

The story was common enough. One mid-level Estarian executive coveted another’s position, title, or prestige – take your pick- and finally grew impatient enough to contract Philip to eliminate his problem rather than wait out the natural selection process.

Philip was indifferent. He obviously has no quarrel with his target and rarely did unless his investigation and study of his targets revealed them to be criminal or abusive scum. Those cases were better because they allowed his rage an outlet much more so than a supposedly honest businessman ever could.

Philip shook his head to focus. His mind wandering at a time like this was never good. It was just that the mission was so simple, he didn’t feel challenged and the process bored him. The contractor wanted a simple, long-range, low visibility kill. In other words, a long range sniper shot. That was definitely not Philip’s preferred methodology. It seemed… too impersonal for lack of a better explanation; but, these assignments were all that kept him going. If he stopped, he would have nothing to do and nowhere to go. He might as well fly his Baudo into the nearest sun – and had actually looked into what he would have to do to remove his flight control safety overrides which prevented that kind of piloting misadventure.

Philip lay prone in his blind atop a bluff overlooking his target’s home. The house was situated on an inlet of a large lake in a residential area of homes belonging to the rich and famous of Estaria – which turned out not to be not such a large group based on how empty the development was.

The shot would be about 500 meters, across the inlet and the rear lawn of the house to a large rear deck and patio that the target routinely enjoyed in the evenings.

Tonight was no exception. Right on schedule the man came out of the rear of his home, a glass of some drink designed to relax him after a long stressful day at the office, and sat in his favorite chaise lounge facing the lake. His chest filled Philip’s scope perfectly. Philip could almost see the man’s heart beating through the thin knit shirt he wore.

Philip rechecked his windage, temperature, elevation differential, and a dozen other variables mentally before accepting the shot would be true and get no better. He exhaled fully, paused and began a slow squeeze of the trigger.

Suddenly his target jumped and caught a ball that was thrown to him by someone outside Philip’s field of vision through his scope. Philip shifted his sniper rifle slowly in the direction from which the ball had been thrown. After traversing his scope ten meters or so, he found the source and gasped with shock. He could have been looking at a fifteen year old version of himself.

Philip grabbed his sighting binoculars to get a broader view of what he was witnessing. The man was laughing, getting up from his seat and throwing the ball back to his son. A nightmare of images flooded Philip. Memories of that day when his home was attached; the loyal fighting of the outnumbered Guycharde staff, the assassins luring his father away from the house to the lake, his death because he was trying to go to the defense of his son who was nowhere near the lake, the few remaining knights of House Guycharde spiriting Philip away to safety, the loss of his life as he’d known it as surely as if he were killed that day himself... In the back yard of the home across the water, Philip imagined that boy’s future to be just as grim if he fulfilled his contract and killed his father. He knew he couldn’t do it.

Philip had mourned and grieved and still did so; but, one thing he had never done on or after the day he was exiled from his home was cry. It finally came. Great tears evolving into gasping sobs, Philip rolled over on his back and wept uncontrollably, not stopping until long after the sun set and darkness joined him in his sorrow.


* * * *

Sometime later, Philip was still lying on his back in his kill blind, numb and indifferent to the world around him. The tears had stopped but he saw no reason to move. He had no place to go. He could just lay there and let the vegetation grow over him until he disappeared.

Closing his eyes to contemplate the advantages of such an existence, he was shocked back to reality by what felt to be someone kicking his foot. He sat up in a panic wondering who it was that had found him and cursing himself for allowing himself to be approached without sensing them coming. Much to his chagrin, there was no one there.

He would ponder that mystery later. Now that he was once again alert to his situation, he conceded it wouldn’t be a very good thing to be found lying in a kill blind with a sniper rifle. He rose to his knees and looked around making sure that there really was no one in the area. He stood and picked up the rifle, removing its energy clip with a practiced ease. He looked at the clip and the rifle and disgusted, threw them both as far out into the lake as he could. He gave the area one last quick inspection making sure he wasn’t leaving anything and started walking to his ship. He would soon leave Estaria far behind.


* * * *

As he left, the couple stood hand-in-hand. The force ghost of the Sith Lord Louis Guycharde said to his companion, “I’m pleased with his decision, but, I can’t help but worry what he will do now.”

The spirit of Jedi Knight Sarabeth Guycharde squeezed his hand and replied, “Now he can be Philip again.”

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

Spira

Nessarose walked along the shore of the area that once belonged to her family's mansion. The mansion itself was long gone, as was the zoo that and the gardens and everything else that had decorated the entire area. Skeletons now decorated the lanscape which once had been full of life, and full of her childhood memories.

Her parents' break up had ruined the core of their family, what she and her siblings had grown up believing could never be shattered.

They had been wrong.

The look on her face was blank though. There was no hiding of emotions here; aside for some nostalgia, there was no pain for her in seeing the place trashed as it was. Time changed everything.

Leaving the shore, she moved back towards the house remains, her feet levitating above the ground to avoid stepping on old syringes, of which there were plenty.

Carefully, the Sith Sorceress levitated herself to where her room had once been, her aura within the Force expanding as she searched for what it was she'd been after. The zoo and its animals had been a passion for her, and as a child, she'd always let some of them enter her room despite her father's orders not to. During the Gulag she had lost the last pets she'd had, not having the energy to turn them into rocks as she had done to herself.

But even centuries could not remove what was here.

A smile rose to her lips as she found the remains of an owl, now only hollowed bones, deep beneath the rubble.

To the outside looker, she would have seemed to have frozen while she merely concentrated, and minutes later, the skeleton of a baby owl rose to the surface, using the bones that once belonged to its wings to push the debris on top of it until it was at last free.

"Aff'elle," Nessarose smiled as she named it, and Aff'elle jumped to her shoulder.

[member="Philip Guycharde"]

 

[Philip Guycharde]

[member="Nessarose deWinter"]


ZELTROS


“Are you all right?” Phedre asked.

Not that she was complaining. She was Philip’s favorite – a repeat customer, so to speak – and she had seen him raging; angry passion radiating off of him like heat off the wood stove in her grandfather’s mountain cabin on Corellia. She knew he never meant to hurt her but his love-making during those periods were never what you’d call gentle.

Today he was different. He was quiet and seemingly introspective. Then again, he had provided her polite, thoughtful conversation as he played the congenial host. When they made love that night, he actually made love to her rather than the sexual Olympics he seemed driven to in the past.

In response, Philip lightly teased the back of her thigh with his fingertips and replied with a questions of his own. “Phedre, if money was no object, what would you most like to do. What would make you happiest?”

She was stunned and had to gather herself to answer. He’d never asked her that kind of personal question; but, for some reason she could tell that he was sincere in his curiosity so she stepped outside her comfort zone and answered honestly.

“If I could do anything, I’d move back to Corellia to be near my family. I… I miss them.”

“Why don’t you move home,” he asked softly, feeling a kinship with her loneliness and desire for home.

“I owe my… employer… too much money and I can’t afford the trip home. He never lets any of us have enough credits at a time to afford to slip away.”

Philip was thoughtful for a minute, then asked, “Don’t I remember you telling me you attended the university?”

Phedre actually blushed. She had no idea he ever paid any attention to what she told him about herself. “Yes. I attended Corellia University and received an undergraduate degree in business management. I was working on a post-graduate degree when my father was hurt at his work and lost his job. I had to quit school to try and help the family get by. I met Zed and he offered me a job as an assistant manager of his club here on Zeltros. He offered me a large enough advance that I could pay most of my family’s bills before I left. Of course, when I got here, he had another position in mind for me.”

Philip could tell she was becoming angry, remembering her betrayal by Zed. For the first time in years, he was in a position to and had a desire to help someone out of a bad situation.

“Phedre, do you trust me?”

She hesitated, examining exactly how she felt about him in her mind before answering. “Philip, sometimes you scare the hell out of me, but, I do trust you.”

Philip chuckled. “Fair enough. I know I can be… intense… from time to time. Trust this though… if you meet me at the spaceport in the morning, I’ll take you home to Corellia. Before I leave you there, I will arrange employment for you with a major CEO in Coronet City that owes me a favor, and, I’ll stake you with a new bank account with enough credits to help you get established comfortably and probably even help your family if they still have medical bills.”

He held up his hand forestalling the inevitable questions. “Before you ask. Yes – I can afford it, easily. Yes – I want to help you get back where you belong. Yes – I’ll deal with Zed tonight so that he will never bother you or your family again. All you have to do is accept my offer.”

Tears were rolling down Phedre’s cheeks when she asked, “What time should I meet you?”


* * * *


Philip was waiting for take-off clearance from the Corellian Air Traffic Control reflecting on what had transpired the past couple of days. He had arranged everything he’d promised and had the pleasure of witnessing the joy and happiness of Phedre and her family upon their reunion. She had a chance now to make a new life for herself and Philip felt certain she would take advantage of it.
Now it was time for Philip to make a new life for himself. He was traveling to Coruscant to meet with his business advisor to see if he could become an active participant in managing any of their investment, rather than just being a silent partner. Whatever came next, Philip knew he would never be a paid assassin again.

Even so, he’d been very happy when Zed resisted his offer to buy out Phedre’s contract. Some habits die hard.

 

[Philip Guycharde]

[member="Nessarose deWinter"]


HYPERSPACE, Day 1

Philip was two hours out of Corellia enroute to Coruscant when the urge to raid his Baudo’s chiller hit. He found several things that easily caught his hunger’s attention and carried them back to the bridge along with a freezing cold bottle of ale.

He settled into his command chair comfortably and spread his banquet out in front of him. A glance at his reflection in one of the bridge displays caught him off guard eliciting a double take. While he didn’t immediately realize the cause of his puzzlement, he soon saw the difference – he was smiling. How long had it been since he smiled? The last pleasant thing he could remember was years before when he met a young lady at the academy on Coruscant . Nessarose. He wondered how she was doing wherever she was in the galaxy.

His reverie was interrupted when the very screen on which he had been admiring his new smile snapped on and a message began loading. Philip was confused. He didn’t have an hyperspace capable communications gear on the Baudo. Where was this message originating?

The screen did its normal programmed three flashes designed to draw the attention of the crew and a recording began to play. Philip groaned when he recognized the speaker. It was the Master of the Assassins’ Guild. The man was hidden behind a screen but the voice was clear and unmistakable.

“Philip Guycharde.”

"You have been accused of abandoning a mission contracted
to you and paid for in advance by the client. The Guild has
investigated and substantiated the accusations.”

“By abandoning your contract, the Guild’s reputation has been
impinged. You know the penalty for failure.”

“When your craft exits hyperspace, it will suffer a catastrophic
propulsion failure. Your affiliation with the Guild will thereby be
terminated. Farewell, Philip Guycharde.”

The screen went blank just as suddenly as the message began. Philip sat stunned for a minute mentally processing what he’d just been told.

So, his decision not to kill the man on Estaria was coming back to haunt him. Oddly enough, Philip wasn’t concerned or surprised by the announcement of his fate. He knew he made the right decision.

But… that didn’t help him in his current situation.

His first action was to disable the preprogrammed flight plan so that the Baudo would not drop out of hyperspace until he gave it another command. Then he hurried back to the hatch that allowed him to drop down into the engine compartment. In a craft as small as a Baudo it was a cramped space. He found a device he never seen before, blinking a red strobe ominously. It was sealed inline in the fuel line. If he tried to open the line, the compartment would almost instantly be filled with high-pressure, toxic reactor fuel. Beside, Philip wasn’t a mechanic.

He climbed out of the compartment and returned to the bridge. He ran a systems’ diagnostic and estimated that he had enough fuel remaining to run the hyperspace engine continuously for eight days – if a continuous burn of that duration didn’t cause the class-2.0 drive to fail.

On a vector that ran from Corellia to Coruscant, an eight day hyperspace burn would place him far out into the unknown regions. The debris of his Baudo would probably never be found.


HYPERSPACE, Day 7 – The Unknown Region

It was different out here. The texture of hyperspace was almost monotone, even if that one color was a brilliant blue through the Baudo’s tinted forward view port. An occasional waver or change in the hue marked what Philip thought were probably planets, systems or suns whose gravitational pull was altering the landscape of hyperspace.

Philip had made a decision. He could only think of one scenario that even gave him a remote chance of survival. The Baudo was specially equipped by his father was a crash capsule that could enclose a small portion of the bridge – the two center seats to be specific.

Philip had decided that when he saw another waiver in the fabric of hyperspace, he would close off the crash capsule and kill the hyperdrive. The Baudo would drop out of hyperspace and the engine detonate, hopefully blasting the capsule forward towards whatever heavenly body was out there.

A thousand things could go wrong. He could be wrong about what the changes in hyperspace meant; he could be right and be blasting himself into a sun; he could be right and with his minimal control of the capsule, miss landfall; the blast could simply obliterate everything.

What he did know was that the engine was going to blow. The best thing he could do was try to time his ship’s death to his best advantage. One in a million odds are better than zero odds.


HYPERSPACE, Day 8

It was a race. Would the engine run out fuel before another target planet presented itself? He was beginning to think his luck was running out.

In preparation, he had gather the few belongings he had that he really cared – memories of his father primarily, some food and water, and a medkit and secured them in the second seat in a duffle bag. He was ready.

Perhaps he had miscalculated how long his engine could run. Never-the-less, it wouldn’t be long now.


HYPERSPACE, Day 9

Philip was dozing in his chair fully expecting the engine to cut out for lack of fuel at any minute and preferring to sleep through it if possible.

His AI woke him with a strident alarm announcing, “Defined hyperspace anomaly detected.”

Philip jumped up and cut the alarm. He saw the waiver in the normally smooth texture and did his best to maneuver the Baudo , turning it slightly so that it was dead ahead.

He gave his beloved ship one last look around gave the AI a command to drop the ship out of hyperspace in 2 minutes. He then activated the crash capsule and Impervium plates slid into place and sealed around the small pod. Crash foam wrapped around the chairs, enclosing the occupants in a protective cocoon.

Philip mentally counted down the two minutes. Right on cue, his world shattered.


THE JUNGLE, Day 10

Philip woke and found himself the centerpiece of the biggest fern he’d ever seen. Looking up, he saw the chutes of his crash capsule caught in the tops of some very tall trees. The capsule was slowly swinging back and forth in the wind and he realized that was all the remained of the life he’d known.

He sat up and slid off the massive fern. Landing on that cushiony plant probably saved him several broken bones if not his life. He was relieved to find his duffle nearby, preferring not to have to climb up to the capsule to retrieve it.

Shouldering all of his earthly possession, he looked around. All he could see in every direction was a lush jungle. He smiled, felt to make sure his light saber was at his waist, picked a random direction and started walking.

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

Endelaan.

Nessarose could never stay away from Endelaan for too long. Where the Core of the Galaxy was her childhood, the Unknown Regions and within them, Endelaan, were not only her present, but her future. She had reigned as Queen here, long before the Gulag virus spread, spending several centuries as a rock to keep her mind and soul intact before her body was found and she could unite with it once more. E

Prior to the Gulaag, Endelaan had thrived. Extensive parts of the Galaxy had belonged to her and her beloved as they waged war and took planet after planet over. But those were times long gone. Endelaan had closed up again, just as it had in the past, vanishing from the public's eye, the tribes upon it retreating back into their deity worship.

Of course, it helped that Nessarose's ancestors were considered the deities, and she herself a direct scion of them, sent directly to bring the planet into another age of glory. But many things had to happen first, on top of which was, once again, teach the locals how technology had advanced and changed, as well as etiquette of around the 'verse.

This was another morning though. The sounds of gasps and grunts could be heard all over the graveyard. Here it was that Warriors and Sorceresses were kept after they died. Once a year it was that their spirits rose from the graves and visited their families. And here it was that the sweat rolled down her face, her back, and every part of her body as she jumped backwards, just narrowly avoiding a lightsaber hit that would have neatly decapitated her.

"Not good enough," the man said as he went for her again, this time aiming at her midriff. Nessarose had no time to respond as all her energy went into jumping again, avoiding the blade by a mere few millimeters. The man sighed, and disignited his weapon. "Your highness, this will not do," he said. Nessarose struggled to keep her face look emotionless as she panted for breath. "You cannot forever scape the blade. You must raise your own to stop the attack, sooner or later. If you were a normal Sorceress this would not be a problem. But... You are our Queen."

The teenager nodded. There was a reason she had chosen Amram to teach her. Few of the people on Endelaan possessed the capability of being speaking this bluntly to her, and there was something in his demeanor that reminded her of Diomedes, her other half. Diomedes, who'd been missing for centuries, and would not be returning any time soon.

She opened her mouth to ask something when the vision flashed across her face and she jumped, pointing at the sky long before the craft came through it, going in a direct line towards the jungles of Endelaan. Amram's eyes widened at the sight. His life had been spent on Endelaan itself, and he had yet to come across outsiders, save Nessarose.

And Nessarose?

Seconds later, she was already gone from the spot, using the Force to speed her limbs as she ran towards the jungles, her presence darting forward as she began to focus on the crashed vehicle, searching for whoever or whatever was within.

[member="Philip Guycharde"]

 

[Philip Guycharde]

[member="Nessarose deWinter"]


Philip grimaced as he cut the thorn covered vine off his ankle and muttered a curse as it tried to writhe itself back around his leg. ‘Persistent devils,’ he thought to himself. It seemed like every plant and animal he had encounter wanted to eat him; or, at least capture him for some yet unknown perverse amusement they might have planned.

Some creatures he saw he used the force to conceal himself from to avoid what would undoubtedly be a vigorous confrontation. That said, he tried to limit to amount and duration of his force-usage. He didn’t know if there were any force-predators like the terentatek on this world. If so, he didn’t want to attract them… not yet at least.

Despite the difficulties, he found himself enjoying the challenge. He felt invigorated in this jungle in his body and in his force strength. Each time he called on the force, it was easier and stronger. All the basics; pushes, jumps, levitations, he’d done since a young boy now required no preconceived thought – it was instinctual. Plus, the dark spells Athena taught him were mere whispers away. He felt alive for the first time since his father’s death. He knew it was in part because of the decision regarding being an assassin and the force rich environment of this world. If he could find a nice beach side condo here with topless buxom attendants to meet his every need, he could stay here forever, he mused with a smirk.

He felt a presence and faced in the direction he sensed its movement in confusion. It was the first humanoid presence he had sensed, and, while it was still a good distance away, he decided to seek the high ground and watch and learn.

He used the force minimally to leap twenty meters to a large branch in the tree above him. There he was hidden by the dense foliage; plus, he calmed himself and dropped quickly into quey’tek meditation to conceal his force presence as well as his physical presence. Then he waited.

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

By the time Nessarose had arrived on the scene, there was no human left for her to sense. She came to an abrupt halt in front of the capsule, appearing to almost materialize out of of thin air due to the speed she had been going in. A few seconds later came Amram, halting near her.

The looks on both of their faces seemed troubled. It had been centuries since anyone had arrived by accident to the planet. While Nessarose spent her years as a rock, her people had taken care to remove any mention of the planet's existence from any record that they could find, making the place not only invisible, but apparently one that had never even existed as far as books and data could deliver.

"The pilot has already escaped," Amram noted as he looked at the empty seat. Nessarose nodded, having already noticed that. This alone, however, did not suffice. "And yet I can't sense him," she answered, her voice unusually low, "so he's either dead... Or we have a Force user on Endelaan." Neither options boded well with her. Dead meant someone might come to look for whoever it had been. A Force user... Could only mean that the planet was trying to draw attention to itself. Her people were not ready for that.

Turning around to look at her surroundings, she knew she was not going to see anything. She'd experienced too much to hope for a dead body, and a person sufficiently knowledgeable in the Force would have an easy time hiding themselves in plain sight.
"Amram, go back to the temple," she commanded, "collect the Warriors and send scouts."

Amram nodded. "We will dispose of the person."

"No," Nessarose shook her head, "I prefer him or her alive."

Amram gave a quick bow with his head, and vanished into a blur of motion back towards the direction they had come from.

Nessarose was left alone, still looking at the trees. She had been in the middle of a vigorous training session when the capsue had broken through Endelaan's atmosphere, and the sweat was still visible upon her skin. The rugged and torn shorts and tank top she'd been wearing didn't look much better, covered in mud and stains of the jungle. Her hair was a mess, locks of darkness wrapped and entangled around each other and resting missily against her back.

But her eyes shone, the green glow of them intensifying as she searched again and again. She was going to find whoever it was, preferably before her Warriors came back, ready to kill.

[member="Philip Guycharde"]

 

[Philip Guycharde]

[member="Nessarose deWinter"]


Philip watched the two arrive, though he didn’t use any force powers to study them that might give away his presence. Even so… he had the strangest feeling.

He watched as the man ran back in the direction from which they had arrived. Philip assumed he would be bringing reinforcements to begin a more thorough search for him. Seeing they were human, or, at least near human, made him wonder about the need for secrecy. Should he just present himself to the remaining woman and explain why he was on their land. She did seem to be in charge and she seemed so very familiar.

Philip had never been much for cowering and hiding. Besides, his father had always taught him resolutions were made from actions, not inaction.

He dropped his quey’tek shielding and stepped off the branch, lowering himself slowly with the force. He reached out a tendril of force to the woman. She seemed so familiar. When he received a force image of her, he recoiled in shock and uncertainty. Could it really be her, the young student he had felt such a connection with on Coruscant what seemed like a lifetime ago? How could it be? Why would she be here?

He spoke to her gently through the force. Only she would hear his inquiry if she were the same person… “Nessarose?”

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

Her back had been to him when the tendril was sent, and she could feel a shiver in her spine, though it was too gentle and too soft to for her to be able to use it to trace to its sources. She grunted before biting her lip before kicking a pebble. Her focus had been too fragile as of late, something she fully well intended on repairing.Yet now...

The moment she heard her name, the Sith Sorceress spun around, the lightsaber in her hand ignited before she completed the turn.

It had been years on this planet and on others that had adapted her to such strange things - things that most often turned out to be this or other ancestor that should have remained dead and gone, only come back to with the intention of messing with what she had built.

And she was deadly tired of relatives.

The thought that it might have been someone entirely different not once crossed her mind. It had not been long enough since her return from centuries as a rock, it had not been long enough since she had to even consider dealing with something that did not have to do with her family.

Locking on to the message's source, she replied back in the same manner.

Show yourself. Even through the Force, her voice sounded as stickingly sweet as it did when she used her mouth. Yet the sweetness was just barely evident in her current toe, guarded and walled safely behind the command of the Queen who was more than ready to kill.


[member="Philip Guycharde"]

 

[Philip Guycharde]

[member="Nessarose deWinter"]


It sounded like the young girl Philip had met on Coruscant even if it didn’t look like her. Maybe that was just the mud.

Philip grinned at the almost musical sound of her voice even if it was only a manifestation of the force. But he wondered why she couldn’t see him and realized his flight suit had automatically switched to survival mode; its surface changing to blend and match the local environment. He looked like part of the massive bromeliad he was standing beside.

He reached up to deactivate the camo system and saw something above Nessarose that brought another smirk to his lips. Several small manipulations of the force brought a flurry of purple orchids floating down on the green-eyed beauty as he switched his flight suit to normal and stepped out to meet her.

“Hello, Princess… “

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

Nessarose grinned as Philip's face came into view. The orchids were falling on her and she inhaled their scent, not letting the act they stuck to her hair and sweaty skin bother her for an instant.

Her thumb flickered over the button of her lightsaber, shutting it off. There would be no need for it. Well, hopefully not.

Philip.

Memories burst to the surface of her mind, speeding by quicker than she could grab any of them. Their one and only meeting had been brief, lasing but a few moments that evening on Coruscant. But for the child that she had been, every second was a lifetime, and it had been more than sufficient to leave through the door wanting just a little bit more.

Of course, that was before other things happened.

Yet here he was now, and the teenager suddenly launched forward, arms and legs all coming around to give him a huge koala-light tight hug as she called his name out.

"Philip!"

[member="Philip Guycharde"]

 

[Philip Guycharde]

[member="Nessarose deWinter"]


Philip caught the exuberant Nessarose in both arms and hugged her close. She was a young woman now not the girl he had met at Coruscant. How she was still a young woman was a mystery for another time. For now he would assume she had simply been as fortunate as he had been escaping the plague asleep in a frozen mausoleum.

She was different in another way as well. He could easily sense how powerful she had become and he couldn’t help feeling a since of pride for her in her accomplishments; however she had fashioned them.

Her happiness at finding him there had frankly left him speechless. It had been so long since anyone had been happy to see him in any fashion. Most that knew him tended to avoid him like death itself. But that was his former self… the one that had liberated himself from the assassins’ guild by escaping the death they had planned for him.

“Nessarose deWInter,” he finally said as he reluctantly released her from his embrace. “Scrap off a little of that mud and some of those leaves and I’d say that you’ve turned into quite the beauty,” he teased.

He looked around and gestured indicating the surrounding jungle, “Love what you’ve done with the place. But could you tell me? Where is this place?”

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

She giggled at his teasing compliment, answering it with a very brief tip of the tongue sticking out. He'd neglected to mention the sweaty part, but she supposed that bit was just common courtesy - Philip had been someone who knew more than a bit of manners insofar as she could remember. And still, Nessarose would have loved to get that mid-training smell off of her.

Taking Philip's hand, she almost yanked him in the direction of the Forbidden Temple. "Welcome to Endelaan!" she bounced for a step as her free hand waved around, giving the plane they were on its name.

It was a few more steps before she released his hand, twirling in place.

"This is my kingdom," she explained, "and it's kind of sort of uber weird that you're here, since this place does not appear on any map, and hasn't either for thousands of years. And it's kind of nowhere. Most people don't even get near here by accident without a seriously good reason. So if someone tries to kill you for being an intruder, don't take it personally."

The smirk was still on her face as she sent a message to her Warriors. Nope, there was definetly not going to be a need for them.

"Of course," she resumed, her voice ever so light and playful, "you're going to have to tell me why you're here, or I might have to just kill you."

[member="Philip Guycharde"]

 

[Philip Guycharde]

[member="Nessarose deWinter"]


“Your kingdom,” Philip repeated almost to himself. That would make her, what? A Queen? He quirked a brow and opined, “My, my… you are moving up in the galaxy. When I saw you last I had no doubt you would be the Queen of the academy but now, you have an entire planet for a realm. My congratulations, my Queen.” He gave a full bow as taught to him by his father and tutors when he was a child at Guycharde Manor; as well as a teasing grin as he did so.

“I must admit, I’ve never heard of Endelaan. I was just lucky it was here.” His smile turned rueful as he explained, “I had a difference of opinion with my former employer. When I refused a contract, he arranged to have my ship booby trapped so that when I exited from hyperspace, the engine would explode. His way of terminating my association with the guild.”

“I reprogrammed the nav system so that it wouldn’t drop out until I gave a new command. I was nine days in hyperspace waiting for the fuel to run out. When the gauges all showed empty, I knew I had to try to control things best I could. I turned the Baudo so that it was running directly towards an anomaly in the texture of space and hoped it was a planet my escape pod could land on. Then I gave the command to cut the hyperdrive. The next thing I remember, I woke up on top of one of her majesty’s giant ferns.”

He gave her a more serious look and continued, “The odds of my survival and landing on a lost world where you are the Queen… astronomical to say the least. They wouldn’t be worth the effort to calculate. But I’m here even if I don’t know where here is. Nessa, I have no other explanation than that the force wanted me to be here.”