Star Wars Chaos : The New Generation

[Vexen]

Vexen yelped pitifully. She'd been so concerned with looking for somewhere to run, that she hadn't seen the boy coming. Before she could scrabble away, he had his big arms about her. There was no way she could fight him off now, she was so small. Still, she started to bare her teeth ready to bite. His arms wrapped around her and...gently held her. She stiffened up in his careful embrace, but her lips covered her fangs once more.

A wave of calm washed over her. As much as she brushed her fur, it couldn't have smelled nice, it had been over a week since she had found the time to bathe in a lake on the surface. Still he maintained the cuddle. Vexen placed her nuzzle into the crook of his neck and moved her tiny frame against her chest. The sensation was so strange, and yet oddly familiar at the same time. She let out a long sigh, small tears ran down her cheeks.

It had been a long day for her. A very long day.

 

[Micah Talith]

[member="Vexen"]

Feces, urine, wet dirt and fur. All of it was a rather unpleasant combination of smells, with the edge of sweet apple and cookies in the mix. But Micah held her, felt a wet cold nose tickle his neck, and the curl of the Wraith’s shuddering body against him.

He wasn’t very big to start off, he had yet to grow into his full height. His sister’s were already growing like daisies, popping up with a height that went over their mum’s own. Yet in his arms, the Defel would appear even more diminutive. He gently began to pat and cafune her matted hair, felt the splash and roll of her tears, and tried his best to simply hold her.

Plopping down on the ground, the youngling Talith held Vexen in his embrace until she felt safe enough leave it.

 

[Vexen]

She stayed there against him. Sharp little intakes of breath gradually slowed to a regular rhythm. That tight little knot of emotions that had been plaguing her started to unwind, then melt away. Whilst far from a relaxed Defel again, the panic attack was over, her immediate fears assuaged. There was a quiet little rumble from her stomach. That seemed as good a sign as any, so she tentatively let go of the boy, wiping her eyes on the fur of her forearm. She stood back up on two legs. No words came but looked up at the boy and nodded.

[member="Micah Talith"]

 

[Micah Talith]

[member="Vexen"]

The corners of Micah’s mouth turned up, a friendly expression settling upon his grimy face. He caught the body language, the general gist of it at least. She was better now. That made him happy.

“Okay.” he told her, pushing himself up onto his feet again, using his palm for leverage. The small backpack he wore jingled a bit, and the sunlight would flash against the hilt of his saber, as if it was winking. “It isn’t too far,” he told her, now getting more of his bearings on just where exactly they were at. However, they would be moving into the city, and that was going to be a bit more crowded.

“Just stay close to me,” he told her, blowing out his cheeks with an exhale, a hot puff of air pushing his bangs away from his face. Yup. He stunk. And definitely needed a refresher. If his mum caught him now, he’d get a scolding.

With a smile, he would then offer, “If you want to hold my hand so you don’t get lost, you can.”

 

[Vexen]

Vexen just followed in silence, but as they reached the edge of the city her good paw reached out and inserted itself into his hand. The sun was coming up and there were people around. They would see her. They would look at her. That bothered her far more than the notion of getting lost. A shadow amongst shadows was almost invisible. A shadow standing in the middle of the road at dawn was patently obvious. She hoped they could go indoors soon.

 

[Micah Talith]

[member="Vexen"]

Her palm was warm, grimy. None the less, it pleased Micah, smiling down at her as they would amble along. It might seem a bit off to bystanders as they strode through the streets, what with the Defel barely distinguishable. Yet, the Talith paid it no mind.

The spaceport was abuzz with activity. There were many travelers and spacers moving in and out. With the Ithorian population attempting to mend Ithor and supply humanitarian aid, there were plenty of saptients coming in and out of the floating cities.

"It isn't too far," he told her, guiding her along, weaving through the crowd. "Mum and my sisters take it when we travel. Sometimes with dad too. Maleah likes to bring her Nexu."

Using the advantage of their combined diminutive heights, the youngling turned the corner. He lead the way into hanger Auruk Nine.
"It's just up ahead."

 

[Vexen]

[member="Micah Talith"]

She’d never ventured this far into the spaceport before. Always too busy. She preferred to stay near the quiet areas of the gardens. Around the periphery of civilisation she could keep to the shadows and move in when an opportunity presented itself. She’d always wondered why it was so busy here, why the mix of people was so varied. As far as she was concerned this Herdship was the only place where sentients even existed.

She nodded as they passed the wide doors into a hangar. She wondered where they were going. Was it an underground abode like Rajik’s that connected to the Hidden Places, or one of the tall buildings some seemed to stay in?

 

[Micah Talith]

[member="Vexen"]

They came upon a clearing in the crowd - most were rather apt to avoid a smelly kid - and Micah gave a friendly grin down to the Defel.

“That’s it! Kalee’s Shadow. ” he told her, pointing with his grimy hand towards the Sicarrius Stealth Yacht painted in black shadow. It was to make the ship invisible to the naked eye out in space, perhaps, akin to that the Wraith did in that sense. The Shadow was fitted Sensor Negators, two Gravitic Modulators, Photon Absorbers, and Thermal Dissipators, all of this technology was designed to make the Sicarius completely undetectable by sensor equipment. To finish this the stealth aspect the, the yacht was fashioned entirely out of Fiberplast, an incredibly strong material usually used in construction.

“It’s a stealth ship,” he told her, continuing their walk. To the casual observer, one would wonder if the youngling was talking to his imaginary friend.

“ It hides from other ships, so they don’t notice it and we can travel super fast.” he added, explaining, he flashed her a cheeky grin, “Kinda like you.”

The ship was secure, but he just had to get close to the security console to open up the airlock to let them in.

 

[Vexen]

[member="Micah Talith"]

Vexen looked up at the sleek, matte black structure. It did have a somewhat foreboding appearance and she gave his hand a gentle squeeze before letting it go so he could use a security terminal. She turned and looked back over her shoulder. Great thick doors separated the hangar from the rest of the platform. On the other side of the hangar she could see straight out into the very highest atmosphere of Ithor. She wondered if she would be able to see the ‘Land Below’ as she thought of it through that portal. She didn’t know there was just a field between them and near-vacuum.

“What’s a ‘stealth ship’” she asked quietly.

 

[Micah Talith]

[member="Vexen"]


Micah would perk a brow, perplexity bathing his youthful features. Huh? Did she not know what a stealth craft was? A thought came to him then that living underground and not quite socializing with the outside universe might play into that.

Okay that made more sense.

“Oh, it’s a ship. A ship that can blend into its surroundings,” he began to explain to her, leading her under the landing struts of the Kalee. Another turn and then he could lower the ramp for them to go up.

“Kinda like you are able to blend into the shadows.” he added, “Like it’s hard to see when out in space.”

 

[Vexen]

Vexen furrowed her brow. There was clearly a fundamental point she was missing here. The opened ramp of the vessel appeared as the giant maw of a creature. However the inside of the structure was far less foreboding than the exterior. There were bright lights and smooth walls.

“Okay. Wasaa ship?” she asked. Her head bobbed up and down as she tried to look ahead of them, her eyes started to water. “Looks bright in there,” she stated quietly.

 

[Micah Talith]

He gave a slow blink.

Maybe this was going to be a bit more difficult than he had originally thought. The metal grates of the inside corridor gave small squeaks until they came across the smooth wood of the internal flooring. The inside was rather comfy, sporting four suites for their normal travel. One was for their parents, another for Aela, and one normally for Maleah and him. They shared. Kai was so young that she would spend it with mum and dad, but once she grew older, likely would have her own bed too.

“This is a ship,” he told her, gesturing to the whole of the yacht. “We use it to be able to fly out in space. To travel from place to place -- we can’t breath out in space. There is no air.” he told her matter-of-factly. How would his father explain this? He tried to recall exactly what Soliael had said.

“We don’t have a method to leave the planet without it. We weren’t made to fly normally. So we use ships to be able to move from place to place safely -- and quickly.”

 

[Vexen]

Vexen followed Micah in, but at a distance. She paused at the threshold, trying to look back and forth. Then she tentatively followed, her head swinging back and forth like a confused cat. Space within ships was always at a premium and she found the narrow corridors relatively calming. However, the lights were exceedingly bright. Even looking through squinting eyes, everything was becoming a bright indistinct blur. She scrunched her eyes closed, but the bright halos persisted across her vision.

In a meek voice she asked: “Could you turn the lights down please?” She stayed still, trying to comprehend his explanation. There was the World and the Land Below. The space must have been the gap between them. “You’ve been to the Land Below?” she asked.

 

[Micah Talith]

“The land below?” the young Talith would ask, scrunching his face a bit. It dawned on him a second later. Did she mean Ithor itself?

“Oh. No.” he told her, moving over to a console at one end of the corridor. Flipping it open, his small fingers went to work at dimming the lights. Slowly, the overhead glow would wane, until it was only bright enough to barely distinguish Micah’s features. The bright orange eyes remained, like twin embers in the dark.

“Mum said no one is allowed on Ithor itself. The priests believe that it is too sacred to set foot on there, save for a few select people.” He would explain. “ But I’ve been lots of other places.” he would add, closing the small console shut. Turning towards her, he motioned for her to follow, continuing on with the babble as he would lead them to the galley.

“I’m from Borleias,” he said, a bit excitedly. “It’s warmer there. We live right by the beach!” that Vexen may not know what a beach or an ocean is did not quite register yet. He had the energy of a child and it was showing.

“We go swimming everyday and go wandering in the jungle. Maleah and I play hide and seek there, but Aela is too stuffy so she stays inside to read.”

A curve to the left and straight on would bring them to the galley. Automatically, Micah went up to turn down the lights leaving just a singular dim glow on. There was a table lounge at the far end; mum had a thing for breakfast nooks. All in all, it was pretty small and compact, but had all the requirements to have real food -- and cookies.

Micah strode in, moving towards the table. He shuffled with the straps of his pack to take it off.

“Kai just likes to play in the sand.”

 

[Vexen]

Vexen slowly opened her eyes, blinking away the tears. She should have mentioned her discomfort earlier, but still didn’t want to admit too much to this stranger. She followed the boy as he explained, excitedly babbling as they went. The priests must have been the Gardeners with the wide, flat heads. She knew that they had created the world so that the Land Below could remain free from disruption. Ithor, that was what they called it, yes.

Her nose sniffled as they entered the galley. There was food here. She found a seat where she could put her back to the corner and watch the entrances, sitting in silence and watching the human boy. She snorted quietly, struggling to quite follow what he was trying to explain.

“So you take this...ship...and you go to other places,” she said slowly, as much as to herself as to Micah. “Other places. Not Ithor. You go out into the space between the World and the Land Below and go to...other places?” she asked. “Humph.” There was a tight little knot in her stomach as she tried to follow this line of reasoning. Perhaps her use of “the world” to describe this particular herdship would reveal how fundamentally difficult this was for Vexen to follow.

Her eyes, however, were busy watching Micah and looking to see where he would get some food from.

 

[Micah Talith]

Okay, now he was starting to follow what she meant.

Really, Ithor and the floating cities were all the Defel really had as references. He would have to break it down a bit further. His backpack gave a slight thump as he set it down on top of the table, dust and grime scattering over the surface.

“Kinda, but no.” he would say, turning away from the table to head off to the cupboards. As a rule, things were locked down and secured to prevent anything from falling or tumbling out during entry or exit of atmo. Artificial gravity had a way of making sure things stayed put.

Unlocking one, the cupboard door slid open, revealing an array of fresh fruit. More apples, oranges, even a few bananas. His mum had this this about eating fresh fruit. There were also some muja berry granola bars. The food processor could process anything they dialed in, but he prefered what his mum or dad cooked. While his mum was great at baking, his dad was the one who could outshine anyone he knew with cooking. It’s why he would normally make the meals for everyone and they would help out.

Micah took a few more fruits, and using the Force, he would playfully have them float in the air. OH! A thought came to him then.

“Okay.. take this orange,” he told her, walking on over with his makeshift solar system of fruit.

 

[Vexen]

As he turned, he would find Vexen gone from her chair. The little shadow had shifted without a sound. Her presence was still there, however, and he would hear her rapid breathing. If he looked down he would see her eyes watching him from under the table.

The Force wasn’t something people came across very often. Suddenly floating a pile of food with a wave of a hand had spooked the delicate Defel.

 

[Micah Talith]

“Pretend this is Ithor.. the world. Ithor is both the space below and the floating cities where we are at as a whole.”

A gelden sun apple floated in the middle, and the orange began to slowly orbit it. “ Then we have the sun… pretend it is the apple.”

“Space… is the area between the sun and Ithor as a whole… and beyond really. There are more worlds out there than just Ithor.”

If they were on the cockpit Micah would have been able to use the nav system to explain it better. But he was a kid and right now he had floating food as an example.

At least… until he realized that there was no more Defel on the chair.

He gave a rather perplexed look, and then noticed her under the table. His head went ducking down, hair flopping over.

“What’s wrong?”

 

[Vexen]

White eyes raised a few inches from the floor as she watched him suspiciously. She sighed to herself. She was being silly now. It was clear that her understanding of things was pathetically inadequate. She was only embarrassing herself further now. Micah meant her no harm, she believed that.

Her snout and eyes appeared back at the edge of the table. Like a sloth she cautiously got back up onto the chair, moving each limb in turn with a deliberate, slow manner.

“Sorry,” she apologised, feeling abashed. “How do you do that?”

 

[Micah Talith]

[member="Vexen"]


"Huh?" it took him a second to realize that Vexen meant his floating solar system. "OH!" a flick of his fingers and he sent the fruit to rest upon the table with a slight thud.

"Oh, I used the Force," he told her, explaining as he went about to make sure none of the fruit went rolling away. "Kinda like an invisible way to sense, control, and manipulate things... as if I were doing it with my hands, but instead i'm doing it with my mind."

"It is energy. An energy that is all around us. My dad said that everyone can sense it to some degree, but only a few are able to interact with it."

Micah offered Vexan another apple with an outstretched hand.