Private Stillness Before The Storm

[Issar Rae’Velis]

Dawn unfolded without ceremony.

Mist curled low along the marshes, hugging the roots of towering trees like a memory reluctant to lift. The pale light of Selvaris filtered through a green canopy above, fractured and fluid as it danced across the shallow water and moss-wrapped stones. Somewhere nearby, a reedfish broke the surface with a ripple, then disappeared again. Within a modest clearing, nestled into the coiled embrace of tree roots, a small shelter of stone and vine stirred.

Issar Rae’Velis opened his eyes.

He did not stretch. He did not speak. He simply unwound; an elegant motion, centuries in its patience, as coils shifted and lifted, bringing his upper body into the cool morning air. His pale blue skin caught the first gleam of light through the trees, every scale etched with flowing tattoos in the language of the Spiral.

The Hysalrian’s four eyes blinked slowly. He moved without sound, without urgency.

From a carved alcove of his home, he selected a small ceramic bowl and three dried leaves, each chosen with ritual care. Memory. Vision. Balance. Into the bowl they went, placed with reverence, then covered with water drawn from the morning pool outside. As the leaves steeped, a faint steam rose, curling upward in a spiral of its own.

He drank in silence.

Then he walked, his great serpentine body weaving smoothly across the clearing, trailing calm behind him. At the edge of the pond, he knelt and placed a single hand upon a worn stone spiral, half-buried in moss and earth. He brushed it gently with a cloth. Not to clean. Only to connect.

A bird called from high above. Issar’s eyes tilted upward, but he did not look. He heard the pattern behind the sound. Something shifted.

A breath, not his.

He felt it, not in words, not even as warning, but as a soft curvature of the path ahead. A bend in the spiral. Something — someone — was moving toward him. Not with fear, nor with violence, but with... need.

The Spiral turned.

The Master bowed his head. He reached for the loop of memory beads that hung across his neck and held them briefly in two of his hands. He did not pray. He remembered. And then, gently, he resumed his path. The day had only just begun, and though change stirred at the edges of the wild, it was not yet time for action.

For now, he would harvest herbs.

Tend to his stillness.

Wait.

Valery Noble​

 

[Valery Noble]

​

Outfit: Combat Jumpsuit Wedding Ring
Weapons: Blasters | Lightsabers

The jungle greeted her — thick, warm, and alive. Valery moved with practiced stillness, each step measured as if not to disturb the very air around her. Her senses stretched beyond the rustle of leaves and the distant call of birds, attuned instead to something quieter. Deeper. She didn't reach with the Force — not directly. She let it guide her instead, like a current beneath her feet. A whisper beneath the world.

Mist clung to her boots. Dew slid down the fabric of her dark jumpsuit. The humid air curled into her lungs with every breath she drew, grounding her in this place. Selvaris. A world where life never truly stilled — only softened. She paused at the base of a gnarled tree, one hand brushing its bark. Insects chirped nearby. A vine shifted in the canopy above, and for a moment, she let her eyes close.

He's here somewhere.

She didn't see him, not yet. But she felt him — not as a presence screaming through the Force, but as an echo. A spiral of calm threaded through the wild, steady and patient. It was like walking toward the eye of a storm that never touched the surface.

One way or another, she'd find him.

Issar Rae’Velis ​

 

[Issar Rae’Velis]

The wind shifted, not in speed, but in shape. Issar stood beneath the arching root of a blackwood tree, a bundle of fresh herbs in one hand, another coiling a section of vine into place around a small suspended planter. The act was simple, a repetition of care and of rhythm. But his hands stilled, ever so slightly.

The spiral had curved again.

He did not turn toward the sensation. He did not close his eyes. His awareness extended outward like a breath held just beneath the surface of a still pool. Not a search. Not a reach.

A receiving.

She was not a shadow in the Force, nor a beacon. She was a presence woven in light, powerful but tempered. Fire that had burned, dimmed, and chosen to rise again. There was discipline in their gait. Gravity in their silence.

A Jedi. A Master, no less, much like himself.

He felt no threat. Only weight.

So he offered a thread in return, a flicker of light cast gently through the currents of the Force. Not a call. Not a pull. Merely a lantern lit in fog, for one who already knew the way.

Issar set the planter back on its wooden bracket and, without a word, moved toward the stone hearth near his shelter. A low-bellied bowl of clay rested there, and beside it, a single pot, carved with the same spiral etchings that adorned his walls, his beads, his soul.

He began to brew.

A mixture of water and crushed marshroot bark was already heating, and to it he added three dried blossoms from his earlier walk — one white, one deep violet, one soft grey. Each floated gently atop the surface before being stirred, clockwise, by the tip of his finger. The scent that rose was both earthy and bright. Something grounding. Something welcoming.

As the tea steeped, Issar moved again, slow and purposeful. He uncoiled a mat from a hook inside the shelter and laid it upon the stone beneath the old tree. He adjusted a second, left vacant across from it. Not to presume. Only to prepare.

The forest around him whispered in insect wings and rustling leaves. A bird called once, then fell silent.

He returned to the tea.

One hand idly worked a loop of memory beads as he waited.

The quiet of the clearing did not break as she stepped into it, only shifted, like mist curling around a new shape. The tea had not cooled. The mats had not moved. But Issar, seated beneath the old tree with one hand on the loop of memory beads, turned his head just slightly, not to look, only to acknowledge.

"The spiral deepens," he said, voice calm as dusk. "And a flame returns to where the roots remember."

Only then did he raise his eyes to meet her.

Valery Noble​

 

[Valery Noble]

​

Outfit: Combat Jumpsuit Wedding Ring
Weapons: Blasters | Lightsabers

Valery emerged from the brush with the soundless grace of a shadow, her boots muted by soft soil and ancient moss. Her hair, tied back for the journey, had begun to slip loose around her face, and her jumpsuit bore the gentle wear of travel — but nothing in her presence hinted at exhaustion. She walked like one who had always belonged to the wild places, like the jungle recognized her tread and allowed her passage.

And when her eyes found him — seated in the stillness, hands working the loop of beads — her pace slowed.

There he was. Her lips curved, just slightly, the kind of smile that belonged only to quiet discoveries. Not triumph. Not relief. Just… rightness.

"I had a feeling I'd find you here," Valery said softly, her voice barely louder than the leaves around them. She didn't sit right away. She stepped lightly past the edge of the shelter, gaze sweeping across the suspended planters, the careful stone hearth, the little spirals carved into living wood and clay alike. It was not just a dwelling — it was a reflection. A meditation turned outward.

Finally, she came to the empty mat and stood before it. She looked down at it for a long breath, and then across to him.

"You have a beautiful home," she said, reverently. "It's peaceful." Valery's eyes dropped to the tea he had prepared, the rising scent drawing something warm from behind her ribs. Marshroot, grounding.

"Is it okay if I join you?"

Issar Rae’Velis ​

 

[Issar Rae’Velis]

His hands never stopped moving. The beads turned slowly between his fingers, spiraled wood worn smooth by years of thought. He did not look up right away, but the rhythm shifted, just slightly, as her voice reached him. Not startled. Not surprised. Only... received.

As she stepped forward, he finished a quiet loop of motion, one hand settling the strand across his palm. Only then did he raise his eyes. All four found her. Two caught the light. The other two, the shade. In each, there was the quiet weight of recognition.

"So the wind returns to this hill."

His voice was soft, shaped by slow vowels and a lilt not made for Basic.

"It has missed your step."

Slowly, he nodded once toward the mat, an answer in gesture alone. At her words, his gaze moved briefly across the carved wood, the clay, the planters. He did not smile, but something softened at the corners of his mouth. Not pride. Not possession.

"It is not mine. I only tend it."

He reached for the pot, now steeped, and poured the tea without haste. The steam curled like memory between them.

A second cup was placed across from him.

"You may always join me, Valery Noble. I have kept the space."

And with that, the silence returned, not empty, but full. A pause that welcomed what came next.

Valery Noble​