The Lady Doth Protest Too Much, Methinks

[Aver Brand]

Mid-wiping the excess mud from her face, Aver stopped to stare at the kid.

The kid who’d just flung herself over the edge of a cliff. A cliff that opened into a three hundred feet drop straight into the thick of the jungle.

“Fethin’ wildlings—”

And then Aver was off, too. Clutching Puppy’s sides, flattened against her spines just shy of merging with the beast. The exquisite feeling of weightlessness gripped her for a few breathless moments – Shai and Ygdris lanced as if suspended through the crisp Onderon air, both flashing toothy grins at the setting sun.

Then gravity kicked in.

With a heady, reckless – wild, almost – display of skill and Force, the pair crashed back against the rockface, powerful muscles absorbing the impact before they lunged forth again. Zigzagging between the shrubbery and tiny trees that jutted out of the stone, Aver quickly caught up to the girl.

“Last one down has to dunk Qui in the mud!”

Blue eyes bright, the merc sped like black lightning straight down the cliff. Like hell was she getting beaten by a ten year old.

 

[Blackthorne]

A fang-filled grin sliced through the air like a swinging scythe, green eyes leaving glowing streaks along the wake of the blaze-red skreev she rode. The girl cut through the roaring winds with a yell, urging the winged beast on. They tore down along the cliff face at speeds that would make a droid's eye nodules tear, red wings curled back and tiny menace flattened in between.

They pulled up seconds before the jungle canopy, watching as the hound launched herself into the trees, an unholy gust of the Force billowing against their trunks and sending quakes through the forest. Tree did not hold 1000lb Tuk'ata and snapped beneath her inertia like a toothpick, sending her scrambling through the interwoven branches before finally finding ground level and landing in a heap.

Not to be outdone by an overgrown tailring, Puppy promptly pushed herself back to her paws and staggered off gracelessly, pushing herself through the trees until she stumbled onto a worn and open pathway, nearly knocking several tribespeople over in the process.

Dahl circled once above, her mount giving an impatient screech before they winged off towards the village.

 

[Aver Brand]

Ooof.

Admittedly, she hadn’t thought this plan through quite to the end when she’d jumped off that cliff. Turned out well enough for the amount of consideration she’d invested in it.

The beast and its rider stumbled out of the jungle – now with a new crater of a rather curious shape – and into the crowd of masses marching towards the festival. With a supporting hand on Puppy’s withers (thought to support whom, she didn’t exactly know), Aver glanced skyward after the tiny menace.

Yep, still up there… aaand heading for the riverbanks.

Oh no you don’t.

The merc cast one look down at Shai. Then at the landing flock of skreev, at the presence spilling freely over the plains from their midst.

With a grin, Aver picked up a tired Puppy, hefted her over her shoulder, and began to carve her way through the throng. She might arrive sweaty and wind-whipped – but at least she’ll arrive in style.

 

[Blackthorne]

Puppy would only accept the role of massive shoulder-beast for so long, scrabbling off as Aver stepped along the pathway through a field of wheat and grasses. They followed the footpath and the people into the throngs of shadows milling about, eventually finding their way into the first row of festival tents and makeshift dwellings. It was crowded here, but not just with bodies - sounds and smells filled the spaces in between thick enough to suffocate. Music from all directions in tunes to woodwind and chord and drum instruments. The rattle of maracas off to the left, the roar of fires to the right, the song of the beasts from on high.

It broke, rather suddenly, into a sudden silence as a deafening roar that rumbled the very lands sounded from the west. People stopped, something was happening, everyone stared off in one direction towards a dark cloud roiling on the twilight horizon, backlit by three miniature suns.

"Aver!" the voice cut through the silence, Dahl appearing between the bodies of frozen people. She shoved her way through, green eyes alight by the many campfires surrounding them as she reached to grab the woman's nearest hand and tugged her in the opposite direction of the thunderous boom, "This way! Come on!"

 

[Aver Brand]

Felt like home, this. Yells, laughter, civility long thrown to the wind for wilder pleasures. Delicious smells that made her stomach rumble wafted to her nostrils – meats, spice, seasoned vegetables – and her ears were filled with low, rumbling music.

And then, nothing.

Or everything, depending how you looked at it. Most people didn’t do much looking – Aver’s first instinct was to switch to thermal, but then she 1) realized her armor was still tied neatly to Puppy’s back and 2) that the tiny menace had somehow still managed to get here before her, and was presently doing her best to drag about ten times her own weight through a staring crowd.

Aver relented with a groan. Dahl probably knew what was going on, and the merc wasn’t above running after partly-sufferable children if it meant she’d get her shortcut to the answer.

 

[Blackthorne]

Leading the Merc by a strong, firm, insistent hand, Dahl took off through the crowds of people. Charging past gawping onlookers as the massive shadow grew steadily bigger, the young wildling released Aver's hand once she got the woman running with her and lead out into an open field of grasses so tall their tufts licked at Aver's torso and nearly swallowed the girl whole. She grinned, giggles spilling out through her fangs while carving a path through the plains until they were far enough away that the campsite fires had grown distant.

Dahl came to a stop, turning to face the oncoming maelstrom above with expectant glee, arms stretching upwards and fingers clawing at open air.

Another rumble sounded, painfully intense by the way the sound rippled through the skies. The clouds shifted and began to churn like a tumultuous sea before the most massive beast of Onderon broke free of their confines. The winds picked up but they weren't winds at all - they were the receding tides of air as the Drexl sucked the uppermost currents back with wings so massive they filled the sky. Preceeded by the thunderous roar that tore through lungs and rattled bones, a great cheer went up from the crowds of people at the riverbed site. The beast swooped in with all the merciless power of a storm trailing the blaze of numerous fires lit and raging upon its back. Its wingspan was as long as the campsites stretched along the banks, its massive horned skull was a sailing mountain and its body like a whole other world.

There atop its shoulders stood a single speck. A woman whose golden hair flailed like the fires around her. As the behemoth passed overhead she disappeared from its back -


and landed in the grasses with an explosion of the Force and the radiance of a holocaust. Beastia slowly stood erect, her body covered in battle and her eyes flaring with the power of a Master Beast Tamer.

 

[Aver Brand]

Legs about as tall as the girl, Aver had no trouble keeping up even as they ran through the whipping blades of grass. The howling winds showed no signs of stopping, merely picking up as they corralled black clouds on the horizon.

Drawing back her billowing hair to stare at the sky, the merc let out a low whistle. “The feth is that.”

A massive black shadow sailed over the ridges of the mountain, each bat of wings like a clap of thunder. No chance she’d see that far without her helmet but here? Didn’t matter. The Queen herself was about as subtle as her mount. In the blink of an eye, she was gone from the passing Drexl, and the merc had the sense to brace against the soil right before Quietus slammed into the field.

Could’ve shouted, but the storm was still too loud. So Aver just stood there, grin full of teeth, blue eyes full of… hunger. Such a base display of power, mm. Made her gut curl with delight.

Among other things.

Show off.

 

[Quietus]

Aver's telepathic greeting did not make it through the vortex of mental expulsion presently in play. As the Beastia stood there she stared off into the distance, green eyes glowing like pools of furious acid. Behind her the monster carved off along the plains, swinging south in a swooping turn to make another run along the fields. The winds continued to wail and billow. Dahl danced through the sea of churning grasses.

Mother was home and so--judging by the dozens of smaller, quicker shadows bursting down through the clouds on wings of flame orange--was her war party.

The fields tremored and quaked as the drexl touched down, broad wings furling and hitching in its hideously awkward amble upon serpentine body and knuckled appendages. It gave a great, gulping, guttural roar before turning its head skyward towards the flash of flame-colored wings and the return screeching of countless skreevs. The riders cheered, swooping in all around girl and Mercenary, and quickly moved to dismount their beasts, leaving them to wing off for water and to feast. The riders turned upon the drexl then, clamboring up the sides of the hulking creature by way of rope tethers and ladders. Its back sat host to three separate fires, each snuffed by the men and women as the contents of the flames were claimed; the prey of their hunt that would serve as the main course of the feast this evening.

They made short work of undressing the king of the sky and as the last man slid from its side it heaved its massive body up into the air, wings beating such heavy gusts that it knocked a great deal of them below off their feet.

Quietus blinked away her connection and relented control, watching her mount climb into the air to disappear into the night. Her attention drawn back by the sudden presence of her daughter at her side, clinging around her middle gleefully.

"When do I get to fly Sevir?!"

When he lets you... Beastia did not smile to the girl but stroked a dirt and blood-encrusted hand over her hair and face, eyes glancing over to Aver with intrigue.

To her she smirked, though it was not a playful expression. Still in the mental throes of war the Beastia would need a few hours, a few drinks, a good meal, and ... a few other things before she'd be unwound.

Aver, Quietus was indeed pleased to see her friend and walked over to her, one hand on her daughter's shoulder while the other reached to welcome the Merc, join me.

 

[Aver Brand]

Curious eyes watched the war party unfurl, wings and beasts and felled prey. They stank of relief and blood and victory, and Aver couldn’t help but lick her lips at the smell. Familiar. Pleasing. Warmth spiked down her spine as she bathed in the waning presence of battle, in the afterglow of a fight well fought.

Fists flexed and relaxed again at her side, fingers itching. The spar and race earlier had whetted her appetite. Forcibly, she glanced away, gaze tracing the fires dotting the riverbanks. She’d smelled food earlier – plenty of it.

A feast, then. To tide her over until… later.

Releasing her lip from pointed teeth, Aver turned to greet the Beastia with a grin of her own. “Join you in what?” she asked as she caught her step. Icy eyes dipped down to take in the caked streaks of red and mud marring the lines of tattoos and scars. It was going to be a long evening.

Though, admittedly made much shorter already by a shriek that sounded from her left.

Dahl, previously walking next to her mother, was now rolling through the grass in a tangle of limbs. A mane of black and blonde blinked intermittently as the mess appeared between the thick growth. Not even three seconds later, a triumphant voice sounded from several yards away.

“Three to one, lil’ sis. Gotta pick up your game.”

 

[Quietus]

The shriek was decidedly ignored by the Beastia as the hand that once rested atop her daughter's shoulder casually lifted to unbuckle the straps holding bone and horn pauldrons in place. Steps maintained, the siblings left to their wily devices, pauldrons tumbled from broad shoulders to swing from the leather kept in her grasp.

In a quiet and dull evening.

Green eyes sliced pointedly at the taller woman, expression deadpanned and the flat line of her lips gave nothing away until she let it. A twitch upwards, gaze sparked humor.

In...celebration and festivities, the Beastia implored, raising her arms to indicate the revelry surrounding them as they made their way back into the ever growing campsite, Lucien will not be in attendance and I need someone to wine, dine, and ... eyes peeled across the woman and her infernal bodyglove. Did she ever wear anything else?

recline.


~~~~

"ARI!" Dahl's shriek garnered the attention of warriors walking past. The pair tumbled across paths of men and woman carrying the haul of their hunt and the prizes of their battle won. By the time her older brother released her she was seething ... playfully. Her militant bun unraveled and black hair spilling across face and shoulders, she whipped around to look at the boy who sneered at her from a head above the grasses. Taller than her - he always would be - but not as nimble.

Dahl wiped dirt from her face with her left hand and moved to pursue him, waiting for Ari to take off as she knew he would and pulling to a stop. Her right hand flipped something through the air.

A gleaming something.

A dagger something that belonged to the blond heathen.

She grinned, waited for him to realize he wasn't being chased, waggled the dagger at him mockingly before streaking off in the opposite direction.

 

[Aver Brand]

Fingers brushing against the tall grass, Aver dipped her chin to look at the Beastia. Her lips curled at the corners at the dry humor, blue eyes rolling skywards as she expelled a puff of breath. Amusement came easy out here.

“And what are we celebrating, exactly?” The merc didn’t mind in the least. Festivities on Nadir were as dangerous as anything else – couldn’t take a drink or taste a dish without wondering if you were gonna seize from poison in the next breath, or get stabbed in the back by a knife in the crowd.

A curious brow quirked as Qui continued. “Lucien?” She jabbed a thumb in the direction of the screeching siblings. “That his handiwork?”

~~​

The song of ARI pleased him so – music to his ears, especially from Dahl. But something was… wrong. She didn’t sound angry enough. Almost satisfi—

No. NO.

Too late, the boy noticed the lack of weight on his belt. Purple eyes widened, fangs bared in shock.

“Daaaaaaaahl,” he rumbled, voice already lower than any boy at fourteen should possess. He dug his toes into the wet soil, finding purchase where there was none. Wheaten hair whipped around with beads and maalraas bone as he pivoted on the spot, racing after his sister.

“Give it back!”

 

[Quietus]

Dahl ran, a streak of black and green and bronze, tearing across the field with morbid jubilation and a laugh hissing through her fangs. With Ari hot on her trail she dodged through bodies in the campsite, leapt over stacks and piles of supplies, ducked beneath canvases of stretched hides.

Just when Ari was about to make another pounce she sprang skyward and was hoisted away by the flapping wings of her skreev, dangling from its talons. The pair managed to knock over several stands and tents in the process, much to the resentment of several clanspeople.


That is the handiwork of the devil himself.

Quietus remarked as she paused to watch the scene unfold, expression trapped firmly between pride and resignation.

She would have to raise herself as her own daughter. After so many centuries of being baffled she finally understood why her own mother put her here of all places. Karma really is a queen.

Beastia shook her head and pressed on, leading Aver across the campgrounds towards a bridge that connected the eastern campsite and western shores of the river clan. Despite the massive crowds coming and going the people parted a clear path for the Beastia, bowing and cheering as she passed, offering food and trinkets. She took nothing. The Beastia would not eat until the commencement of the main feast, as was tradition.

Lucien is the father of Dahldesa and Eordahn.

Speaking of - a small someone stood in their path at the end of the bridge. Eordahn smiled easily up at his mother, "Masza."

Quietus did not stop walking but reached to stroke the same free hand over her son's head.

"Can I sit in Freor's seat tonight?" the boy asked of her, falling in stride at her other side, "By you?"

That seat is taken, Aver would hear the telepathic response in her own mind as well, why don't you ask if Aver will share. The matron smirked to herself, not even offering Aver a glance of amusement. This was between the Merc and her son.

 

[Aver Brand]

“That’s CHEATING!” Royal indignation laced his yell as Dahl slipped through his fingers by the grace of skreev claws. Ari narrowed his eyes, catching half a breath as keen senses traced a clear path through the campsite jungle. He was a deft climber, long limbs and longer fingers well used to scaling the trees and cliffs of Onderon.

He puffed an unruly blond curl from his face and leapt onto a wagon. Three barely-balanced jumps, feet dancing across the poles that supported leather tents. He found his mark each time, eyes on the prize aaand—

Ari lunged off the last stake, latching onto the passing tail of Dahl’s mount.

The merc watched the display with an open grin. It looked like fun – though none of those flimsy sticks could support her weight, even if she had the agility to pull of stunts like that.

By the time she’d averted her gaze from the show, several tribespeople had already begun cheering for the rowdy siblings, egging them on as they scuffed all over the airborne beast. Aver glanced at the new addition. Blue eyes narrowed a shade at the small creature.

Entirely too many children kept spawning around here. She opened her mouth to make a remark about this troubling pattern. But then it got worse.

She whipped her head around as if Qui had just shoved a dagger under her ribs. Listen here—

Before she got any further, a small hand tugged on her arm. Aver curled her lip in distaste, glancing down to glare at the third menace. “What, boy?”

 

[Quietus]

Quietus' smirk only broadened as she slung the hanging pauldrons over her left shoulder and stepped off along a footpath through the clan village.

"At'atri Aver can I sit with you?" Eor wasn't smiling anymore but there was no erasing the expectancy from his gaze. Clearly the tiny wildlings were not as scared of Aver as they should be, "Masza says you fight beasts on other planets."

Quietus bit her lips and kept on walking.


The scuffle escalated aboard the skreev who now struggled to stay aloft with two writhing children clamboring aboard. Xiza screeched, performing aerial acrobatics that most larger skreev could hardly be capable of before flinging both children from her back and hissing at them resentfully. She winged off, shaking Dahl's insistent presence from her mind.

Dahl scrambled through the trees as she went flying, managing to catch a higher branch. Green eyes wildly whipped around, spying the larger form of her brother a bit further down. With a snicker she heaved her wiry figure over the branch she clung to and sprung off through the trees; swinging, climbing, twisting, leaping, making way for home.

 

[Aver Brand]

Icy eyes narrowed further – first at the trying-to-be-innocuous-but-failing-spectacularly sway of Qui’s hips, then at her child, poking her side.

These rascals had an absolutely broken self-preservation instinct. She was a conqueror of worlds – the Hand of the Dark Lord (retired)! She didn’t—

“What did you call me?”

Aver stopped, bowing at the waist to stab a level-eyed glare at the boy. Black hair, like his twin, only with less dirt on his face and palpably fewer holes in his clothes. The tamer of the two, apparently.

“Masza says that, does she?” Aver ran her tongue across pointed teeth, a grin altogether divorced from amusement. “I fight people, little man. And I kill them,” she held his green gaze, unblinking.

“Do you still want to sit with me?”

Ari, meanwhile, was facing other problems. Still daggerless but now with his hair full of sticks and mouth full of leaves, the boy chased after his pest of a sister. “Give it back or I’ll—” slap, branch in the face, “or I’ll cut off—” snag, vine ‘round the ankle, “I’LL CUT OFF YER HAIR, DAHL!”

 

[Quietus]

Having Lucianus Adair and Desdemona Shamalain as parents and being raised in the realm of the wild, dangerous and untamed generally made children less susceptible to fear of teeth and humorless grins. Make no mistake that Eordahn blinked at the expression and gave it some careful consideration before he replied.

The boy nodded, long dark hair shuffling about his clean face, "Yih."



"NOH!" Dahl squeaked back at him over her shoulder, poodoo-eating-grin ever prevalent on her face. It would not be the first time Arathul had sliced a chunk of hair off her head and, likely, not be the last either. The hair was not a huge source of concern to her, as fast as it grew. She dropped into a clearing, misjudging a branch and splatting to her front, but bounced with such fervor a passerby cricked their neck in a double take.

She took off at a sprint, ran straight at a nearby log house and darted straight up the side of the wall, clambering onto the wooden slatted roof before tearing off towards the end and leaping off the other side to a neighboring building.

 

[Aver Brand]

Aver stared at Dahn with a curled lip and a frozen expression that could be described as nothing short of befuddled.

She shook it off a moment later, hoisted the boy over her shoulders, and marched off after Qui.

Your kids are broken, Des. Did you throw them off a cliff or something?

There was something to be said about playing smarter, not harder. Ari bounced out of the jungle on the heels of his sister, but stayed his stride. Purple eyes followed her beeline, turning over the layout of the camp inside his head.

With a devious grin, he pelted off between the tents. Braids trailing, weaving between laughing tribesfolk, Ari followed his sister on the ground. Disguised by the crowd, he watched her jump from roof to wagon to bantha, heading for the open field where pyres were licking at the sky.

And he knew exactly where she was gonna come out. Incidentally, his foot would be waiting.

 

[Quietus]

Once or twice...had to stop when they started enjoying it. the Beastia replied with a casual wave of her hand. She turned left and headed into the deeper jungle, following a path no longer occupied by others. The way was lit by hanging lanterns. Real lanterns burning with lively flames. The lights and shadows played through the thicket of jungle like the children beyond, swinging and dancing in a tawdry, balmy breeze.

Eordahn let slip a low laugh and clung to the woman's broad shoulders, small hands clutched at her back to brace him from falling forward. The boy grunted as a low hanging branch caught the back of his head, "What planets?" he asked Aver as she walked.


This would not be the first lesson to Dahl learning to be less predictable, but rest assured she'd learned this lesson well before. Swinging around the corner and heading off between two buildings, the girl made for the grasslands beyond only to go feet over ears. The item in her hand went sailing into the tall weeds and landed with a plunk. Dahl picked dirt from her mouth while Ari made for his stolen dagger ...

... except it was a stick, not a dagger.

Dahl flipped her head up with a grin. She didn't have it.

 

[Aver Brand]

With any other parent – well, okay, actually scratch that, the only other parents she knew were Rev and Matsu and they made Qui look like the poster mom for ‘How to Spoil Your Children 2’. Nonetheless, she’d been expecting a sassy quip in return.

Not, you know, actual child-rearing methods.

So it was with a slightly off-kilter grin that Aver caught step with the Queen, holding the boy with one hand. The merc looked up at his bright green eyes, mulling on the answer. Water skipped over pebbles to their right, glinting orange in the flicker of the lanterns.

“Plenty of ‘em. You ever even been offworld, kiddo?”


Triumph drained from his face as fingers closer around wood instead of bone.

Ari heaved, speechless. (A rare occurrence.) He flailed at his sister with the stick, then flung it into the bushes and threw himself bodily onto his muddy sister. He would have that dagger, or so help him, Dahl would never clean the dirt from her hair ever again.

 

[Quietus]

"I've been to Coruscant," said the boy, "and Annaj and Rudrig and Lorrd and Borleias and Felucia and Dxun and Dathomir and ... " Eor counted on his fingers, "...there's one more."

Myrkr, Quietus intoned, gaze panning to regard the Merc and the child with amusement. Their strides carried them along the rush of water, following a tributary deep into the jungles. At last a sparse clearing met them as a massive tree rose up from the thrushes, its aged and gnarled roots completely covered by moss and saturated by the mist of a waterfall fed from its base.

Worn earth turned to a cobbled stone path that lead across the loop and arches of roots. No moss where footfalls had worn it away. Quietus turned up a set of stone stairs that lead to a doorway carved into the bottom of the massive trunk and paused to look at Aver. With a smirk the Beastia motioned towards the lagoon pool at the base of the falls. Time to lose the child.