The Warmth of Snow

[Amilthi Camlenn]

Location: Eira Pechal - The Wastes

The beauty of the sunrise behind the frozen mountains was overwhelming. Tears came to Amilthi's eyes when the feeling of exaltation it brought about mixed with dread at the thought that it might be the last thing she would ever see, flowed over, and began to roll down her cheeks. She was filled by a sadness over the fleetingness and futility of life, and it alloyed with painful regret over she did not know herself quite what. Then a sense of desperate, but senseless, aimless urgency took hold of her her, and at the same time she was utterly paralysed.

The booming noise of the broken engines, the heated air against the hull of a ship entering the atmosphere at far too steep an angle, and the beeping of the alarm systems suddenly forced themselves into her consciousness, where formerly there had been no space for them and they had not existed. When Amilthi closed her eyes, she delved into a sea of deep orange not unlike the sky she had been looking at. Her mind raced through the space of the feelings and sensations that ravaged her in search of peace, but for all its longing for it could not find it. She squeezed her eyes shut as she breathed in deeply the burnt air. There is no death, there is only the Force. These were words whose meaning she had never grasped, and now never would. That for all her indignation and outrage at the nature of the universe she had never recognised the importance of devoting herself to their understanding was perhaps the proper object for the regret she was experiencing. She felt like a failure.

When she opened her eyes again, she found half of her visual field taken up by the rapidly growing silhouette of a majestic peak covered in ice and snow only on those place where the rock was not too steep to allow them to attach. The ship had lost sideways manoeuvrability. Amilthi was frozen in her seat as her mind was fixed on the probability that it would avoid a collision by a hair's breadth and could not decide until and through the very last moment.

For a tiny fraction of a second the peak was already gone from view through the cockpit window before the sound and the physical shock of the impact hit at the same time. The ship was sent into a spinning motion and Amilthi lost all orientation - and then her consciousness.

***​

The first thing Amilthi noticed when she came to was something rough and hard against her cheek. She tried to move her head away from it and the sensation was replaced by a burning pain. She opened her eyes and reflexively shut them again when they met with searing light. Slowly, blinking she tried again. It took several seconds before she could see anything but whiteness.

The sun was shining through the broken transparisteel of the cockpit, through which snow had intruded into the interior right up to Amilthi's face, where it had grazed her cheek and reddened slightly. It was a pretty sight, and she noticed that she was smiling. Her smile brightened when suddenly she realised that her being alive was the most extraordinary, improbably state of affairs. Fate, or the Force, had played a bizarre, downright ridiculous trick on her. There is not death, there is only the Force. She still did not understand - but she was amused to notice that part of her mind was floating the obviously absurd hypothesis that the Force simply made her invulnerable and immortal.

A feeling of immense relief and thankfulness swept over her and she laughed out loud in disbelief. The stinging pain this provoked in her chest reminded her that the rest of her body was still there also, and she began to listen for sensations from it. It turned out that she couldn't feel her feet and hands. She turned her head to look at them and found them still there, but inaccessible. But she was not worried - she felt like she had all the time in the world. She could approach and fix things leisurely and in small steps. A fine smile still on her lips, and noticing the warmth of the sun on her face despite her burning cheek, she began to pay attention to her breath as the chilly air entered her body and sank into meditation. Soon she could sense the Force flow through her centre, and slowly, little by little, she pushed it out towards the edges of her body, one direction at a time. Eventually it filled her entire body and projected a pleasant, comforting warmth into it while it held off the cold air that strove to suck it away from her.

Able to move her limbs again, Amilthi dug through the snow for the buckle of her belt and unclasped it. She managed and, shaking off more of the white powder that was slowly turning into a paste under the irradiation of the sun, stood up to crawl out through straight through the broken cockpit. In the glaring sunlight, she found herself in a forlorn valley thousands and thousands of feet below the towering peak where she had almost met her end. She had absolutely no idea where in the universe she was, in which direction, if any, she could find a warmer climate, and whether she would ever make it off this planet. But she was at peace and unconcerned by this state of affairs. What mattered was that she was alive, and she rejoiced in the sheer ridiculousness of the fact that all she had to show for her misfortune were a grazed cheek and a few broken ribs.

She had barely avoided being pulverised by the invasion fleet of the First Order when she escaped Sullust at the last moment. The ship had been badly battered, and the hyperdrive had failed within hours, leaving her in a system in which the navigational charts did not recognise a habitable planet. But a planet there had been, habitable or not, and it had been her best chance. The ship was probably quite conclusively dead by now, but at least until the point of collision it had been sending a distress signal. Perhaps it had been lost in the vastness of space - or perhaps not.

[member="Romi Jade"] | [member="Zylah Dvale"]​

 

[Romi Jade]

She widened her stance, her foot breaking into a pivot that dug a path through the grass, she dropped her left shoulder and threw her head back before a kick would fly through the area she'd just left. Though as much as she was quick to not be present when she was the target, she turned the situation into a maneuver that would suit her best. Her calf muscles grew stiff, and she propelled forward. Lacing her hands around her opponents leg in swift retaliation was enough that she utilized his own weight against him. Pulling forward, his off balance gave way for her to throw him a few feet in the other direction.

The sound of his body colliding with the training course ground, broke her stance. She walked over in his direction, extending a helping hand in her own slight exhaustion that was brought on by other circumstances...Her affliction was similar to a roller coaster, most days she was fine...and others were draining; she was at a crossroads today...

Pulling the student to his feet, "Good bout...you're taking on the fundamentals quite well. We'll pick this up agai--"

Her comm went off, and she'd enough of these situations to know what the issue was. How the Prax worked....whomever was seemingly stationed here or close by would handle such emergencies; most of the time they weren't anything serious.

-------

Communication Center

She entered the room for a briefing. The features in her face became more apparent as she closed in on the holo-projector towards the center of the room.

"Master Jade, it's been a long time."

The computer that ran the room had been programmed to be acquainted with most of the Prax's members.

"I know. [member="Coren Starchaser"] and I take breaks in rotation." She brought herself to laughter. "You caught me just in time, I was planning on heading back into the field today, what's the situation?"

"We picked up a distress signal in the mountains..."

"Play it back for me..." Her request had been granted, and a series of images had been manipulated into a hologram that could aid in the investigation process. "Hmm...looks like some sort of vessel. Not one I'm familiar with but...I'll check it out."

[member="Zylah Dvale"] | [member="Amilthi Camlenn"]

 

[Elijah Black]

Zylah arrived to the communication center later than Romi. Just as she was about to head out, in fact. The pale, silver-haired Jedi had been prepping her ship, and was about to take off from the planet when they had reached out for her through her comms.

She wasn’t entirely sure what the nature of this was, but there seemed to have been some sort of crash, from what she could gather from the droid. It wasn’t so much that they needed two Jedi Knights specifically, but rather that they could use more than one body to perform a potential rescue operation. Besides, travelling in pairs was always an advantage. The Praxeum wasn’t exactly stuffed with people.

“Oh, hello!” Zylah said when she almost bumped into the other Knight. You’d think she’d taken the time to be a bit more aware of her surroundings, but these things happened. “Romi Jade” she gave her fellow Jedi a polite nod.

“So, what do you make of this? Is it one of ours?” she would ask, as the duo would likely begin their preparations to head out.

[member="Amilthi Camlenn"]​

[member="Romi Jade"]​

 

[Amilthi Camlenn]

Only the sound of Amilthi's steps in the snow broke the absolute silence of the icy wastes. The sun stood high in the sky and turned the snow into a sea of blinding light. Yet the air remained obscenely cold and Amilthi had soon pulled her hood over her head and wrapped herself into the folds of her robes. She did not remember that she had ever been in such an isolated place. She was lost she knew not where in the universe, on a planet that might well be uninhabited, where she would freeze to death in time - and yet she felt at peace. She found her own emotions bizarre and amusing to observed. The lightness she was feeling was enjoyable and she found walking effortless despite the deep snow. There was a relieving simplicity to her situation, her path was clear, and there was nothing she could do but to walk and walk in the direction where the sun's movement indicated the planet's equator should lie.

Time was being odd. Amilthi felt that she had walked for a long time and that it should be getting dark already, but the sun, while beyond the zenith and often obscured by mountains, did not seem to be about to disappear behind the horizon altogether. It was disorienting and strengthened the atmosphere of magical unreality.

Amilthi had been forced to ascend again onto a mountain pass so as not to be forced off her way in a labyrinth of valleys. An icy wind was blowing overt he edge, and a magnificent view opened up on the other side. A river was frozen in place in the valley far below, and in the distance she could spot what looked to be the first trees. She was on the right path.

She had climbed in an unnatural detachment from the stream of experiences. She could observe that she was exhausted, hungry, and cold, but she did not feel these things as her own and did not suffer from them. Over time, even her awareness of these things had dimmed and the sensations had grown distant and at times altogether blinked out of existence. So she was still standing atop the pass, and it caused her some surprise when she wanted to continue her way and her legs would not obey her. She sank into the snow.

[member="Romi Jade"] | [member="Zylah Dvale"]​