Private To Know Hunger

[Brumhilda deWinter]

Glowing green eyes looked at a sky so beautifully blue she could hardly believe it was real. She rubbed her eyes and blinked, looking again. Wherever she was, this… It was not where she had been before. And definitely not where she had been before that. But now was months ago, when the world was still peaceful, and when war had not yet come knocking on its doors.

But it had come anyway. If there was something Brumhilda had learned, it was that she could never rest, she could never get the mental shut eye that she needed. It had been bad enough when she'd first ben thrust nearly a thousand years forward, her child either dead or left behind. And she had already gathered that once again she'd been tossed, now almost a decade, and still childless.

She had gathered that the world she was on was called Taanab and that it was a world of mostly agriculture. For months now she had lived on it, managing to quietly steal food from distant farms, drinking from the rivers, and sleeping high above in trees. When the war on the planet had broken out, she had hidden herself far away from it, and lived off the land for as long as she could.

But now she needed more food than what forest mushrooms could provide. Now she was hungry.

And so carefully, her feet bare and dirty, Brumhilda began to sneak her way into the fields of a farm. She could see luscious growth of whey and corn, and she hated herself for doing this, but she needed more. After so many months of living off vegetation and some insects, she could sink her teeth into a live bantha right now. But she would settle for a piece of raw meat before running far away again too.

 

[Ragos Terrek]

It was still early; Too early for it to be this hot. Ragos knew he should of got out to the fields before the sun had risen but he’d had a late night and so he dawdled in getting to work today. He’d been working for less than an hour and already the plain white cotton shirt he wore stuck to his skin and sweat dripped and fell from his forehead. He had arrived on Taanab only a few weeks ago and had already stayed longer than he had intended. Ragos had planned to only pass through the largely quaint farming world but then war broke out and transport prices skyrocketed making it nearly impossible to just come and go as he had hoped to.

So Ragos found work so he could earn enough credits to afford to get off world. The work on Taanab like everything else was plain and simple, he took up on a farm which was in need of extra help after losing one of their hands to the conflict. Farm work suited Ragos well, he was young, tall, strong and unafraid of hard labor. He’d grown up on Haruun Kal, maybe the only world more primitive than Taanab, not on a farm but in a tribe of nomads. He was the eldest son to the chief and a warrior, the best warrior their tribe had. Compared to war farm work was easy.

Ragos continued his work in the warm sun when something caught his eye. There was movement out in the distance or he was reasonably sure there was. Even if there was it was probably nothing more than a squirrel or some other small creature...or it was someone running from the fighting he thought. Deserters could be dangerous, both to him or to the household that had taken him in and given him, a job, a place to stay and warm food to eat. Ragos grabbed his shovel and headed in the direction of whatever had caught his eye.

Brumhilda deWinter

 

[Brumhilda deWinter]

She had just stopped running. A few hundred feet away, running had turned into careful movement, one foot before the other, ducking, hiding behind the growth and anything else that was near. A cart, a log, a pile of dung. It didn't matter. The point was to always remain hidden, always remain safe. Being caught was not an option; not when there was so much she didn't know, couldn't know, because in order to know she would have to reveal herself and that meant jumping into danger. The only thing she knew she had to do, was to survive.

She was a survivor. She had survived the torture by the Sith so long ago. Years of her life, stolen away while the experiments were conducted on her since before she was even capable of forming memories. And then they resumed after she had somewhat grown up, her mother never having the patience to let her go through the phases and decided to age her up in a matter of months. The first time she'd known a semblance of peace was with the Mandalorians… But they were all gone. She had heard their clan names, did not know what their politics at presence were. And her husband… Former husband… And child…

Brumhilda hadn't realized there were tears coming out of her eyes. Slow, large droplets of them, hanging at the corner of the eye before falling down, rolling halfway down her cheek and then dropping to the ground. A sob escaped her throat before she covered her mouth with both hands, crouching now lower to the ground, her eyes darting wildly around to see if the sound she had made had brought on any unwanted attention.

Ragos Terrek

 

[Ragos Terrek]

Ragos stalked through the field of his temporary home, stalks of vegetation crunching under his worn akk-leather boots with a shovel in both his hands ready to strike if he were to be surprised by any would be attacker, every few steps he would pause for a moment keeping perfectly still, not even moving to breathe so he could listen. Rustling to his right sent Dagos stalking off in that direction.

He was close now. He could feel it now, this was no rodent, there were feelings real feelings. Fear, that was common enough for any prey but there was more complex things as well. Loss, regret, pain. Ragos soaked in these feelings, unwittingly drinking them in, becoming consumed by them. His eyes shone wet with tears not yet heavy enough to fall when his near trance-like state was broken by a sob. All the pain and loss was now replaced by sheer panic and it drove Ragos right to it.

He lunged around a cart shovel held ready expecting to see some frightened boy hiding in the dirt and the shit, instead he found himself looking down on a female human. It was impossible to tell how old she was, she was too covered in crud and looked so malnourished that she could of been any where from fifteen to forty.

“Who are you? What are you doing here?” Ragos asked the woman, shovel lowered but still very ready to strike if needed. She did not look like a soldier but that did not mean she wasn’t dangerous.

Brumhilda deWinter

 

[Brumhilda deWinter]

Caught.

Everything inside of Brumhilda screamed with panic, but on the outside she froze, her shining green eyes looking at the man with pure terror. She knew his lips had moved, she knew he had spoken words, but they did not even register in her mind. It had been so long that she had seen another person from up close, and every fiber of her being had issues with processing it.

Except for one. The sense of fear.

Perhaps it had taken only a moment, and it might have taken even a whole minute, but eventually, she scrambled away, her thin legs carrying her with might someone like her should never have, as she ran away from the cart and towards the forest.

People meant danger. They always meant danger. He could find her, he could sell her back to her mother, or whoever else was the current matriarch of the family. Or even worse. What if he was under the control of the Sith? What if the galaxy of today held people far more dangerous than the Sith of 150 ABY?

Her throat, parched and dry, begged for water. But she couldn't give it. She had to run.

Only once did she pause, to pick up a little rock. Turning around, Brumhilda threw it towards the man, not carrying if there were a few feet between them or he had even stayed by the cart, and then turned around to renew her run.

Ragos Terrek

 

[Ragos Terrek]

One moment she was there in front of him and the next she was scrambling to her feet and running. Fear rolled off of her in waves and Ragos’ instincts were to chase. She was maybe twenty meters away before Ragos followed after her. He’d tossed the shovel into the cart and made after her at a brisk but cautious pace. He knew he needed to overtake her before she reached the trees or he would run the risk of losing her.

She ran a few more meters and stopped just long enough to turn back and throw something toward him. A rock. He brushed it away before it got within a meter of him using the force. Ragos was not trained, not by a Jedi any way. His people had a history of being connected to the force and so over time had developed some understanding of how to use it. Ragos’ power was far beyond what was considered normal on Haruun Kal and so six months ago he had left his home and ventured out to realize his potential.

He could not say why it was so important to catch up with her. She was likely no more than a vagrant but something inside him pushed him forward to her.

“Stop! Wait! I’m not going to hurt you!” He called out to her suddenly realizing that he’d decided she wasn’t a threat to him or his temporary home.

Brumhilda deWinter

 

[Brumhilda deWinter]

Stop! Wait! I’m not going to hurt you!

How many times in her life had she heard that before? Every warning bell went off inside Brumhilda's mind as she tried to move faster forward, put more distance between herself and the man.

Her mother had been the first one to say those words. So many years later, Brumhilda still remembered it as though it was but a moment ago. How her mother had held her in her arms, and whispered soft shh's in between, trying to calm her baby down before strapping her onto the table. The pain had been blinding, and Brumhilda didn't even have a single full word to describe her anguish.

Her father had been the second to say those words, so many years later. That had ended even more disastrously for her. And in between… All those Siths, and Mandalorians, and good people who ended up dying because of it.

Because Brumhilda could not comprehend anymore, not after all these centuries, what I'm not going to hurt you actually meant. Oh, she knew, logically. She understood Basic as well as anyone else. But the only thing that filtered through, was screaming, rabid danger.

But not even that danger could push forward a body that was drained to nearly its last ounces. Months of starvation and dehydration had taken their toll, and the diminutive woman could advance no further. It felt as though her lungs would collapse from the strain, the bones of her legs turn to dust beneath her.

Brumhilda stopped running, bend over to lean against her knees. Her breathing was hard, and she was certain it could be heard from miles away.

But she was still alive.

Picking up another rock, the small woman forced herself to stand, chest still heaving, and turned around, ready to die fighting, with a stone in her hand.

Ragos Terrek