Venus As A Boy

[Matsu Xiangu]

Orbiting Trismegis​

She didn’t spend nearly as much time in space as she liked these days. There was a time where space had been the only place where she felt at peace - a strange word for a Sith, but she found the idea that they did not like their quiet mildly absurd. There were few things as divine as the wide, infinite silence of space. It yawned out before her as she stood at the viewport, metal hands clasped behind her back. Taking a deep breath as if to inhale the stars outside, she turned to glide down the hallway towards the the rest of the ship.

A new apprentice roamed the quiet of her personal ship - a girl she’d seen at one of the Order’s many gatherings. Perhaps it had been the quiet or the furtive uncertainty. Either way Matsu had taken an interest and that in itself was unique. The Spider rarely took learners, finding the majority of the galaxy weak and transient. Dedicating her time to teaching someone was simply a waste when they would break and dissolve as quickly as they were picked up. But it remained to be seen whether this one would prove another brick in the wall...or something new entirely.

Sweeping in to the common room of the ship, she caught a glance of the girl. They were accompanied mostly by sleek, modern Atrisian-styled droids that one could almost forget about they were so quiet.

“We’ve almost arrived,” she said quietly by way of greeting, seemingly harmless. It was to her advantage to appear unassuming. “I trust you found whatever you need?”

She was referring of course to the impressive arsenal she’d left at the woman’s disposal as they’d traveled. Weapons and tools collected from a lifetime of exploration, surely Sirella could have found something of interest in the pile of goodies. If she had chosen to take none of it? Well, that would be just as interesting.

[member="Sienna Vekarr"]​

 

[Sienna Vekarr]

Sienna shrugged slightly in response and patted her crude lightsaber.

"As long as I have this I'm fine."

Truthfully she felt trapped on the ship. She had spent six years of her life with an entire planet at her disposal. Its bounty had provided everything she needed to survive and her lightsaber had been the only tool she needed that she couldn't make herself. Floating through the stars on this ship with droids patrolling the halls...It didn't feel real. It didn't feel right. She had been running for so long, staying in one place made her feel vulnerable, and the abundance of technology felt more like a handicap than something useful.

And she wouldn't kill her father with a handicap.

Sienna looked to her left at the sleek droid and grimaced. She hated droids especially these ones. They reminded her of the Hounds her father had used to train her. So quiet. She never new what they were thinking in their droid brain, if they were thinking at all. Which brought her to her new "Master". Matsu had seduced her with her words, making promises that seemed too good to be true. But here she was now and she felt like she knew even less about her goals as a Sith. Sienna didn't much care for the political, religious, or ideological things that had to do with the Sith. But she knew Matsu held power. And that was all that mattered to the young Vahla.

"When are we leaving?"

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]​

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

All the interesting gadgets, the relics, the gifts - she chose none of them.
Interesting.
And encouraging.

Matsu simply nodded. It was not in her nature to read those who spent time with her. Though she was capable of infiltrating a mind as quietly as a spider wove her web, she did not for two reasons. For one, it made life far less interesting to have the answers before she came up with the questions. And secondly it made those around her act strangely. They were guarded, always protecting themselves in some futile effort to hide their thoughts from a woman who’d spent decades practicing how to rip those thoughts out of their hands. But even still she could feel the woman’s discomfort there in space. It choked the room, a vice-grip. Matsu couldn’t understand it but she recognized it all the same.

“We’re here,” she said simply, the verdantly green planet casting its glow out in to the dark of space as they slowed above its atmosphere.

_________________________​

Sienna had caught her eye at the meeting because despite the veneer of interest, Matsu had thought she observed a readiness for flight that she herself had once worn unconsciously. Home as she knew it now was an entirely relative term and something that could change at any moment. Despite her power and comfort that was never something she lost sight of. But she remembered what it was to not have the option at all.

The ship was a ways behind them. Grass hissed under her boots as they moved forward in to the vacant forest. The wind, for once, was calm despite the planet’s patterns.

Despite catching her eye, Matsu had no idea of Sienna’s true potential. In truth it seemed as if the girl deliberately hid whatever she might be capable of. That was smart of course. But it gave Matsu little to go on. Time to see what she was working with.

“An entire planet to search, and only the whisper of a rumor of ruins beneath the surface. How do we get there, do you suppose?”

[member="Sienna Vekarr"]​

 

[Sienna Vekarr]

The planet was much brighter than Dagobah, more dead than alive. Or maybe dead was the wrong word; it was still. Dagobah by contrast was a flurry of activity, a variety of creatures attempting to stay alive. Always something to run from or fight. Even still, she felt as if they were being watched...Which oddly enough made her more comfortable than she was on the ship. She felt collected, alert and conscious of her surroundings. The presence of Matsu seemed to cause something on the planet to withdraw. She saw it in the way the plants moved, the grass bent differently beneath the Sith Master's feet than her own and even the wind caught her differently, as if attempting to sway her from her course.

Sienna felt these things in the Force as well as observed them with her own two eyes. Maybe observation was truly her greatest strength. She liked to think it was her prowess with a blade or her lightning however.

“An entire planet to search, and only the whisper of a rumor of ruins beneath the surface. How do we get there, do you suppose?”

Sienna stopped to think. Subterranean temples? Ancient people? Obviously if they built underground they didn't want to be found. Also obvious was that Matsu had spent time studying and researching this place to have been able to pinpoint this remote planet, though how much time she had not even the slightest clue, so why did she ask her, a star bum who only found the Sith Order by chance? In fact why was she bothering with her at all? What was it with people taking in interest in her? Her mother had seen it fit to hide her, her father had seen it fit to groom her...Why? She shook the thoughts of the past from her mind, but doubt still clouded her judgement and her aura. She spoke exactly what she thought.

"If they were underground they probably didn't want anyone to find them...But the easiest way would be to send Hounds-" she paused. That's right, they didn't have those mindless slaves to find these things or search. A pack of them could easily find a cave hideout. They had found plenty of hers on Dagobah.

"But I would think it wouldn't be somewhere obvious like inside an actual cave...Maybe an a way in could be found near the base of a great tree or a mighty waterfall."
[member="Matsu Xiangu"]

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

Her interest was piqued at the mention of Hounds. She would have liked to ask or root around for the answer in the girl’s head, but that was for another time - and besides, she could feel the dizzying array of emotions Sienna filtered through in a matter of seconds. Asking her now would just distract from the task at hand.

And the task was going well.

The ghost of a smile, the barest hint of approval, flitted over her lips as she nodded at Sienna’s explanation of her reasoning. It would take far more than that for Matsu to truly invest herself in the girl’s future but she was not an inherently cruel Master. She had no problem showing encouragement where it was earned. Neither did she have a problem culling weakness from the galaxy but frankly, doom and gloom was a waste of her time and energy.

It was true, however - she had been on Trismegis a few times in the past. She’d run across the system and, after exploring it, decided to settle there. This emerald orb was obviously too unstable to build any lasting settlement on, but its sister Maena served Matsu very nicely. The Sith Lord hadn’t explored much beyond the knowledge that there were caves though - what remained hidden in them miles beneath the surface was still a complete unknown.

“I agree,” she responded. “They would need something unique to mark an entrance, but not so strange that it would be obvious. And most likely there would be more than one way in, just in case another was blocked.” It would not have been a tree due to the volatile weather on the planet and its propensity to level entire swaths of forest on a whim, but Sienna had no way of knowing that. On another less dangerous planet it would have been a good assumption.

As if in answer to her thoughts, the Force suddenly chirped a loud, anxious warning in Matsu’s head. That was when the whistle started. Matsu turned her head to look back over her shoulder, at first trying to parse together the sight of leaves billowing tornado-like through a tunnel of wind that was whipping through the trees about a half-mile behind them. But her mind quickly caught up to her eyes as sunlight grew brighter and brighter with the collapse of the canopy.

“Run,” she said simply, digging her feet in to the earth. There were many things that she, as a Sith Lord, could cheat - but natural disasters were not one of them. This was the Great Wind, the reason this planet’s people had been forced to live underground, why entire sections of the forest were flat and dead. Matsu could hear it behind them, having increased from a whistle to a scream as the gale drew closer and closer. The ground was shaking as the wind felled entire trees, their trunks slamming to the ground as they were torn up by the very roots. Leaves whipped her in the face, making clattering sounds against her metal arms as they sprinted through the woods. There was no way they could outrun the gale and if they didn’t find some way in to the caves in a second, they would be flattened beneath the ever-closer tidal wave of falling trees.

The wind was too loud for her to call to Sienna, so she spoke telepathically. “Waterfall! Left!” She was following the pull of whatever lay beneath the surface, the promise of something unique. But all that mattered for the moment was escape. The Sith Lord barrelled in to the darkness underneath a great sheet of water, soaked to her skin but at least not crushed to a pulp underneath a massive, ancient tree. It was almost pitch-black inside, but when she ignited her lightsaber a mural of cave drawings was revealed in the crimson glow of her blade.

[member="Sienna Vekarr"]​

 

[Sienna Vekarr]

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLcd9b81yps

Sienna perked up a little, an old habit from her past. Her father had always been strict and as a priest of Vahl he rarely showed emotion outside of his love for Her. Any sort of praise or approval was welcomed, noticed, captured, and for a moment treasured. She quickly quashed those feelings though. This woman was not her father, or her mother, or anyone really. She was a teacher, someone she could learn from, for now, and there was no telling how brief this would be or how long their encounters would continue. Her eyes steeled again, she shifted her posture ever so slightly. Back into defense mode.

"Run."

Run?

She felt a slight breeze come from behind her, leaves floating past at a quicker pace than they had before. She turned to look behind her and felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up. And she ran. The wind picked up almost immediately, despite the wind storm being so far behind them. She tapped into that wonderful well known as the Force. Fear was her motivator. Fear of dying, fear of not feeling the satisfaction of plunging her green blade into the chest of her "father". It strengthened her legs, helped her lungs fill with even more oxygen, kept the lactic acid and adrenaline at bay. She made sure to stay behind Matsu.

"Waterfall! Left!"

She obeyed without question, and barreled through the rushing water. Her ragged clothes became socked, her greasy hair now a soggy, almost slimy, mess. As she fiddled with her hair in the dark, struggling to put it up it slopped and slapped around, echoing slightly in the cave they had ducked into. The snap-hiss of a proper lightsaber drowned out the sound of her battle with her wet hair and she paused to look up at Matsu. Illuminated by the red glow of her lightsaber she seemed to radiate a confidence that came with either age or experience. She felt herself gaping in awe but shook the feeling off, igniting her own lightsaber. Her green blade erupted from the hilt with a bass heavy snap and the subtlest hiss. Sienna looked around, the cave now fully illuminated by their weapons.

Sienna looked to Matsu for further instructions.

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

Sometimes, after several decades and the amount of life few ever got to experience, it was easy for Matsu to forget that once she’d been where Sienna was in more literal a fashion than once might have anticipated. The familial trouble was missing from Matsu’s story but the rest - the drifting, the running from entropy and sloth, the treasure of a hint of approval - were recognizable. It all amounted to make her a woman that found cruelty for cruelty’s sake a petty waste of time. There was much to learn, do, become if one could look past their urges to a greater picture.

And the caves were certainly a greater picture.

She moved forward without a word, the shallow puddles from the waterfall’s rebound sloshing slightly as she tread through them. They quickly gave way to dry ground as the tunnel moved deeper in to the earth, sloping downwards to the heart’s center. Most of the place was lit by phosphorescent mushrooms grown wild with no one to remove or control their growth. They gave off a bright blue glow. Expected claustrophobia wasn’t present, as if the body could feel some great yawning emptiness not too far off. Down, and down, and down they went until all of the sudden they reached a large chamber.

If one looked up they might see that the ceiling had been carved in to as if she emulate a forest canopy, a reminder of the world outside that the ancients had been kept from enjoying at their leisure. Mostly empty, the room itself gave way to a half dozen different turns, each doorway quiet in darkness.

Moving slowly to a dusty, broken thing on the ground right next to one of the doorways, Matsu leaned down and gently picked up what seemed to be a child’s toy. It was an animal, that much was clear. But what kind Matsu had no idea. It wasn’t something she recognized from her travels and so she assumed it was something that had lived there once, or perhaps a beast of fairy tales told by parents to warn their children from the surface. There was a melancholy to its loneliness, its centuries spent alone in the dark. “It’s things like this that give me little patience for Sith councils and infighting,” she said quietly, holding the toy out to Sienna. “It doesn’t matter what title we hold or what we control. It won't matter fifty years from now. In the end we’ll all end up like that toy. So while we are alive the only important thing is serving ourselves, our interests, and our own power. Do you agree?”

[member="Sienna Vekarr"]​

 

[Sienna Vekarr]

Sienna followed Matsu further down the tunnel silently. It was odd for her, sometimes she was so taken aback by Matsu's confidence and strength in the Force that she forgot their height difference. Being of the Vahla Sienna was short for her species, but tall for her age, with biology having no apparent plans of stopping until she was just short of two meters. This put a seven inch difference in height between Master and Student, which for her now was something she was only just realizing. The ceilings of the illuminated tunnels were surprisingly short, uncomfortably so, even for her. Matsu however seemed completely at peace following the bright hall into the void.

When they exited the tunnel and were emptied into the large chamber it felt like she could finally breathe again. But the chamber only led to more mysteries. Half a dozen tunnels led deeper into the home of whomever or whatever had lived here. She thought back to her brief time on the B.O.B. and wondered how Magdalena would enjoy exploring each and every tunnel. Sienna deactivated her lightsaber and stashed it away on her belt before kneeling down to pick up an oddly shaped block with twenty sides. Part of the block crumbled in her hand as Matsu began to speak.

Her words rang true with her. Back home the constant infighting between the Priests to get closer to Darth Isolda and their Goddess is what led to her being born and her adoptive father's death. It was in fact, the sole reason her life had been flipped upside down with nothing to show for it than a trail of bodies discarded on remote worlds. How many Hounds had she put down that had once been people? How many guards and miners when her father came for her? And how many powerful priests had been poisoned, assassinated, or executed in the name of Vahla. This was why she had no use for the platitudes of the Vahl.

"Yes," she said simply, feeling her resentment for her father bubble up. "It's childish and foolish."

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]