Winds howl atop the mountain.

[Armaud Eden]

He couldn't recall ever having any interest in Coruscant. Even when the Alliance shifted the capitals within their space, it was nothing more than a rotating orb in the distance. But even an abused, beaten, and war-torn planet could have value to an aimless wanderer.

He had read up on things, par for the course for a young man who fancied himself as a lifelong learner. Things about flora and fauna, mountains and natural habitats left beneath the sprawl of urbanization. And there were many years left for that sort of learning and reading if he could just manage to sort out the landing mechanism.

“Uhh…hmm.”

He thought to himself in sharp inward grunts, smacking various levers or buttons that hadn't worked the many times prior. But he figured that if persistence could keep communities alive, it surely could help land a beater ugly starfighter. And maybe by chance, dumb luck, or persistence, the ship limped its way into Coruscant port control.

Various technicians moved about as the feet clamped into the rotating landing pad. He stepped out and grabbed his things, certain that that particular ship would never see the vacuum of space again. And as he stood amidst the ecumonoplis, he stepped on his tippy toes and wobbled back and forth - trying to see past the buildings and Spires.

“Uhh, you see any mountains around here?” He asked a technician as they hooked diagnostic equipment to the starfighter. Lifting his hand with a finger extended upwards, Maud raised his eyebrows. “I'm…I’m not paying for…whatever it is you’re doing.”

Convinced the man didn't hear him over the distance rumble of engines, Maud slinked off to find a directory.

@Trextan Voidsnatcher [member="Trextan Voidstalker"]

 

[Trextan Voidstalker]

[member="Armaud Eden"]

There were some maps in the space port. Unfortunately they mostly described where the exits were and, more importantly, where people could buy overpriced caf.

Trextan wasn't that keen on caf. What he liked was keeping away from the academy training centre across the street. He sat with a juice and slice of cake and let the noise of people drown out his thoughts. So many emotions flowing through the Force. It was distracting. Helped him bury his own thoughts so he could read in peace. The worst part wasn't actually feeling dark emotions or having troubled thoughts. It was feeling numb and lethargic.

He reached for his fork. It pinched at the new skin that was still healing down his side. Fresh, pink and tank grown. What had been there had been burned beyond self repair.

He looked up over the data pad he had been trying to read. The same two paragraphs he had been going over and over for ten minutes. He saw Armaud looking entirely out of place. As he tried to raise the data pad up to hide himself, Gabriel's son noticed him. Trextan had to put on a smile. He didn't really want any conversation right now. And Armaud wasn't the easiest person to comprehend at the best of times.

 

[Armaud Eden]

He had only spotted the fellow wayward son after scouring this particular directory, ad nausea. There was something about the way it stood up on four legs, extending upwards with what appeared to be a digital map, that was off-putting. Like it was attacking him with its helpfulness. He leaned forward and tapped the legs with his walking stick as people shuffled by - the display reverberated as the red and yellow and green lines blinked, indicating incoming shuttles.

Scratching his eyebrow, he pushed off his leaning position and approached the table with what appeared to be cake and refreshments.

Looked tasty.

"Hey, uhh..." He spouted out as he leaned on the staff. He could feel just the slightest hint of melancholy seeping out from the man, but he figured cake and juice would clear that up. "You see any mountains around here?" He threw a thumb over his shoulder and shook his head. "Buildings as far as the eye can see."

[member="Trextan Voidstalker"]

 

[Trextan Voidstalker]

[member="Armaud Eden"]

"Yes that's...literally the case..." Trextan looked down at his plate then back up at Armaud. The news didn't seem to bother him particularly.

If there was one thing Armaud was for it was being a distraction from worldly thought. He seemed so entirely removed from everything else.

"Erm...I think the mountains are about a thousand kilometers away. But you'll need to get a transport there," he added the last line quickly in case he wondered off and tried to find a patch of grass in a thousand levels of city.

"If you get a drink I can show you where they leave from?"

 

[Armaud Eden]

Little did Trextan know, but literally was the frame of mind for which Maud was most adept. Everything was easier to understand when spoken in literal terms, though metaphor had its place.

He let out a grunt as he set his staff against a crook in the table, hanging his satchel over the backing of one of the chairs.

"A thousand kilometers is a long way away...I should have found a closer port..." He stated, almost to himself, as he sat down. A waiter ran by and Maud flagged him down, requesting a groundapple and dew flower juice. "You seem sad." Maud stated as the waiter moved away. "Is the cake good?" He pointed with an index from his right hand. "It looks...okay."

The world could have been falling down around him, but juice and cake and mountains were the order of the day.

[member="Trextan Voidstalker"]

 

[Trextan Voidstalker]

[member="Armaud Eden"]

Trextan gave a smile that turned into a slight grimace of its own accord. He was sad. As he walked through life it felt as if at any moment he could step across a black hole that tugged him down and envelopes him in darkness. At any time, at any place.

"The cake is a little dry, but what do you expect at a port cafe?" He said with a shrug. Trextan carefully locked the screen of his datapad and set it down next to the plate. It was only as he picked up his fork again that he imagined that Armaud might not have picked up on the rhetorical nature of the question.

 

[Armaud Eden]

He thought on that for a brief moment. What did he expect? Maybe to land a bit closer to the mountain range. Maybe to have a directory that was more intuitive, more helpful. In the grand scheme of things, a dry cake may have been the least of those sins.

Of course, Maud didn’t miss the expression of sadness or the general tone - with the way Trextan was talking, he might as well have had his heart on his sleeve.

Taking a sip from his drink as the waiter put it down, he nodded. “Juice is watered down too. Maybe they could have extracted a bit of it to supple up that cake…” Setting the cup down, he pressed his hands together. “I bet those mountains don't have dry cake…you up for some fresh air? I’ve never been here before…”

[member="Trextan Voidstalker"]

 

[Trextan Voidstalker]

[member="Armaud Eden"]

It would have been very easy to just point Armaud in the direction of the nearest Airbus and to brush him off. Trextan really wasnt in the mood for company right now.

The mountains here covered enough space, free of urban sprawl, that they had their own micro climate. People here were lazy. The restrictions on vehicles meant that if you travelled far from the easy walks you could get a long way from people.

There were too many people here. Spending some time on Tatooine had made that clear.

"I would like some fresh air. Yes." It was said quite firmly.

 

[Armaud Eden]

"Great!" He stated with utmost enthusiasm. Tapping his walking stick excitedly on the ground, he flagged down the closest waiter. Rattling his drink, he pointed.

"Can I get this to go?"

The man looked at him, confused, before giving a nod and taking the drink from Maud. Within a few moments, it came back in a temporary container and Maud stood up. "Alright, next stop...fresh air. Lets see if we can find one of these shuttles out of the city proper."

His hope was to find the furthest point from the mountain that was naturalized, giving them ample opportunity to scale the ridge line from the bottom up. To him, that sounded like a good day.

[member="Trextan Voidstalker"]

 

[Trextan Voidstalker]

[member="Armaud Eden"]

Trextan asked for a bottle of water to take away with him. He hadn't really had enough to drink if they were going for a walk. He wasn't entirely certain why he was doing this. His stomach still ached from the surgery they had performed to remove a short section that had been perforated. He could always use that excuse to sit in a quiet field whilst Armaud traipsed off around the hills.

The Airbus was found following a complex series of instructions and maps and interactive screens. Going into the Tatooine wastes with Choli had shown him that there were very different survival skills out there.

Their airbus was soon to leave so Trextan picked up the pace towards it. As they stepped on he swiped a small card against a panel next to the droid pilot.

"He's with me," he said of Armaud. They didn't get many benefits, but members of the Jedi Ordered here were afforded limitless public transport.

"Is it getting 'out' of the city when the entire planet is urban but a small circle?" He asked as he found a seat. The craft would lift off almost vertically soon. The upper layers of air traffic were reserved for high-velocity, long distance craft.

 

[Armaud Eden]

It was a blessing that Maud had found Trextan, otherwise he may have never properly navigated his way to one of the airbus stations. It would have been a long and arduous mixture of meandering and getting distracted by interesting looking people.

Stepping onto the bus, Maud chose to stand as wrapped one arm around a metal beam. The other hand held the cup up to his face as he tried to swivel the straw back over to his lips. It was a display of uncoordinated effort if ever there was one but with persistence, most things were possible. And he slowly slurped the juice cocktail as he pondered on the mans questions.

"Mmm!" He uttered as he jolted forward, almost losing grip of the pole as the bus took off. Swallowing pensively, he looked out towards the reflection of the sun as the breath of the urban sprawl became apparent.

"Uhh..." His gaze narrowed, unsure of the purpose of the question. "I think so. I mean, this is a game of proportions now, eh? Get to the smallest amount of city as we can, do the best we can." He looked back over to Trextan, contemplating asking him what was wrong. But he was sure the mountain would bring it out of him.

[member="Trextan Voidstalker"]

 

[Trextan Voidstalker]

[member="Armaud Eden"]

Trextan didn't stand. Everything was still tight and sore from the surgery. Walking was acceptable for short periods, bit standing made things seize up. Especially the kind of awkward movement on an airbus that was hitting slightly turbulent air. They probably could have fitted more powerful inertial dampeners but that would have cost credits.

"It's a different kind of view from up here," he said. "But it's still impressive."

Trextan could see the new Jedi temple pushing through the clouds. There were several gleaming spires around it. Not a mile away, if you went straight down, and life looked very different.

"So...why these mountains?"

 

[Armaud Eden]

He had been around his mom enough to know when someone was hurting. Maybe empathy was part of his limited list of talents or maybe, it was just something that had been practiced. With the way his siblings were, with the way his uncle and mother were, it helped to be intuitive. On top of that, it helped to know when to prod for an answer and when to let things be. Issues had a way of self-discovery and sorting themselves out.

"Why these mountains?" Maud nodded as the ship strafed through traffic and cruised near buildings and for a moment, the answer was clear. With everything on the planet, with the sprawl and ecumonopolis, mountains were a rare and joyous occasion. Amidst all the shining towers of duracrete and glass and durasteel beams, mountains were special.

But they were special everywhere.

"That is a good question..." Breathing in heavily, he let that trail off as his answer. They'd be there soon enough, Trextan would answer his own question. The young man was sure of it.

[member="Trextan Voidstalker"]

 

[Trextan Voidstalker]

[member="Armaud Eden"]

As Armaud demonstrated an empathy and sensibility beyond his years, Trextan was thinking about how childlike he was. He had just trailed off half way through answering the question.

It didn't seem like anything else was coming so Trextan sat in silence. It hurt to sit in the confined chair. The inside of the bus was too warm. The silence was not comfortable.

"You know we killed off half the species in Coruscant so they actually imported some to refill the ecosystem?"

 

[Armaud Eden]

"Hmm?" Maud turned from his view of cityscape to look at Trextan. "We?"

He moved from his standing position to a seat across from Trextan, setting his staff against the railing. "You take ownership of that? Genocide is a hefty burden..."

It was an odd comment, an odd way to make small talk, but it had gotten to the heart of what made Maud avoid most factions or orders that claimed relationship to the lightside. At the end of the day, he just didn't like killing enough to be a part of it.

[member="Trextan Voidstalker"]

 

[Trextan Voidstalker]

[member="Armaud Eden"]

Right. Nuance. Had to be careful with that.

"By 'we' I do mean the people of Coruscant. The 'when' here is tends of thousands of years ago."

Trextan looked out of the window at the shards that jutted out of the irregular mass of building towards the sky. Then he turned to face Armaud again.

"It is a bit macabre when you think about it. It's been built on for so many thousands of years that you have to go down a mile to get close to the surface. You can't even see it most of them time. And there must have been life across all of that at some point."

 

[Armaud Eden]

Truth be told, he was more in tune with the study of species across the galaxy than the history of the species. Identification, uses, purposes. Admittedly, life history should have been more a part of his study.

But he couldn't help but feel like the wording of the question was odd.

"We..." He stressed that word, not used to using it so royally. "Will do just about anything to make a place home, huh? Kill species, demolish the environment. We never stop to consider that what is good for the environment might also be good for us?"

He looked out the window as well, catching the breaking of the horizon in every few gaps between the buildings. "Hard to see everything when we're so fixated one what's right in front of us." He was perhaps the guiltiest of all, so easily distracted by rocks and pretty flowers. A war waged around them, in every corner of the galaxy, and he was out for a bit of a hike.

[member="Trextan Voidstalker"]