A bit brighter up here (SJO)

[Samantha "Sam" Kamura]

Location: Silvers Rest Kashyyyk

This wasn't exactly part of the plan, well....there really wasn't exactly a plan really. Everything in the past day had been a combination of running, hiding and more running. A result of some very upset Hutt cartel members and some hurried planning on her part. After a long pursuit, and some close calls, Sam found herself trapped inside the cargo bay of a freighter she had sought refuge in. The large vessel unknowingly carried its stowaway far away from her home planet to a destination unknown.

Sam peeked around a crate, watching the loading ramp with anticipation. The freighter had finally touched down after felt like hours of being trapped in the cargo bay of the large vessel, being whisked away to who knows where. The ride had been a long and anxious one as time had passed slowly in the cool, poorly lit cargo bay. The coolness didn't bother her since she wore a sleeveless bodysuit under her tank top and cargo pants, while the cybernetics in her eyes were already attuned for low light conditions. What did bother her was the waiting, the waiting for that loading door to be opened and then she could bolt for freedom and figure out a plan from there. Then she heard it, the loud hiss of hydraulics slowly opening the large steel doors. Sam made one last quick check of the breathing mask on her face and the satchel at her side.

The door finally made contact with the landing platform with a low thump. Now was the time, she might not get another chance. Sam darted out the cargo bay door and into yet another unknown, but she had to be prepared. The short girl ran past a man with his back to her, seemingly oblivious to the stowaway. She cleared the ship, round a few crates before entering a wide open landing space and came to a dead stop. What lay before her was something she definitely wasn't prepared for, or had expected to see. Massive trees towering into the air, brightly colored flowers growing off vines and a bright blue sky. That sky, it made Sam look up in awe at it. She had never seen anything like it before, not from where she was from at least. The girl took several cautious steps forward till she reached a railing that overlooked part of the forest. Removing her mask, she took a deep breath of actual clean air. For a few moments everything that had happened before seemed to drift away.

 

[Acaadi]

Samantha "Sam" Kamura

The dull hum of a lightsaber blade would drift up towards Sam. This was no ordinary forest. The wide open spaces and complex, mazes of branches that were the gargantuan wroshyr trees were the perfect ground for the many padawans of Silver Rest to train.

The mirialan sat cross legged far below Sam's vantage point. Two blue sabers rotated around his body in the air under his telekinetic guidance. So did two other small spheres. The training drones suddenly attacked. Fierce white beams lancing towards the passive jedi.

The lightsabers blocked several bolts before two got through, hitting him in the middle of the back and his right shoulder.

He shouted a word that was distinctly un-jedi like. Frankly, controlling lightsabers with his mind alone and trying to coordinate them into a semblance of a defence was proving incredibly frustrating.

Acaadi stood up, rubbing the points where the training drones had struck him. His lightsabers snapped back and reattached themselves to his blade. The jedi padawan slowly turned and made eye contact with the stowaway. The Force told him that something was amiss.

 

[Samantha "Sam" Kamura]

Sam's attention was drawn to a humming sound below her. Blue eyes watched with curiosity as the blades rotated around the man along with two spheres. She had never seen blades like before, the sphere yeah, but the blades held something to them that she couldn't quite explain. All at once, the spheres open fired with white beams towards the man. Sam's breath caught in surprise at both the sudden attack and the fact the man blocked quite a few of the shots with the blades. She had never seen anything like it before and wondered how these blades could block blaster shots. Better yet, how was it that the Mirialan was capable of controlling the blades like he was.

The display only lasted a few minutes before one of the bolts made contact. To Sam's relief, the bolts weren't powerful enough to cause any real harm. The Mirialan on the other hand had a few choice words for the bolt that hit him. Not the worst Sam had ever heard, that she was sure of.

Then it happened, the young man turned and looked right at her. Sam froze as her blue cybernetic eyes locked with his. What should she do? Should she run or stay put? She didn't even know where she'd run to. Sam gave a hesitant smile and raised her hand a tiny bit in a wave.

Acaadi

 

[Kyra Perl]

Kyra had been sitting unnaturally still on a branch across from Acaadi. While Silver Rest itself was built seamlessly on top of a hillside, buildings and all, the forest surrounding it provided the padawans there the perfect place to train and hide. It was almost understandable, how Sam had not noticed Kyra at first. A branch had half obscured the pink girl from view, and Acaadi's performance with the saber was quite the site to see.

But when Sam did shift her attention just a millimeter to the right, she'd find a set of blue eyes staring unwavering at her through the foliage.

Kyra knew mischief when she smelt it. She was mischief embodied, some would say. After a tense moment of silence, both parties eyeing each other in that unsure wariness ... Kyra cracked a large smile and waved back.

Acaadi would know in an instant that meant the stranger was cleared of poor intent. If the girl had any force sensitivity at all she might feel the padawan probing curiously around her.

"The air here is perfectly fine. Trees and all! Science~" Kyra jumped up, her body limber as she worked her way over to the girl. "Just in case you, ah, didn't know," she offered, clearly understanding Sam was new. And not caring.

 

[Samantha "Sam" Kamura]

Sam never saw Kyra till she waved. The sudden movement and appearance of another being caused the poor girl to jump a little. Her blue eyes took in the teen that stood before her. She had violet red hair, a much pinker hue to her skin and blue eyes. Sam wondered how she didn't notice the girl before, but then again she had been paying attention to the Mirialan below her.

"T..the air?" Her hand instinctively went and touched her mask. The air was fine here? "You mean there's type two atmosphere here as well?" She was pretty sure that the didn't have type II atmosphere mixed in, cause didn't trees create oxygen?

Kyra Perl Acaadi

 

[Acaadi]

Acaadi grimaced as he approached. "I think Kyra was referring to your mask and yes it's a type two breathable atmosphere." He was the kind of person that had paid attention in school to such definitions. Kyra always meant well, even when she wasn't being even vaguely subtle.

"You couldn't let me look intimidating to one of the new recruits at all before you rushed off to make a new friend?" he laughed at Kyra.

"You are a new recruit right?" he asked Sam. Kyra might have immediately relaxed when she sensed no hostile intentions, but the two of them had very different senses. Kyra was empathic, tunes to emotions. He listened to the more abstract side of the Force, which could be hard to understand. Visions of the future could add more confusion than clarity.

Still, he was certain something had felt slightly off.

 

[Kyra Perl]

"Never," Kyra grinned, sassing Acaadi with an elbow nudge along the way. The girl hop-skipped-stopped in front of Sam, the grin still wide on her face as she came to peer down at her.

"Oh she's not a recruit," Kyra stated, blunt to a fault. The girl clearly knew things she shouldn't. Some things were an easy jump to make, when you knew people and their emotions well enough. Only newbs were this trepidatious. Or so she presumed. "At least not yet." With a swish of her robes and a wink at Sam, she jumped from the branch and landed mutely before her.

"Are you hungry? We can show you the canteen."

 

[Samantha "Sam" Kamura]

Sam looked between the two, eyeing Kyra a moment as she skipped up to her. They seemed friendly enough for strangers, more then most she's met. Her eyes landed on Acaadi when he said that they air was a single type. "Oh....I still need my mask then. I breath a combination of type one and two. Well, I can breath one type or the other for extended periods of time, but I'll get let headed and stuff. My mask combines both atmospheres so I can breath normally."

Kyra was right, Sam wasn't a recruit. How she knew that so quickly made Sam wonder. "N..no, I'm not a recruit. I...kinda got here by accident." She gave the two a nervous smile. People normally don't accidentally end up systems away from their home planet. Kyra's next question caused her attention to quickly divert away from the nervousness of before. Food. That was something she hadn't had in quite a few hours. Her stomach gave a growl at the mere thought. "Food sounds good. I mean...thank you."

Kyra Perl Acaadi

 

[Acaadi]

"You're not a spy are you?" Acaadi asked, pointing at Sam with a wide grin on his face.

"I'm only joking, let's get food." He was only partially joking. If Kyra didn't sense any ill-intent then he trusted her to a degree. Kyra was very rarely wrong when it came to feelings.

"You get used to how vertical the wookies make everything quickly," Acaadi explained as they led her away from the platform. "Need to keep a three-dee map in your head."

If she wasn't a recruit and was hungry then perhaps she was a stowaway. Even if she wasn't a jedi then they would look out for her. That was what they did here.

Kyra Perl Samantha "Sam" Kamura

 

[Kyra Perl]

"I've met a spy," Kyra inserted confidently. "She's not one." Bryn was though, and look where she was now. Kyra wasn't afraid of anything. Especially not of a harmless stow away. It was easy to assume that was what she was. The two padawans were quite attuned to the force around them, and this girl? Had the faintest shine of raw potential in her.

Hence, definitely not one of them, but could be. With training.

Maybe she was here for that, or maybe it was an accident. Kyra assumed the former. The dense forest lands that surrounded them, were volatile and dangerous. No way she thought it could be someone was stopping through just to visit. They were all jedi here. Right?

Kyra jumped down a platform and onto a tall, green hill. It was a slow and steady slope upwards, the hill turning into a flat plane that created the tree tops. It was an oddly shaped mountain, but it served them well enough for their building and landing pads. Kyra marched them confidentially through the green pathways, tossing open a set of double doors. The smell of food assaulted them.

"So uh, how you gonna eat with that on?" She chirped, leading them to a table.

 

[Samantha "Sam" Kamura]

"A...a spy?!" Sam ask in both surprise and a mild amount of panic. "No, no I'm not a spy. I'm here by accident." Luckily, Kyra came to her rescue by saying that she wasn't a spy. From what she could tell, Kyra could get a good read on people. While Acaadi liked to put on a tough exterior from what she could tell, maybe to protect his friends.

The young girl followed after the duo as they made their way to the cafeteria. Sam took in every sight and sound she possibly could. All the green of the trees, local flowers, animals and everything in between. There were sentient species she had never seen before, coming in every shape and size. Her attention turned to the building they just entered. The smell of food buffeted her almost instantly, sweet and wonderful food. Kyra's question brought her back to the present. "Wha? Oh. I can breath either type one or type two for several hours each. So taking my mask to eat won't be a problem."


Kyra Perl Acaadi

 

[Acaadi]

Samantha "Sam" Kamura Kyra Perl

The smell of food, Acaadi found, was always tempered by the smell of wet wookie. This was their planet after all, but the canteen involved joining the queue and being sandwiched between several walls of "walking carpet". He found that it was something to become accustomed to.

He winced as Kyra bluntly asked about the mask. There was never any ill-intent, but Kyra could be accidentally blunt in drawing attention to anything she saw. Sometimes Acaadi thought it would be the best way to live. So many times he had wanted to ask questions about another species and he was too nervous to ask. He had been brought up a certain way and sometimes he wished he hadn't.

"If you were here by accident, where did you mean to go?" Acaadi asked.

 

[Kyra Perl]

Kyra bounced slightly in line, hunger gnawing at her insides. She had been slowly drawing out of her depression since Kintan, and while some things would simply take time for the padawan to process-- the more physical aspects of their encounter had begun to show signs of healing with Kyra.

The biggest one being her appetite returning.

"Geezums, this line is long today," she commented to no one, forget both companions for a moment as she strained on her toes to see overhead. It was pointless, the wookies were far taller than any of then combined.

She perked once she could grab a plate, shoveling spoonfuls of all manner of things on there. While her lack of consumption had certainly knocked pounds off her body, an overabundance of it never seemed to reach the quarter-zeltrons hips.

Genetics.

"Well wherever you were going, it hardly matters now. You're here. I'm here-- It's like a home to everyone." The biggest compliment this homesick girl could live. She missed her mother terribly, and had only recently just began to fully adjust to live here.

"You can bunk with me!" She grinned, her head popping up over Acaadi's shoulder to offer it.

 

[Samantha "Sam" Kamura]

Sam stood in line with the other two, her eyes kept glancing up at the ridiculously tall Wookiees. She had never seen one before and she was impressed by their height. Her attention was turned to Acaadi when he asked where she had been trying to go if not Kashyyyk. "I...actually wasn't trying to go anywhere. There were some bad people chasing me, so I hid in the cargo bay of a freighter. The freighter taking off wasn't something I was expecting."

Kyra seemed to be very optimistic about everything, a somewhat contagious optimism. Sam piled food onto her plate, regardless of being lost on a foreign planet, she'd never say no to food. She slowed down piling food on her plate when Kyra mentioned home. That was so far away, then again it really didn't feel like home since her parents...... She shook the thought from her mind and went back to retrieving food. Sam turned to kyra said that she could bunk with her. "That would be great!"

Kyra Perl Acaadi

 

[Acaadi]

It wasn't just physical work that stimulated Acaadi's appetite. The focus and concentration required to practise his use of the Force also made him hungry. In fact, being eighteen, he was almost always hungry. He was a lot more focused once he had a plate in hand. He chose several particular troughs. He loaded up with a nerf burger and a side of salad which he was probably going to eat this time.

"You think they could follow you here?" he asked Sam.

For Kyra he merely shook his head and laughed. Even for her getting a stranger a bed in her dorm room within minutes of meeting them was particularly friendly. Acaadi trusted her sense of people and he also enjoyed seeing her with a bit of energy in her step again.

"We won't let anyone hurt you here," Acaadi stated as he found a small table by the windows and headed towards it.

 

[Kyra Perl]

Kyra's gaze sharpened at the reveal, the girl shooting Sam an almost hard look. "It's not slavers, is it? Cause I'll kick their butts."

She plopped down at the table, her tray rattling as she settled down. The green expanse was clear through the tall windows, the mountain platue showing a large swath of the forest they stood nestled over. Kyra saw none of this, digging into her food. Her eyes remained trained unwavering on Samantha "Sam" Kamura , waiting for her answer. One wouldn't have to know her well to sense her bristling protectiveness.

Kyra did not like slavers.

 

[Samantha "Sam" Kamura]

Sam shook her head when Acaadi asked if the people chasing her would follow her here."No...they were just a bunch of thugs. They just after more out of boredom than anything. I mean, I didn't even get what I was trying to..." The young girl hesitated. Did she really want to use the word steal in front of them? She didn't even know them, yeah they were nice but she wasn't sure how they would react to that. "We won't have to worry about them."

What surprised her the most was how willing they were to protect her. She was an unknown to them, yet here they were. The look in Kyra's eyes when she asked if they were pirates spoke volumes. Even as young as she was, Sam recognized that something drastic must have happened to her to have such a dislike. "Not pirates, just some thugs who work for a Hutt."

The young girl paused for a moment to take a few bites of food. Sweet, delicious food. That was something she really hadn't had much of lately. Definitely not good tasting anyway. Sam's cybernetic eyes looked past Kyra to the scenery outside the window. "This planet looks incredible! I've never seen trees this big...or really any actually. And the sky is so...blue."

Kyra Perl Acaadi

 

[Acaadi]

Samantha "Sam" Kamura Kyra Perl

"Yeah there's not a lot of nightlife though..." Acaadi bemoaned. He didn't even disguise the fact that he still had half a mouthful and slurred his words. He wiped his face with a napkin before continuing.

"You might be here for a reason. Maybe you were meant to end up here?"

It sounded flippant, but it was something that Acaadi wholeheartedly believed could be true. The spirituality of his people was quite an abstract concept to him, but he believed the Force really did influence their daily lives.

 

[Kyra Perl]

Kyra frowned down at her plate, eating with her fingers.

Acaadi was far too spiritual for her taste, the girl still half unsure if the force could be sentient at all. A lot had happened lately. A lot she couldn't make sense of. If she was meant to be here, then that whole planet was meant to suffer as it did.

She couldn't handle that thought.

"Yeah," she mulled, her mood dropping in an instant. "Maybe."

She picked at a strawberry, then looked up to the girl. "So how long have you been using the force?" The question came, blunt and out of no where. Kyra was more in tuned with the force than the average person, but that did not mean she understood what she picked up. What was obvious to her might not be even realized to Sam. She stated it anyway, squishing a berry between her fingers.

 

[Samantha "Sam" Kamura]

Sam's gaze turned to Acaadi when he spoke. "Meant to be here? Like someonetried getting me here?" She had never really thought of it that way. Then again she never figured anyone real or something in between would try to make her come here.

Kyra's question was a little different. Sam knew she was force sensitive. That was pointed out to her by a member of the Church of the Force had told her. As for how long she has been using it. "I...really don't know how to use it. Sometimes it just happens, and other times it takes a lot of focus. Someone once told me it's harder for me because of all the cybernetics I have. Although a monk from the Church of the Force said the force doesn't care about the cybernetics. Just that I need a clear mind and to focus."

Kyra Perl Acaadi