A Familiar Stranger Among Sand and Sea -Scherezade deWinter

[Pash Tafo]

Pash grinned at Scherezade's reaction to his pole arm. He could see she appreciated it's simple beauty, knowing the Sith daughter knew a good weapons when she saw it. Scherezade was indeed a fellow warrior, though she kept it well hidden.

The Matukai had to admit her cavalier approach to the attack was...unsettling. Something in the way Scherezade described it made him believe she was capable of doing what she planned, she had no doubt they would crush the pirates and survive. Scherezade was planning a massacre.

Pash was not squeamish about the mission. He knew enough about the pirates who had plagued Maramere, and of their kind in general. The old saying was true, 'If you live by the sword, you will die by it.' He had ended the life of many of those kind. Those who oppress others because they can, thieve and kill and terrorize, had forfeited any mercy afforded them. No, he would have no problem killing pirates. And he had come to realize, Scherezade didn't need him to protect her.

"Fair enough." He answered with a shrug. "Not everyone has finesse." He teased, planting the butt of the wan-shen on the ground and flipping in the air to land lightly on the other side. "I'm okay hanging out with a maximum damage girl." He flashed a grin as he look over the surroundings.

"How much further?"

[member="Scherezade deWinter"]

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

"Is that an insult I detect in your voice, Mr. Tafo?" Scherezade asked with a giggle, "I have... finesse. I think. Maybe." She bit her lower lip. "Nah, I got none of that," she admitted. She couldn't even begin to comprehend how it even worked. Her eyes followed his movements of his weapon, still openly in awe. It was a beautiful thing. After they were done with the mission, she'd ask him if she could give it a try. More weapons was always better.

He asked how much further it was, and she looked around. They'd been walking for a while now, and - there. The ground rose up, and the haunted straits were just waiting for them.

"A few minutes at our current speed," she said, her fingers gingerly passing over two the knives beneath her shirt, "once we're actually in them, we'd have to find water, and then the island. And hope the ghost thing is just a rumor because I really don't think my knives can wound non-meaty things."


[member="Pash Tafo"]

 

[Pash Tafo]

"I wouldn't dare insult you!" Pash replied with a grin. "I will withhold judgement on your finesse until I actually see you fight." He was looking forward to seeing the girl's fighting methods. It was clear she favored close-quarters fighting over blasters, something which required considerable skill in order to survive.

It seemed they were nearly upon the pirates, now they just needed to find their holdout. As far as the ghosts rumored to haunt the straights, Pash relegated them to some misunderstanding or intentional fiction. In his opinion what many people and races called ghosts were simply creatures alien to their understanding. He had heard of the rare being powerful in the Force able to return from the dead as a Force spirit. That was something entirely different, and he didn't doubt that was possible. If indeed there were some incorporeal creatures roaming the straights, Pash was in no better shape to harm them, the extent of his skill and abilities based firmly in defending against solid matter.

"Well, if we come across some ghosts, hopefully you can scare them off." Pash teased, but was already deepening his breaths, drawing his focus on his body as the amplifier of the Force, in preparation for the imminent battle before them.


[member="Scherezade deWinter"]

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

Scherezade nodded. While Pash readied himself, she just gave a careless shrug. That sort of readying wasn't really something she did. She just charged in head first knives out, and somehow made it out alive, usually in the shape of a human pin cushion. But that was also exactly what she'd been trained to do.

"So like," she added, "no one really knows where this island is. I mean, it's here somewhere, but there are no exact coordinates. So I'm thinking we wander through and-"

Her body moved before she even knew what was happening, a plasma bolt missing her neck by a fraction of an inch.

Two knives slid out, one from every sleeve, and she looked around, her eyes glaring. She knew the direction it had come from, but she couldn't see - or sense - anyone there.

Not waiting for a response from Pash, Scherezade began to run towards the place the bolt had come from, ready to decapitate whoever was hiding there.


[member="Pash Tafo"]

 

[Pash Tafo]

Their conversation was interrupted by a flash of a bolt that passed between them so close, Pash could hear its sizzling hum. It had come from somewhere ahead. The Matukai noticed from the corner of his eye the blades that appeared in Scherezade's hands as she doded the blast, The wan-shen was immediately raised and ready to deflect another blast as he bolted ahead.

While the Sith girl charged forward, Pash speed off at an angle to find the shooter's flank. Another glowing bolt launched towards him, the Force-imbued head of the pole arm snapping up instantly to deflect the shot and send it harmlessly pounding into the ground. His gaze darted to Scherezade as she careened headlong towards the yet unseen attacker. Pash then set his course parallel to hers, so that they could attack the assailant from two sides.

[member="Scherezade deWinter"]

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

Scherezade ran forward, the knives in her hands. Two more blaster bolts came from the same direction, and she easily dodged them both. Later, she would check on Pash and see how he was faring; right now, all she saw and felt was her own rage and the direction of the target.

They were running towards a wall. A few boulders in front of it provided the only potential hiding place. There was nowhere for her enemy to run. She'd catch them, gut them, and toss their corpse away.

With a rage induced scream, the young Sithling jumped behind the boulder, the point ends of her knives stabbing wildly - and meeting nothing but air.

There was nothing there.

"What the krak?!" she yelled, looking wildly around.


[member="Pash Tafo"]

 

[Pash Tafo]

Pash saw more blaster bolts streak towards Scherezade, missing her. He arrived behind the boulders a moment after the woman, finding no one, no person, droid or automated defense unit...just nothing. There was no sign of how they could have escaped without Scherezade or he seeing them. He banged the butt of his pole arm against the ground, rocks and wall, finding no sign of an exit.

Pash turned to the Sithling. "Perhaps your ghosts have blasters." He quipped, surveying the surroundings. "I have a bad feeling about this." He added, stepping from behind the boulders. " I don't like fighting what I can't see."

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

"They're not my ghosts," she grumbled, sheathing her knives back under her clothes. Ghosts. She didn't know anything about actual ghosts. She knew about the three Mandragora spirits but this was not the same. What was worse was that she couldn't even ask the Jart that had claimed her, since her connection had been severed when she was hit by the Force Lightning.

Still, she echoed his bad feeling about this. She loathed needing to fight something that could not be stabbed, maimed, or killed. Mostly, because she had no idea how to deal with it in the first place. The good kind of a thing was a thing you could kill. Anything else was just cheating.

Scherezade looked around, spreading her Presence around with the Force. Still nothing.

"We didn't imagine those blaster shots, did we?" she asked and bit her lower lip, "maybe we're hallucinating together?"

[member="Pash Tafo"]

 

[Pash Tafo]

Pash watched as the Sith woman sheathed her blades. He was not convinced they were dealing with ghosts, but Scherezade had a good question about the blaster bolts. Neither of them had been hit, though he did deflect one with his weapon.

"Are you suggesting some sort of illusion or mind trick?" Such things were possible, he supposed, for skilled force-users, even to create the illusion of bouncing off of his wan-shen blade. The concept did not make the Matukai feel any better. His power and strength was in the physical, in cleaving flesh and bone.

His gaze swept the area before turning back to the young woman. "We best keep moving forward." He offered, eyes keenly watching.

[member="Scherezade deWinter"]

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

Illusion or mind trick. Scherezade hadn't outright suggested that, but now that the words had been uttered, she thought perhaps the idea wasn't too far fetched. She knew there were such things, she knew about the theoretical side of how they worked, and maybe... But who would spend so much energy on it? And on the two of them? Was this actually for the two of them, or were these defenses put in place against all those who would try to pass by?

She nodded when Pash said the best keep moving forward.

"Never trust something you can't stab," she murmured as she walked from behind the boulder, eyes cast in the direction they had to go in.

Scherezade wasn't one to often feel fear. But she definitely spooked now. She was also not going to put her knives back. The ones that were in her hands were going to remain there.

"Let's go," she said, and started walking again.

This time, she sensed forward through the Force, trying to leave no stone unturned. "I don't get it," Scherezade said after a few minutes, "there's nothing. Nothing."

[member="Pash Tafo"]

 

[Pash Tafo]

"Keep an eye out." Pash suggested, knowing she would understand, it was not only her eyes the young force-user employed to survey their surroundings. While the Matukai's use of the Force was purely within the confines of his body and weapons, Sherezade's certainly could reach into the world around them to find potential enemies. Even though she sensed nothing.

"I agree, lets keep moving...." The strong limbs of the man moved a bit faster, but not so quickly that they run into an ambush. They were approaching the lair of pirates, after all. Not to mention the apparitions that seemed to be taunting them along the way.

Pash's glance darted to the young woman beside him. Her slender hands gripped her blades confidently, almost anxiously it seemed, as if eager to wield them against real flesh and blood. Was it the Sith in her that enjoyed killing so? or was it some element of her past that left Sherezade so willing to face death. With the tales he had heard, it seemed she evaded death on a regular basis. Pash found it sort of contagious, and his fingers flexed around the haft of his pole-arm in a growing eagerness to battle the troublesome pirates.

"Lets keep clear of tight places, just in case our ghost's blasters are real." He offered with an encouraging wink.

[member="Scherezade deWinter"]

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

Scherezade nodded. She was keeping eyes and senses out, trying to get a feel for whatever might be lurking around. Still, she found absolutely nothing. No feel of life, no-

She froze in her steps as another memory floated in her mind. She was inside a lavish living room, peering out through the eyes of her grandmother. She saw her own mother there, four years old, chewing on the end of a pencil while her her mother's sister, Cordelia, was being tutored. Her grandmother had given her an onion and told her to find the dead spots within it. Cordelia had managed to find it by finding the live spots that surrounded the dark holes. Her mother, still a four year old child with chubby cheeks, commented that she hated onions.

Scherezade blinked as she returned to the present. So... Was that a subconscious hint? Was she supposed to see what was alive and then try to see the negative through that? She adjusted her thought patterns, looked again, and...

No, still nothing.

She groaned.

It was a few minutes later that the two had reached the opening to a cave. A single cave. It looked deserted enough, but by now Scherezade could feel the faint vibrations of the ground. There were people, or somethings, in there, and moving.

"Looks like we found it," she remarked. Her annoyance was great enough for the excitement over killing pirates to have evaporated almost entirely.

[member="Pash Tafo"]