Keepin Corellia Weird
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLXQltR7vUQ
There were a lot of ways for a man to make his way in this universe...In his decades of life, Ijaat had tried most of them in some form or the other. Work as a traveling sword-smith had made him quite a name in the right circles, though his work always seemed to come in second fiddle to those wonderous space wizards with their Force tricks and blood-rites.But where his work had it's own market, the money was often secondary for him in those years. He had taken instruction by the finest masters of the sword he could find. Some used the Force, others did not. It mattered very little to him, truth be told. If they had that advantage over him, it only meant he would learn to be better, to match that which he was up against more evenly, and learn how to one day best it. So he had trained on a dozen worlds and more, learned something from everyone he could.
Eventually, he had come home to Mandalore briefly, and had tried to integrate himself into the culture of his birth. But the Mandalorian people seemed to have lost their way, accepting a weak and incompetent man as Manda'lor, and eventually letting themselves be ruled by a council of all things. As if they were the Galactic Republic or some other bureaucratic paradise. Working for them, he had fully embraced the brilliant mind so many had told him he possessed, and had created some wondrous things. And some things that turned his stomach to think of.
They seemed to care more now-a-days for their empire and territory and equality and being nice. Mandalorians weren't pirates, he was raised by a man who loved Jaster Mereel's ideals too much to believe that. But they were not bickering politicians either. Their ideals, their thoughts and beliefs, were alien to the rest of the Galaxy. And that was not a bad thing. Trying to force them to mesh would lead to nothing but heart-ache and trouble...And so he had drifted again.
The Galactic Alliance was the next stop, and it was brief, albeit educational. In between the two, he had been through hell. The Wrath of the Dark Lord of the Sith had captured him, torturing and experimenting on him and vong-forming him. The Alliance hadn't seemed to care, and so he had taken up arms against the One Sith there, since they seemed to want to fight.
Eventually, he had tired of them though... They claimed Light and Goodness, yet also laid claim to a fight that could not be won with those ideals. [member="Coren Starchaser"] still had his loyalty. If the man ever needed it, he wouldn't likely be turned away for pretty much any favor. The Alliance though... They worried too much about the morality of the means, and not so much what those means would achieve. The ends often justified a lot of questionable ways to achieve themselves.
Now though? He was back to drifting the 'verse and doing what he pleased. He had confronted most of his demons. The fact of his parentage had been a tough one, but he and Gabriel had made a sort of peace whilst at the Katarn Homestead... Leaving there had been tough, particularly knowing he had newborn siblings he felt compelled to look after. But the best way he could do that was by doing what others couldn't, and wouldn't accept. For them, he would do terrible things so they might know peace and hapiness as their uncle had deprived him of utterly.
And so he was here, at some Force-forsaken world that stank and reeked, and armed to the teeth as usual. A cunning new hat sat perched on his head, a gift from a contractor who had needed some blaster modifications done. It had came delivered with the customized warden cloak from Akure Executive's line of things. Probably the most expensive 'clothing' Ijaat had ever worn.
Though, to be fair, the 'custom' cloak was more a cloak he had just pinned to work more like a serape that desert folk wore. Strapped low on his hip in a bodo-baas gunbelt was a gleaming DE-10, and on his other thigh rested a rather menacing sonic shotgun. Hidden inside the top of his left boot was a hold-out blaster particularly effective against droids, and strapped hanging low against his haunches bouncing on the small of his back was a rather beautiful and positively ancient longsword.
The final bit of the veritable walking armada was perhaps what most feared, and more's the pity for their ignorance, as the plated crush-gauntlets were hardly the most dangerous thing he wore. Regular clothes swathed him from head to toe, but any who thought him without protection had never seen him fight. Lurking within his very bones was a creation, a curse or a blessing, from his uncle. It's presence meant he could fight and win on almost any occasion, and gave him some odd abilities. Utilizing them pained him, but as he proved on Coruscant when he had leveled the Sith Temple there, they were handy.
So he approached the Ke'dem location, chewing on a stunted and almost finished bit of a cigarra, face wreathed in blue-grey smoke as he waited for whoever it was he was supposed to meet. These folks knew how to play, by all accounts. They weren't afraid to dirty their hands and do what was needed to eliminate the true threat. They understood sometimes you had to dance with the devil on occasion. But there was little and less that he could find fault with- though harsh, their methods produced results. Just had to wait to be let in and that his resume and reputation got him something more than janitorial duty or whatever.
[member="Ashin Varanin"]
