A Little Girl's Dream (Ordo)

[Ginnie Dib]

The Cathedral's forge was illuminant with the crackles of orange and yellow sprays of fire light. Warm and welcoming, the sunny colours flickered and played among the naturally forming cave and teased at the hand-made additions to the cavern. Wembley the Tuk'ata pup whimpered under a pile of raggedly hewn firewood, his paw bent awkwardly to the side and pinned under a fallen stack of heavy iron ingots and bars.

The sole kiffar occupant of the Cathedral sprawled halfway in the retaining pool she'd dug to take baths and siphon the aggregates of her industry away from her fresh cistern. The fire licked and lapped at the hand hewn table where the girl kept her alchemical tools, brushing against some objects with relative distain, while others were engorged hungrily by the consuming fire.

Wembley yipped and whined, calling out to his mistress through the Force to try and tug at her mind like he often tugged at the low hanging tree branches he pulled off for the fire's consumption.

Ginnie stirred. "Rrrrrrrrrrgh." What had happened? She felt a burning warmth crawl up her arm and blurry mahogany eyes peered at the orange and yellow licking at her linen tunic. "AH!" Rolling into the retaining pool, Ginnie smothered the flames around her body and sputtered.

"Wh-what. . ." There was another image in the flames, a tandem pair of hands grasping through the fire to reach her just as the man in the flames had tried in that Sith Prison she burned down. Coughing and sputtering, the child swung her arms around in defence, splashing backwards as the hands of flame and fire continued to pursue her.

'What is that? What does it want!?' She thought, projecting out in her panic.

Back against the wall, Ginnie pushed up on her knocking knees until she stood leaning against the rapidly heating rock.

A body in the flame reached for both sides of her head and the fingers of crimson fire dove at her eyes. Ginnie's scream rocketed out of her as the heat burst inside her lungs, settling beneath her skin.

'She is not ready.'

'She was never meant to be. Let her go.'

'We were invited.'

'Let her go.'

'You are no Master here, Metus. The girl has potential. We will use her.'

'She's not ready. Let her go.'

Weeks before the fire began to talk, a terrified and life-shattered little girl watched her father cry on a bio bed. [member="Ordo"] had been incapable of drying his own tears and Ginnie had promised that she'd figure out a way to fix the whole mess. Old habits were hard to scathe out of a child's experience and it was to the passions of her fallen and lost brother Isley that Ginnie searched for the answer to signs and wonders.

Isley used his rage, pain and hurt to make miracles out of metal. That's what the Alchemical arts were, wasn't it? Packaging up her fledgeling knowledge of beskar smithing and all the items she could find, Ordo's youngest ad'ika had attempted her first serious reach into the horrifying dark of Sith Alchemy. This cave had once been the arena of deep and insidious battles. The dead lied ill in their graves, called upon by the Dark Energies of the planet itself. Ginnie had chosen her spot wisely, if petulantly.

The forge fire sprouted deeper and hotter than she'd normally lit it, burgeoned on with the smells and sights of the sheets of fire she used in the rescue of Preliat Mantis. It had felt like progress to a thirteen year old, but what a dangerous progress it had been. Unleashing powers she didn't nor could not understand, the girl had in her infant craftsmanship tried to alchemically treat the wrong alloy and it did not merely blow up in her face, but in Wembley's face and across the last remnants of Isley Verd's library the girl spirited out of Castle Ne'tra before its' demise. "Wembley? Wembley!"

As she fell to the sloshing pit of liquid ash and bitter water, Ginnie saw the journals on the alchemical table burn. "No. . . No don't!!" She yelled, tripping over her own ankles to see the crackle of the fire spit and pucker in torrents of multi-coloured flame.

Ginnie hit the dirt, diving beside her hound pup as he shook off the debris. Wembley snarled and howled, limping up beside the girl and wrapping his growing bulk around her. The flames began to die down, in no small part due to Ginnie Ordo's rising unconsciousness. The girl acted on instinct and hit the 'panic' button on her comm unit. Had she hit it in time? Did it still work? The child didn't know, "Daddy."

 

[Ordo]

The soft dull hum of the ship's engines vibrated through the gun metal grey deck plates and bulkheads as the synchronous flashing lights reflected in the cold "T" of his visor in an otherwise dark cockpit. His hands, finally his own again, adjusted the controls with a practiced fluidity that could only be gained with time and effort. For some time he had noticed changes in the youngest of his many adopted children, she was searching, for a way to cope, for an outlet for her desire to "fix" things, and he had not tried to stop her. Rianna and he had talked about it and tgey had decided to give her a little growing room, they loved her, wanted her to cope and grow but she was begining to worry her buir whether he told he or not. Hot and vibrant were the promises of the darkside of the force but it didn't deliver after a time and her little trips to Zoist had drawn more notice the the naive child had realized. He still couldn't walk but he was healing with Rianna's help and it was time he and Ginnie discussed the situation a little more plainly.

The engines flaired through the bluish swirling mass of hyperspace as seemingly concentric rings passed by. Dark masses of gravity wells could almost be seen in the azure mist as he drew near his destination. Perhaps, by happenstance, perhaps the hand of the Manda had moved things to suit it's will but as the streams of gloriuous white grew from a pinpoint to the beams of brilliant white before locking into distant pin pricks in the back drop of obsidian silk his gauntlet began to flash the panic alarm from Ginnie's armor.

The ship's engines roared as Ordo pressed the freighter for speed until it finally rested on the planet below. His time as a puppet of the dark lord and taught him things about the force, and he began drawing on the energy force that permeated the galaxy as his repulsor chair raced from the boarding ramp and into the cathedral ahead. Ginnie's ship rested on it's struts not even concealed from aerial view and for once he was glad she still had things to learn. He could hear helps from an animal nearby and called out to her.

"GINNIE, I'M COMING AD'IKA." his deep booming voice split the cold and wind as he rushed through the cathedrals passageway down toward where the nightsister blood trail led to her.

 

[Ginnie Dib]

Inside the Cathedral [member="Ordo"] would find a well situated smithy with many of the tools necessary for the skills he was teaching his youngest daughter. Yet, the fires had sparked past the forge itself, sliding up the walls and sticking with the petulant stink of Dark foul play. The girl had pulled into things she didn't understand, dove too quickly into arts others took years to attempt and it had cost her.

The work table hewn out of a bifurcated tree log was on fire, the ground by Ginnie's feet was on fire. Her Tuk'ata Hound Wembley pulled at the girl's arm and tugged in an attempt to move her away from the encroaching fingers in the flame. He put her down as Ordo came in and limp-paced by Ginnie's feet, barking and howling at the orange and yellow conflagration. Would Ginnie's Buir see what the Sith Hound saw dancing in the flame? There flickering with the fire were the forms of ghosts, reaching and grabbing forward to claim their alchemical prize. In front was a darker form, back to the crowd it pushed against them, holding the fires back. Two shocking red eyes peered at Ordo through the flame. Yes, her buir would save her. The child would not Fall.

Ginnie stirred.

The little girl's buy'ce hung neatly on a rack in an upper part of the Cathedral, she was lost to the booming power of her father's voice. Her skin felt like it was on fire. She groaned and pulled her knees to her chest, head down as the inferno under her skin boiled her insides - or felt that way. The truth was a far more horrid thing: Ordo's ad'ika was not burning, but the dark magics poured into this place had attempted ownership in a practitioner who was not strong in the Dark Side of the Force. Ginnie was no Sith, nor with the proper application of her buir's care would she be and the penalty taken from her pound of flesh was mammoth. Yet, the girl had potential. In time her fears and angers would become a maelstrom undenied and the fire learned patience for that day.

The thirteen year old Mandalorian could not hear her father's yell, but she could feel his presence in the Force - a direct competition to the evils pouring in her veins. Her father's aura was a comforting mix of protection and devoted care, a loving tide which seeped around her and pulled with relief from the heat. The flames retreated from the Master Ordo, as he got closer they would retreat from his daughter. Ginnie's lungs sputtered and heaved, her head rolled to see her father's hoverchair blurring toward her. 'Daddy help me!' The inferno of Dark magics flashed inside her mental connection, her eyes shut she curled into the fetal position and yelped. Wembley continued limping in a protective pace at Ginnie's feet, snarling teeth snapping at the flames.

 

[Ordo]

[member="Ginnie Ordo"]

The flames licked the air like starving beast as Ordo birst in. A forge met him and one much like his own save the alchemical tools. Ordo had known Isley enough to recognize the kind of forge this had to be. As the spirits danced is the flames Ordo drew on the force deeper than he had ever tried before.

His skin took a subtle glow as he began to push against the flames with the force. The air grew colder and in moments the oxygen and hydrogen in the room combined and it began to rain. He tossed himself from his chair onto the ground at Ginnie's feet as the spirits and flames hissed and quickly wrenched his daughter from the flames and to his heaving chest.

"I've got you!" He said relief soaking his mind, "I'm here."

 

[Ginnie Dib]

The scream shaking out of his daughter's mouth was an otherworldly collection of possessions and pent up rage. Ginnie gasped and shuddered as the rain collected and pooled, her Tuk'ata continued to growl and bark viciously at the flames. He attacked elongating fingers and whinnied as the rain came. The fire spat and puckered, spitting out of existence the closer [member="Ordo"] got to his littlest girl.

Ginnie opened her fingertips and fire burst from her nail beds, she opened her mouth and a ray of orange and yellow poured into the air. She shook and spun from side to side, writhing on the ground as the fire kept burning, ever burning the tissue beneath her skin. Pleasant brown eyes opened to reveal the yellowed and crimson irises of those poisoned by the Dark. Yet, as her father's arms wrapped around her the screams which had moments before shaken the foundations of Ziost's soil quelled to the sobs of an exhausted child quaking with pain and fear. Ginnie buried her head into her father's chest, her hands smoking in the rain's light pursuance of calmer weather and smoother sailing for the Ordo Clan.

The spectre of Darth Metus was extinguished by the rain, his crimson eyes boring into Ordo's soul for the strength to save the child.

She coughed and sputtered, curled up in her father's massive chest Ginnie felt miniscule. Tiny. She was an atom in a wave of particles, and the thought was comforting. And the thought was pure. The flames began to leave her, pouring through the ground and down into the reservoir below the water table and gigantic slabs of slate which made up the Cathedral Forge. Try as she might, the child couldn't help the hyperventilation wracking her lungs with panicked sobs, nor could she stop the blubbering that broke her resolve.

"Daddy." She groaned, wincing as a wrack of warm-blooded pain sliced into her side and through the vacant gasses of her lungs, "You came. You came for me." Her birth father hadn't come for her, nor had he the will instilled to care. Until his dying day, the elder Verd had nothing but apathetic reproach for his mutilated daughter.

Yet here her father came. He crossed space and forests to rescue his ad'ika. The thought broke a strangle-hold of pent-up fear in the child, the fear she would be thrown out, the fear she would never be good enough, the fear she could do nothing to gain her father's love. The Dark had clung vehemently to that fear, straining it through her bloodstream like the most vicious of poisons. As Ginnie sobbed, she fell to the relief growing in her chest and slender, and scarred fingers latched on to the fabric of her father's collar. "You came for me. You didn't let me die." She sniffled and sobbed, mystified by the realization that her father well and truly loved her.

"Your present got burned up in the fire." She bawled. What was she going to do? Ordo's gift was ashen sludge.

 

[Ordo]

[member="Ginnie Ordo"]

He held tightly as the flames slowly died and he sent silent warnings through the force. Ordo had seen and been to the otherside and there would have been no where even a spirit could have hidden from him. There was little he could say at first. Emotions seldom spoken choked out the professions of love he wanted to drown her with. She was only a child, an extraordinary child but a child just the same and she was his joy. How could she think he needed anything but her and their family.

"You're all the present I need Ginnie. The Manda gave you to your mom and I. How could you think I needed more than that?"

 

[Ginnie Dib]

"Thank you Daddy. I never been anyone's present before."

Her biological brother had been a Mentalist of high repute. [member="Isley Verd"] was a man of mindful fears, he'd rubbed off enough on the scant years he had with his sister to give the girl a basic knowledge in the telepathic and empathic arts. Clunky and childish, Ginnie used them least often. They weren't her. Today, her flesh seething with burns and the temperate consumption of the Dark Side and her mind opened to her father. [member="Ordo"] was pushing the spirits back and away, warning them that Ginnie's Buir would protect her. He would always protect her.

Or he'd always try. Ginnie groaned and shook, the shock sliding across her shoulders and into muscle and bone. Wembley licked at her knees, limping up to Ordo and Ginnie and crashing weakly to the ground. Wembley's growing, massive head laid next to one of Ordo's equally massive arms, the animal seemed to glean some modicum of comfort from the contact with the elder of the Clan. Wembley whinnied in seizing pants, the danger seemed to ebb and with it, the creature's energy.

"But this one was special, I worked so hard on it Buir. I worked my fingernails off and it's gone." Ginnie looked up into her father's face, "I need you, Daddy! And you got hurt, you died. Sure, Mama brought you back, but you're gonna go into battle and get hurt again and you're not allowed so I talked Isley's Holocron into teaching me Alchemy like my brother did so I could make you invincible so I don't have to lose my Daddy. I can't lose you, Daddy! Not ever. I don't wanna be alone again. I don't wanna have to worry when you go into battle without me, 'cause you do go into battle and you're gonna get hurt when Mom's not there to save you and it's not fair! I just want my Dad."

Ginnie bawled in her father's arms, her growing shoulders moving with her childish crying.