A Startling Meeting

[Zavia Solek]

Location: Sandala, Davathi Village - Solek Home​

Time: 0400 Planetary Time​

Tag: [member="Alwine Lechner"]​

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The village was abuzz with activity as always before even the break of dawn. Her mother woke her up with her normal greeting and prayer to Maisha, their family's chosen god. "Wake up, mpendwa [dearest]." The phrase always followed by her mother kneeling at her bedside as she sat up and groaned from being awakened at such an early hour. From the coolness of the room alone, the young girl knew that it was still night outside. She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand to clear them, glanced around the room slowly to allow her eyes to adjust to the dim lighting. The chill of the night's breath grazed her skin as she pushed off the covers and touched her feet gently to the floor, pausing there so as to not make a sound to disturb her mother's simple prayer.

"Baba, Mimi kunyoosha mkono wangu kwako, hakuna msaada mwingine unaowajua [Father, I stretch my hand to thee, no other help I know]."

Zavia stood and hurriedly put on her clothes for the day and kissed her mother's forehead. She knew where she was going, she'd awaited this day for years. Baba was to take her own her first Hunt before she received her coming of age trials. It was all she would think of as she trained for the past year in particular. The day when she would become a true warrior, a shujaa. She grabbed the sword Baba made her only a few moths ago as she ran outside to meet him.

The breath blown in from the stars above embraced her, wrapped around her body in a warm hug despite the chill of its first bite. The moon glistened above, shining down on her like a spotlight, it knew this day was special too. The stars twinkled and winked at her, wishing her luck in her - their - endeavor. With the skill of the normal hunting party and the cover of night, their bounty would be plentiful and village would be provided for for a at least a few days or a day if they were not so lucky.

It did not take long for the girl and her father to reach the meeting point at the edge of the village. Her father pulled her aside before they all took to the jungles on the outskirts. "Remember, what I taught you. Utanifanya nijivunia [You will make me proud]."

With a nod and smile, they set off towards the dense jungle in search of their quarry.

She would make him proud. She would make her whole family proud.

Maisha would guide her.

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Location: Sandala - Davathi Village Outskirts​

Time: 1200 Planetary Time​

It'd been hours. At least five or six from the position of the sun. It was noon now, the day was scorching, the sun shining and beaming down through the canopies overhead with intense determination. Luckily, she was covered by the massive leaves of the trees. She had plenty of water still, only having to refill it once in a stream only half a mile away, the liquid encased in a leather pouch slung about her hip. So far, the party collectively killed a total of four beasts, all of a mid-size range in weight. Of those four animals they had, two were her kills. It was enough to last the village the necessary days ahead, but Baba insisted that they hunt for more, he felt it necessary to have more than enough this time around.

Only now, she'd ventured off into the familiar shadows and contours of the jungle alone. Zavia was determined to track and kill her own small creature, without the supervision of the adults of their party. Sword in hand and knife on her belt, she set out, tracking a creature similar to an Orycat. She'd been following it for roughly 2 miles, far from the silent gestures and footfall of the others of her clan.

Dashing through the wood, there it was. A lithe creature, agile, easy-going, and far from its pack. A perfect opportunity. Her sword raised at a ready, she advanced swiftly and silently, careful not to crush a twig or fallen leaf underfoot. She was about to attack it in a small clearing when a roar was blasted into her ears from above. Her eyes darted up, taking cover behind a tree trunk, hugging herself as close to the bark as possible while peeking her head around it. The roar was deafening as it came down and descended closer and closer towards the ground.

The roar ended, and a loud thud as a metal beast hit the ground replaced it. This... thing terrified her, and apparently, the target of her private hunt as well. But, the animal was quickly forgotten.

What in Qifo's name...?

She should have ran, ran as fast as her legs would carry her through the brush. She should have turned back and found Baba. Instead, the girl froze, every muscle and sinew tensed in preparation, in a dizzying mix fear and fascination and wonder. For now, she'd watch and wait. Think before acting. Questions burned in her mind.

What did this metal beast contain and did it mean her people harm?

 

[Alwine Daye]

Since her retrieval from Stewjon, Alwine had enjoyed the comforts of a relatively safe life. Although she had been tossed into several situations by now at which her life might have been in danger, she had never been unsafe, always surrounded by her brother or other men in her life that had made it one of their priorities to teach her how to become a proper Warrior and had no interest in seeing their investment lost so soon.

But now was not such an instant. Alwine had already done several test drives, keeping to Confederate space as she learned how to deal with the AI that enabled her to pilot through the stars. Manual piloting was still beyond her, but she supposed with time, the petite blond could get there. Everyone had promised her time and time again that with the AI, she was perfectly safe wherever she went, and still it was a huge leap for her to take. It had taken her months to get there.

Her Knights Obsidian armor and other tools were in a bag, ready to pull out in case of need, though she was in her civilian clothing otherwise, seeing no need to wear armor when simply going to Coruscant.

And she had done it. She had docked the ship she had borrowed there, and looked out through the front shields as the city-planet stretched in front of her. It had been a humbling experience, and the Lupine hadn't known how to swallow it entirely.

So Alwine had simply taken off without even opening the doors.

It was hours later now, and she had thought she was on her way back to Confederate space. Yet when she'd woken up from her nap and shifted back into her human form, she recognized nothing that her eyes could see. She asked the AI several times where they were, and the AI told her they were nearing Genosis. But Alwine knew the space surrounding Geonosis from all directions, and that wasn't it. Terrified, she'd sent an SOS, but had received no reply for hours more.

She was besides herself with worry and stress when an incoming message had finally arrived. It was lengthy and wordy but the essence of it had been did you try to turn the AI off and on again? Cursing beneath her breath that she had not thought herself to do so, Alwine followed the instructions.

And that was when her ship decided to crash into the nearest orbit.

Alwine had screamed, terrified in truth for her life now, more afraid than when she had been imprisoned and tortured on Stewjon. She had thought her life was seconds from being over and she screamed, screamed and growled at the same time, sounds that would otherwise never escape a throat that even somewhat resembled a human.

It was only the safety belt she had been wearing that kept her alive when the ship at last came crashing onto the ground, the impact still severe enough to knock the Lupine unconscious.

[member="Zavia Solek"]

 

[Zavia Solek]

There was a… sound that came from the fallen beast.

It sounded almost beast-like. But, a beast cannot fly a thing in the sky. There was something else… like a scream from inside the thing. Was there someone in there still? Part of her told her not to go, to wait and try to see if the person or creature emerged somehow. Part of her urged her forward, towards the ship, one small step at a time.

It was curiosity that drew her in, towards the hunk of metal, away from the cover of the tree she’d been hiding behind. She crossed the clearing, raising her sword and hacking away at the piece that looked like a door until she made a hole big enough for a grown Sandali man to fit through. She half walked, half crawled through the crater she’d made and begin to search for the creature inside.

She stalked the halls, sword clenched in her hand until her knuckles were pale and her hands cramped. She searched all of the rooms as though they contained some kind of hazardous, deadly material. Her search, however, was thorough. She went through every chamber, every hallway and still found didn’t find the thing or person she was looking for.

Finally, she began towards what she assumed was the front of the downed beast. She saw a woman, sitting down, slumped in a seat. On a closer look, she was pale in color, she didn’t seem wounded but she was certainly unconscious. Probably from the fall. She took her sword and cut through the thick belt that kept her strapped to her seat, dragging the woman to and out of the entrance she’d made earlier.

Truth be told, she was already exhausted but she needed to get the woman some help. She laid her down on the grass near the edge of the clearing. Zavia gathered two long sticks, took off her dried leather cloak from Father, and gather four thin vines from a tree. She didn’t exactly know what she was doing. Only that she was attempting to replicate the bed-like thing her mother laid her patients on for some comfort while she mixed, applied, and healed. She took the cloak and put it in between the sticks, poking holes in it at the corner to thread the vines through and tie them off to the sticks. Next, she dragged the woman up and onto the cot, having made something similar to a stretcher. She took a thicker, stronger vine and wrapped it round and round the woman until the young girl felt she was secure enough.

Zavia drank some of the water from her pouch and used some of it to dampen the woman’s neck and arms to cool both of them down quickly. She aimed the sword away from herself and down the stick, picking both of the sticks nearest the woman’s head up and beginning their trek out of the jungle. Hopefully, she’d have enough strength to make it back to the village… or maybe someone from the village or the hunting party would come looking and find them, that certainly be nice too.

[member="Alwine Lechner"]​

 

[Alwine Daye]

Her dreams were uncomfortable. Alwine was not one to particularly enjoy being unconscious unless it was willingful sleep. The dreams that came from a situation such as this were bad; some would call them nightmares. When she slept like that, she dreamed of Stewjon, of her mother, of the beatings. Of the need to constantly be worried, always be afraid, that someone would discover what she was. What her brothers were. Even… Even what her mother was. Any single one of them caught would spell death for their entire family, her father included though he was but human.

In her dreams she was running. Running through the dark forests, knowing that here was torchlight following her from behind. Screams and shouts, "kill the wolf," "slay the beast," "return the monster to the hell from which she came," were heard all around her. There was no time to sniff the roads or check between bushes. There was only running, and sometimes jumping.

And then the fires caught up. Those were not the fires of the torches, but the fires that she had set to the village's food stores, the fires that Alwine herself had started the morning she discovered that Gerwald had abandoned her and Varick on Stewjon.

As her body was moved out of the ship and onto the makeshift carrier by [member="Zavia Solek"], Alwine's lips moved as though she was attempting to mumble something.

Yet in her dreams, it was not mumbling, but screaming, for the very flames that she herself had set afire were now licking at her skin, burning it, making it bubble above her flesh and melt. Her body did not know what to do; a moment she was a wolf, another she was a human, and all through it she could hear words, her own words, pleading innocence, that she was not a witch, that she did not consort with demons, that she was nothing but simple Alwine Hilde Lechner.

As the fires rose, she could feel it, in her mouth, in her ears, burning her hair, in her nose…

And Alwine Lechner's eyes snapped open.

 

[Zavia Solek]

They’d be treking all day and thought they were close to the mountain range Zavia called home, she was utterly exhausted and couldn’t stand to pull the woman another jelly-legged step. She’d stopped multiple times in the hours of the journey, gave each of them water and gathered food to eat along the way. They’d stopped just on the edge of the jungle, only so they wouldn’t be in the open all night long. She mustered up a fire and laid the woman down on the opposite side of it, taking out a knife and skinning the small, lone Anooba she killed only half an hour earlier.

Needless to say the pace since the kill had been furious, even with the creature strapped to the underside of the stretcher, the girl afraid that the pack would somehow materialize and she couldn't protect them both from such a group. The one loner had been difficult enough. And all of this trouble for an outsider that fell from the sky.

She sighed. She still had to get the woman to the village, Mama would know how to nurse her back to health before ritual combat. A hopeful part of Zavia prayed that the woman survived it. She didn’t want the trip to have been a vain one. Nevertheless, here they were, by an open fire in a small clearing. At least the meat was almost done and she’d discarded the carcass, there was no need to drag it back to the village, even if it would prove useful in some fashion or another.

Across the fire, the woman’s eyes snapped open, drawing her steel eyes from the fire. All she did was casually take out a knife, walk over and cut the lady out of the stretcher. She also handed her a stick with Anooba meat with a smile.

“Eat up, sky-faller,” was the only thing she said in a thick, accented Basic before sitting back down on the ground opposite of the woman.

[member="Alwine Lechner"]​

 

[Alwine Daye]

The first thing Alwine noticed in the dark was that she was bound, restrained. Were she not as wary as a wolf in a trap, she would have tried to fight against it, but for the moment, she refrained, her dark eyes looking at her surroundings. Fire, food, and… Of course, a person.

It was the girl who surprised her. While taller than Alwine (almost like everyone else), Alwine could not help but feel her youth, her freshness in life. Had a child won her out, or had she perhaps taken Alwine after the crash? Alwine had no memories she could search for, account for. She watched her suspiciously as she moved to her, the gleam of the blade in the light of the fire not going unnoticed. The wolf inside of Alwine demanded to come out, to take down a potential foe and danger, but she hushed it without word or movement.

And her patience paid off, for a moment later she was free of the restraints that had held her.

Carefully, Alwine rose from the stretcher and stood up, moving her limbs around to get the blood flowing. She was almost certain it was daylight when her ship broke into the planet's atmosphere, and now it was full dark. Had it been hours? Days? There was a stick with food in her hands. Meat.

And then the girl spoke. It took Alwine a few moments to understand – while the words were in Basic, the petite had not yet been exposed to enough dialects and accents, making comprehension on that front slightly slow. But she understood.

"Where am I?" she asked as she sat down as well, opposite of the girl. Her own words were thick as well with the Stewjoni accent, though she liked to think it was not as heavy as it was when they were all still living on Stewjon, only dreaming of a better life, "and why do you call me sky-faller?"

[member="Zavia Solek"]