Public A Trip by the Blackwall

[Brooke Waters]

The Quiet Storm had arrived in low orbit. Brooke was glad of that. Poking around the Blackwall was not something she wanted to be doing, what with the Sith’s unnatural beasts breaking free, and the Jedi keeping their war fleets ready and moving. But her ship was already starting to run its stealth systems. Getting those up was her primary focus while she moved the corvette. Her pilot droid doing most of the work. Brooke herself was making her way through her ship to her shuttle, the Nautilos. The ship had been primed the second they hit real space.

Stepping aboard, Brooke was followed by a Sparkat and two other Witches, students that she was taking on. They were here as there were some ruins that needed to be cataloged. The world was a bog world. Well, technically a fen, the scans already showed it to be more alkaline than acidic. But as they touched down?

One thing was for certain.

There was darkness here. It was clear. But the landing zone was farther than she wanted it to be from the ruins. Apparently there was a Witch clan on this world, part of the ancient Kingdom. And if the Sith were close, she’d have to move fast.

 

[Juniper Le Fey]

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Darkness pooled at Juniper's feet, rising from the water below and pressing down from the air that clawed at her lungs. She had no idea why she was on this planet, only that she had woken here. It was one of those times when her powers had carried her farther than her will. A trauma response, perhaps, her psyche pulling her where the Force whispered was safe. Even if nothing about this place felt safe.

The last memory she could call her own was fear. Someone had threatened her. Then came sparks of green and pink bursting across her vision, and she woke on loamy ground with no ship, no equipment, only the dark. She had carved her way through it for hours now.

Every alarm in her body rang as she pressed forward, but forward was the only way she knew. She had endured worse, Nal Hutta's slime pits made this mire almost a pleasant walk by comparison, though the sting on her skin told her she was being watched. Juniper Le Fey wasn't one to yield to the elements, but she wasn't blind to danger either. With no weapon at her hip, her hand hovered close to her side, ready to draw on magick at a moment's notice.

The fen deepened with every step. Shadows flitted at the edge of sight, laughter and weeping darting from tree to tree. The mud clutched at her ankles like hands. It was a darkness she recognized, a kinship to her own blackouts, and that familiarity chilled her more than the water seeping into her boots. Whatever stalked her here felt linked to her blood. She needed to live long enough to find out.

It was almost on her, she swore she felt its breath at her neck, when the low hum of an engine cut across the sky. A ship, its stealth veil breaking as it descended. The sound was enough to scatter the gnashing dark before it swallowed her whole. Juniper drew a shuddering breath. This world was not kind, but maybe fate had delivered someone else into it. Someone with a ship.

She crouched behind a moss-slicked log as the shuttle set down. A woman disembarked, flanked by others. Juniper's instincts eased from shrieking alarms to a dull, warning wail. Safer than before, but still uncertain. Slowly, she rose from cover.

Juniper stepped around the log, hands visible, her voice low.
"Don't shoot."
She walked toward the stranger, cautious but steady. "I'm not quite sure where we are. I'm… lost."

Her eyes held Brooke Waters a moment too long, testing her. Whether this woman would be savior or enemy remained to be seen.

 

[Brooke Waters]

Bogs were their own thing. The challenge was working in such a place as a Witch. Brooke didn’t care too much about public perception, she was a Witch, one of the strongest in her Clan, but she was of a tropical vibe. Didn’t fit the holovid of a bog-living Nightsister raising the dead. No, she healed and came from a tropical clan, diving for the reefs by day, fishing the seas at night, and spreading her songs and spells throughout the galaxy.

As her and her own were walking, the last thing that Brooke expected was to encounter another person out this far. The moon had some settlements, barely anything space faring, but there were some places. Though out where they were? It was swamp and fen, wet ground and trees, woody trees, and alkaline water. She could feel that through the Force. Her clan had become very at home with the water, and identifying the differences of it.

Her hand went back towards the sparkat, the one she named Bolt. The witches with her watched as they could sense the other in the swamp too. Brooke still grabbed for one of her knives, the Gem of Arda. The entire knife glowing in a blue smoke, almost bubbling.

“Not going to shoot, we don’t even… Have guns?” Slingshots, though, yes.

“Who are you? How did you get out here?” Nautilos would have filled her in if it found a ship.

Juniper Le Fey

 

[Juniper Le Fey]

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​

Juniper's eyes swept over the group. Power radiated from them like summer heat rising off duracrete, thick and tangible. They weren't Jedi, and they weren't Sith either. Their presence carried the occult's cadence, resonant with the fen itself. Yet it wasn't the same gnawing malice she had trudged through on her own. This current brushed against her like a hand at her shoulder, steadying rather than biting.

Her gaze snagged on the knife in the leader's grip. The blade breathed smoke, blue and restless, its glow curling like mist around her fingers. Even at a distance, Juniper felt the air shift toward it. Whatever that weapon was, it had a spirit of its own- not a gun, no, but something far more personal and dangerous. A woman who carried that kind of edge didn't need blasters.

The Sparkat prowling at their flank caught her next. She had never seen such a creature, but instinct told her enough: a predator, quick and keen, lightning threaded into its blood. If it came to a fight, she would have to strike hard, strike first. The thought flashed through her mind, then she forced it away, for hope's sake, and because witches this strong might read stray thoughts as easily as words on a page.

"I'm not quite sure," she admitted, stepping fully into view. "You see… I have this thing." Her voice dropped, edged with the shame of a confession. "When danger presses too close, sometimes I… blackout. And when I wake, I'm somewhere else entirely." She let the words hang, inviting their judgment or their pity.

A low crash echoed in the mire behind her, branches snapping, water churning. Juniper's head turned, sharp and wary. "This time, I woke here. And there's something out there." Her eyes returned to Brooke Waters , steady despite the tremor in her chest. "Whatever it is, it isn't safe."

 

[Brooke Waters]

Moving with a beast was a different step for her. Brooke did tend to move solo, but as she was working so many coals in the iron, from the High Republic, to the Witch Kingdom, and even scouting into the Black Sun Syndicate. That meant she needed to be on her toes. The Force, in the way that she knew it, was always with her. But it moved in various ways and she wasn't able to always keep her mind working to watch everything around her. She should just find where she fit, but the galaxy was so vast.

So much to see and learn.

With her students, Brooke felt secure, but still, the blonde witch needed to keep her own skills primed. She couldn't fall into too much of a slouch. Bolt continued to pace, with her purrs, there was sparking of her fur, illustrating her electrical abilities.

"You have… a thing?" Brooke quirked an eyebrow up as she surveyed the other. "A curse? The Force? You don't seem… Sith. But not Jedi either…" Not quite. The Force was varied but the two warring religions were the most common.

"Did you teleport here? From where?" There was no ship. But the other was right there was something out there. "Come with us. We can protect you."

Juniper Le Fey

 

[Juniper Le Fey]

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Juniper caught the hesitation in the woman's tone, and it almost made her smile. Whoever Brooke was, she wasn't blind to the dark pull in the fen. That instinct to doubt, to question, meant she might be clever enough to keep alive. Juniper could respect that, even if she didn't trust her. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

But Brooke was still her best chance to get off this sodden rock, and Juniper knew when to play her part. "I have magick in my blood," she said, steady but quiet, letting the admission sound more intimate than it really was. Her chestnut gaze darted between Brooke's eyes, the Sparkat's sparking fur, and the knives at their belts, cataloguing everything. "Not Jedi, not Sith. Something more…" She let her voice trail off, adding a downward glance as if ashamed. "…chaotic."

She didn't need to over-explain, but she did, just enough to keep them listening. "When I reach for the Force, things happen. Lights gutter out, weapons vanish, sometimes I wake somewhere else entirely." The corners of her mouth twitched, an almost-smile, almost-confession, before she stepped closer. Close enough to seem trusting, close enough to snatch a weapon if she had to.

"The last thing I remember was a Rodian lunging at me with a knife. My vision burst in green and pink, then nothing. I woke here." Her tone deepened, rich and suggestive, leaving enough space for them to imagine the danger without her spelling it out. "And yet this place… it feels familiar. Like something meant for me. Like it was waiting."

Finally, she gave them her name with a practiced ease. "I'm Juniper Le Fey. My friends call me June." A pause, her eyes shifting between the three witches like she was already reading their tells. "Do you know where we are?"

 

[Brooke Waters]

This woman before them was not in the best of sorts, the Witch had in mind. Someone who could, and did, move from world to world when trouble loomed? That could not be a comforting feeling. Sure, perhaps her connection to the Fore was a wild one, but if the this Juniper could control it? The blonde nodded to herself. This fen was full of darkness, and the history. She needed to find out what it was. What she could learn. Brooke would offer herself as a friend and do what she could for this lost woman.

Grinning, the other said magick, not the Force. She was a learned being, and one that felt like her, not of the Jedi or the Sith, maybe once before but not now. That was.. Always a good thing. Brooke was a Jedi once upon a time, carried her weapon when she wore that mantle even now. “Magick is chaotic, but only to those on the outside. To those of us on the inside?” She offered a grin, one that could only be afforded to the planet Pamarthe. The folks who knew how to sail, and fly as well as anyone, but with the vibe of the Outer Rim.

“So, is there some control or is it… always random?” She needed to know so she could prevent anything from happening, if she could figure out the way to do that.

Pink and green? What were those colors signifying? She knew green to be a color of the Nightsisters and their ichor.

“We are on some moon. I found an old text regarding Witch Kingdom worlds… This was on it.” Was that why she was here?

Juniper Le Fey

 

[Juniper Le Fey]

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Juniper studied the woman as she grinned. Was it warmth, or was she measuring her? Those were the questions Juniper always had to ask. She hadn't been fortunate enough to call many people in the galaxy her friend, and she had learned to stay wary. Brooke seemed like a good person, perhaps, but Juniper knew better than to take anyone at face value. In the galaxy's ethos, everyone fended for themselves. Brooke Waters might not expect the worst, but Juniper always did.

"It's not planned, if that's what you're asking." She let out a small huff. "If I could plan it, Misch would still be with me, not gods know where with some mean Rodian." Her lips pulled into a faint pout. She missed the Noctua's sharp instincts, and they would have served her well here. "Though I bet he made quick work of that Rodian." Her eyes drifted toward the treeline where the darkness lingered, waiting for a misstep.

When Brooke mentioned the Witch Kingdom, Juniper's ears pricked. That was another thread in the mystery of her mother, another reason her blood had dragged her here. "Witches, you say?" She let a smile play across her mouth as she looked out over the fen. "That explains why this place feels so familiar." Her brown eyes returned to Brooke's. "If your texts brought you here, maybe you were meant to walk this moon as well."

She tilted her head, her smile sharpening as a branch cracked in the distance, this time much closer than before. "But I wonder…" her voice dropped, low and probing, "…did your book say anything about who still lives here?"

 

[Brooke Waters]

One didn't survive and protect herself the way Brooke had without being able to think. Some beings in the galaxy weren't aware Witches could think. Though something in her mind told Brooke this woman before her may not be fully Dathomiri either. Which made her more dangerous in bad situations.

When she spoke, Brooke listened. The power was uncontrolled. That meant she needed something to focus her. To bind her down to the planets. Witches sometimes needed help when learning to teleport. However, this one didn't travel alone. Was it being or beast? "Misch?"

Her other witches were helping to keep guard. As Juniper surveyed behind Brooke to the treeline, she allowed it and watched with the Force, idly. "It's an old Witch Kingdom moon. Or at least was once upon a time. I'm looking for the armory to see what is kept here to bring back to my Clan."

Focusing on the hopeful-companion, Brooke was distracted when the snapping occurred. Bolt wasn't and had turned growling, hair on end. As she turned, she stared "it said it was uninhabited…" a small spell and the Force hardened before her, slowly crystallizing the humidity in the air to ice, however the shield was mostly the Force.

Just as a bolt came through the trees.

Juniper Le Fey

 

[Juniper Le Fey]

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June's lips curved to a slight smile when Brooke echoed Misch's name back to her. Even if the depths of this damned moon, Misch's name brought her joy. "He's my companion." Her voice was still low enough to not draw more attention from the distance, "An avian predator with the body of a Nexu." She laughed slightly as she continued, "The name's short for Mischief." Juniper's brain flashed through the many memories of him causing trouble or breaking something he shouldn't be messing with. "As you can imagine given the image I just gave you."

"Armory?" She tried to hide the thrill in her voice. If there were ancient weapons or armor here to claim, perhaps it was her bloodright to be here. "Do you have room for one mo-" Her voice was cut off by the bolt slinging through the air, Brooke Waters 's shield protecting them. Juniper hadn't even felt the disturbance in the Force before the impact, luckily for her, Brooke had. A pink spark extended out from Juniper's hand instinctively, cutting through the fog of the fen. It traced its way back into the darkness, finding a target somewhere.

Juniper looked back at Brooke, a little ashamed. This was what she meant, retaliatory chaos. "Well, your book was wrong about it being uninhabited." Her dark eyes darted through the woods, making out incoming shapes. "What's next?" She started the conversation off thinking she was going to be the one with the upper hand, but now she was looking to the to the other witches for direction.

 

[Brooke Waters]

Bolt wasn't really hers. He was more a member of the Blue Coral Diver clans of Kattada. The world had enough storms that the Sparkat felt at home. Here she was, with the cat in tow. A creature could have better senses than humanoids. "Short for Mischief, huh? I like that." Brooke smiled. With the mental images, her grin widened. "Seems a bit of mischief is always good!"

The blonde was more than happy to bring this new one along. An armory for their kind could range. Bows, swords, but what Brooke was hoping for was scrolls, old books, and maybe even a holocron. Something for more spells. But first they had to deal with this.

What was it that Juniper had sent out? Some spell, some reflex. It was good. She'd have to learn that. Cold and lightning were her things. The blonde looked to the other. "Yeah… really wrong!" She laughed as Juniper looked at her.

"Come with me." She reached for the others hand. There was a small lake ahead. She saw it from air and the other two were already doing a witch teleport to get free. Brooke could take Juniper along. If she was allowed.

Juniper Le Fey

 

[Juniper Le Fey]

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The warm memory of Misch wasn't enough to fend off the chill creeping into the fen. It slithered down her spine like an icy fingertip, settling at the base of her back and tightening every muscle. Whatever comfort she'd found slipped away, only the darkness remained.

Juniper's chest knotted as she glanced at the others. They were armed, armored, prepared. She had nothing. No blade, no bow. Only her magick, and she knew too well how dangerous that could be when it slipped from her grasp.

"Give me a weapon," she said sharply, eyes flicking between them. "If I'm coming with you, let me carry my own weight. I can fight. I can shoot." Her gaze darted past their shoulders, where shadows thickened into forms. "But if I rely only on magick, I'm a danger to us all."

The words had barely left her lips when the world bent. Brooke Waters 's spell dragged her out of the mire, the ground dropped, light folded, her breath ripped from her chest. Juniper staggered as they landed somewhere new, her vision swimming. The chill of the swamp was gone, but her pulse still hammered as if she'd left half of herself behind.

 

[Brooke Waters]

Memories were one of the things that kept everyone going. The warmth of the past. The reason to keep fighting. She felt the Jedi always needed to remember that. You could fight, you could fight with ferocity, and still not succumb if something was grounding you. Brooke preferred her life now, she was natural, she was who she needed to be.

She could take or leave the fighting though. If anything, she preferred being the huntress, but being prey offered its own unique challenges. At her level, she was an arch witch, she could handle herself. Barely any armor, but some tools. Looking to one of her companion witches, she nodded. “Bow, sword.” She muttered, knowing that the witch had her slingshot still, and could call forth one of the Blue Coral Diver swords from the ichor they carried.

The blonde’s form of teleporting as a witch was different than that of the Nightsisters, going from water to water. As they reverted, Brooke helped to steady Juniper, if she needed it. “We have to deal with these first. I think I counted 10?”

“Twelve, Farseeker,” said one of the other witches, keeping Brooke’s title.

Juniper Le Fey

 

[Juniper Le Fey]

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Juniper staggered as her boots hit ground again, lungs burning with the aftertaste of water and ichor. Whatever trick Brooke had used to wrench them across space, it wasn't like anything she'd felt before. The blonde's hand steadied her, and though Juniper didn't pull away, her spine stiffened at the touch. She didn't like feeling carried.

Her eyes flicked to the witch producing weapons, lingering when the blade shimmered from ichor. "That'll do," she said, reaching out without hesitation. "Bow, sword, I told you, I can fight either way." Her fingers curled tight around the hilt, a tension she hadn't realized she was holding finally easing once she wasn't empty-handed. She then slipped the bow across her back, wondering if she needed arrows.

At the correction, ten, no, twelve, Juniper let a thin smile slip. "Twelve it is. Better odds than I thought." She rolled her shoulders, grounding herself, though the pink-green sparks still flickered at the edge of her vision. "I'll fight. But if my magick decides to flare… keep your distance." It wasn't a warning so much as a test, would they still trust her at their side, knowing she might be as dangerous as their attackers?

Her gaze cut back to Brooke Waters - to the calm authority the others had called Farseeker. Juniper tilted her head. "That's a heavy name. Makes me wonder what exactly it is you're seeking here, weapons, spells, or something else entirely."

 

[Brooke Waters]

Teleporting was one of the tricks of the Witches. It helped get around and made people fear them. She knew of others in her own clan being called wraiths, specters, ghosts of the sea. Something that she could live with in the excitement of it. Today it was just to get moving away from the others. Seeing how it affected Juniper, though, Brooke moved her hands, instinctively using the Force to help stabilize her new traveler.

The witch that gave over her weapons was more skilled with the Force, anyhow, and Brooke knew that the small group could handle the larger one. It just required them to all work together. “Just be ready. I’ll see what I can do to keep them at bay.” With so much water here, it was going to do well. Brooke stepped forward as she heard the calls from the twelve. Seeing them move to the direction they were.

“Is there anything we can do for your magic?” Said one of the other witches as Brooke was already stepping forward, calling upon the slurry of the fen to create a wall to absorb several blaster shots.

As Juniper spoke, Brooke looked away from her slurry of mud and water with a grin. “You’ll see why, I’m sure.” And with that, Brooke used the Force to push the mud wall, before the clouds began to darken overhead.

Juniper Le Fey