A Voice in the Wilderness

[Zak Dymo]

continued from Passing Through Gethseme​

THE PLANET
C O R U S C A N T
THE GALACTIC ALLIANCE

The young Pantoran was passed out on the cot.

A former university library had been re-purposed into a makeshift MedCenter. Relief supplies were stacked up on bookshelves, in between which cots had been set up for the survivors and the injured that had been brought in. The cot that the boy was on was over by the young adult section, between The Hewitt Boys and Encyclopedia Beroya.

He was sleeping on his stomach, his head turned to the right and his mouth agape as he lay there. The fringe of his purple hair hung over one side of his face, shielding his eyes from the light inside of the bustling relief point. The amphistaff was, for the most part, an omnipresent object. For the ten hours that the youngling slept, the biot was coiled atop his back. Or burrowed underneath his body. Or underneath his pillow. It would venture away for a short while, never far, returning usually a minute or two later with some curiosity or treasure in its mouth.

Beneath the cot were the spoils of the amphistaff's scavanging, all broken bits and trivial trinkets.

Stirring, the blue skinned child brought a hand up to push the hair back from out of his eyes as he raised his head up. He looked around, slack-jawed and sleepy eyed, in somewhat of a stupor. He didn't really coming here -- where ever here was.

Mew! Mew! Mew!

The amphistaff was chirping, almost as though attempting to talk to the boy. Coiling onto one side of the cot, the snake-like creature stretched it's head down beneath the cot to pick out one of the treasures it had brought back from its own adventure in the library. Depositing a faded, dirty hacky sack on the cot, the biot used its snout to roll the item over toward the child. At the other end of its coils, the tail was wagging.

Reaching out a hand, the child pushed the snake-like head away. First once, then twice, and then the biot wrapped itself around the boy's arm and tugged back -- almost pulling him over.

Someone had changed his clothes. His ragged, bloodied attire exchanged for a pair of pediatric scrubs that were like pajamas. They were white, with colorful depictions of Ewoks on them. The unkempt bed-head of hair stuck out in a multitude of directions, as his amber eyes looked around for something that might be familiar.

He was here. Now what?

[member="Irajah Ven"]​

 

[Kuzo]

She should have slept when he did. She knew that. Her shift was long over. But once the boy had been fed and fallen asleep, she'd cleaned him up and changed him in to what clothes they had on hand. Asking another aid worker to just keep an eye on him until she got back, Irajah had ducked back out of the library. She'd flagged down a speeder returning to the area she'd found him, and headed back to that shell of a building.

They had found one body. It was clear that he had died before the bombing run that had shattered the roof and walls. The team hadn't found any trace of life, but there were also parts of the building far too structurally unsound to risk searching. They seemed confident that, even if there was another body, there probably wasn't anyone left alive in there. Small comfort.

"Doctor Ven, are you okay?"

​It took her longer to reply than expected. Her voice was carefully neutral, carefully controlled and modulated from years of being the giver of bad news to grieving families.

"Of course. You did all you could here. I'll be along in a minute- no, you don't have to wait for me."

It didn't take long for the search team to clear out- they had other places to be, after all. Too much work and never enough hands. The ruined walls loomed in front of her. Slowly, she'd walked toward the building, hazel eyes unfocused.

It had been impossible to miss the signs of a lifetime of abuse and neglect on the child's body. The injuries from the actual bombing had been relatively minor, a miracle itself. But his history was written across his flesh, indelible and silently accusing. Accusing who?

Everyone.

She didn't go inside. The fury in her breast surprised her, but the surprise was distant and numb in comparison. She didn't know this boy. Her own history, her own family- while secret ridden- was full of love. She could not think of a time, even once, when one of the adults in her life had raised a hand to her. She knew of course that it happened. Someone couldn't work in a hospital without coming face to face with horrific abuse. And her own experience, surviving the devastation of her planet- she had thought that from now on, perhaps she'd be immune to these small injustices. But there was nothing small about this.

Both of her hands were on the wall. She didn't remember reaching up, but there they were. Arms outstretched, elbows locked, she leaned heavily on her hands, hanging her head. Her chest hurt, she could barely breathe. The feeling of tension singing through her body- of anger- of burning fury- felt as though it would tear her apart. She had held all of that, her own feelings about the loss of her people, so tamped down, so under control for the last few months. She couldn't afford it, she had convinced herself, these raw, rampant emotions.

In this moment, at least, Irajah didn't care.

*****

"Hey, Doc, you were right next to that building when it collapsed. But you don't have a scratch on you. Will of the Force, that was."

She looked up from the cot she was sitting on, back at the library. She had a blanket wrapped around her own shoulders now, and was sipping on a steaming hot cup of brown water (ostensibly caf, but she wasn't buying it).

"Yeah. The Force. I'm just lucky- I guess."

"Well, if you need anything, let someone know, okay? Get some rest."

Irajah nodded, but didn't move until he had vanished around the corner of the book stack. She glanced over in the other direction. She could just see the bottom of the cot [member="Boo Chiyo"] was sleeping on. Slowly, she laid down herself, setting the cup (yeah, that wasn't happening) on the floor beneath it. Curling up on her own side, she laid awake for a very, very long time.

By the time Boo woke up, she had fallen in to a restless sort of sleep- the kind stuck between dreaming and awake.

 

[Zak Dymo]

The pajama-clad Pantoran wandered down the aisle in the library.

One hands was stretched out, passing over the edge of the shelves and the spines of the holobooks as he passed them by. Large, luminous, amber eyes peering at the tomes that were illuminated there with a sort of ordinary wonder. He had never been in a library before.

He paused, stopping before a holobook that had fallen from off of the shelf. Bending down, the boy picked the tome up from the floor. Turning it over in his hands, the book came alive with holographic renderings of symbols and markings that floated in the air over the false page that the image presented. Except those symbols had no meaning to him. He had seen them, or ones like them, but no one had ever taught him to read them.

What would have been the point?

Setting the book back on the shelf, the child continued further down the row of bookshelves, until he'd arrived at the end. Peeking out from around the corner, the blue-skinned child watched as people mulled in and about the relief center.

Mew!

Glancing behind him, the boy turned and looked down to see the amphistaff coiled behind him. The hacky sack was on the floor in front of the biot, who used its snout to roll the ball toward him. With it's tail wagging, the snake-like creature looked up and then chirped again. Mew!

Bending down, the boy picked up the hacky sack. As he reared back up, the child tossed it underhanded back toward where the cot was that he'd been sleeping on. As the amphistaff darted off in pursuit, the boy turned to venture around the end of the bookshelf, wandering into the midst of the make-shift MedCenter.

Arriving at the hacky sack, the biot scooped the knit ball up. Coiling around, the biot looked around for signs of the boy. It's gemstone like eyes picked up on traces of heat on the other side of the shelf, so the biot slid through the bookshelf. As it did, it found itself near another cot. On which a familiar person lay.

Sliding over toward the cot, the snake-like creature reared up to deposit the hacky sack on the side of the bedding. Then coiled back down and gave its familiar sound. Mew!

[member="Irajah Ven"]​

 

[Kuzo]

"Mew yourself," came the sleepy, absently minded and slightly slurred reply.

Hazel eyes blinked blearily. It took a moment to bring everything in to focus. She frowned and blinked some more. Squinting, she tried to read the chrono on the far wall. That couldn't be right. Only two hours since she'd fallen asleep? Maw take it. Sitting up slowly, she rubbed her eyes. The cot at the far end of the row was empty.

Mew.

"Azi, I'm awake," she said with a stretch and a yawn that didn't too much to convince anyone. Putting her hand down on the hacky sack, she looked at it, uncomprehending for a moment.

"You did not wake me up to play fetch- of course you did. Where's-"

She stopped and realized that while he'd told her the ampistaff's name, she had no idea still what his was.

"Where's your friend?"

Watching the biot for a moment, she realized quickly that this wasn't going to get her anywhere. Standing up, she stretched again. She was slow to get moving- everything hurt. Frown deepening slightly, she rolled up one of her sleeves. The bruises were deeper, more numerous than yesterday. Which meant that she would need to do something about the tiny, internal bleeds caused by moving the virus around in her system. She could take a day or two off, do what needed to be done. But-

Scooping up the hacky sack, she gave it a soft, underhand toss before padding down the isle, looking for [member="Boo Chiyo"].

But not yet.

 

[Zak Dymo]

So... what kind of place was this?

As the young Pantoran ventured into the main room, he saw all manner of people moving through the library. Some injured, hobbling through the interior in tattered, bloody clothing. Or being chauffeured in chairs or stretchers. Some of the stretchers had a sheet over it, covering what was obviously a body underneath.

The reception had become a mad house, as people came in search of loved ones or aid workers worked to try and identify the staggering number of John Does that were present inside of the MedCenter. Overhead, the echo of ion engines sent a palpable shiver through the room as the sound ignited fears that the battle might not be over. Head tilting back, the child's amber eyes scanned the broken and yellowed ceiling tiles, unaware that he was holding his breath in anxious anticipation of some explosion to follow.

A clatter behind him made the child jump.

A stack of holobooks had fallen over, the head of an amphistaff rising from out of the wreckage with a hacky sack in its mouth. Wagging its tail for a moment, the black biot slithered out from the strewn assortment of tomes to slide back toward where the brunette doctor stood. Rising a half meter off the ground, Azi swayed back and forth in wait of someone taking the sack and throwing it again.

Now that he'd just been scared half to death, on top of having just woken up, the young Pantoran was in a bit of a panic. Rushing up toward the woman, the boy blurted out, "Do... do you know where the refresher is?"

He was starting to dance back and forth.

"I really gotta go."

[member="Irajah Ven"]​

 

[Kuzo]

"Oh. OH! Of course, come with me."

Irajah led the way, threading through the library. Fortunately, the 'fresher wasn't far- it was necessary to have facilities close for both the aid workers and the refugees. She stepped out of his way and motioned, not taking up any unnecessary time with chit chat.

Waiting outside, she turned around- and almost stepped on Azi. She managed to avoid it, just in time, barely keeping from falling on her own face in the process. As it was, she ended up on her hands and knees, almost eye to eye with the little creature. The amphistaff wriggled, dropping the hacky sack on the floor.

Mew.

"You have got to be kidding me."

When [member="Boo Chiyo"] came back out, he'd find Irajah, sitting cross legged on the floor.... playing fetch with the biot, a resigned look on her face.

Glancing up at the boy, she smiled.

"Interested in breakfast?"

 

[Zak Dymo]

The boy emerged from out of the refresher, the crisis having passed, and looked down to see the woman playing fetch with the world's deadliest snake.

This was either bravery or madness, but it looked like a woman playing fetch with a creature that didn't know whether it was supposed to be a spitting cobra or a labrador retriever. Whenever she would hold the hacky sack up, the snake would poise its body like a cat -- head down, moving side to side tracking the ball, a coil raised up as though it were arching it's back, and tail extended out as it wagged with excessive energy. Then it would go darting off and come back again.

Then she asked him if he were interested in breakfast.

The boy honestly wasn't sure he understood the question. Or if it even was a question. "Uh..." the Pantoran began, a blank expression on his face. No one had ever asked him that before. Heck, no one had every asked him anything about food. He wasn't even told to eat. He damn sure wasn't asked about it. "...okay..?" the child managed, his eyes moving from side as he squirmed in complete uncertainty of what was being asked, or told, or what this was supposed to be about.

Wait, was she asking him? Or telling him? Or what even was going on? Why was she being nice to him? Why was she offering him food?

Again, that is. She seemed very liberal with the food.

"Are... are you my master now?"

[member="Irajah Ven"]​

 

[Kuzo]

Irajah started to get up, dusting her hands off on her leggings- but his words froze her halfway to her knees. She stared at him for a long moment, one, two, three echoing heartbeats sending the blood rushing deafeningly through her head.

Slowly, almost painful, she breathed in deeply, letting it all out in a single woosh.

"I am not your master," she said, her voice quiet, but words clearly enunciated.

"No sentient being should own another. I understand that's not the way everyone in the galaxy feels- but it's how *I* feel. No one owns you. Not any more."

She got up slowly, trying to keep a lid on the actual pain she was in. She would need to rest, for several days, and soon. Too much time had passed since the last time, and too many things had happened. She'd pushed herself too far yesterday, without considering her limits. Paying for that was inevitable.

Looking at [member="Boo Chiyo"], she reached out her hand, leaving it hanging in the air between the two of them.

"But if you'll let me, I'd like to be your friend. If not, well, that's okay too. But I'll do whatever I can to find you someplace safe. Because I am *not* your master.... and no one else should be either."

 

[Zak Dymo]

No sent... what?

Was that even basic?

The Pantoran's nose wiggled slightly as his expression adopted a confused look. "What's a sentry ent?" the child asked, as the vocabulary sailed right over his head. The rest of it though, he understood. Well, he understood the words that were coming out of her mouth anyway. Not so much the rest of it.

So... she wasn't his master. And no one owned him.

And sentry ents shouldn't own people, whatever those were.

"If no one owns me, then where do I belong?" the boy asked after another moment. On Coruscant, who owned you or who you owned kind of determined your status. At least, that seemed to be how it worked according to what he'd seen. So if you weren't owed then... what? Should he go back to just begging on the street and pickpocketing people again?

This lady had some strange ideas.

The pajamas she'd gotten him were comfy though, so at least that was in her favor.

The boy blinked as she'd made the last statement. She wanted to be his... wait, what? "Wait... friend is a real thing?" Honestly, he'd thought 'friends' was just the name of a popular holo-sitcom that sometimes came on after Master had gone to bed, which was the only time that Boo ever got to do anything fun.

People not owning people... that... that was a rather radical idea.

Tilting his head to one side, the boy's facial expressions transitioned from shock to disbelief to a kind of apathetic blasé. "You're not from Coruscant, are you?" the boy noted fnally.

[member="Irajah Ven"]​

 

[Kuzo]

"Sentients are.... beings that can think for themselves, that can feel things. Species with intelligence. You, me, bothans, ithorians..."

She was way out of her league here. There were things she was good at, equipped to handle. But she had very little direct experience with children and even less with children who had undergone anything like what [member="Boo Chiyo"] had. Of course, she didn't realize just *how* far out of her depth she was yet. Not until-

"If no one owns me, then where do I belong?"

Irajah almost sat back down again. The weight of that question took a full moment to completely sink in.

She wasn't completely naïve. She knew that the situation on Coruscant was not one equipped to handle orphaned (?) children. There was no social safety net, no place for them. But she hadn't really thought about it until now. The limits of the aid organization here was to find survivors, treat them for their medical needs, feed them, cloth them if necessary and then.... send them on their way.

It was with a roiling in her stomach that she realized how utterly insufficient this was. She had spent the last few days, working hard, but with a sense of accomplishment. After what had happened on her own world, this was a balm of sorts. That she was really helping people. And perhaps, in some cases that was true. There were plenty of people who had a life to go back to once they were dug out of the rubble. But how many didn't?

She hadn't even asked.

"No," she said finally, answering his last question first, her voice heavy. "I'm not from Coruscant, you're right. My own home world is- was- very different from this."

If no one owns me, then where do I belong?

If she didn't figure out the answer to his question- the right answer to his question- it would haunt her for the rest of her life.

"And yes, friends are real. They are rare and precious, but very real. They listen to you, and help you if they can. Sometimes friends help you learn... hard truths. They don't always get along, or always agree, but friends," she paused, looking down at him. "Friends don't turn their backs on each other."

She'd offered him friendship, but hadn't even considered what that really meant until that moment. He didn't need a friend, not really. He needed a lot more than that.

"You could stay with me."

The words were out of her mouth before she could really think about it. She plowed on, not letting herself dissect anything too much.

"I travel a lot, and I don't really know a lot about kids," she said in a rush. "And I know even less about you, and you don't know me. But you could stay with me while we try to figure out the answer to where you belong. I- I don't know the answer to that. But maybe we could figure it out together."

 

[Zak Dymo]

"My own home world is- was- very different from this."

The child's yellow eyes just blinked.

He caught the change there. Is. Was. So... her planet wasn't different anymore? Was it like Coruscant now?

There wasn't really time to think about it, as the lady was already halfway into her friends soliloquy. At least, that's what Admiral Offutt had said whenever Master had been going on about something. He wasn't sure what it meant, but it seemed to be used whenever people were talking a lot. And about stuff that was hard to believe. People helping people? When did that ever really happen? Like, ever?

"I don't get it," the boy remarked at the description. "What's the catch? Whadduthey get out of it?" His Undercity accent was definitely coming through in how he seemed to merge what do they into seemingly a single word. Still, it was a valid - if inarticulate - question, from his perspective at least. There was always a price to pay.

Always.

Case in point, she offered him clothes. She offered him food. She'd shown him a place he could sleep. But what was she getting out of this? Especially the whole he could stay with her motiff. "Wait, so... I... I can stay with you, but you're not my master..." Could he just call her 'master'? Because he felt like that would be a whole lot simpler than... whatever this was.

"So... what do I call you?"

That was probably a good place to start.

[member="Irajah Ven"]​

 

[Kuzo]

"Well, friendship goes both ways," she said slowly, trying to find the words. "It's not about being even, or who owes whom what. But it's about being kind to each other. Sometimes, one friend needs help. Sometimes, the other one does. It's.... knowing you have someone who will watch you back. Someone you can trust. Someone who cares what happens to you. Sometimes that's concrete things like food or clothes," she paused again before pressing on. "And sometimes, it's just sitting quietly with someone and holding their hand when they are scared. It.... feels good. To know that you can help someone else, and count on them to help you too."

Irajah frowned slightly, but the expression evened out again when she looked back at him.

"But I think you are asking what *I* am getting out of this, aren't you?"

The frown hadn't been for that realization. The frown had been for the series of events that had led to a child asking these things in this manner.

She spread her hands out, a little bit of a helpless gesture.

"I don't really know. You might not believe this, but I'm not looking to get something out of this beyond trying to help. It's why I'm here to begin with. Maybe it's a sense of accomplishment. Maybe-"

Stopping again suddenly, she breathed in deeply. Keeping it to herself was a habit. But in this case, it would make some of what she was saying untruthful. And while she wasn't adverse to lying in certain circumstances, this wasn't one of them.

"Something very bad happened to.... a lot of people I cared about," she said softly. "And I couldn't stop it. I didn't know it was happening before it was too late- and there was nothing I could do. By helping people, now, I hope that I can do for them what I couldn't do for my own people. It wasn't my fault, that any of it happened. But I feel a responsibility to do what I can, when I can."

She smiled, but it didn't fully reach her eyes.

"No. Whether you decide to stay with me or not, I'm not your master. But my name is Irajah, and you can call me that if you'd like. What's your name?"

[member="Boo Chiyo"]

 

[Zak Dymo]

This lady had a lot of weird ideas.

A lot of free food, but also a lot of weird ideas. Such as free food.

The young Pantoran crossed his arms in front of him, tilting his head to the right as he tried to follow what she was saying. His facial expressions went through a variety of permutations, clearly articulating everything from curiosity to confusion. Finally, he tilted his head to the left, amber eyes blinking, as he said, "Why'd you be 'sponsible if if wasn't your fault?"

That didn't sound like when it was his responsibility to feed the amphistaff and he forgot. Then it was his fault that the amphistaff didn't get fed.

As if on cue, the attention-starved biot coiled twice around his leg. Raising up just shy of his knee, the amphistaff hooked it's snout into the soft, cotton fabric of the pajama trousers and started tugging back in an effort to cease the neglect it so obviously felt. Particularly with regard to a hacky sack that wasn't being tossed at present.

Misinterpreting the gesture, the Pantoran bent down to pick up the mass of coils. From within the boy's arms, the amphistaff's head seemed to jut out in one direction, then change to look in another as it adjusted to the sudden change in orientation as it was lifted up into the youth's arms. Now it wasn't playing fetch, but it wasn't being ignored either. Spreading out, the biot coiled around the boy's arms before sticking it's snout down the front of his pajama top.

"Boo."

Bending down, the Pantoran started to reach for the hacky sack... except his arms were locked up in the amphistaffs coils. Which were not budging, even as the head of the snake was sniffing under one of his arms.

The life of an amphistaff pet owner was not for the faint of heart. Or the ticklish, as the boy let a giggle slip as he jerked back at the sensation of the amphistaff's snout probing against his skin.

Turning his head up, the purple headed child said, "My name is Boo."

[member="Irajah Ven"]​

 

[Kuzo]

"Well. Responsibility means.... I mean.... I-"

And she stopped, flustered.

And just as suddenly, started to laugh. It was a genuine humor, lighting up her face and eyes.

"I don't know," she admitted finally, her face a little red. "It just.... feels like the right thing to do. I hadn't poked at it much beyond that, and maybe I should."

​At first, she wasn't entirely certain why he was saying boo. Was he... trying to startle her? Kids did weird, random things, right? She bent over to retrieve the hacky-sack, trying to decide if she should act scared (you encouraged kids, didn't you?) or ask him what he meant- and then he clarified. His own laughter softened her smile slightly.

"Alright Boo. It's a pleasure to meet you."

She didn't have much to offer him, and she knew it. But her heart swelled unexpectedly, and she decided that she would do everything she could to keep him laughing and smiling.

"Come on. Let's get breakfast now."

​[member="Boo Chiyo"]