Ankarres What You Think

[Gabriel Sionoma]

"No no, like this sir."

The droid shuffled about before leaning forward. He pressed his finger to his chest, then to his chin, and then to the man sitting at the table. Gabe watched intently as the droid leaned back.

"Of course, I don't actually mean that to you. This was simply for demonstration."
"Of course." He would have rolled his eyes if he wasn't so intent on learning the gestures. This was one of the many phrases he was practicing, working on the language itself. For reasons. Pressing his finger into his chest, he mimicked the phrase, and tilted his head.

The droid gave a pause before raising his hands. A slow clink was heard as the droid gave a quiet applause. "Very good sir, very good. In a few years, we might have you at toddler level."

Gabe lifted a hand to his head, scratching a furrowed brow. His photographic memory wasn't exactly helping and the recovered tendons were slowly but surely getting in the way of progress.

"Next phrase!"

[member="Avalore Eden"]​

 

[Avalore Eden]

"Gabe? Where are you?"

Tap tap tap tap, feet across polished wood floors. A child's squeal of laughter - Armaud - bumbumbumbumbum in quick secession. The twins were growing faster than ever now, Armaud having caught up to his brother in status of mobility. Destin may have more finesse, Avalore thought as she watched the stumpy legs of her pink-skinned-son toddle haphazardly across the floor - but Armaud certainly had more strength.

Such an odd movement, the toddle, a bit like falling with every step yet managing to catch oneself at the last moment. How harrowing an adventure it was to navigate from one end of the homestead to another.

"Gabe? No, no Maud, the steps aren't a playground- Oh, there you are," the Healer appeared in the doorway with a churbling toddler in her arms, "I was about to go out to the garden, would..." and then it occurred to her that Dick and Gabe were in the same room without the latter's face going red with aggrivation, "...what's going on in here?" She smirked.

[member="Gabriel Sionoma"]

 

[Gabriel Sionoma]

"Going on? Nothings going on." He scratched the back of his head and pushed away from the table.

"Oh, don't be bashful, sir."

Gabe turned a hard glare towards the droid. "Nothings going on." Sternness crept into his voice as he stared the droid down. The rusted bucket of bolts and faulty wiring gave a returned look, nothing but whirling lights and and an open slot where the sound resonated out. With a pause, the droid looked back to Ava.

"I'm teaching him sign language." The words came out so fast it almost surprised the man.

He breathed in slowly, wondering if he squeezed hard enough, if that rusted dome might just pop off. But if he did, who would teach him? And he doubted he had the strength in his hands for it. Not yet. Pushing the chair back in, he approached Ava, directing his attention from her ever watching eyes to Armaud. "Hey little guy..." Small fingers wrapped around a large index as he shifted his gaze back to her. "Everything okay?"

He was sure he could deflect. He had battled far greater foes in the past. Or so he told himself.

[member="Avalore Eden"]​

 

[Avalore Eden]

A curious glance, a larked brow, Avalore smiled as Armaud gave an open-mouthed laugh up at Gabe, wide eyes taking in the man with wonder as they always did. Such a curious connection those two had. She shifted the toddler's weight in her arms a bit and gently cleared her throat, "Everything's fine. I was on my way out to the garden to pull some weeds, let the boys get some sun. I came to see if you wanted to help."

Brown eyes looked to the man's hand within her son's tiny fingers, "It would be good for your hands. Almost as good as sign language lessons."

Questioning look.

 

[Gabriel Sionoma]

"Never know when you might need it..."

He turned back to Dick and tilted his head. "Stay off the tile."

The droid lifted his hand, surrounded by a sea of ceramic. "Sir!"

Gabe gave a smile and gestured towards the yard. "It's been a while since I've tended, I could use the sun as well." Ava wasn't particularly controlling over where he went but she knew well enough. She lets him loose and he's bound to find trouble, so he's taken to remaining around the homestead for the time being. Keeping to the kitchen or down beneath the house, working on crafting. Materials picked up from Annaj, a recent deposit of cortosis, and a sense that he should be somewhere, doing something. All left him with notions of idle uselessness, mended with busy work and activities. All to help heal from his loss on Lujo.

[member="Avalore Eden"]​

 

[Avalore Eden]

Avalore hung back as Gabe stepped out, throwing a smirk at Dick followed by a wink.

"Good, take this," she handed the toddler over, "while I get the other. We'll meet you outside."


~~~

A playpen in the grass beneath the shade of the growing Ankarres and other force-sensitive trees was where the boys would play with blocks and toys hand carved by Gabe himself. Nearby the seedling of Talon Vosra continued to sprout, its stem reaching higher now and beginning to sprout large leaves. Avalore thought she saw the hint of a bud at the top. The Healer dropped to crouch by it, reaching scarred hands to gently pull away the morning ivy that always seemed to find a way back despite her efforts to clear it away.

"Hello little S'vora," idle words while she worked, the leaves seemed to shiver despite the lack of breeze, drawing a smile to her face.

"This one is growing fast," Avalore remarked to Gabe as he hovered over the playpen before moving on, "just like the boys. I swear someone somewhere flipped a switch to turbo-grow."

 

[Gabriel Sionoma]

This. He took the child and smiled, rocking him as he stepped out into the sun.

~~~

Looking over the playpen, he ruffled the tufts of hair of each of the boys. Sandy brown and raven black, he tilted his head and shifted his view towards Avalore. Tending to the seedling planted within the Ankarres grove. It was a mystical place, the feeling of health and rejuvenation. He silently wondered, with all his growing power of imbuement, why he had not thought to venture out here. To seek his own form of healing, quickening the properties of the grove to his own benefit. Maybe he sought a more natural turn, a chance to rest from the battlefield. But he quickly found himself longing to return to Annaj. With all this Ankarres wood around, he'd have to come up with a new excuse. Or maybe he wouldn't.

"Yeah, they seem to do that. Before you know it, they'll be climbing these trees and venturing out." He paused as he sighted in on a swarm of bees, in the distance, and smiled. Turning back to Ava, he looked towards the seedling and nodded. "I know very little of their biology, despite my knowledge of plants themselves. All gained from imprisonment on Sullust, of course." He pressed his hands together, fingers moving as he felt the raised edges of new scars. And the thought of being pinned against stone.

[member="Avalore Eden"]​

 

[Avalore Eden]

"Mmm," Avalore bundled a tangle of morning ivy around her hands, pulling it from around the base of the seedling before pushing herself to stand again. Tossing the weed to a nearby empty wheelbarrow she moved on further into the copse of trees where she began what seemed the weekly ritual of pulling down those sneaky ivy vines from the trunks of Ankarres and Force Sensitive trees. For some reason, the Healer noted, the ivy never climbed those of the baffoor.

"What an adventure you've had," the woman remarked to her companion, "and keep having. One day you should write a book. I'll be particularly interested in the chapter on why [member="Gabriel Sionoma"] elected to learn Sign Language."

Avalore smiled to herself, standing on tip-toes to reach the higher branches and unwind the ivy from them.

 

[Gabriel Sionoma]

"Surely you don't need a book for that..." He gave a smile as he picked a toy out from Destin's hands. Turning it over, he realized that the topic wasn't anything he should avoid with her. After all, she was likely to figure it out sooner or later.

"I met someone, a friend..." More or less. "She isn't capable of speaking. But she can hear just fine. So I while I can speak to her, she can't do the same." He placed the toy back in the green boys hands, just on the verge of tears after losing the thing he thought was his. Gabe tilted his head and chuckled, turning back around to inspect the weeding techniques of the healer. "So I'm learning to sign, in an effort to better understand her." He considered the notions of moving mountains for such an endeavor. He suspected he would try, given the chance.

Crossing his arms, he squinted towards a break in the leaves before refocusing on the ivy. And how the network seemed to move with every tug that Ava put into it. "You're a very important part of the story, Ava. Maybe I'll have you co-author it."

[member="Avalore Eden"]​

 

[Avalore Eden]

"Me?" Ava pipped as she gave a yank and pulled several strands of ivy down at once, "I'm just a support character though. The sidekick. The Sanwire to your Frollo." Following the main vine as it looped itself down around the trunk, she found the root source and gently began to dig it up, glancing off to Gabe, "You going to stand there and scrutinize my poor form or are you going to give those hands some therapy, Gabriel?"

Smirking, she wiped a stray lock of hair from her face with the back of her wrist before going back to work, "What's your friend's name?"

[member="Gabriel Sionoma"]

 

[Gabriel Sionoma]

He smirked. "Sidekick? If you say so." Incredulous as he moved away from the playpen, he approached the tree and the ivy that seemed to be encircling it. It was easy to get distracted by the lumping of small vines and leaves, the showy bits of the plant. But beneath that, pulled away, were thick vines running to the ground. The sort that Ava was now focusing on. So her poor form wasn't nearly as poor as she might have thought. The act was similar to girdling. Cut off the source to the roots and the ground, and the ivy will die. Of course, it needed to be done repeatedly. Multiple times a season.

Her name. He remembered the inscription, etched into the golden exterior of that holocron. The item that nearly drove her to madness in re-obtaining it. Cerusia Shamalain. He remembered asking her and how nothing was returned but an inquisitive raise of the eyebrow. And the way the arrow spun in response to his question.

Pulling hard on a thick vine, he curled his hand between runners and twisted, wrapping the plant against his grip. And he tugged, equipped with a thoughtful smile. "Cera."

[member="Avalore Eden"]​

 

[Avalore Eden]

Silence from the Healer as she paused in her pursuit of a new root, brown eyes lingering on the man as she waited for an answer. There'd be no hiding from a woman's intuition and judging by the smile grown on his face as he spoke the name Avalore wagered this was a very special friend.

"That's a nice name," she offered in reply, resting a hand against a Force Sensitive sapling, her own smile forming unbidden at the sensation given off from the young tree. They weren't sentient, not like the Bafforrs that whispered in the breeze and captured the attention of her boys, but they exuded a sense of unity, oneness. Hand against the bark she felt like here was exactly where she was meant to be more than anything else.

One of the boys gave a squealing laugh from the playpen, causing her smile to broaden.

"How did you meet her?"

Back to weeding.

[member="Gabriel Sionoma"]

 

[Gabriel Sionoma]

He looked over to Ava silently, having realized he hadn't thought about that in a long while. It seemed like such a distant memory. Shaking his head, following the pause, he went back to pulling the ivy from the tree. Wrapping the large roots around his hands, he twisted until they broke. Growing from herbaceous to woody vine had left these plants a fierce adversary to pruning.

"I found a cache a while back, filled with a number of items that I have since used for jewelry working." He yanked another piece free and flung it to the ground, reminding himself that they would need to dispose of that. Force would tell what impact these healing trees might have on these suffocating plant species, giving life where none was needed. "It had in it instructions for access to a shop, for obtainment of such things as Ankarres wood. So I went to Annaj in search of the shop and I found it. A man named Kep and her, those were the residents within the structure."

He gave a slow glance towards the boys, playing as they always seemed to. Though Destin seemed to be in a more playful mood than normal. Not nearly as many of those glares and teary eyed expressions. "I agree." He pulled another set of runners free and walked it to the growing pile. "It is a nice name."

[member="Avalore Eden"]​

 

[Avalore Eden]

Some of the vines were thicker and stronger, their roots far deeper than anticipated. Avalore struggled with one for several moments, succeeding only in striping the stubborn ivy of its leaves but unable to uproot the thing. She sighed, smiled, shook her head and left it for Gabe to tend to. Moving on the Healer lowered herself to her knees in the mulch and began clearing clumps of wild grasses from the grove. Flowering weeds, however, were left behind for later transplant to the meadow just beyond.

"A shop?" she queried curiously, "Do you think that's where these trees came from? I've been doing some research on them and, frankly, the databases are inconclusive on Force Sensitive trees and there's nothing on Ankarres at all. It's like they don't exist."

[member="Gabriel Sionoma"]

 

[Gabriel Sionoma]

He gave a smile as he moved to the vine she was working furiously on. Good deal more stubborn than the others, he gave several tugs before scratching his forehead.

"No, I don't think so. They mostly deal in odds and ends and only provided me the treated slabs of wood that could be further carved for effect." He gave it another go, yanking as hard as he could directly at the base. Each pull moved the soil it was tethered to. After three hardy attempts, the soil gave and released the vine roots.

Gabe went staggering back before falling into the pile of collected vines. Letting out a grunt, which in turn delivered an applause and chorus of laughter from Destin and Armaud, Gabe inspected the root in his hand and squeezed it. Maybe they would just forget that happened.

"Ecosystem in the swamp is all wrong for ankarres tree. Though truth be told, it never occurred to me to ask." He looked over to Ava, rubbing the wrist he tried to catch himself with. Maybe he had never really asked because he was distracted. "The tree has potent effects. Perhaps we are better off with that information not being easily obtainable."

[member="Avalore Eden"]

 

[Dissero]

" 'ey come from Varunda IX," said a rasp voice from beyond the treeline accompanied by the encroaching silhouette of a tall, lean, bedraggled man. Gabriel would recognize the voice but the Healer would not and the man paused at the sudden yelp of surprise received as if he'd expected it all along. He lifted his hands, dirty as if he'd weeding alongside them, and cracked a yellow-toothed half grin, "Parley?"


[member="Gabriel Sionoma"]

 

[Gabriel Sionoma]

He was somewhere between pulling a vine and another when he heard that odd accent cutting through the air, and the yelp that followed. He snapped his head first to Ava and then back behind him, the man holding his hands up. With a bit of pause, masked surprise with a furrowed brow, he held up a hand to the healer. "Don't worry, Ava. This is Kep." The one he had mentioned earlier. She couldn't have forgotten this quickly, though to be surprised like this in the woods. Perhaps the circumstance was worth the response.

Clapping his hands free of dirt, Gabe sniffed, rubbing his nose. "You're a bit far away from home...though truth be told, I can't recall you ever saying where home was." He remembered bringing up the homestead to Kep, but it had been so long, the details were fuzzy. All blurred up by a pair of rose eyes. Approaching, he stuck out his hand for a shake. "You showed me hospitality. Least we could do is return the favor." The Ankarres grove was a beacon and Gabe had made a name for himself on the planet, Sheriff of sorts. He had never made any attempts to hide his home from view. So the fact that Kep was here, now, only gave him pause for the briefest of moments.

[member="Dissero"]​

 

[Dissero]

"Home is 'ere'evurr m'feet are," returned Kep as he reached forward to take the proffered hand in shake stronger than one might suspect the scarecrow of a man capable, "apologies for the fright, Miss Eden."

Avalore hung back near the twins, curious but cautious - an instinct she likely would not soon shake off, not even after the boys were grown and able-bodied, "It's alright. ...have...have we met?" Brown eyes glanced to Gabe in recognition of the name. She did remember the mention but there had been rather little to go off of. Avalore doubted she might've made the connection had Gabe not been here to make it for her.

"Don' fink so," Kep's yellowed eyes watched her for several long moments, perhaps a bit longer than was polite, before he shook his head and looked away, "but your name 'n face come up n'all the right channels, Master Healer, Leader ov've Circle. I imagine the Ankarres will come in quite handy fer all tha'. S'what I came teh spek' to yous about t'day. D'yeh 'ave a momen'?"

[member="Gabriel Sionoma"]

 

[Gabriel Sionoma]

"Ah, and here I thought you might have come for just reminiscing." He pulled his hand back, massaging the scarred skin and mending tendons as he inspected the figure. So Avalore was gaining some fame. That didn't come as much of a surprise, how she took over for the circle of healers and was truly one of the only healers in the Alliance. Her and a few others, random Zelosian mixed in when he wasn't too busy praying to the tap tree with his little yodaling.

Gabe walked away from Kep, pressing his hand to his neck, as he approached playpen. "Truth be told, I may have brought you up to Kep as well, Ava..." He reached into the pen to picked up Armaud, arms stretched out and tugging onto the cloth of his shirt. Little fingers moved through his beard inquisitively as eyes drifted to the very topic at hand. The Ankarres trees and the force sensitive trees and even the sentient baffor trees. It was a mystical grove by any measure, something Armaud seemed intently fixed on.

Rocking him, Gabe nodded his head and smiled. "Of course we have a moment. What's on your mind?"

[member="Dissero"]​

 

[Dissero]

Avalore smiled, reaching to stroke a hand over Armaud's soft wheaten-blond top, noting how it seemed to be getting a little darker all the time and in the sunlight she thought she detected a hint of red. Curious. Cutting Destin to the chase before he began to fuss she leaned down to pick up the child whose skin was as green as the meadows beyond the grove, huddling him under her chin where he curled his face in, sleepy-eyed. Nap time was approaching.


Kep watched the children intently, eyes drifting from face to face to face to face and back again. He might've smiled had Gabe not opened the floor for discussion. Kep nodded and moved forward, looking upon the trees with strong familiarity and a sense of remorse.

"Roight, I'll get to it then? Due to some, eh, extreme 'n unfortunit circumstances I've got meself in a bit of a bind. Y'see, Miss Eden, yer correct. Ain't no record o' the Ankarre cause dey never existed a'fore. Were created, dey were, by a close frien o' the man who owns that nice little shop Gabriel visits erry month," a pause, a slow breath, Kep gave a cough, "sadly 'at frien is no more, so there ain't no one left to tend the nursery. Least not the same way it were."


Avalore, frowning, shared a glance with Gabe, "So what are you saying...exactly?"


"Ahm sayin', Miss Eden, 'at you'ins got de largest nursery outside o' the original. An you," he lifted a hand to point at Avalore, "might jes' be the key to keepin' these trees onna same track."

[member="Gabriel Sionoma"]