Private Beckoning Trail

[Colette]

Something had compelled her to grab a handful of dust and scatter it to the wind with her thumb. The dust and dunes of Tatooine felt like a haunting vision of what her own home could have been if it had taken a wrong turn a few hundred years ago.

Nothing here felt right. The dust in the wind seemed heavier somehow and everything here smelled wrong. The dust carried a vague scent of tar and each breath she took felt like she force fed herself more and more pieces of a used up drying cloth. Even the sand grains that poured from her hand separated themselves from one another, almost as if they wanted to be as far apart as the people on this world seemed to be.

Looking around this town didn’t paint a better picture. This was the last place where Reina’s sister said that she had been seen. Colette pulled out Reina’s saber and ran her thumb along the hilt’s metallic surface. To give away her saber felt final. Despite her aversion for tradition, this was a Jedi’s signature. To give this away seemed final, like a sort of goodbye. Did that mean Reina had expected an end? Was it a final gift to her sister perhaps?

The thoughts that raced across her mind as she continued to brush her thumb along the surface of the hilt kept Colette from noticing the tension in her jaw. Some part of her blamed herself for not being more strict with Reina, and another for being so foolish that she hadn’t seen this coming. It had been right there the first time they met. This was the work of that friend Reina had mentioned, it had to be; the manipulator, the liar and the entire reason Colette had demanded to be Reina’s mentor to begin with so that she wouldn’t be alone if something went wrong.

And now she was gone, and Colette had no idea where she went. As far as being a protector went she was already on a solid two-to-zero track record. She hadn’t stopped this and she hadn’t even been around when the Empire splintered the Alliance.

For someone who wanted to be considered a protector she wasn’t very good at protecting anything at all when it mattered, and yet for as glum as the developing situation had her and despite all of the angst that Colette was sifting through, there was still a grain of hope left. She could sense that her apprentice was alive. She knew that somewhere out there she was still breathing even if it was with slowed and pained breaths.

But perhaps more than that she knew that someone in this very village would speak to her eventually and that it was just a matter of who and when. Once she had a name, a description, anything at all to begin tracking down this ‘friend’ of Reina’s she would already be halfway along the road to finding her lost apprentice.

Because if she couldn’t be a protector, then Colette could settle for being a hunter. Whether it was through a trail of blood or of leads the result would always be the same: Reina back at home, no matter the cost to Colette herself.

“This is where the trail ends.” The mentor mumbled and re-attached the saber hilt to her belt. “For now.”

She remained kneeling to the ground as if the cold trail would somehow get warmer if she did. Maybe she could pick out a bootprint or something small she hadn’t seen already.

“According to the sister, this was the town.” She turned her head over towards the man who had helped her get here from the spaceport. “Ideas?”

Remus​

 

[Remus]

Tag: Colette

The horizon was a wavering line of heat and sand. Nothing moved out there but the shimmer. Still, Remus watched it as if the dunes might rise and walk.

Something had been wrong on this world since the moment he landed. It clung to the air, thin but sharp, like the smell before a lightning storm, the kind of presence that did not belong to gangs or smugglers. Something... heavier.

He’d met the girl, the one the young knight with him was searching for, briefly and unplanned. She’d helped him when his own hunt had brought him to this planet. Then they’d gone their separate ways. Whatever had happened after, he hadn’t seen it. Only the space she’d left behind.

Now there was her master, and the sister, and an empty trail. His gaze left the horizon and settled on Colette. He glanced down the street, toward the shade and noise of the cantina.

"We split. You check there. I’ll speak to the marshals."

He stepped towards the marshal's office, and then stopped. He could sense the discomfort and worry in the knight. His eyes, that often seemed so sharp and discerning, suddenly softened for the briefest of moments.

"We will find her."

He didn’t wait for agreement, just shifted his weight and started toward the station at the far end of the street.

 

[Colette]

Remus

"I know." The words were solemn but not final. In spite of everything that was going on she still found the strength to cling herself to the spark of hope that told her to keep going forward with all of this. In the end they would find Reina, but alive or dead was a different matter entirely.

Colette let her eyes wander over to the cantina. She hated these places. Rough people who lived rough lives made for poor conversationalists, Colette would know that much from her own experiences, but the ones inside those doors were ones who had also figured out how to make a living off of it. The chance that something was about to be handed over freely was slim.

She gave Remus a nod and stood back up again. The stride to the cantina was short and her pace fast. The door swept open and just like that she was blasted with the sound of jizz and loudmouthed mercenaries. She had half-expected them to stop when she stepped in but it seemed that for the moment she passed as one of them.

Must have been the tight-lipped scowl.

"This girl." Colette began as she pulled out her datapad and shoved it in the bartender's face. "Tell me what you know."

The bith behind the counter stood his ground, polished the glass, and merely lifted his shoulders with an indifferent shrug.

"She was here a week or two ago, I know that you have seen her." Colette demanded.
"People come and go all the time, miss. Don't keep track of every straggle through those doors." The bith shook his head.

A rogue chuckle passed through Colette's nose. Of course he would plead ignorance, that's what slimy little poison peddlers did in places like this. Never heard nothing, never saw nothing unless it came with a paycheck.

Part of her wanted so desperately to hop the counter and start wailing until she either had an answer or a prison sentence, but that would get her nowhere and Reina wouldn't get any closer to freedom if she did.

"Hundred credits say you do." She countered the tender and quickly got his interest.
"Hundred fifty."
"Hundred twenty-five."

Colette put the credits on the counter and the bith looked around for a moment before he leaned in.

"Your friend there tried to end it all right out there in the street. Had some masked type with them. Dressed up real fancy. Purple. Talking all kinds of things about destroying things and breaking people."
"Who did?"
"Don't know, don't care. That's the truth. Good way to get killed."

Colette sighed and gently smacked her hand on the counter.

"Thanks." She said and pushed herself away to look at the crowds in the cantina. Due diligence would have been to question each of them. Sanity would be realizing that none of them would talk for free or know more than the bartender.

She puffed a sigh and made for the exit.

 

[Remus]

Tag: Colette

The marshal’s office sat squat and sun-bleached at the far end of the street. Inside, the air was cooler, heavy with the faint scent of dust and old leather. Two deputies looked up from a table cluttered with datapads and mugs when Remus stepped through the door. The older of the pair straightened in his chair.

"Well, I’ll be damned." The marshal’s voice carried the gravel of too many years in this place. "Didn’t think we’d see you back here after the work you did on Karrin Doss and his lot."

The name still lingered in the Tatooine underworld like a bruise. A crime boss whose reach had stretched across three sectors until it had been cut short, violently and without ceremony. Remus inclined his head.

"Doss is gone. So is his gang."

"Yeah. And this town’s been quieter for it." The marshal leaned back. "What brings you in?"

"I’m looking for someone." He didn’t sit, didn’t fidget, but he reached for his datapad, projecting Reina's image before them. "She's missing."

One of the deputies glanced up.

"Aye, saw someone like that. Week, maybe more. Wasn’t alone. Other one was head to toe in armour. Looked… wrong. They didn’t hang around." Remus’ eyes fixed on her.

"Where?"

"South. Didn’t see where they ended up. But they were moving quick." He gave a single nod.

"You’ve done me a favour." The marshal smirked.

"After what you did here, call it even."

Remus turned and left without another word.

Outside, the sun caught in the dust at his boots as he crossed back toward the cantina. Colette was already stepping out, her jaw set.

"Your apprentice was seen, spotted with someone in armour. Sounds like the one you're after. They went south."

He let that hang between them, the heat pressing in from all sides.