Birds of a Feather

[Mariel Dawnrider]

Empress Teta​

Cinnagar​

Great Library​

Mariel Dawnrider had been traveling now for such a long time.

After the Silver Jedi Order had arrived on Kashyyyk, she had broken with the more typical insular nature of her kind and learned everything she had been able. Quietly at first. Just watching. The Songwing perching on windowsills and in trees during lessons. More formally later, as time had gone on and finally someone had noticed the dove coloured owl constantly watching and peering in. Eventually it had become clear to her, however, that there had been so much lost. Too much, perhaps. Voss. Ossus. Tython. So many histories and records plundered by the Sith. She had found her joy in the histories at the same time she had found her sorrow in how many of them had been lost. Possibly forever. Had the sith kept them? Hidden them away? Or destroyed them? She didn't know.

But there were other archives. Other libraries. Ones that had not yet been destroyed. And so Mariel Dawnrider had set off. With a hope and a promise. To find what she could. To bring it back. And she had done that. Each trip returning- sometimes with holocrons, sometimes with bound volumes, sometimes with merely copies, but better copies than empty handed.

Each time farther from Kashyyyk than before. Never into Sith territory. Too risky there. But she was starting to grow bolder in her moves, and this trip to Empress Teta after the rise of a new Imperial faction was the boldest yet.

The Songwing was careful, however. Her species not well known off of Kashyyyk, and with her force presence cloaked tightly, she traveled across the breadth of Empress Teta to the city of Cinnagar and the great library there.

The great bronze domed building had been rebuilt an era ago, and while so much of the information from before the years of Darkness were long gone, the library had continued to draw in volumes on history, art, philosophy. So far as Mariel knew, the new powers here hadn't yet censored this place, but how long would that last? The history of groups that self titled as 'Imperial' did not have a good track record for the veneration of ideals not aligned with their own.

The early evening found her up on the top floor of the library, beneath the bronze dome. She had slept well all day long, and perched now with bright eyes and ready talons. She crouched over a large book, settled for her by a library employee (rather bemused but happy to help) on a lectern that allowed her to grip the wood easily. She turned the pages carefully with one foot, balancing easily on the other. Talons were delicate on the old flimplast so as not to damage it.

"I say, do you have the second in this series? There should be a third, but I understand that volume has been lost to time," she spoke in clear but accented basic. She assumed the person behind her was the librarian returning.

She was mistaken.

[member="Darth Saarai"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Mariel Dawnrider"]

Teta had become somewhat of a vacation for him.

After years of constant work? Surprisingly welcome. He was here somewhat incognito. Oh, these Imperials had a reasonable relationship with the Sith Empire. He could have been received with all honours. But Tai enjoyed the anonymity.

The lack of worry or consideration.

Just exploration and acquisition of knowledge. It was great. The next stop was the Great Library of Cinnegar. Hirou had disappeared in one of the other wings, but they'd meet up again later.

His friend's hunger for knowledge made him proud.

He had just entered a new room. Noticed it was occupied by a single - feathered - soul and was about to take his leave, when she (apparently) addressed him. Mistaking him for someone else, clearly. Tai blinked and wasn't sure what to do with that.

Especially because he knew the answer after a curious peek over her shoulder.

"Sadly not. The library has not been able to recover it, since it was 'borrowed' by the then-reigning Sith Lord." The Thirriken finally responded, before circling around and coming into view. Expensive fabric, red and white, silk, elegant and the lines of grace. Tai was not the librarian. That was certain. "I have read a copy of it though, if you have any particular questions." The offer free, serious and not even the hint of a joke.

Knowledge was not a joking matter.

 

[Mariel Dawnrider]

The voice wasn't the one she had been expecting, and when she looked up, neither was the figure. Up on the lectern the much smaller avian looked down at him quizzically, large violet eyes blinking very slowly at him for a moment.

She noted the fabric, the lines of the clothing. Similar taste in quality as her own, if not in cut or colour. Her own more subdued in blues and greys, but then, so too the differences in their plumage.

"Apologies, I thought you were the librarian returning," she said, ducking her head slightly.

"That is.... deeply disappointing. The second copy seems particularly difficult to track down," she clicked her beak, tone heavy with consternation.

But her eyes lit up, and she gave a small hop, wings spreading and flapping twice to keep her balance.

"Yes! Actually I do. There is so much that is left implicated but unfinished from the first volume." Then she calmed down again. Pausing. Tucking her wings back in against her body. Turning her head, she used her beak to settle a particular pinon that refused to return to place for a moment.

"If you would not mind, that is."

[member="Darth Saarai"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Mariel Dawnrider"]

"To be mistaken for a librarian is not an insult to apologize for." Tai reacted with something of bemusement. "They are the keepers of knowledge. Propagators of wisdom."

"It is, in fact, a compliment."

There Tai did bow his head lightly. "So, I thank you." From anyone else it might have sounded like aimless drivel. From Tai? It sounded completely genuine. This one truly believed in it. As the years had passed - as more wealth, more power and more strength was amassed - the Thirriken had slowly begun to understand a simple fact. Only knowledge mattered. Only learning and bettering yourself was important. Wealth declined. Power faded and strength shattered.

But true knowledge?

That was eternal.

"Say one thing about the Sith, say they are rather good at aimlessly hoarding the wisdom of the Galaxy." He agreed with her, dryly, but the irony would be lost to her. Since... Tai was a Sith himself. In fact, neither of them realized it, but they were both facing their ultimate nemesis. Who else but the Lord Inquisitor had isolated, raided and locked-up all these wisdoms of Jedi throughout the conquests of the Empire? Oh, Tai Fa never burned it down.

Not even when the nay-sayers complained.

But it was his movements that made it impossible to find much of the ancient Jedi wisdom. Such was the way of things.

It was her excitement that got to him. Oh, she had style and was polite, but that excitement made his eyes shine. It was the same excitement he felt. Finally being out here and discovering new things. "Not at all, it would be my privilege, in fact."

"de Vineurs had a brilliant mind, but... rather... scattered. More than once I caught him unceremoniously elaborating on thoughts he had already resolved in the first volume. Then contradicting himself in the third. His analysis of the eternal conflict was brilliant, of course." Reading it so many years ago had been an inspiration for himself. The knowledge that the Jedi and Sith fought in endless cycles. One won, then the other, over and over again.

No conclusion, no aim, aimless.

It had been heartbreaking to him.

 

[Mariel Dawnrider]

An unexpected but pleasant response. She ruffled her feathers slightly, head tilting the other direction at him.

"As an archivist myself, I appreciate that view point," she said with clear approval in her voice.

But the comment about the Sith brought an irritated clack of her beak.

"Mindlessly hoarding knowledge is like saying a pack rat is good at gaining riches by snatching every shiny thing it sees, but you do not see rats running successful corporations." She paused there, blinking, and then. "Well maybe one does, but that's a different sort. But having it means nothing when it is not utilized for the betterment of all."

Another ruffle there.

She listened with growing interest (which was saying something as she was already clearly interested) until he reached the point where he mentioned the third volume.

Mariel almost flapped herself right off of the lectern.

"You've read the third??"

With a crouch and then a leap, she burst into flight, making a circuit of the room for the sheer joy of it, before coming in to land, hooked talons grabbing the back of a chair this time.

"I've only seen select passages from the second, and thought the third lost entirely. Does he elaborate on where he left the fourth chapter? He seems to be leading up to a comparison between current and past force traditions- some of which are mentioned nowhere else that I have been able to find. He only mentions that he will elaborate, but I can only assume it is in one of those other volumes."

[member="Darth Saarai"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Mariel Dawnrider"]

Tai inclined his head again.

He didn't know she was an archivist, but that would explain her proclivity towards knowledge. And her dislike of the hoarding. That part would have made him wince once upon a time. Years as the Lord Inquisitor basically thought him how to keep completely impassive.

Probably a good thing here.

"Oh, yes-" Then Mariel flopped off the lectern and started flying across the room. He tracked her with clear amusement. The joy clear from her wingspan. The way her feathers were set. Ah, it was strange to be among a fellow avian. Especially one who seemed so clearly aligned with his own likes. It was not often both traced together. Never, even. His fellow Thirriken were unlikely to be interested in knowledge for knowledge sake.

Hoardy, hungry, they had ambition in spades.

Patience? None.

It saddened him greatly to think- "Only a few hints here and there, sadly." The amusement died out when he was reminded of that. "I have considered many times to search for it, but alas... there are so many things to do, so little time to do them all."

There his wing does flash for a moment.

"He begins the comparison, yes. Between the Je'daii as the starting point- he believes it was there that something happened with the Balance of the Force. Something that shifted it away from neutrality towards a shattering that has caused endless warfare for centuries." With a slight sound the Thirriken pushed himself off the floor. Gliding towards the nearby window, settled there in the corner to watch the outside.

"The further de Vineurs went with his compendium... the more depressed his tone became."

A glance towards her.

"I cannot truly blame him."

 

[Mariel Dawnrider]

Where her experience could not have been different. The Songwing were seekers, but insular. Focused on the gaze within, rather than without. Uninterested, by and large, in the goings on outside of themselves. But Mariel had always looked outward, and the Jedi had allowed her to follow that path of the wind.

She hopped once over to the other side of the chair back, head tipping to watch him glide. Not flight in truth, but his build did not seem to be appropriate to it, once she saw him in motion. A shame that. To be winged but not have flight? It seemed like a particular agony to Mariel. The Slipstream wasn't fair, however, and never pretended to be.

Her head bobbed up and down as she listened. There had been other writers, after de Vineurs, that had referenced his works. People writing from his pieces and building off of them. It wasn't the same, not in the slightest, but it she was pleased to know that the general ideas at least had not been mangled by later voices.

"I had been hoping for others," she hooted, a touch wistfully. "Traditions I mean. The less common ones. So many of those traditions and their teachings lost as surely as that book has been. I know it too well," she chuckled. Her own people's beliefs could be lost in a generation if war came to the wrong part of Kashyyyk.

"Too much lost," with a sigh, gazing out the window past him. The moon was rising, the true start of a day. As comforting to Mariel as the rising sun might be to others.

"Do you have a particular area of study?" She asked suddenly, brightening slightly.

[member="Darth Saarai"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Mariel Dawnrider"]

As many beliefs as there were stars in the sky.

That was a sentence that had stayed with him. One of the few things that had heartened him throughout the years. The knowledge that... yes... some things were lost. Potentially forever. In their wake though? There would always be more. New things to discover. New things that would rise from the ashes. It was the one and singular thing that made this entire eternal conflict stomachable. That, while yes, it was pointless in purpose. Yet it brought other things with.

"Indeed. Too much lost, and yet, so much more to discover." Tai murmured carefully. "Belief... tradition... they do never truly disappear, do they? I believe they simply... rest. Sleep. Until a compatible mind finds that particular sparks that re-ignites creativity and breathes life into the tradition."

A bemused smile.

At himself, this time around.

Listen to him prattle about. He hadn't done that in so many years. Maybe even ever. "I apologize." Inclining his head the bird did, before glancing back through the window. "Sometimes I get too poetic for my own good." A little bit melancholic there. Just a bit. "Ah, but that... is a good question!"

"Philosophy is my primary study. Philosophy of life, of the Force. History, too, and I have made it my personal interest to research this eternal war that wages through the Galaxy over and over again. Its purpose, its meaning, its reason.... and perhaps its end." Slipping down gracefully until talons ticked lightly against the floor. It was clear that while Tai Fa could not fly? He did not need to.

Every movement of his was a glide.

Swimming through the space.

"Nothing too ambitious, I figure, yes?" Humor there as he looked curiously at her. "How about yourself- Oh. May I ask your name?"

 

[Mariel Dawnrider]

"No one should ever apologize for poetry. There is too little of it to belittle even a single line spoken with intent."

She had been watching him, listening. Only speaking there because that was a necessary thing. Making a cutting motion through the air with her wing, as though to deflect a cold wind. Simply stated, because the truth needed nothing beyond the words themselves as far as Mariel was concerned.

The Songwing stayed where she was, perched on the back of the chair. It meant that they were closer to the same height once he had returned to the floor.

"Not ambitious at all," she replied, her tone a touch dry at that however. "History mostly," she ducked her head. "With a particular eye to those traditions that had been forgotten." Her feathers fluffed up slightly. "As you say, not lost. Not for good anyway, or so I hope. I have a particular interest in the events before the Great Darkness." The Gulag plague had ripped through the galaxy, and there perhaps, so much had truly been lost.

"You may." A beat, but there was a twinkle in her eyes.

Instead of waiting for him to then actually ask her name, rather than asking if he could ask, she tipped her head back. Usually she simply replied with the name she had chosen in basic, but here, even if he did not know her kind's speech, here was someone who would not look at her strangely. A cooing warble, tone low to high and then dipping again.

"But most find Mariel Dawnrider to be easier," she added with a chuckle. "And you?"

[member="Darth Saarai"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Mariel Dawnrider"]

"Ah, careful one day I might show you my haikus then."

That amusement continuing just a little bit.

It was the mention of the Great Darkness that sobered him up. All the way. Straightening out, feathers rigid for a moment, before he eased himself once more. "A true affront. The Gulag Plague." A soft huff there. "Millennia of progress and advancement lost. We do not even know what we don't know- which is the most frustrating part to me." It was a distinct difference between what they had just been discussing. "At least with de Vineurs we know there is a fourth volume. Where it is? What is in it? Only hints, but the knowledge of its existence invites research and exploration." Sadly shaking his head there.

"Much more challenging to try and fill a void, when we have no idea what its shape is or just how much goes into it."

A raspy chuckle there- just about to fill that void with the question posed then. Of course, the bird in front of him didn't let him. Instead filling the room with the chirping sound. Musical and his eyes closed for just a moment there.

Letting it be all there exists.

Committing it to memory, because hearing the song of one of his kind? A rare thing indeed these days.

After that Tai mulled on it for a moment, before repeating the chirp. A bit hesitantly. Not completely in sync and some of the tones were off-base, but still there. "I butchered that, my apologies, ​Mariel Dawnrider." Inclining his head. Wing fluttered into a flourish, a sketching bow. "Tai Fa. Once upon a time a mildly successful merchant. Now simply interested in the discovery of knowledge." If you could call the merchant prince of Fa Holdings, one of the largest trading companies in the Galaxy and the first trading company of its size owned and operated by an alien in this Galaxy... just a mildly successful merchant.

"How long are you on Empress Teta, Mariel Dawnrider?" Apparently Tai took it literally when she said her full name.

 

[Mariel Dawnrider]

"I believe you need more practice at your threats," replied with equal amusement. "That hardly seems like a deterrent. I may prefer long form compositions, but those are positively bite sized."

Mariel ruffled her feathers in agreement. She couldn't have said it better herself, and didn't try.

"Not really challenging as almost impossible," she did add, with a touch of chagrin. "It would be challenging if-"

And then she paused. And blinked.

"WaitdidyousayFOURTHvolume?"

Rapid fire questions then, in a series. He seemed more amused than anything else, and answered the ones he could- not as much as she would have hoped but she hadn't even known a fourth volume had existed at all until that moment. She hopped, in a series of small movements, from one side of the chair back over to the other and back again, until she was satisfied.

"That was worth the trip itself, to learn that, thank you, Tai Fa." She fluffed up her feathers with clear pleasure. It was clear that she did not recognize his name or the connection.

"Just Mariel is fine, and you handled it better than most," she said with a dismissive flick of her wing. "I offer an alternative for a reason, but I appreciate the attempt nonetheless," a touch gentler there. Absently she adjusted one of the feathers on her shoulder with her beak. "A day or two only unfortunately, and then I must be off again."

In truth she didn't dare risk more than that, not with the current powers that be.

"And you? Or do you live here?" Head tilting curiously. She could certainly believe that. The planet had a certain air to it, and so did he.

[member="Darth Saarai"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Mariel Dawnrider"]

"I am always happy to assist with the furthering of someone's knowledge."

A nod there.

Silently Tai was happy she didn't seem aware of the connection. It was odd, yes, but pleasant nonetheless. It was one of those sacrifices he had made. Success, yes. No privacy. Neither under his real identity or his Sith one. There Tai paused for a moment. Odd. That. To consider his Sith persona not his real persona. A realization that had crept up to him. When did it shift for him? Change? Once more the Thirriken resolved to settle it for now, opting to study it in private.

So many considerations all at once.

Bothersome.

"Oh heavens no." Just the sheer thought of living here made his feathers rise just a bit. "Far too many humans here. I don't mind them all that much, but living among them for any amount of time..." Casual racism, but since the humans had reigned supreme for millennia and karked over aliens every step of the way? Perhaps it was a little bit understandable.

"I remain here for the rest of the week. Then I take my leave."

Pondering there for a moment, before taking a decision.

"If we were to meet again this week, I could perhaps show you volume two? I believe I have it digitized." A rare offer indeed.

 

[Mariel Dawnrider]

A chuckle.

Mariel didn't have the same experiences with humans. In truth, she had only in the last few years encountered them much at all. Her kind had done everything they could to keep it that way. Oh, not avoiding humans in specifically, but others in general. They had a little traffic with the Wookiees, but over all they kept as much to themselves as possible, with certain individual exceptions. So she had no particular problem with them as a group- outside of, perhaps, their penchant for being EVERYWHERE.

She felt more pity for them than anything else, and that was mostly because they lived the lies of the flightless.

But that was hardly their fault.

Just the nature of the limitation, not understanding in truth that there was no such thing as solid ground. The illusion of it shaped so many of their views she was learning. And this Tai Fa before her? Avian, like her. But his feet solidly on that illusionary earth.

When his offer came she paused, turning her head slightly to the side for a moment.

"Are you asking to meet again, Tai Fa?" She asked, a warm amusement in her voice.

"Or else you place an inordinate amount of trust in luck working out to a particular end. Far more than I." The humor sparkled in her eyes.

[member="Darth Saarai"]