[Chapter Two] A World Beyond It All

[Lief]

Pine Needles crunched underfoot; in the distance a shrill shriek resonated across the treetops. Despite the cool breeze which worked its way through the undergrowth, His body felt scorched. At first it had just been his shoulder, then it had worked its way down his arm, but now the majority of his torso was feeling the effects.

He would not find help here.

With a grunt he side-stepped a tree, which seemingly appeared out of nowhere, and pushed onward. He was nothing now, the boy without a name; he had been abandoned. By his brother, his father, his mother, and his Master. He would no longer hold onto what had been. Kobe Seren was no more. Raseri Sarosh was cast aside.

In their place was a nobody. A slave to the Force. Grotthu. The greatest of insults.

A constant reminder of his failures. A constant drive toward perfection. All men had chains to break, and the boy in the Forest was well aware of his own. There was no point in lying to himself.

His shoulders slumped slightly. The wound itself had gone numb some time ago, just a dull throb remained. He halted, leaning against a tree and breathing through his nose. His fingers descended toward his belt, clasping around the cube which rested there.

Beyond the trees a Temple lay. Much of the world had been set ablaze, the Vong had all but torn it apart, but in the years which followed life had returned to this resilient planet. And the Temples which lay beneath the mountain remained.

He pressed on, he was losing daylight; the last thing he needed now was to be groping in the dark.

 

[Lief]

The trees began to thin.

He stumbled on, trying his best not to snag his foot on the roots and vines which lined the ground. He could see them now, the mountains which happened to be his destination. In all their magnificence. He had never seen such a sight before. Coruscant was a City-Planet, Panatha he had seen little off, and Cerea was remarkably flat. But here...

Here he actually felt alive.

The boy pressed through the last few trees, and stared at the field which loomed before him. How he was going to make it without the support of something structurally sound he did not know. He felt delirious, beads of sweat lingering atop his brow. There wasn't even pain to draw upon anymore, just numbness.

He wouldn't get far standing around though. Already the sun had begun to set on the horizon, the sky was cast in all manner of brilliant hues. With a grunt he put his best foot forward and drifted down among the natural barley fields. Their great ears reached his waist, though he knew that in a few weeks they would cover him completely. If he remained that long. If he lived that long.

It was calling to him now, that voice he had heard as his fingers grazed the outershell of the Holocron. Voices. There were many.

He did not like the dark.

He had never liked the dark.

And now a state of twilight was beginning to set over the land.

Panic struck him, and he found himself in a full blown sprint toward the mountains. His breathing was laboured, each step threatening to topple him to the ground, but he pressed on as though his life depended on it.

Then he fell.

It was Tecave all over again, only this time there was nobody around to see his humiliation.

"Sith spit" he growled, his fist pounding into the ground at his side. That, at least, brought about a moderate amount of pain.

That, at least, gave him focus.

 

[Darth Libertas]

[member="Grotthu"]


Aurum. Such a peaceful, idyllic world. Also one of the many killing fields in the Galaxy, though it had been overshadowed by far greater tragedies. Many years ago, Vong had gone on a wild rampage of sadism and butchery.


Moross had returned the favour and butchered the Vong. The forest was still scarred from both battles. Here and there, Sumiko happened upon the charred remains of a Vong warrior, there you could find the wreckage of machines. A mass grave contained what must have been inhabitants of the village. They had been worm fodder for quite a while.


Pine needle crunched beneath Sumiko's boots. A cold breeze blew her way, brushing against her skin. The sun had long set, now a state of twilight was descending upon the land, pulling it into darkness.


The Atrisian did not mind the dark. However, she was pulled out of her thoughts when she suddenly heard loud noise. One hand moved close to her gun, as she moved closer to the centre of the disturbance, which brought her towards the mountains, as she emerged from the forest into an outcropping. On the way, she took care not to stumble over the vines that dotted the ground, or the skeletons left over from battles ages past. Thus, as a matter of fact, there was someone to see the poor fellow's humiliation when he fell into a field of barley. However, what made her somewhat curious was the fact that she felt the Force radiating from him.

 

[Kara Blackmoor]

Kara was here, for some reason she had been compelled to come to this backwater world in the middle of nowhere. The force worked in mysterious ways and she knew that well enough. So here she was, this random forest world. After landing on this forest world she just started following her feelings, and so she walked. She did not walk for long until she heard a loud thump in the trees, and she decided to make her way to the noise.

The sun had set, though this did not phase her. She came out of the forrest into an outcropping, and in there she saw a young man lying on the ground in the middle of a barley field. Kara couldn't help but chuckle, this person must be humiliated. Though something was off, there was another force presence, she would not act on this yet, but she would if necessary.
[member="Sumiko Tanaka"] | [member="Grotthu"]

 

[Lief]

He sat there for some time, staring at the barley; by now night had settled across this hemisphere of the world, the sun long gone behind the mountains, and a certain dread set in. He did not want to move from the spot he had fallen, it had proven to be at least a moderately safe area thus far. The same might not be said of elsewhere.

In the shadows he saw his own torment, those who had abandoned him, those who had all but tortured him, all that plagued his mind. Every slight rustle caused by the wind caused a spasm of fear, he may have appeared like a fully grown man but in his mind he was still the same child who sought to avenge his mother, a lost little boy grieving his family.

His head fell into his hands, elbows propped up by the edge of his knees. When had he fallen so low? Had he been this pathetic all along? Dragged behind his Master like a reluctant pup, made to do what he had been told until he no longer balked at any request?

Truth be told, he did not even remember his purpose. Why had he come to Kaine? He could remember Asha, he knew she was his concern but... Everything else was a haze.

Kaine had saved him, hadn't he? So why had he abandoned him now, after all these years?

[member="Kara Blackmoor"] [member="Sumiko Tanaka"]

 

[Darth Libertas]

[member="Grotthu"], [member="Kara Blackmoor"]


"Well, well, what have we here?" The voice was calm, but there was little warmth behind it. "A young neophyte. With Force potential, but vacant of purpose? Wandering upon this benighted world." Sumiko stepped out of the shadows and crossed the distance to the boy.


Physically he looked like a young man, but his mind was behind his physical development. It felt like a miasma of fear, confusion and a good deal of self-pity. Fear. Emptiness. This she felt when she tried to get a preliminary reading of him.


"I do suggest you get up, unless you want to lie there all the time. What is your name, boy?" Her tone was chilly. Her eyes next fell upon the raven-haired woman. She could sense the Force inside her, too. "And you, dear. What a coincidence we're all here. Or a cosmic joke." Her Warden Cloak fluttered slightly in the wind. If these had been the 'good old days' of the Inquisition, this would've been a good chance to nab two new recruits. They would've been seized - and cuffed and sedated if they resisted -, taken to the Citadel and broken in. But the Inquisition was dead.

 

[Lief]

Kobe jumped.

His head immediately snapped in the direction of the voice which had broken through his thoughts, and all at once he felt hyper aware of his position down in the mud. Eyes narrowed in the fading light, instinct taking over his earlier dread and fear toward the darkness. He may not have liked nightfall, but he did wish to live through this night.

He wanted to say something, to defy her claims, but his voice was lost to him the way it had been for years; Kaine had forced him into talking again, the silence had been broken and words dragged from his throat, but now the man held no influence over him. Kobe would not let him. He had abandoned him like everyone else, he had no right.

So the boy kept his silence. He stared at the strange woman, and slowly rose within the golden ears of barley when she suggested he stand. Awkwardly he shuffled in place, hands tensing. He wanted to reach for his lightsaber, but he had stupidly left it behind on Panatha, a final middle finger to Kaine?... More like stupidity on his part.

Now all he had was her holocron.

He said nothing. His eyes lingered on hers, almost defiantly for a moment; he did not even turn to look at the other one who was spoken to.

[member="Sumiko Tanaka"] [member="Kara Blackmoor"]

 

[Darth Libertas]

[member="Grotthu"]


The boy jumped at her words as if instinct was taking over and he became aware of his exposed position, overriding the fear he seemed to be feeling. The shift in his aura was palpable. Then slowly rose to his feet. However, no words left his tongue. Defiance? Possibly. Or maybe he was not capable of speech. Maybe it was a neurological issue, maybe by choice. She dismissed the idea that he was a mute because he had never learnt to speak.


Sumiko pondered using telepathy on boy. However, a careful mental probe directed against his mind revealed that it was beyond her reach. The former Inquisitor was a proficient mentalist, but the walls around him would not be penetrated. Examination brought her to the conclusion that this was not due to training, but genetic heritage.


Presumably this meant Epicanthix. They were an annoying breed from her perspective. Sumiko's sleep-deprived writer only noticed his racial origins today. The Atrisian's stance towards the boy radiated indifference, along with some amusement. "You're on your feet. That's progress. You're too old to be afraid of the dark. Are you incapable of speech, boy? Or contrary for the sake of it?" Sumiko was not winning any awards for niceness.

 

[Lief]

One, two, three steps back.

Kobe did not like this woman. Not one bit. He did not trust the way she looked, the way she spoke, the way she held herself. He wanted nothing to do with her ilk.

His lips curled back in a slight snarl, grey eyes narrowing toward her. He would not give her the satisfaction of his voice, he would not allow her to coax it from him the way that Kaine had.

He was done being everyone else's little plaything, he was done being cast aside when it was convenient.

Looking toward the other girl who was present, on the edge of the fields, Kobe wondered why she didn't focus her efforts on her instead. And who did she think she was, anyway? Lording over him the way she was.

Four, five, six steps back.

The mountains were so close, the holocron at his side hummed and burned against his legs, longing to return to its place of origin, to return to those halls its Master had forged.

[member="Sumiko Tanaka"] [member="Kara Blackmoor"]