Private Desert Winds

[Aiden Porte]

Ran Serys

Mirial was a world of tradition, but also a windswept planet of a cold atmosphere and golden deserts and jagged mountain spires where the wind carried whispers through ancient stone shrines. Its people the Mirialans lived their lives by spiritual discipline and a code that seemingly bounded them to the stars. For the mission at hand, however, the serenity of Mirial hid a dangerous undercurrent.

One couldn't help but wonder what brought a Jedi Knight of the High Republic through Sith Airspace and to this planet near the Hydian Way.

The assignment was clear: travel to Mirial and gain a deeper understanding of the mysteries of the force. And also investigate disturbances there that were in relation to one of the many underground monasteries. Pirates, sith, whomever it was and root out the problem. Why the Republic agreed to send a Jedi Knight this far out was a mystery to hi, yet it was the will of the force. He had heard that notion all too many times. What made the venture dangerous wasn't the traveling through around sith space, but the planet itself. The journey demanded navigating shifting dunes and freezing nights where the silence pressed down heavier than the sandstorms.

Aiden's vessel finally landed near a covered area, as to not advertise his presence to anyone. As close to the mountains as possible as there was also rumored a monastery in the mountains as well.

The mission to Mirial was not just a test of skill or survival. It was a trial of belief and hope. And whether the light of hope could endure in the cold and empty space, and whether those willing to risk everything could carry that light back to the wider galaxy.

 

[Ran Serys]

From where she sat upon the abandoned mountain monastery's walls, Ran could see the ship go down. It hid in the shadow of a rocky crag and cliff face. It was well concealed, but not if you saw it come in for the landing. She wondered why the ship had concealed itself. She questioned whether it could have been the rumored dark side cultists the locals had warned her about, or was it someone else, something else. If she was going to make a home for herself on Mirial, and protect it, she needed to know. So without grabbing her cloak, Ran hurriedly leapt from the walls and descended the mountain to catch a glimpse of those coming out of the ship.

Before long Ran was upon it. She recognized the model of ship as one belonging to the High Republic. The sight of it eased any small tension she might have held but still its appearance didn't mean much, a ship could be stolen after all, so she continued on watching and waiting behind a rocky pile to see if whoever stepped off the ship was friend or foe.

Tags: Aiden Porte
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[Aiden Porte]

Aiden stood at the foot of the ramp, drawing his cloak tighter against the thin, biting air. The mountains loomed like sentinels, their jagged silhouettes cutting into a sky the color of steel. Each gust of wind carried more than cold, it carried memory. Ancient chants, old prayers, the echo of lives once bound to these shrines now weathered and hollow.

He had walked battlefields in the Core, but here on Mirial the silence itself felt heavier than a legion of foes. The Force whispered faintly through the spires, an unseen tide shifting just beyond his reach. It was not dark, not yet, but troubled. As if the mountain itself held its breath, waiting.

He exhaled slowly, grounding himself, and let his senses extend. He felt the desert stretching into golden emptiness behind him, the promise of storms hidden beneath the calm surface of the dunes. He felt the monastery, distant but present, its stone foundations clinging to the cliffside like a relic that refused to be forgotten. And then, faintly, he felt someone else. Watchful. Close.

The Republic had given him few answers, only directives. Investigate. Protect. Illuminate. Yet he knew better than to believe that orders alone had brought him here. The Force pulled at his path, and he had learned not to resist. It was never chance.

"Strange place for light to hide," he murmured to himself, his voice almost carried away on the wind. His hand brushed the hilt at his side, not out of fear, but as one might acknowledge a companion before entering unknown ground. "I am not your enemy....." Aiden called out to whomever hid in the distance.

This was not a mission measured in skirmishes won or artifacts recovered. No, Mirial promised something deeper. A trial woven into the silence and shadow, one that would test whether a Jedi's belief in hope could survive when the galaxy seemed intent on smothering it.

And Aiden Porte intended to find out.

Ran Serys