Meri Vale
Character
The wind across Ossus carried dust differently than most worlds Meri had visited.
It did not howl through the ruins in violent gusts or sweep the landscape clean in great storms. Instead, it moved slowly and persistently through the shattered remains of the old Jedi world, settling into broken corridors and fractured courtyards as though the planet itself had spent centuries trying to bury what remained beneath layers of silence.
Meri stood several meters from the ruin with her satchel resting against her hip and her attention fixed entirely on the structure before her.
Even half-collapsed, it retained a kind of deliberate dignity.
The remains of the building rose from the pale stone around it in fractured levels and leaning walls, portions of the upper structure having fallen inward long ago while sections of the lower foundation still endured beneath drifting sediment and time-worn debris. The entrance itself was partially buried, framed by cracked columns whose surviving carvings had been softened by age but not erased entirely.
She did not approach immediately.
Instead, her eyes moved carefully across the ruin, tracing lines and angles with quiet intensity as she mapped its structure internally before ever setting foot inside. Hallways aligned too symmetrically to be accidental. Exterior support placements implied interior chambers beyond what was visible from outside. Even the collapse pattern suggested reinforcement work had once been done to preserve the building after earlier damage.
Which meant the structure had mattered.
"Secondary restoration phase," she murmured softly into her recorder. "Foundation stone and upper support composition do not match. Repairs likely occurred generations after original construction."
Only after several long moments did she finally move, though not toward the entrance.
Instead, she crossed to a relatively intact section of fallen stone near the edge of the courtyard and carefully lowered herself onto it. Her satchel slid into her lap as she opened it and withdrew a worn sketchbook, along with a stylus and a datapad already crowded with notes from earlier travels.
The sketchbook settled across her knees. Then she began to draw. Not quickly. Never quickly.
Her hand moved with deliberate precision, building the structure piece by piece rather than capturing it as a whole. First, the surviving foundation lines. Then the angle of the collapsed tower section. Support placement. Visible fractures. The positioning of the buried entrance relative to the outer columns. As she worked, smaller notes accumulated in the margins beside the sketch, compact observations written in narrow, careful script.
Possible archive annex. Exterior design favors movement efficiency over ceremonial symmetry. Repeated triangular motifs along support lines may indicate an indexing system.
Every so often, her gaze lifted from the page back toward the ruin, measuring proportions before committing them to paper. The process slowed her breathing, grounding her in familiar rhythm and structure while the wind shifted softly through the broken remains around her.
After several minutes, her attention narrowed toward one section of exposed stone near the entrance. A faint line of script. Immediately, the stylus paused.
Meri leaned forward slightly, eyes narrowing as she studied the markings from a distance before turning to a clean section of the page and beginning another sketch entirely, this one focused only on the visible glyphs and their placement relative to the surrounding architecture.
Unlike the harsher ceremonial structures she had encountered elsewhere, these symbols possessed an ordered, almost academic rhythm. Repetition existed, but with consistency rather than reverence. The spacing resembled organizational notation more than devotional text.
That realization alone was enough to draw the faintest shift in her expression.
"Cataloging markers," she whispered, more to herself than the recorder now. "Not ritualistic."
The wind stirred again, carrying dust through the open courtyard as Meri continued sketching the ruin in careful silence, documenting every visible line before allowing herself to step any closer to whatever waited beneath the buried structure.
Vendryn Del'therak
It did not howl through the ruins in violent gusts or sweep the landscape clean in great storms. Instead, it moved slowly and persistently through the shattered remains of the old Jedi world, settling into broken corridors and fractured courtyards as though the planet itself had spent centuries trying to bury what remained beneath layers of silence.
Meri stood several meters from the ruin with her satchel resting against her hip and her attention fixed entirely on the structure before her.
Even half-collapsed, it retained a kind of deliberate dignity.
The remains of the building rose from the pale stone around it in fractured levels and leaning walls, portions of the upper structure having fallen inward long ago while sections of the lower foundation still endured beneath drifting sediment and time-worn debris. The entrance itself was partially buried, framed by cracked columns whose surviving carvings had been softened by age but not erased entirely.
She did not approach immediately.
Instead, her eyes moved carefully across the ruin, tracing lines and angles with quiet intensity as she mapped its structure internally before ever setting foot inside. Hallways aligned too symmetrically to be accidental. Exterior support placements implied interior chambers beyond what was visible from outside. Even the collapse pattern suggested reinforcement work had once been done to preserve the building after earlier damage.
Which meant the structure had mattered.
"Secondary restoration phase," she murmured softly into her recorder. "Foundation stone and upper support composition do not match. Repairs likely occurred generations after original construction."
Only after several long moments did she finally move, though not toward the entrance.
Instead, she crossed to a relatively intact section of fallen stone near the edge of the courtyard and carefully lowered herself onto it. Her satchel slid into her lap as she opened it and withdrew a worn sketchbook, along with a stylus and a datapad already crowded with notes from earlier travels.
The sketchbook settled across her knees. Then she began to draw. Not quickly. Never quickly.
Her hand moved with deliberate precision, building the structure piece by piece rather than capturing it as a whole. First, the surviving foundation lines. Then the angle of the collapsed tower section. Support placement. Visible fractures. The positioning of the buried entrance relative to the outer columns. As she worked, smaller notes accumulated in the margins beside the sketch, compact observations written in narrow, careful script.
Possible archive annex. Exterior design favors movement efficiency over ceremonial symmetry. Repeated triangular motifs along support lines may indicate an indexing system.
Every so often, her gaze lifted from the page back toward the ruin, measuring proportions before committing them to paper. The process slowed her breathing, grounding her in familiar rhythm and structure while the wind shifted softly through the broken remains around her.
After several minutes, her attention narrowed toward one section of exposed stone near the entrance. A faint line of script. Immediately, the stylus paused.
Meri leaned forward slightly, eyes narrowing as she studied the markings from a distance before turning to a clean section of the page and beginning another sketch entirely, this one focused only on the visible glyphs and their placement relative to the surrounding architecture.
Unlike the harsher ceremonial structures she had encountered elsewhere, these symbols possessed an ordered, almost academic rhythm. Repetition existed, but with consistency rather than reverence. The spacing resembled organizational notation more than devotional text.
That realization alone was enough to draw the faintest shift in her expression.
"Cataloging markers," she whispered, more to herself than the recorder now. "Not ritualistic."
The wind stirred again, carrying dust through the open courtyard as Meri continued sketching the ruin in careful silence, documenting every visible line before allowing herself to step any closer to whatever waited beneath the buried structure.
Vendryn Del'therak