Hard Came the Rain

[Mariel Dawnrider]

Sanctuary​

One of the three places the evacuation ships from Dellalt were supposed to go to, Sanctuary was a small blue jewel of a world. Oceanic, dotted with islands, it settled peacefully in what had once been part of the Silver Jedi's protectorate. Far enough removed from the Sith Empire and the now crumbling Ancient Eye, it had been a logical choice for the refugees from Dellalt. Those that might not stay there in the long run at least could have a chance to get their feet back under them.

While neither Harper nor [member="Alden Belmont"]'s families were on the ship meant to come here originally, there were only so many places they could look. [member="Ember Farseer"] had understood their need to check, just asked that they take one of the new recruits along, a young man by the name of @Jace Khel.

It was hard, having hope. Or maybe the hope was easy and only the disappointment of it was hard.

Either way, it was disappointment that found the trio. Perhaps not Jace, at least not directly. But Harper stepped out of the last shop, shaking her head and shoving her hands deep into her pockets.

"No luck," she muttered to Jace.

Alden had headed in the opposite direction, and they had plans to meet later.... but those plans had also included this taking longer than the series of simple 'noes' the young woman had been greeted with.

"You?" He'd checked next door, and she had to ask, but from his look she wasn't expecting much.

[member="Zark"]

 

[Cassus Stoma]

Jace was eager to get out there. To help. To become a Jedi. It wasn't really a dream he had for the longest time, but as soon as the possibility of such a thing became aware to him... well, it never left his mind. He's young and inexperienced, but he's always willing to learn. A lot of things still never made sense to him, and it was likely they wouldn't for a long time. Losing your family to the Sith was among them, and he couldn't begin to imagine the pain Harper felt. It was why he opted to help, of course. At least he could say he tried.

"Nothing." He said after a deep exhale combined with a sigh. His head shaking from left to right as he stared at the ground, unwilling to witness the further disappointment that was sure to be slapped across Harper's face. Yet he popped up as the optimist he was. "There's still plenty more to check, though. I'm sure someone has something."

The Padawan took a few steps towards the woman with the intention of moving onward, but slowing himself as he approached her. Looking with kind eyes, almost waiting for her to begin again.

[member="Harper Kade"] | [member="Zark"] | [member="Alden Belmont"]

 

[Zark San Tekka]

“Knowledge forbidden?
Suspicious, reasonless. Why should their Lord
Envy them that? Can it be a sin to know?
Can it be death?”​

- Paradise Lost​

On a small azure world at the end of the Tidal Circuit there is an island. On this island, there is a cave. It is a very old cave. At the center of this cave, there is the barest spark of a connection to something more. Long dormant, it was awakened once centuries ago. Now it stirred to life once more, only this time something was different. This time, the cave had a guardian. He had arrived in a sense when the Dellalt refugees first landed nearby. The guardian had only made his presence known to warn away anyone who drew too near, but to his frustration this had only stoked their curiosity.

The Spirit of the Wilds, they were calling him. He had sensed the imbalance here, making the journey to ensure the sacred grounds had not been breached. For a time he had watched them from afar. The natives had always instinctively known to keep away, but it was impossible to know the nature of these new arrivals' hearts. There could be darkness among them, or the potential for darkness. It was a long way from his home at the center of the galaxy, but linear distance did not work in quite the same way for him anymore. A place of power such as this was but a stone's throw from Coruscant.

He sensed them before he saw them, watching the two latents emerge from a village shop from his vantage on the outskirts of town. It was a breezy late afternoon, but the guardian's simple brown robes did not sway with the wind and his silhouette cast no shadow. Reluctantly, he began to withdraw, lest either [member="Jace Khel"] or [member="Harper Kade"] caught sight of him or sensed his presence. The guardian knew rumors had spread of his great power and wisdom already. Superstitious refugees were now claiming he could grant wishes, heal disease, even divine knowledge.

They were far from the Alliance, but he could no longer afford to concentrate solely on such mundane concerns. He was fighting in the Great War now. The last thing he needed was to attract the attention of a pair of younglings.

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Harper Kade"] | [member="Jace Khel"] | [member="Zark"]

Hope was fleeting, but it remained for the moment.

There were some rumors about the refugee ships splitting up halfway through the journey, because of a hyperdrive malfunction. That left them with little to go-on, but it was a smidgen of information that they hadn't had before they came here. That was something at least. Yet, his attention had been snatched up by something else. Rumors of a spirit in the caverns nearby. Powerful, benevolent (sorta?), apparently eager to dispense boons to those that came and ask for them.

Usually Alden would discard the rumors as nothing more than a distraction.

Then again, the spirit had been focused on avoiding Harper and Jace, not him. The first time Belmont spotted the manifestation... he had thought himself nutty. The stress finally getting to him. The second time? Well, still stressed out and tired.

Then the third time someone passing-by him had noticed it too.

"Got some minor info on the refugee convoy, but nothing substantial." Alden relayed through their shared comms. There was a brief moment of silence, hesitation, before he continued. "Something else- you know how I suck at empathy and sensing things through the Force? Caught wind of something else around this place. I am going to see if I can track whatever it is."

One more moment of silence.

"Meet me outside the village, if you guys are done there." There was frustration at the end of that tone. They had all hoped to find some real answers here, but instead... just hints and more questions at the end of it. It was the main reason why Belmont switched gears. Just driving his head against the wall over and over again wouldn't help him or anyone else for that matter. But this mystery? It was something he could sink his teeth in with the real purpose becoming a bust.

He'd wait for them outside the village near some scattered rock formations, half-eroded from the winds, maybe they had been statues at one point.

His expression was pensive.

 

[Mariel Dawnrider]

It was probably best that Harper had no idea someone was currently referring to them as 'younglings'. She would have taken offense. Instead, all she had to juggle was the disappointment in her own chest, and the disappointment in Alden's voice over the communicators.

"Glad you got something cause we struck out completely," she replied over the comm to Alden.

The smile she offered to Jace was wane and hollow, tense around the edges. But she appreciated both the company and his efforts, and did her best to make sure he knew. Of course, her best seemed to be not really good enough right now, but she reached out, squeezing his arm anyway. It wasn't his fault they hadn't found anything, after all.

She paused, frowning, glancing back over her shoulder. It wasn't the first time she'd gotten the impression that they were being watched, but every time she went to look where it felt like it was coming from, it was gone again.

"Yeah we're on our way," she confirmed before clipping the comm back onto her belt.

Again she looked over to where she thought she'd felt something. But it was just the movements of the sparse, late afternoon crowd.

"Thanks for coming with us Jace," she said, falling into step beside the other padawan. "It's probably good, to have someone along who isn't.... well... who can look at it clearly," she admitted, hand coming up to the back of her neck and rubbing absently. "We're trying, but Al and I can't really be completely partial about this, ya know?"

[member="Jace Khel"] [member="Zark"] [member="Alden Belmont"]

 

[Cassus Stoma]

Jace happened to have some basic understanding of the simpler force techniques under his belt. The majority of which came from his childhood, even when he didn't understand what it meant. It was a thing he kept hidden, unable to comprehend what it was and with a fear of the unknown, he thought others may have felt the same way. The Padawan knew of the Jedi and what they could do (roughly). But he never believed himself capable of being one, thus came the assumption that something was 'wrong' when he could use such powers. From his own logical standpoint, he wouldn't think twice about being referred to as a Youngling.

A noticeable feeling and expression of anticipation was apparent through the force and physically. He was fine with the door-to-door, but even he started to feel as if it was a longshot. Something real was far more up Jace's alley.

"I'm happy to help." He initially began, "I can't imagine what it's like to..." His face scrunched up, unable to think of the words, "Well." A series of uneasy gestures followed, "Yeah." Concluding with a somber tone and an apologetic glance towards the woman. It seems he never really was able to find those words. Jace lived an easy life up until now. Nothing was strange, it was all the same. He didn't, and couldn't understand what it was like for Alden and Harper.

​The two Padawans continued along, closing the distance towards the Jedi Knight.

[member="Harper Kade"] | [member="Alden Belmont"] | [member="Zark"]

 

[Zark San Tekka]

This was not going to work, he soon realized.

The guardian could tell that the newest addition to this strange party was trained. With enough practical knowledge, eluding one such as [member="Alden Belmont"] on an island this size was no longer practical. [member="Harper Kade"] and [member="Jace Khel"] were much more inexperienced, he had been confident that with some subtle manipulation he could convince them that any evidence of his passing was just their emotions getting the best of them in this trying time. A fully fledged Jedi Knight was another story, it would take some doing for even an illusionist of his expertise to avoid their collective notice for long.

As his form receded into the countryside, brown robes slowly faded away into nothingness and then he was standing in a clearing not far from the converging trio. Intuitively the Knight's path out of town had taken him on a path towards the cave. Within earshot now, he caught fragments of their conversation when the three reunited, and quickly pieced together along with his previous observations that they were searching for something. Summoning his focus, the guardian willed himself into a more presentable state. It was not easy, manipulating the material plane given his condition, but a lifetime of illusion study came with a few tricks. Enough at least so that his true nature would not be immediately discernible.

Confronting the refugees indirectly had not worked, and with these new arrivals it appeared to him as if quietly steering wayward souls away was no longer an option as well. If left unchecked, any one of these latents could unintentionally wreak havoc merely by stepping foot near the cave with an impure thought. In this particular circumstance, a little curiosity could be a very dangerous thing indeed.

"You shouldn't stray far from town," he announced himself after stepping forward onto the edge of a rolling hillock beyond the rock formations that were now one of the few traces of the planet's first natives, dead long before the tectonic plates had shifted and its central landmass had violently broken apart, "It is dangerous out here in the wilderness."

In this light, shadows cast from the treeline behind him obscured the guardian's features, allowing the young Jedi only a glimpse of his traditional brown traveling cloak.

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Harper Kade"] | [member="Jace Khel"] | [member="Zark"]

"...hyperdrive failure." They had been standing near the rocks for a while now, discussing what each of them had heard (nothing, nothing, just a bit of something from Alden). "So, we got a hint, but not much more than that right now."

It wasn't enough.

How the feth were they going to triangulate the trajectory of a ship that had gone through a hyperdrive malfunction?

It could be literally anywhere or nowhere or maybe it hadn't even carried their parents. "But yeah, there are rumors of some kind of guardian spir-" And that was the moment when the guardian spirit actually came out to (proverbially) play with them. Alden frowned, looking up when the voice cut through their conversation. It had a strange... quality to it. As if it was not just carried by the wind, but by the Force itself. An echo of sorts that kept bouncing from one place to another.

"These days it is dangerous everywhere, stranger. Well met." Alden countered after a cautious moment of pause. "My name is Alden Belmont." There were no attempts made to introduce Jace and Harper. He did not speak for them and it was up to them if they wanted this man to know their names.

"You seem to be at ease in the dangerous wilderness, stranger. Who are you?"

 

[Mariel Dawnrider]

She reached out, patting Jace's arm slightly.

"It's appreciated," she said quietly. "And honestly, I'm just as happy you can't imagine."

Harper never would have been able to imagine it either. Not before. Now....

It was impossible not to linger on it. It was the whole reason they were here after all. The pair met up with Alden a few minutes later by a large stone outcropping. Harper leaned back against it, sharing the full nada they had, and listening closely to what Alden had found.

"Hyperdrive malfunction could have put them anywhere," she said, putting voice to his concern. And they still couldn't be sure that ship was the one their families were on. Harper was dedicated to tracking down all three- it was the right thing to do. But she wouldn't pretend that one of them mattered an awful lot more to her.

"A guardian spirit?" Harper snorted. "Local ghost stories Al? I thought we outgrew that when we were ten and spent the night in that cave on Benner's property. Our parents were worried sick-"

She noticed the man several heartbeats after Alden did. Which was weird. Usually she could feel people near by- her empathy tended to pick up emotions like background static. It had been more uncomfortable lately- away from home, no longer surrounded by people who's emotional background noise she had been familiar with for her entire life. It was taking some adjustment. Where had he even come from?

"Harper," she supplied, a little more wary than Alden. For now she stayed where she was, back against the stone, a small frown on her face.

[member="Alden Belmont"] [member="Jace Khel"] [member="Zark"]

 

[Cassus Stoma]

"Jace." He continued after Harper.

He didn't have much to add to the conversation at hand but if there was one thing he had learned in his short time as a Jedi, it was that all these things he once never knew existed, or didn't believe, in fact had. He wasn't the kind of man, if not boy, to question what was real and what wasn't. Like a passenger, Jace was just there for the ride. It was clear to him that Alden was to the take charge on this one, being the Knight after all. That and something else, he just couldn't put his finger on it, but his mind wandered all over the place as of now and so putting anything anywhere was going to be difficult.

The Padawan stood firmly with his arms crossed over his chest, tucked into his underarms. Staring ahead with his baby-blues. If this truly was a spirit, then things just got a whole lot stranger.

[member="Zark"] - [member="Harper Kade"] - [member="Alden Belmont"]

 

[Zark San Tekka]

The hooded figure nodded slowly, whether as an acknowledgment of their names or in acceptance of Alden's retort remained uncertain.

"At ease?" he responded after a long, uncomfortable silence between them. Still, shadows cast over his hood obscured this strange interloper's features, "How can I be, with children trampling their way through my forest, disturbing nature's balance?"

He carried with him a staff, more a walking stick really, only visible when a gnarled hand emerged from his robes with raised rod. Sunlight erupted suddenly, almost violently through the treeline, so bright in its intensity that it would cause naked eyes to tear up in irritation. Almost as quickly as it had come, there was a shudder of wind in the trees and the light faded, its source obscured by clouds above. Where once there had been a man, now their surroundings were once more empty and silent as the grave.

There was no sign of the guardian, nor trace of his passage, and no response greeted any calls of confusion or alarm save the sounds of the forest around them. Unnervingly amplified, a whistling breeze as well as chirps and chitters of native wildlife built into a soft crescendo. Then there was silence.

"Well?" it was the same voice, but much closer now, and directly behind them, "What do you have to say for yourselves? Outlanders should know better."

On the beginnings of the path they had made into this clearing from town, the same figure stood leaning against his staff. Peeling away his hood, he revealed the sallow complexion of an elderly man with shock white hair.

"Especially ones who play at being Jedi."

[member="Alden Belmont"] | [member="Harper Kade"] | [member="Jace Khel"]​

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Harper Kade"] | [member="Jace Khel"] | [member="Zark"]

Alden slowly turned around and noticed the apparition again.

Closer by.

Head tilted just a bit at Zark's words and he immediately felt indignation flare near him. A glance towards Harper, knowledge passing from glance to glance, before his focus shifted back towards Zark. Years ago he would have tried to calm Harper down before it could escalate, but... that had never been his responsibility or job. That was a thing Al understood now.

"I was told some Jedi had a high opinion of themselves." Alden replied calmly, eyeing the greying man with mild amusement. "I didn't realize that persisted after they passed away."

That was what Zark was, after all.

A ghost, spirit, someone who lingered beyond and tried to... help? Who truly knew.

"As for your supposed ownership? The forest belongs to no one but itself, stranger, no man nor ghost. You should not be so eager to lay claim to things this quickly." An innocent smile came after that. Almost as if Alden hadn't just deflected the accusation and then made one of his own at the bloviating spirit. More often than not Alden preferred to make peace.

But his family was gone and they had absolutely zilch when it came to progress.

He wasn't in the mood for a dead man's chit.

 

[Zark San Tekka]

"So bold," the old man gave a cackling wheeze, "So certain are you, to write off the wisdom of experience as ego?"

From the moment he had confronted these sensitives, there had always been a shelf life to his charade. The accusation levied by [member="Alden Belmont"] had been supposition, but an educated deduction nevertheless. It did not bother him overmuch, he was not some tormented soul to be dismissed at the first sign of acknowledgment. Still, he appeared to them as a craggy old man. There was no use in revealing his true visage when frustration was such an effective observational lens.

"The forest belongs to itself," he repeated the words, as if trying out the sounds with his mouth, "And what am I? We are luminous beings. When you speak to me, you speak to the forest. If I am as you say, then you will have to trust that I know its heart better than you."

His tense disposition lingered, until suddenly it crumbled into resignation.

"But come, come! No need for us to show off for the young lady," he motioned them over as he trundled past and into the center of the clearing, stooping over and rummaging inside his robes, "You're here, aren't you? I suppose you're looking for something. Answers, would be my guess. You won't find them here, not the ones you're looking for anyway."

The stranger stepped away, and there was a crackling fire seemingly produced out of thin air.

"Still, you may ask if you wish."

[member="Harper Kade"] | [member="Jace Khel"]​

 

[Mariel Dawnrider]

Harper just slowly blinked.

She glanced over at Jace and Al as the.... whatever it was..... spoke. When it mentioned showing off for the young lady, Harper snorted.

"And this, Jace, is why people think the Jedi are self righteous and stuffy," she said pointedly not at Zark and Alden. She didn't lower her voice though.

"You know," she said, turning back to the.... guardian spirit? ghost? group hallucination? Honestly she wasn't sure. She got the impression it was real, mostly because it pinged her empathy. But she couldn't get a particularly strong read on it. Part of that was due to the fact that it was only recently that she'd started cultivating that nascent talent with anything resembling deliberation, but part of that, she suspected, was due to whatever it actually was. "It's not wisdom and experience we're writing off as ego, it's the actual ego you're showing here, right? Kinda hard to see wisdom and experience when you start off with condescension."

She compared, for a moment, the differences between this.... whatever... and the guardian of the holocron she had. The dark haired woman was also a Jedi, a Master from ages past. But she had never condescended to Harper, had spoken with humility. It had been clear from the first moment she'd activated it how much wisdom and experience there was there, but the guardian had never once had to tell her that was the case.

"Pretty sure it's like anything else. Someone who's got it doesn't need to brag they do."

Harper was a straight speaker.

Rude, her mom had scolded on more than one occasion.

Probably was right now.

She didn't ask the thing her own questions. Right now she wasn't convinced this whole thing wasn't a massive waste of time. Harper was still far more Farmer than Jedi, after all.

[member="Zark"] [member="Jace Khel"] [member="Alden Belmont"]

 

[Cassus Stoma]

Jace stood in quiet contemplation. Harper and Alden spoke to the Spirit with such confidence, or so it appeared that was the case. This Padawan, on the other hand, didn't really know what to think. Questions plagued his youthful mind, just as much as his confusion did. Metaphorically tossing and turning within his own skin in a desperate attempt to grasp the wording to the question that was to leave him with an answer, rather than more questions to sling at this... thing.

​For a brief moment he was distracted by Harper who mentioned his name, which resulted in the instinctive turning of his head. In truth, he zoned out through most of what Harper had to say, only saying what needed to be said (in his mind) after she had finished. "What... are you?" Confusion and curiosity was as present in his voice as it was upon his face. Even if Zark explained to him what it all meant, it was difficult to tell if Jace would even understand.

[member="Harper Kade"] - [member="Alden Belmont"] - [member="Zark"]

 

[Zark San Tekka]

The old man smiled at [member="Harper Kade"].

"Nicely put," he nodded as if in appreciation. A little rough around the edges, her and [member="Alden Belmont"] both, but there was potential here. Wasn't he the same at their age? It was difficult to remember now.

"What am I?" the guardian tilted his head, and for an instant [member="Jace Khel"] saw two points of light surrounding starry void in the shape of a man, "What are you?"

Of all of them, he could see the most potential futures emanating from Jace's spirit. A blank slate, there was no limit to what he could become.

"I'm certain you're all fine Jedi," there was no longer any derision in his tone, "Better than I ever was. Now I am simply a caretaker, I watch over this place and others like it."

The truth was, he had in a sense come to think of these points of light as belonging to him. Straight out of the mouths of babes.

"It is no longer my place to interfere, but if you stay on this island for too long it may not let you go."