I like bees....

[Hylocereus]

Nobody called him Hylocereus, everyone called him Hylo. But this man had his ID and was calling him by his full name. That was a bad side. The youth wrinkled his nose as the brigand gave him a look over. He wore simple brown robes and had feet bare. He liked going barefoot so his feet could feel the soil of the planet he visited. Currently he was curling his toes into the well tilled soil. Hylo enjoyed traveling around the galaxy and had arrived on planet prepared to do his job and evaluate it for agriculture, however he was sidetracked by a more personal project. And he was proud of his little garden. “Hey stop it,” he yelled over as one of the men trampled through his flower bed.

He had known each of those flowers since they were seeds, tending to them and caring for them. It was natural that flowers got trampled, they were the lowest on the food chain. “Listen little Hylocereus,” the man started his fat finger pushing into Hylo's chest, “You need to understand the new way of things. We got the guns.”

“Hylo," he corrected quickly, "no one calls me Hylocereus.” He scrunched his nose again and felt deep into the ground with his toes through the force. “And I don’t like you in my garden.” Hylo was useless in a fight. He’d never had an aptitude for it, though mother has insisted on teaching him the wardance Sholan Kha. No instead he fell back to the only real skill he knew with the force. “Please leave.”

“Listen, as soon as the owner of this estate hands over what he owes we will be on our way.”

“But my garden…”

Hylo never knew what hit him as the mans hand struck across his face. He landed hard in the dirt. “We don’t care about no stinkin plants.”

“But I do,” Hylo said digging his fingers and toes into the soil. With all the power and training he had he used his only skill, he made plants grow. Roots came up and entangled men as branches whipped down at pirates and scattered….

A few minutes of trees swatting around and the pirates were on the run, a rumour of a haunted manor following closer in their wake. Hylo for his part was exhausted and simply pulled off his cloak and dove into the fresh soil, letting the sun touch his skin and help with photosynthesis. His troubles may have just have begun, surely news would spread of this haunted garden and bring outsiders, though for the time being he was content to merely bath in the sun.

[member="Kana Truden"]

 

[Kana Truden]

“No, I don’t really believe it but we were asked to investigate nonetheless.” A careful glance at the gate had Kana perking her eyebrows. “Pirates are not only scum, but most likely uneducated and ignorant as well. So you will have to excuse me for being just a little bit skeptical.”

The R2-unit beeped and chimed up in virtual fear. A small shriek to indicate Kana had to do this on her own while it headed back to the ship. With a sigh she threw it a look with just the smallest tidbit of contempt as she raised her hands in an incredibly annoyed sigh. It was just her damn luck that the unit installed on her ship was the one unit who had an experimental ‘risk inhibitor module’ installed.

“Yeah fine, just leave me to it then.” She muttered as she placed her hand on the gate. “Not like you’ve ever done anything worthwhile in forever.”

The R2-unit promptly turned around and beeped back at her, angrily. “Forget it, just get to the ship, you nard.”

If robots had noses this was the part where the R2-unit would have raised it for the sky and walked away. With a gentle push Kana found herself inside of a garden. So far so good, she thought to herself before pushing onwards.

The boots on her feet dragged themselves through the high grass as she hoped by the force that her jumpsuit wouldn’t get any grass stains. A bit vain, perhaps, but she had certainly seen enough grass stains this week to live without seeing another in a very long while.

There was something about this place though… She couldn’t quite put her finger on it…

[member="Hylocereus"]

 

[Hylocereus]

Hylo hummed to himself as he threw seeds along the ground. Kelsier was a strange world and everyone wore a knife, so Hylo took up the practice to blend in with the natives, though truth be told it was hard to blend in when you walked across fields healing plants and growing trees. He was both a menace and a blessing if you were a farmer working his field. There was as good a chance he’d help your crop as there was him planting and growing a tree in the middle of your field.

Now he was tending to his little patch. He stopped to talk to a new patch of flowers introducing himself to them. That is when he heard it. His head perked up as the plants warned him with shuttering branches… okay maybe the woman was just walking through grass but that was good enough. “Assassin!” he exclaimed before slowly tip toeing out of his little patch of flowers ever careful to not disturb the new garden. “I won’t go down easy,” he said digging his bare feet into the ground. “Now hold on a minute…”

With his feet planted he started to weave bending at his knees. “Rooted like the oak,” he said remembering the steps to the wardance. Step one was complete, now what was next. “Float like a leaf.” he put his arms stretched out to his side and gently raised them up and down in sync with his breathing. This carried on for a few seconds before he began to weave with his knees once more synching up the two motions. “Sway like a willow…” he said finally putting arms up above his head and adding a swaying motion to his upper body as his lower extremities continued to move.

Aunty Ashin,[member="Ashin Varanin"], once said he looked like a worm whn he did this. That was perfect, worms ate plants, worms were scary. This was sure to intimidate the intruder! “Okay I’m ready if you want to fight now.”

 

[Kana Truden]

Assassins? Kana’s eyebrow could quite possibly have been piercing the skies had things been different. Was the kid on some sort of trip? He began stomping at the ground and flailing his arms around. She would have asked if he was under the influence but the kid looked innocent enough for such a claim to feel uncalled for.

“I, uh…” She cleared her throat. “I was sent to check out some kind of, uh, haunted garden.”

“I’m not sure I should ask you but, uhhh, you wouldn’t happen to have seen any ghosts or weird happenings around here, right?” A brief moment of silence passed between them in what Kana would come to classify as one of the most outlandish things she had ever experienced. “Reports said something about ghosts making plants whip people, or something equally silly.”

The dancing didn’t seem to stop. “Are you okay, kid? ‘cause you’re acting kinda weird right now.”

[member="Hylocereus"]

 

[Hylocereus]

Hylo scrunched his nose. This wasn’t working. Clearly this woman was a great warrior, because she wasn’t intimidated by his wardance. Then again very few people were ever scared of his wardance, but if he was going to fight he had to do it. He was useless otherwise. “I’m fine,” he said defiantly. His mind raced, what to do? Clearly this woman meant him harm. Well okay not clearly. She was in his garden though, and everyone else that came to his garden were looking for trouble. He thought about his sister, she was capable. What would Emerald do? The answer came easily.

“Are you afraid of ghosts?” He said popping his pheromones and moving closer to the woman. “I can protect you from ghosts.”

Pheromones, that is what Emerald would do. He’d seen it before when he was a kid, a younger kid, and wanted a ride on this weird beast. She’d popped her pheromones and asked while kissing… wait... pheromones meant kissing…

Suddenly Hylo blushed a strange green. “Erm… I…” a little flower grew out of the top of his head blooming. “My name is Hylo...”

He couldn't stop the pheromones from perfuming the air now. He took a few breaths trying hard to dissipate the pheromones, but more kept comming out....

[member="Kana Truden"]

 

[Kana Truden]

Kana was afraid of no ghosts.

Maybe if you had asked her a few years ago she would have said she was, but considering the majority of what Kana knew of healing it’d be quite many shades of weird if she had been afraid of ghosts. Something in the air felt weird, the boy stepped closer and each and every single word seemed to have become incredibly alluring.

“Oh, can you now?” Her voice softened up, her stare became a lot more pleasant. It felt so familiar, kinda like her trip to Zeltros. Oh wait, Zeltros! She was not going to let the pheromones get to her.

She shook herself out of it. What was wrong with her? This was a kid! Who the hell comes onto a damn kid? Well, clearly some people would but not Kana. She took a step back as the kid turned green and she looked at him with quite a big dose of curiosity. This was all getting very weird. Being a Jedi in itself had always been very weird, but this was something else.

Still, he made introductions. “It’s nice to meet you Hylo, I am Kana. You’re, uh...” She pointed at the flower on top of his head. “You’re blooming.”

“What’s going on here? Why are you here, kid?”

[member="Hylocereus"]

 

[Hylocereus]

If his face wasn’t blushing green before it surely was now. “Blooming?” he said with a gulp, reaching up to feel his head. His hand played around the flower. “Uhg.”

He stopped all motion and fell to the ground landing hard in the dirt in the sitting position. “I can’t do anything right,” he exclaimed. “All I had to do was evaluate this land for agriculture but I ended up making a garden instead. Then the pirates came and I thought I scared them away but now you’re back. I tried to intimidate you… I tried to…” he couldn’t say seduce. Just couldn’t. His face lit up like a green bulb once more. “And that didn’t work.”

A pause, “It didn’t work right?” he cocked his head sidewise. "My sister makes it seem so easy."

[member="Kana Truden"]

 

[Kana Truden]

It would seem Hylo thought Kana was with the ‘gentlemen of leisure’ who had intruded upon the young man’s garden. A second look around would speak of the effort the young boy had gone through to take care of it. A strange sense of calm seemed to be present, though that may just have been due to the fact that the only people Kana seemed to be able to sense around here was herself and the gardener that had collapsed to the ground.

“Hey, don’t say that.” Kana knelt down by the boy. “Maybe your attempts at ‘persuading’ me wasn’t very effective but I’d say those pheromones certainly worked for a moment there.”

“And sisters and friends always make everything seem so easy.” She nodded reassuringly. “I have this one friend who makes everything she do seem so damn easy yet when I try to do the exact same thing I end up with my face flat in the dirt, and that’s just when I try to leap around using the force.”

It felt weird to open up to a plant-guy-thing like Hylo. Mostly because the two of them were complete strangers, it must have been the boy’s (seemingly) young age that did it. Or maybe there were still pheromones in the air, who knew?

“Just, don’t examine yourself based upon what others can or cannot do, champ.” She gently nudged him gently on the shoulder. “They are not you and do not share your limits; to compare yourself to them would be pointless.”

“There is nobody you can compare yourself to but yourself. That was the best piece of advice I’ve ever gotten.”

[member="Hylocereus"]

 

[Hylocereus]

Hylo started at [member="Kana Truden"] looking up at the woman. “Yeah, I never thought about it that way,” he said shaking his head to shed the flower on his head. Apparently there was more hidden underneath his hair and suddenly the air was filled with tiny flower petals.

“But this ground is good ground.” He pointed over at a mountain, “That volcano there makes this ground particularly fertile, so it was easy to grow this garden.” And as Hylo got happy pheromones started back up again. Not so much for attraction, although some where surely mixed in pheromones could do more than that, but happiness. Mood enhancement.

Hylo dug about in his clothing pulling out a few seeds and planted them in the earth. He put his hands on top of the dirt mound he created and concentrated. A flowering tree started to grow, a sproutling at first and then bark hardened and limbs jutted out creating a full tree with little pink flowers whose petals flittered in the wind. “See the problem is these little rocks on and in the soil around here.” Focusing a bit more he had the plant lift a root up revealing the strange rocks.

“My sister will have to clear the bigger ones out if she’s going to make this viable farmland.”

On bended knee he held the rock up to Kana showing it to her. But it wasn’t a rock, it was a Stygium Crystal…. “They are kinda pretty though don’t you think?” his cheeks blushed green.

 

[Kana Truden]

Her efforts to cheer the boy up seemed successful enough. Tiny petals swerved around in the air. For a kid not trying anything he certainly managed to set a lighthearted mood. The pheromones certainly helped to a degree like anti-depressants floating around in the air. The kid pointed at a nearby mountain, or well, volcano. The know-how of such death-traps-in-waiting was lost on Kana but she would have to take [member="Hylocereus"] word on it when he claimed it was good for the soil.

A weird sense of happiness and calm seeped in as he planted his seedling in the ground. A look of surprise spread across her face as slowly but steadily a tree erupted from the small mound in which the boy had planted the seed. Before long there was even more petals floating around the two. For a kid who seemed to turn green whenever something embarrassing happened he sure knew how to set the mood for, well, in this case something very inappropriate.

Then he bent a knee and held something very shiny up for her to see. Was he proposing? No, most likely not.

“That’s quite something, Hylo.” Kana gently grabbed the stygium crystal and spun it around in her hands. “What is it?”

 

[Hylocereus]

Hylo frowned and crossed his arms dropping back into a sitting position in the dirt. “It’s just a stupid rock,” he said like petulant child. “And they litter the fields. I thought maybe we could use them to help regulate soil temperature by placing them around the base of the trees but light reacts weird to them.”

Scrunching his nose he stared disapprovingly at the highly valuable crystal. For the first time since their meeting he gave [member="Kana Truden"] an appraisal. She was pretty. Hylo had met a few pretty girls in his time. She wore simple clothes that were form fitting and well…. Hylo blushed green his eyes descending toward the ground and away from the woman. Thats when he caught the lightsaber. “Are you a sith?” he asked perking up a little. “My mother was a sith, she’s not very nice.”

 

[Kana Truden]

Well, it wasn’t hers and according to the kid it was just a stupid rock. With a smile she placed it on the ground again only to pick it up again as the kid went on to talk of light acting weird to it. Had Kana read, talked or interacted with Kian about the stealth ships they had around the temple she would have known what this was, but hey, she didn’t.

She continued to spin the rock around between her two hands. Too busy to catch the boy ‘mirin and too focused to notice his blushing. Even enough to be caught off-guard by the question. Was Kana a sith? Her attention finally set from the crystal and onto the boy. What made him ask her that? His eyes seemed to be looking at her saber.

“No, I am not a Sith.” Kana slowly shook her head. “I’m with the Jedi Order, in the Republic. At least so I like to claim, I have occasional contact with a few other orders but my home is within Republic Space in a temple dedicated for use by the Jedi Order.”

“What about you? You seem to have at least a basic grasp of how to apply the force to things. Where did you learn that? Your mother?”

[member="Hylocereus"]

 

[Hylocereus]

“I can’t really do much…” Hylo said swatting at a patch of ground. [member="Kana Truden"] seemed nice enough. “But mom showed me how to make things grow, and I like it.” Excitement made him raise his voice at the end of the sentence. His head tilted to the side as he looked up at Kana. “Want me to show you?”

He pulled his legs under his body and moved to lean over a patch of dirt. His heart was racing in overdrive now. He had made a new friend! Hylo didn’t have a lot of friends. Mostly he just liked plants. And plants liked him, as much as they could. Pulling another seed from his robes he quickly planted it into the ground and pushed with a finger burying under the black soul. “Just put your hands right here,” he said pointing at the spot where the seed was planted into the earth.

 

[Kana Truden]

"Sure." Kana put her hand on the spot where [member="Hylocereus"] pointed at. "Like this? What's next?"

She had to admit it was weird to learn something from someone quite younger than herself, but then again that was how it all seemed to work back when she was new to all the force-stuff. But hey, if the kid was willing to teach her she was not one to argue about it.

 

[Hylocereus]

Smiling Hylo leaned in closer to the woman, placing his hands over hers. “Now you need to concentrate,” he said his body rubbing against hers. His cheeks remained blushing green as he moved her hands in a little circle around the top of the dirt loosening the soil. “You don’t want to smother the seedling… so just pull your hand back.” His pheromones popped involuntarily as he gulped hard.

“The seed will explode into new life,” The youths heart raced as he focused the force, “so you need to focus on the protrusion and control its growth.” Empowered by the force the seed started to grow, “Larger, and larger…” Hylo said as the plant sprouted up out of the ground. “Now you need to be careful, when it blooms you shouldn’t go too quick or you might damage the flower.”

The bug appeared and then slowly opened up revealing a beautiful lily white flower. Another involuntary burst of pheromones filled the air. “And that is how a new life is born…” Hylo said turning his head and staring [member="Kana Truden"] in the eyes….

Maybe kissing wouldn’t be so bad… but still this woman was a jedi, and pirate, and an assassin! He had to be careful.

 

[Kana Truden]

But she did not see it coming at all. Hands were placed on top of hers, bodies rubbing against one another. Perhaps it was the ‘innocence of youth’ but it all seemed harmless enough. She obviously had no idea how puberty worked for these races. A lot of that was probably because of the simple fact that, well, Kana had no idea how puberty worked for [member="Hylocereus"] and his kind.

Taking in the words of a kid was a new experience. The flower bloomed and before long they were staring eye-to-eye in the midst of another pheromone cloud. The same kind of sphere of calm was there, more intense in it’s presence but certainly still there. And that kid was kind of cute, wasn’t he?

She moved closer, mind screaming out in terror at her actions. Her eyes closed, and…

“NO!” She slapped herself out of it. “You’re a kid! That ain’t-...”

The pheromones kicked in, again, and she slapped herself, again.

“This is all kinds of wrong, Kana. Stop!”

 

[Hylocereus]

Hylo inquisitively tilted his head as the woman spoke aloud trying to gain control of himself. This woman was weird.But it didn’t matter, he’d made his decision. His green eyes met her, “Is it because you’re a Jedi, Pirate, Assassin? Or because I’m a plant?” he asked leaning in and meeting her in the center. Instead of a passionate kiss on the lips however instead he gave [member="Kana Truden"] a little peck on her cheek. “It’s okay,” he said firmly, “I can tell you aren’t ready for this.” He backed up a little bit and wiped the dirt off his clothing standing up. "Maybe when you're a little more mature."

A few seconds passed before, “Did you hear that?” There was nothing except the wind. The locust were singing, the sun was red. It had gotten so late, somehow. “There is going to be trouble,” Hylo said. Like an animal his ears seemed to twitch. “I don’t see very good at night…” a defect of his species, “and its gotten so dark somehow….”

The snapping of a branch sounded off in the distance causing Hylo to twitch. “Your pirate friends are back to finish the job. I’m sorry but I think I might have to kill them this time…. extricate the threat.”

 

[Kana Truden]

It seemed there was no escaping that kiss. A peck on the cheek felt appropriate enough, the implication that Kana was not mature enough, did not. The slight perk of her eyebrow went well with her questioning stare. Eventually she figured it was a trick, an attempt to prod her into it, perhaps? Something like that. Still wouldn’t work though.

“Do you hear that?”

“No.” Kana promptly added.

Apparently pirates were on the horizon. A sigh parted the Jedi Master’s lips before she got herself up from the ground. Good sight or not Kana had very little of an idea what to do. The kid was most likely the one causing the troubles and in turn giving the place a very distinct ‘haunted’ stamp. Despite that she would much rather help defend the garden than aid pirates of all people in whatever it was that pirates would do to this place.

She obviously knew what pirates did, but the playing field felt weird. Help scum or let a kid kill a bunch of scum. Her code probably said something about it. Aiding the kid felt right.

“You can’t outright kill them, incapacitaiton and arrest would be better.” Kana looked at the kid. “Save ourselves the spots on conscience, right?”

[member="Hylocereus"]

 

[Hylocereus]

Hylo didn’t feel convinced, “But the scales of justice is weighed down with graft,” he said planting his feet and starting up his war dance once more. He needed to be ready when the pirates came. Worms are intimidating, be the worm…. “Won’t they just keep coming back if I don’t deal with this? For action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This is a rule of nature. They try to kill me, so should I try to kill them?”

There wasn’t time to ponder, almost immediately after speaking the first pirates came. “What do we have here?” a half dozen men visible, but the trees told Hylo there was more just past the perimeter. “You called your mommy in to help you?” He laughed in [member="Kana Truden"]’s face, “Well let me tell you something, there is no help boy. We want this land and we’re going to get it.”

And then Hylo struck spinning and dancing to close the distance between him and the pirates striking just as the pirate rose his blaster to fire….

 

[Kana Truden]

Kana eyed the pirate in disgust. Would it be unjedilike to punch him in the face? Probably, the code had a real hard-on for being the greater person when it came to these things. To imply she was the kid’s mother had her squinting in contempt. Ever a woman of emotion she took a deep breath to let them know the comment passed right by her.

“You want this land, huh?” Kana placed her hand on her saber hilt. “See, the option here stands between me letting you hurt an innocent kid and terrorize the locals.”

Her saber was withdrawn from her belt. “I’d rather take precautionary action than let that happen, sorry.”

A blue pillar of plasma erupted as Kana took the most unjedilike move she could think of in that moment. Or maybe it wasn’t, really she didn’t put much thought into it, which perhaps was where it all went wrong to begin with.

“Go for the legs and arms, kid.”

[member="Hylocereus"]