Private I Roved Out: Ch. 4 - What Dreams Have Come

[Loxa Visl]

Shortly following departure from Kal'shebbol (Ch. 3)
Aaris III - a pitstop en route to Exocron
New Kastays Spaceport

It felt fitting that she should come to this place, drawn only by instinct and a need for a meeting ground. Loxa could not explain what drew her to this planet, but only that it spoke to her as the right place to go during this moment of transience in her life. Everything seemed fleeting, now. Her visions, her dreams, her grasp of the knowledge of where to go next and what to do. Like too many raindrops falling at once to catch for a drink.

Loxa pondered the approach of simply letting it all soak her through, but she concerned herself over drowning in it.

Here at New Kastays Spaceport she awaited the arrival of a contact made through various underground and darkwire connections. A woman said to possess the ability to read minds. Being that the mind is where dreams lived, it only seemed appropriate that she just might be the one to help collect a bit of this rainwater into one place.

So, with her feet back on solid ground, the witch elder left Khaleel Malvern at his ship upon the beeping notification that Darth Ophidia had arrived. She walked out along the docking yards, following her intuition and the progress of the newest ship gliding in from the far skies.

 

[Darth Ophidia]

Loxa Visl

It was customary for Lords of the Sith to wait in obsidian castles on storm-ridden worlds, glowering from their throne in full, ceremonial armour. That did not suit Darth Ophidia. Even while in contest with the other Sith over the rule of their order, she took time for excursions such as these. One could never truly predict exactly what would come of them.

But something always did.

The ships that glided in were many and diverse designs, but none of them were hers. And while Loxa watched the skies she would hear a tap-tap-tap of wood upon metal. Unsteady legs followed the tap-tap-tap as an old woman waddled her way around the corner.

The tap-tap-tap came closer, and closer, then stopped.

If Loxa looked in the direction of the crone then she would see her standing still, stick hovering just above the ground.

"Rain."

The crone said in a voice like paper, sharp and dry and thin all at once.

"You cannot flee from the rain."

 

[Loxa Visl]

In this life and the one that came before, the endless amount of patience the witch conducted herself with came as a boon to such situations. While the galaxy spun madly in a constant state of hurry-up-and-wait, Loxa contented herself to let the pieces fall as they may. She had no such delusions of who or what she was waiting for, and so turned to greet the tap-tap-tapping old crone with no sense of disappointment.

On the contrary, old women such as this were often powerful, wise, and highly revered among her Dathomiri kin.

But to the point of rain, Loxa blinked. It was neither raining, nor was she the sort to run from it.

"This One greets the rain with cupped hands," she replied, "and a grateful heart."

Rain was the source of life for many things. She had seen both treacherous flood and disasterous drought. The rain was not at the whim to anything but itself.

 

[Darth Ophidia]

The tapping resumed as the woman came closer. Previously the gnarled stick had only touched the floor, but now she pinged it against steadily higher places until it thumped into Loxa herself.

Yellow eyes turned to Loxa, unblinking and eerily still. They seemed distant, as though they only saw around her, but never looked at her directly.

"Cupped hands leak and overflow."

Her head cocked, seemingly to place her ear closer to Loxa.

"And grateful hearts can be betrayed." a ragged breath "But rain falls, none the less."

She raised a hand. Unlike her face, it had an unnatural hue of inky darkness and apparent arthritis curled her fingertips into talons. They beckoned like an invitation.

"Come, seek shelter."

Loxa Visl

 

[Loxa Visl]

Even Loxa was uncertain why it was this woman spoke of rain on a cloudless day. The connection between her prior train of thought and the conversation had yet to be made, but she could not call herself a witch if she did not see and feel the signs of something bigger. Wise words spoken from someone who likely had seen a long and weathered life. The natural way of things.

Growth and prosperity. Death and decay. Faith and betrayal. Plenty and drought. Wisdom and ignorance.

The witch's golden eyes shifted to the crone's beckoning hand, the grasp of her own staff reaffirming itself as she stepped to follow the old woman's presence. Who was she to deny offered shelter in such a deluge?

Darth Ophidia