In Fact It Scares Us

[Mara D'Lessio Merrill]

KILIA FOUR
WILD SPACE
BIG TROUBLE

"No," Mara snarled as fire licked up into the top of the tower, "I don't know what I could have done differently." She wasn't much of a fighter, but her hand ached for a blade. If she could just calm down, her gift could kick in; she could get some idea of the best way down. Maybe she should jump for the tree, just run and leap. Physical enhancement wasn't her forte, but she could probably make it.

Alone.

And therein lay the problem.

"I...Lady Mara, I..." The young man, unlike Mara, had a blade in hand. He'd sooner part with his left nut, though, so she didn't like her odds of getting it from him. Even if his attention wavered between the downstairs barricade, the window, and the tongues of flame filling the tower room with smoke. Even if he was completely out of his depth, he'd rather die than surrender that sword. Not that she could do much with it if she took it. One sword against how many pitchforks? Assuming she even got past the fire?

"You regret mouthing off?" she snapped. "Regret something of substance while you're at it. Chivalry, my ass. Follow if you've got the balls."

She gathered up the train of her dress. A running leap took her out the window. Flame toasted her skirted legs for a moment as she arced out over the courtyard. That was a lot of torches and pitchforks, she noted absently, reaching for the treebranch.

But a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?

The branch slipped through her fingers and snapped as it bent away. Feth.

 

[Mara D'Lessio Merrill]

FONDOR
[SIZE=14.6667px]SIX WEEKS AGO[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Some things, father and daughter couldn’t say to each other. Jorus, she knew, questioned the wisdom of the mission, straightforward though it was. He worried she was splitting herself too many ways: the Alliance, the Underground, her path as a Warden, her investments with the Foundation Trust and its steel-cold council. That the mission was in service to some or all of those goals, rather than a separate pursuit, didn’t satisfy him. He worried, too, that she might not be equal to life on Kilia IV. She’d grown up on pre-technological Q-27, spent half her life on starships and the other half using leaves for toilet paper; she was better suited to the errand than most. But Q-27 was an idyllic, bucolic archipelago paradise. Kilia IV was a harsh, mountainous world, its medieval society scattered among rare, far-flung, fertile valleys. Its people knew blood and cruelty. And though Mara, scion of D’Lessio and Merrill, had physically healed from her wounds, PTSD still gripped her at all the wrong times. If Kilia overcame her, she’d be far from help. The remote, forgotten world was behind enemy lines, bracketed by planets the One Sith had subjugated. He doubted her ability to escape if need be, though he’d trained her himself, him and Chloe and Mom. He wanted to go with her, do it for her.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Such things couldn’t be said, not in their fulness. But she’d been raised by a Lorrdian and had the blood of an empath. She knew it, and he knew that she knew it. She could sense that in his words, his silences, his posture. She sensed, too, that he wished he didn’t feel that way. You can trust a man’s heart, he’d told her often enough, without trusting the strength of his arm. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]She’d sensed, too, the flicker of relief that came from knowing she could feel how he felt, without him explaining. And a wedge of guilt centered on that relief.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]He assuaged his feelings with prep work, and she let him. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“You need a cache,” he said bluntly, meeting her in the [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]Gypsymoth[/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]’s cargo bay. “You need a couple of them, less than a day’s hike away from the main valley. Any closer and they might be found; you don’t know where the local trails and traplines run. These caches are for survival purposes, so technological contagion isn’t an issue. That means you need to take a full load of your aunt’s stuff.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]By that, he meant the Unknown Regions camping gear that Iron Crown had produced under Rave Merrill’s auspices. Man-portable diagnostics, antidote synthesizers, medkits, sonic perimeter stakes, incredible survival tents, the works -- it could all fit in one large pack. She’d be taking the [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]Bullet Time[/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px], too, and she didn’t argue about that: it was insanely fast, as quick and nimble as the best starfighters, at fifty metres long and loaded with specialized escape gear. She’d learned high-risk piloting on that ship, and for a mission behind enemy lines it was the best getaway craft in the ‘verse. Better suited than her old [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]Corridor Sweeper[/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px], for sure, or her H-Wing SAR cutter. And the [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]Bullet Time [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]had room for a small contingent of Underground commandos, her backup in case of crisis. They’d be concealing the ship, patrolling the area, all in the Underground’s best approximation of local clothes and gear. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]He didn’t make it negotiable, and since she’d brought the objective to him framed as an Underground operation, he had some portion of that authority by default. General Merrill giving Captain Merrill a ship and some backup she couldn’t refuse. The mission, though, the core part, was her responsibility and up to her discretion.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]So once she’d managed the cache supplies, prepped the ship, met the commando backup, and circumnavigated her father, Mara set out to do the rest her way.[/SIZE]

 

[Mara D'Lessio Merrill]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Though all her partnerships and stakes were silent or close enough, it was no secret that Mara D’Lessio Merrill owned way too fething much. Percentages of Silk, Arakyd, and Akure; controlling but silent interest in an upwardly mobile Sasori subsidiary called Wey’lan Dyu’tani; sole ownership of a midsized printing outfit called Marvand. When she needed funds, genuinely needed them, she could get them without issue. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]She had, after all, a small staff. Accountants and lawyers mostly, but also a public relations vetter who monitored her name on the HoloNet and screened her investments’ implications. She knew them all by name, but hardly ever visited in person. They’d taken over for the trust firm once she hit majority, they came highly recommended, they vouched for the trust’s work despite no substantive previous connections, and she had a good feeling about them. She was, innately, fairly hard to fool in person. And they ran the empire for her, and when she was in need, they were, if not her first call, definitely on the speed-dial. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Hence her public relations manager’s presence in an upscale fitting room on Fondor, and the presence of a truly unsightly amount of homespun, plus an elite seamstress.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Undergarments: shell-spider silk.” The PR manager was a Chalactan of early middle age, a double-Marked woman named Eiarra Denirel[/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]. [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]“Not something the locals have, but keep anyone from examining your underthings too closely and you should be fine.” She raised her eyebrow fractionally, deniably, a [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]that won’t be a problem, will it? [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]sort of expression but as nonjudgmental as an employee had to be. Mara coloured regardless and shook her head. Eiarra smiled faintly. “It’ll turn a knife-edge and stop a knife-point dead, but won’t do a thing about the trauma: you’ll still bruise if you get hit. Kilia IV has no vibroweapons. The other thing about shell-spider silk is that it doesn’t wrinkle, no matter how tightly you compress it, so we’ve got a dozen sets like this bundled up into tiny little pills about the size of your thumb. We’ve also thrown in some support options for combat and hiking, plus some microtech to ensure wicking if you get wet and cold.” Eiarra wore long sleeves, but once on a hot day Mara had seen the scars that ran to her elbows. She had a fighter’s calluses, too. Eiarra’s background wasn’t something she’d delved into personally, but the vetters had given her an absolutely unconditional stamp of approval. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Mara fingered the edge of the off-white camisole, looking at herself in the mirror. Gawky, still, but she could grow out of that. She glanced at the massive pile of local-appropriate fabrics. “How about daily wear?”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]At Eiarra’s fractional nod, the Chandrilan seamstress - a preternaturally silent, graying woman in stretchy business attire - stepped toward the mirror. A true-color holograph fuzzed for a moment, then superseded itself on Mara’s image in the mirror, until she wore a simple, well-cut dress and travel cloak. Mara blinked and moved one arm, then the other; the image compensated in real-time, as accurately as a body-hugging shield or holographic camouflage. The seamstress’s voice was dry and quiet as a snake at peace. “What you have here is a travel garment for a noblewoman who doesn’t wish to draw attention to herself. We know little about Kilian fashion, but we’ve extrapolated this from trends, sewing techniques, and fabrics found on Lunar Meadow, Zeus, Oaken Dawn, and other anachronistic worlds. You’ll also note some influences from Tapani couture. The cloak has two liners, and between them is a layer of shell-spider silk. Everything about this outfit can be customized by color and fabric, within the options on the table.” [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]The seamstress touched a glowing control display in the mirror’s glass, and the outfit shifted. “And here we have the outfit for cold-weather travel. The fur coat is gray jakobeast; we don’t know that Kilia Four has jakobeasts, but they’re very common, especially on semi-arctic worlds with a colonial background. The entire range of fabrics we’ve presented will wick moisture away from your skin and will remain warm even when soaked.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Mara blinked. “That’s possible with primitive fabrics?”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Eiarra smiled faintly. “Millions of inhabited worlds, each with distinct flora and fauna -- yes, Ms. Vanada’s firm has isolated natural fabrics with any property you can imagine.” Left unsaid -- and perhaps not even implied; perhaps it was all in Mara’s head -- was the recognizance that Mara’s outlay on this mission dwarfed the possible financial benefits. Kilia IV wasn’t exactly wealthy. At most, she would find allies, minimal in number and not well prepared for the fight. Knowledge, too, but knowledge’s monetary value varied widely. In a very real sense, Mara was a trillionaire indulging in a sightseeing trip in pursuit of her hobby. The open question was the extent to which that might overshadow the good she might do or the things she might learn. She was acutely aware that she could probably buy Kilia IV with her pocket change. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]But she’d been raised without even the promise of that fortune, raised on poor islands and ragtag freighters. She just had to hope she could trust that to keep her humble. Willing to listen, looking for answers rather than coming in with a grandiose plan. The Kilian Rangers, Kilia IV itself, were nerfs, not thoroughbreds; she had no illusions about returning with a legion of Force-wielding knights and holocron swords. Glory dreams had to take a back seat to understanding, getting the lay of the land. What she sought almost certainly didn’t exist, not in keeping with her mental image anyway.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]She refocused on the mirror. “I love them,” she said, mostly honestly. “How about sleepwear?”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“In a word?” said Eiarra. “Nightshirts. Ankle-length.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Wouldn’t want to bare an ankle.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]The Chalactan restrained a smile, not well. “Most of the time, when a society is called prudish over ankle-bearing and so forth, those depictions were invented by the next generation for their own purposes. What I’ve generally found is that societies which get hung up on really excessive modesty -- coverage to the wrists and ankles and neck and so forth, prioritizing women -- have strong subcultures of what you might call debauchery. So while a bared ankle might attract social disapproval, private licentiousness is so developed that the ankle never has a prayer of being an object of forbidden lust.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Mara gave her PR manager a slow blink. “Are you telling me to avoid bared ankles, or not?”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Eiarra shrugged. “I don’t know how closely Kilian nobility fits that mold. Just be aware that, to a pre-technological society, skin can mean a lot more or a lot less than you think it does. Which is why I’ve asked Ms. Vanada to prepare a wide variety of long socks, stockings, gloves, hoods, and scarves.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Do all of those fit in lozenges too?”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Many of them.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Still -- this is quite a wardrobe to carry around.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]The Chalactan nodded. “If you were hoping to visit Kilia Four alone, I’m afraid that won’t be possible. A woman of your age absolutely can’t travel alone on a world like that.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“I was flying across the galaxy alone at fourteen. I’ve got-”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Ms. Merrill, it’s not solely a question of safety. It’s a question of propriety. As far as I understand your errand, it involves the goodwill and respect of a chivalric order under the patronage of local noble houses. Social mores, whatever they may be, will almost certainly frown on a single woman traveling alone, for a variety of reasons. Dignity -- not lugging your own bags around or paying for your incidentals personally. Chastity, or the appearance of chastity. There may also be an element of perceived weakness: so far as we can tell, Kilia Four fits the mold of feudal societies where anyone who’s anyone has, at minimum, a maidservant, a porter, and a bodyguard. That’s true despite the objectively low population of the place.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“...all right. What do we have for formal wear?[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]The seamstress, who’d been standing quietly by the mirror, brightened and shifted the image into a rotating selection of gowns.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“...holy feth. You’re right. I’m going to need a load lifter.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“They’re called porters, Ms. Merrill.” Eiarra said. “No droids on Kilia Four, by the standards you’ve set for yourself on this mission. Not unless you want to purchase a human replica droid, synthdroid, or biot -- but somehow I doubt it.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“You doubt correctly.” Mara squinted at the mirror. “Back two?” The seamstress obliged, cycling back to a dress that was essentially perfect. “And the red one? That ought to do it, right?”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“You should travel with at least five dresses for good company,” said the seamstress. “Three nightdresses minimum, two travel outfits for good weather and two for cold. We’ve also arranged luggage for you: your choice of saddlebags for the standard Kilian riding animal.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“They [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]ride [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]these?”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Again that half-veiled grin from Eiarra. “And joust on them. With lances.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“The Republic used to field power lancers on swoop bikes, until they got shredded at O’reen by a Hutt in vonduun. But crappy or not, I’d take the bikes over these.” Mara grimaced. “I hope it’s like riding-” She cut herself off. Q-27’s location, existence, and nature were the highest of secrets. Eiarra raised an eyebrow, and Mara shook her head. “Alright, so I’ll need...so, so much more than I’d thought.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]The Chalactan chuckled. “No price is too high for respect. You’ll be sore for a while, but you’ll adjust. With luck, your level of skill at riding will make you less imposing. It’s all too easy to fear the unknown. We don’t like what we don’t understand; in fact, it scares us, and you’ll be mysterious at the least.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“So I’ll earn respect by being...foolish?”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“By being human, as they say. Accessible. You’re a Merrill, and that makes you a force of nature, but to get respect and achieve your mission you’ll need to be willing to take chances, make mistakes...” Eiarra shrugged. “Get messy. Ms. Vanada? Will you tell Ms. Merrill about natural soaps, lye, and laundry?”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Certainly,” said the seamstress, head bobbing. “Now, the travel clothes will repel mud to a reasonable extent. You won’t be walking around with mud stains, no matter how bad the weather gets. The formal wear is something else. Make sure that whoever you take as your maidservant understands the best ways to clean these fabrics with locally sourced soaps.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]It went on like that for some time, though Mara could tell she was getting a very broad overview. She’d be relying on Eiarra to find a...maidservant...who could learn all this to a higher level of detail, or who already knew it.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]When she’d conceived of this trip, wandering the medieval crags and valleys of Kilia IV, learning from the Kilian Rangers and securing connections and sanctuary rights for the Underground, it had never involved maidservants. Or porters. Or, for that matter, bodyguards; she’d had the idea that the Underground commandos could keep a loose eye on her from afar. But in the end, Eiarra was right: to achieve her goals, she needed the Kilians to accept her on their terms, and respect her according to their standards, even if every egalitarian bone in her body protested the idea of traveling with servants.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Perhaps that was another element of what her father feared. Mara Merrill, filthy rich, learning to take servitude for granted. She was accounted a Jedi Knight, and rogue or former Knights had tried to rule frontier worlds before, for one reason or another. Beldorion, Raynar Thul, Empatojayos Brand, Tenel Ka, any number of others. Perhaps her father was afraid she’d get a taste for nobility and leave his values behind. He’d come within a hair of losing himself when he and her mother built Silk. That’s why they’d walked away.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]But they’d kept a portion of the stock sealed in a trust, for her to do with as she wished once she came of age. Now it was hers, and an awful lot more besides that. Moment of truth, they had to be thinking. A critical time, a precipitous time, to be playing with nobles on a world that might be all too easily subjugated by a Knight with a grudge, on the edge of adulthood. She’d grown up with the spectacularly wealthy Taliths, too, which couldn’t have helped allay her father’s fears. When she’d gotten a bare-bones little freighter as her first ship, Aela had gotten a stealth solar sail yacht monstrosity. The extent to which Mara had been influenced was anyone’s guess, even Mara’s.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]There was, perhaps, reason for her to watch herself. Exceptionalism and paternalism could poison any working relationship, the more so on a world that likely hadn’t rediscovered either gender equality or basic science. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“What about weapons?” she said as the fabrics intro drew to a halt. They’d gone over footwear as well, ad infinitum.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]The seamstress and the Chalactan exchanged a glance. “We’ve worked a number of small pockets into your outfits,” said Vanada. “Ms. Denirel?”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Eiarra nodded. “You’ll have a number of options. Noblewomen in these places often carried a small dagger, and we have a tray prepared. I would...strongly recommend leaving your lightsabre and scattergun on the ship, or in a cache, despite the risks you’ll face in travel. Societies like these are likely to attach all kinds of positive or negative meaning to modern weapons. We know there was a time when the Kilian Rangers used shield-projecting gauntlets and sporting blasters with bayonets, but that was centuries ago, before the Dark Age, and those pieces of technology were already irreplaceably ancient. I’d strongly suspect you’ll find no technology at all. You don’t want to give people reason to misinterpret your differences from them, especially if they find those differences frightening.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]As Mara mulled over that, Vanada, the seamstress, brought out the tray of defensive options. Tiny daggers, mostly, the kind of thing that would need to hit the jugular to put anyone down. Beautiful work, some of them -- hefty, expensive, some jewelled, others plain but elegant. None of them were vibroblades, powerblades, or monomolecular-edged, in keeping with the planet’s level of technology. Here, at least, was something Mara knew. She took a flat knife for her boot, another for the inside of her left sleeve, and a third that hung low on a chain, mostly concealed by moderately conservative necklines. A fourth small one fit inside the back of one of her new belts, in case she ever had her hands bound behind her back. If knives were all she had, she meant to stock up. Noblewomen on Kilia IV didn’t carry swords, as a general rule, but so far as the files could tell there’d be plenty close at hand if she genuinely needed to fence. That, and she could give virtually anything medieval to her bodyguard without exciting suspicion, assuming she caved and got a bodyguard.[/SIZE]

 

[Mara D'Lessio Merrill]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“How about language?” she asked Eiarra as they walked the streets of the Fondor shopping district. They’d picked out fabrics and designs, and it had taken most of the morning. “What did you turn up?”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“I told you I’d take care of it, and I hope it doesn’t disappoint.” The Chalactan was taller than her, rangy, and kept slowing down so Mara could keep up with her long strides. “That said, you do have options.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Learn the language?”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]A nod. “That’s one. You’ll only be there for a few weeks, but if you’re willing to delay your trip by a similar amount of time, we can arrange fully immersive training in an archaic Basic variant that comes very close to the Kilian dialect.” [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Colour me conditionally interested. What else?”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Translator and protocol droid-”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“No.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“-in the ship,” said Eiarra evenly, shooting her a look. “Coaching you through an earpiece.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Too much risk.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“If you say so. Local guide and translator. Role can double with bodyguard, porter, or maidservant.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Can that be arranged?”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Still unknown, but it’s possible. It’s also possible that we may be able to leverage some Akure contacts and get you a tizowyrm keyed to the Kilian dialect.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Mara took a seat on a park bench, looking out over a high-end shopping plaza. These shops’ daily profits could [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]certainly [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]buy Kilia IV. “Ambitious, but I’d rather not stumble around with a time delay while a Vong biot whispers in my ear.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Eiarra settled onto the bench beside her, folding her arms. “There’s another option. Various Force traditions - Jedi, Sith, Witch and more interesting things -- have techniques that allow you to either adopt, grant, or transcend languages. It’s said that Revan hammered Basic into the skulls of a tribe of feral Rakata.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“I’m no Revan. And no Witch, for that matter.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Then what I’d recommend is Theran Force-listening.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]It was a sunny day on Fondor, but Mara felt a chill, or maybe a frisson of interest. “Nam Chorios, right? Desert hermits?”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Just so. Nam Chorios is a dangerous world, and it gets more dangerous for its inhabitants the more people use the Force for anything overt. That’s for a whole host of reasons related to the local tsil crystals -- it’s an uneasy balance between carbon- and silicon-based life-forms. As a result, the Listeners are a subtle tradition. Think of the Dagoyan Masters, but harsher, with keener senses. Theran Listeners can perceive things spoken far away, on the other side of a starship, or in other languages. It’s about the Force knowing everything, or having access to everything. Much like instinctive astrogation, in its way.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“And I could learn this, well enough to make my stay functional?”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Coupled with immersion and your natural empathic talents, yes, I think so. It’s a skill I know,” said Eiarra, matter-of-fact, “and datacrons on it have featured in I don’t know how many auctions over the last decade; it’s out there. A rare but accessible skill. I’ve worked up a brief, some training exercises you can use. You’ll have to practice alone and probably on a desert world, but I think we can scare up one of those.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Why the desert? Why a world of it?”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“There’s silence and then there’s silence. Learning the Theran technique means calibrating your ear and your soul to the fundamental meanings of subtle sound, far away from anything.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=14.6667px]Frankly, I’d recommend practicing on Nam Chorios. Hearing the [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]tsils[/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px] is a beautiful thing, once you learn to listen. It’s not exactly on your way to Kilia Four, but Nam Chorios isn’t too far off to the side, just off the Perlemian in the Antemeridian Sector. You’ll need to use a very small ship; the defense emplacements are there for a reason. Nam Chorios is lethal. The drochs -- the Death Seed.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“And what are my other options?”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Eiarra gave her an evaluating look. “Any desert would do, if necessary. Or any silent wilderness.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Kilia Four has wilderness, and mountain ranges where there’s nothing alive for a hundred klicks. I’ll train there, with a protocol droid who knows Kilian, before I make contact with the locals.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]The Chalactan nodded slowly. “I’ll make the arrangements. Full immersion, if you can. You, your servants, your backup team -- all speaking Kilian, one hundred percent of the time. That’s the only way to get the kind of marginal competence you need. Better still if you’ve got a couple of locals aboard, and I’ll see what I can do. Kilia Four does have marginal contact with the galaxy, or at least it did as of about ten years ago -- just a local lord with a spaceship and a dream of becoming a Sith.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“I’ve read the old Sith Empire file. He didn’t even make it to Knight.” It said quite a lot that a darksider could openly rule a small estate on Kilia IV, given the historic enmity between the Kilian Rangers and their splinter faction, the so-called Kilian Renegades. In a perfect world, the Rangers and their noble patrons would have deposed someone like that in short order. A lot could change in a decade -- or a millennium. “Have you spoken with my dad about all this?”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Nothing I didn’t think you’d want me to mention.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Mm. He commed earlier -- he’s got the team and their gear ready, over at the starport. And the ship.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Ahh, the [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]Bullet Time[/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px].” Eiarra grinned. “Not his most infamous ship, not by a long shot. I’d rank them [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]Gypsymoth, Absolution, D’Lessio, [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]then this one. Even though this is by far the fastest and one of the nastiest.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“You want to come aboard, look around?”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Wouldn’t mind at all, thank you, Ms. Merrill.”[/SIZE]

 

[Mara D'Lessio Merrill]

[SIZE=14.6667px]The [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]Bullet Time [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]had limited space, very limited. Thus, the Underground commandos were practicing outside in the docking bay. Swords rang against swords, ring mail rustled, and ‘avaunt, varlet!’ was a pretty common thing to hear. They might be stone killers when necessary, but these boys and girls were having a blast. And why shouldn’t they? After Kilia IV had connected with the Rebel Alliance eight centuries back, some had left the planet for modernity, but ten times as many had immigrated to the remote planet out of sheer fascination. One great valley that held the bulk of the Kilian civilization, but soil and cut paths had expanded that civilization into other valleys -- less fertile, far-flung, but spacious or at least numerous. Now fortresses and towns dotted the mountain wilderness of Kilia IV, all descended from the original Kilians and the dreamers they’d taught the difference between fantasy and reality. That civilization had outlasted the Gulag Virus, losing only its bits and pieces of modern technology. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]It was people like this -- people who enjoyed that life, or the idea of that life -- who’d expanded the Kilian population, intermingling with and learning from the locals. Even though the shine had rubbed off their dreams.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]General Jorus Quentin Merrill -- Dad -- was sitting on a nearby crate. He’d been sweating recently, and the rapier Taralkaar sat across his knees. He blinked away from the cheerful melee and focused on Mara and Eiarra. The Chalactan got a nod, as between equals. “How are you, Ms. Denirel?”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Been too long, General. I’m doing well.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“My daughter keeping you busy?”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“I’ve worked for far worse,” she said. “She asked me along for the ride and offered me a tour of the ship, and that’s not something I could pass up.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Jorus grinned. “Well, Beyyr can walk you through it -- he knows it better than anyone.” A backhanded way of saying [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]I’d like to speak to my daughter in private[/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]. Eiarra inclined her head fractionally and went off to speak with the graying Wookiee.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“She got you squared away, Mara?”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Yeah, Dad. She’s been an incredible help.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Glad to hear it. Glad to hear she can throw herself into something again.” He scratched at his stubble with a thumb, near the corner of his mouth. “She’s lost a lot, that one. Didn’t realize she remembered how to believe in people.” He seemed to think better of his words and grimaced. “Anyways. The kids like the toys.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Steel rang on steel, rhythmless but blindingly fast. “I can see that. Looks like they’ve all got the training.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Solid blades of one kind or another get used everywhere, and the ring mail’s not too far off from some of the suits they wear in combat. I made sure to put together a squad that really knows its stuff when it comes to primitive weapons. Got some Asahi blademasters, a couple Zahat’n’ira archers-”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Not sure that’s how it’s pronounced, Dad.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Jorus grinned. “Anyways, this crew knows what’s up. I want you to keep’em close as you can. I know, I know, mission parameters are all your department, but there’s worse things to have around than a warband.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“I know what I’m doing, Dad. Really, it’ll be fine. Any luck, I’ll come back with a bagful of holocrons and a legion of Forcers.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]A snort, and a smile. “Just come back, is all I ask.” He looked away, touching the corner of an eye with his thumb as if trying to stave off tears, and the emotion welling off him blared into her empathic senses. Death was, she realized, a terribly real thing for him, a real possibility. She couldn’t help but respect that.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“You and Mom and Chloe and Na’Varro taught me pretty well. Really. I’ll be fine.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“I know you will. I know.” He stood and sheathed the Force-imbued rapier. “I’d still give you this if it’d work for you.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“It’s fine, Dad. Eiarra’s got me set up with weapons, and you’ve got me a little army right here. Doesn’t mean I’m going to go try and conquer something-” A joke that cut a little close to the bone. “-but I should be plenty safe.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Yeah.” Jorus blinked rapidly. “Yeah. I just…”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Here, too, were things she knew he couldn’t say. How much he regretted spending seven years as Master of First Knowledge to the entire Jedi Order, constantly on the run with holocrons, setting up fallback points and secret vaults. How much of her life, and Alna’s life, he’d missed. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Dad,” Mara said, “if there’s anything I can do to make you feel better about this trip…”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Jorus chewed his lip. “Well,” he said after a moment, “I don’t really see as there is. No silver bullet. Just remember your roots, kid.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“You call Corvus Raaf [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]kid[/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]. Don’t call me the same thing, come on.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]A grin, then; she’d gotten that much out of him. “If you say so. Heck, I only do it ‘cause it bugs her. She and I may not have a lot of use for each other, but I hear she’s calmed down some and stayed the course, and that’s more than I can say for some that’ve been in her chair. On both counts. Doesn’t mean you can invite her over for a sleepover, o’course.” He threatened to get all misty-eyed again. “Feth, kid, but you’re growing up too fast.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Fast as I can go, just like you taught me.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Yeah. Yeah, I guess I did.”[/SIZE]

 

[Mara D'Lessio Merrill]

[SIZE=14.6667px]The [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]Bullet Time [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]left hyperspace over Kilia IV and scanned the feth out of the system immediately. The One Sith controlled nearby regions, worlds only a few hundred light-years away. And though Kilia IV was objectively insignificant, there was always the possibility that something could have come here, staked a claim, left an early-warning sensor for traffic monitoring purposes, and moved on. Mara scanned again, hitting up every astronomical body with a day’s worth of microjumps, but nothing showed up on scanners and nothing interrupted her search. Eventually she pronounced the system clean and headed down through the atmosphere.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]From high atmo, clouds clearing away, Kilia IV was a jumbled jewellery box. Angular, snow-clad mountains reflected the colors of sunset. In other places, mountains made tidy ranges; not here. Much of the surface was mountainous, and life clung to a handful of valleys large and small. She kept her altitude and a straight course, hoping to be taken for a shooting star. A lifetime on Q-27 had accustomed her to the best ways of approaching a pre-tech civilization with a ship you didn’t want seen. Between remote peaks, far from the closest life-signs, she disengaged the engines and switched to repulsors, then ambled back below the mountains’ cover. When life-signs grew too numerous, she settled down a good twenty klicks from the great valley. The microcorvette shifted as its landing pads bit into soil and down to bedrock. She’d brought them down under cover of snowy evergreen trees.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]The first order of business was concealment. A low-power ICE sonic fence, just spikes stuck in the forest floor, would keep animals away and thus minimize chance hunter contacts. A huge camouflage net, sensor-baffling, settled over the [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]Bullet Time [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]from stem to stern as Mara and the Undergrounders pulled it with ropes. The net would keep it hidden from sophisticated sensors if any happened to enter orbit. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]They’d spent the winding trip practicing their Kilian, which was more a heavily accented dialect than a spinoff language. It was still Basic, just not the kind you’d get in the Core Worlds. Sort of like spacer’s cant on Sacorria, to Mara’s ear, or the lingo from a hundred other shadowports. Not that it sounded like spacer-trash slang, but it different from standard Basic by about the same amount. It had a formal, archaic feel to it sometimes, though it stopped short of ‘thees’ and ‘thous’. But it could trick the ear. Between the protocol droid, some immersion time, and practice with the Underground commandos, she figured she could get halfway competent. She would clearly be a foreigner, an outlander, but the lifesign scanners indicated that the Kilians inhabited many far-flung valleys and crags in this day and age. Clearly, before the Dark Age, availability of offworld pharmaceuticals and other factors had helped the population balloon, far enough that the crash had left the population viable. The presumption of regional dialects could account for some of her linguistic mistakes.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Some, but not all. She needed to minimize her other-ish-ness; that much was clear. Eiarra Denirel had been at least partially right -- the unknown could terrify. But on the other hand, it wasn’t so bad as all that. A little unknown could have the appeal of the exotic. Perhaps fortunately, that might be how her wardrobe played out. The clothes were undeniably flattering, and they’d be both like and unlike current Kilian fashion. That, too, could turn to her favour. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]She wore the travel outfits, the warm ones, for her sojourns into the mountains. Eiarra insisted that Mara take those walks often, and alone except for a single guard rotated from the squad. Mara could compensate for one man or woman breathing, one beating heart apart from hers, while practicing the tenets of Force-listening. How sitting in silence was supposed to teach her to comprehend speech -- well, if that was the Theran way, then so be it. She rather suspected the Listeners learned comprehension by hearing the [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]tsils[/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px], rather than by isolation, but Eiarra insisted it wasn’t an either-or. After all, she said, everyone is alien to everyone else. That resonated with Mara’s empathic experiences, and the theoretical guidance she’d found on the subject. It fit, so she kept going up to walk snowy cliffs and hear nothing but the wind. It felt like her imagination when she first heard a bird cry from the far side of a mountain, so far that her sharp-eared guide heard nothing. It felt like confirmation bias when she heard it again and fancied that the bird was singing of triumph. And she felt remarkably silly and more than a little satisfied when an avian soared over a ridge bearing a furry lump in its claws. There was, after all, relatively little difference between a sapient and any other animal. A path to beast-friendship, then, though she had no real desire to go that route. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]When the Force filled her and she began to understand, she spent her walks catching snippets of language practice from the concealed ship. She went nowhere near the local civilization, though sometimes she glimpsed hunters, trappers, peddlers, tinkers on old, old trails. When all mobility between valleys depended on specific, well-worn routes, some of them precarious but the best available, trails got worn deep into earth and stone over two thousand years.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]The next step was to listen to the people she glimpsed. The step after that was to begin to understand. Empathic senses merged well with this form of understanding, as did the intuition she’d honed for astrogation purposes. Fundamentally, of course, this was only a form of Basic, heavily accented and distorted by centuries: this was the standard situation for a rediscovered world. Merrill bread and butter, only without a Salacia protocol droid. [/SIZE]

 

[Mara D'Lessio Merrill]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Eiarra Denirel -- better at Theran translation than any of them. A low hood covered her face and the two bone-deep, chrome enlightenment studs, one on the bridge of her nose and the other low on her forehead. She’d play the role of maidservant, at least in public. Mara took care to make that distinction clear, and came away from the conversation feeling very young.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Mukami, Kolatta, Styr -- three of the Underground commandos, veterans of Alec Rekali’s long Kathol expedition. That made them well accustomed to first contact operations. Mukami and Styr were swordsmen; Kolatta was from Zahat’n’ira, a bow-hunter turned sniper. All carried lethal knives and walked as quietly as Mara in the forest. They wore their ring mail and leather and fur without self-consciousness or discomfort. Mukami was Asahian, nimble and fast; Styr was a massive half-Valkyrie from Midvinter. Between the three of them, they handled Mara’s luggage easily enough. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Agaren, Hisoki, and Barth would hold the fort, keeping the ship safe and secret. They’d placed the caches with her, nestling the heavy packs in the snow beneath broken trees or peculiar rocks, for thirty klicks up and down the side of the great valley. Her departure, she knew, would let them decompress. The [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]Bullet Time [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]had not been built to carry eight, not in any degree of comfort. Mara’d seen wagons pulled by the local draft animals, and wanted some. They were quadripedal, like larger versions of the Endorian [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]pulka[/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px], or the riding-beasts of Dathomir. Not always elegant, but generally stable and surefooted, and fast when they had to be. Even if a wagon couldn’t hide, she’d feel a lot better about travel if her guards didn’t have to take off heavy packs before fighting. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Absent a dedicated geological scanner, and a whole host of other specialized equipment, navigation came down to orienteering and guesswork. She and her people had taken enough long hikes in the past few weeks to figure out the nearest trails and settlements. Her navigational instincts offered suggestions but few certainties; she was good, but nothing incredible. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]One frosty dawn, Mara and her four retainers made their way through the forested ravines that passed for foothills around here. The frost hung heavy, making rocks and deciduous roots slippery and treacherous. On a mountain plateau, they picked their way through jumbled dolmens and the wrecks of levelled forts. This planet had been medieval for two millennia. Not long, as such things were reckoned in the wider galaxy, but long enough that the earth could reclaim cities and castles.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]With help. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Mara glimpsed tool-marks on some of the broken stonework, and shivered. It took a special dedication, an insatiable spite, to level such a place to the ground. Salvaged rock made up the nearby village and its modest fort, visible at the edge of the plateau. Whatever this fortress or city had been, the locals had no compunction over recycling its bones. Hardscrabble farms spilled into the ruins, filling wrecked courtyards and ancient processional ways whose flagstones had been pried away from the soil. Watchtowers built of salvaged stone overlooked the plateau and its many approaches. They’d come here unseen, so far as they knew. Maybe the plateau had been defensible once, its slopes harder to climb. Maybe the destroyers’ vengeance or justice had ruined the land, not just the city. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Kolatta loped ahead through the grassy, frosted ruins, leaving her pack. She returned shortly. “Decent dirt road up to the left. Leads right into the village, under two makeshift stone watchtowers. They’ll see us coming from a long way off, and that’s a good thing.” She’d adapted well to the local dialect of Basic, and was speaking that. They all did, after weeks of immersion.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Eiarra nodded in agreement, her hood’s edges bobbing and fluttering. She didn’t look like a maidservant so much as a sorceress or something, no matter what she was wearing. “I concur, Lady Mara.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]That, too, had been part of the immersion. Didn’t mean Mara had to like it, but few nobles resented their titles in real life, not in a place like this where a title meant a warmer bed and better food. “Direct approach it is, then,” Mara said. Kolatta nodded and picked up her heavy pack. The four of them followed her to the road.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]‘Road’ might have been too kind a word for the heavily worn wagon-ruts that ambled up the plateau’s edge to the village. A side track accommodated walking or riding, and that told Mara that wagons came and went frequently. In some places, the earth was thin over buckled stone. This had been a grander road once, a very long time ago.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]They’d come most of the way up the plateau slope before finding this road, and it slipped over the edge easily enough. Ahead, like Kolatta had described, two watchtowers of reclaimed stone overlooked the approach to the village. It was a cold morning, and a trail of smoke rose from each tower. Mara stretched ahead with her empathic senses and got a hint of wariness. “They’ve seen us,” she said. “No panic, no bravado, just wariness.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Styr grunted. “Small warbands can bring profit or trouble to a place this size.” The Midvinter half-blood scratched at his braided beard. “Wariness is good. We keep our noses clean, I don’t imagine they’ll press us too hard for a toll.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Lacking any information on Kilia IV’s monetary system -- if it existed at all -- Eiarra had suggested the use of a universal currency. The packs carried bundles of hard-cured sausage links. Extra knives and sharpening stones, too: a good edge had worth to anyone. But whether tolls and room and board could be paid with barter was anyone’s guess. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]As they came to the towers, a couple of identically bearded and fur-clad guards emerged from the one on the plateau’s edge. They eyed the party with moderate interest. Eiarra had an edge of mystery to her, Kolatta was downright intimidating in a way some men liked, and Mara was young. “Your name, milady?” said one of the guards.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“This is Lady Mara of D’Lessio and Merrill,” said Eiarra from under her hood, voice smooth and warm. The guards focused on her as she inclined her head fractionally. “Seeking shelter from the noble family of the hold, whoever they may be.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]The guards traded enigmatic looks. Helmets and whiskers obscured their expressions, but Mara reached out and tasted their emotions. Mild skepticism about the names, but that couldn’t be helped. No, if there was any wariness left, it was over the risk of making a misstep. “I’ll take you to Lord Tionc’s keep, then,” said the guard who’d spoken. “Mind you stay on the path with me -- too easy to turn your heel on old stones where they poke up through the dirt.” He gave Mara’s guards a look of evaluation, speculation, matched by his emotions. Wondering how he’d stack up against them in a fight.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Easy sensation to recognize; she’d trained with Jedi, after all.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Tionc,” said Eiarra as they followed the guardsman through the ruins. “An old and noble name.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“My lord takes pride in it,” the guard said over his shoulder. The bland statement carried emotional weight that Mara couldn’t quite identify. Perhaps the implication had been [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]not all would[/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]. Tionc had been a noble house back when the Rebel Alliance first found this world eight centuries back; its name was one of the few details that had persisted in the records. But the name [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]Merrill [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]had gained fame and infamy in equal measure just in the past two decades. A name, even a respected one, could wax and wane, or go sour. She didn’t feel the Dark Side ahead, but not all corruption or dishonor involved Force-users. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]For that matter, this world could have lost the Rangers entirely. Force traditions had vanished before: the Lorrdian gemstone-crafters; huge chunks of Jedi lore along with branches like the Altisians and Teepo Paladins; the Bando Gora; the Sith more than once. Force traditions could go out like candleflames. Her mind kept returning to fire analogies, and she realized that only motion was keeping her warm, despite the dense fabric of her travel dress. When the castle appeared -- a shambling, uneven fortress of reclaimed stone -- she hurried through the offered door.[/SIZE]

 

[Mara D'Lessio Merrill]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Indoor, the glorified fort was little warmer. Stone floors, stone walls, frost-daubed gaps. A heavy cough rattled from the walls, growing louder as they approached the great hall. The fires burned low, the torches guttered in conflicting drafts, and emaciated hounds shambled between empty tables. A high table, littered with scraps, stood on a dais that had seen better days. Behind it was a lonely, proud chair, and in it sat a dark-robed, hooded man.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Long-conditioned to colour schemes, despite her best efforts to the contrary, Mara double-checked the knife in her sleeve.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Another burst of coughing shook Lord Tionc. “Be welcome, guests,” he called out, voice booming hollow against the stone walls. “Be warmed and fed. Linden, see to it.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“I obey, milord,” said the guard with a bow. Mara shared a glance with Eiarra. The guards’ mail and weapons were in good repair, the village and farms in decent condition if not exactly prosperous -- but this castle and its lord were a wreck. She sensed curiosity, too, from Styr, thinking that well-outfitted fighters had no reason to stay with someone who clearly couldn’t pay them. She caught only the edges of his thoughts and shied back, unwilling to disturb the big warrior’s mind. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Thank you, milord Tionc,” said Eiarra. “I have the honour to introduce the Lady Mara of D’Lessio and Merrill.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Was that a grin under the hood? Suspicion of a fraud? Mara stretched out to Tionc and found little but fatigue. No strong emotions in any direction. “Milord,” she said before he could respond, “thank you for your hospitality.” She thought of tacking on some pleasantries to make him feel they were even more in his debt, but an unfamiliar name and unfamiliar clothes already told him they weren’t from around here. The clothes, too, could help him decide they were on the level. Frauds wouldn’t have such well-sewn clothes and so forth. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Slowly, the robed man stood. “In my ancestors’ names I welcome you to Veritte Castle, Lady Mara. I am Lord Adelar Tionc, and my hearth is yours, such as it is.” He turned away modestly and coughed again, a hacking death-rattle. “I apologize. The foibles of age.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]He looked ancient. He sounded ancient. He was probably in his early fifties, barely older than Mara’s parents. Not for the first time, Mara considered deluging this planet in bacta, but her dad was right: exposing a pre-tech civilization to the galaxy wasn’t always a net mercy. For most it ended up being hell. Diseases, slavers, divisive ideas, strip mining, captive markets, war. “Not at all, Lord Adelar,” she said, guessing that the first name was the way to go, at least as an equal. It might be a presumption, but his seemed a lonely sort of life. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]The shadowed face nodded in acknowledgement, and she relaxed. Servants filed in, bearing a warm blanket for their lord, wood for the fire, food, steaming wine -- it all had a ritual air to it, but to what end she couldn’t say. Clearly this hall had gone from desolation to hospitality more than once, at the drop of a hat. Even the drafts lessened, or stopped completely. Wrapped in coarse fur, sitting by the hearthfire with a hot bronze goblet in her hands, Mara began to warm up. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Eiarra sat beside her; the three Underground fighters kept their feet, accepting furs but not drink. With a tapping of wood on stone, the robed, hooded man came down from the chair to sit by the fire as well. That put Eiarra between him and Mara, and Styr behind Adelar. If the old lord cared about having a mountain of muscle and ring mail behind him, he didn’t show it, not to Mara’s practiced eye or her empathic senses either. “Your guards must be thirsty,” he said. The firelight exposed his face under the hood, turning it all a warm orange. Drawn flesh, sagging at the corners of his mouth and eyes, shaven but bristly, neck wattled with premature age. He held thin, gnarled fingers toward the fire. “The wine is safe enough.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]She hesitated, then reached out and found no deception or malice in him or the servants. She nodded. Styr, Kolatta, and Mukami took the offered goblets, as did Eiarra. Mara sipped her wine and found it warm and rich, almost like a tart soup. She’d had lum and stronger things, enough to know what alcohol was like, but this wine had very little strength to it so far as that went. Warmth suffused her. “My thanks,” she said, and meant it.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]The decrepit lord nodded and turned away again to cough across the back of his sleeve. He took no goblet, she noted, though he could have used the nutrition. “I’m glad to help, or glad enough,” he said evenly. The conversation was bland, just stilted formalities. Either he wasn’t impressively bright, he was out of practice at talking with people, or he was still sounding her out, his mind elsewhere just like hers. “Tell me, Lady Mara of Merrill and D’Lessio -- what brings you down this road?”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]If it was a probe, it was a polite one. Maybe he was dissembling, hiding curiosity or malignity by thinking about something else with just the right balance between consistency and nonchalance. But this wasn’t the kind of place where one encountered telepathic Forcers, and she’d given him no indication that that’s what she was. She put it aside and shrugged. “I’m searching for the Kilian Rangers.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Above Lord Adelar’s head, Styr blinked. Eiarra studied her goblet’s contents intently. “I see,” said Adelar after a moment, lacing his hands over the fire. “Well, that’s a pulka of a different colour, isn’t it. Yes, indeed.” He rested elbows on bony knees. “Am I to take it that you have the Spark, Lady Mara? Or one of your people?”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]There was only one thing he could mean, probably. As she opened her mouth, though, Eiarra nodded sharply. “It’s me,” the hooded Chalactan said. “Her Ladyship is taking me to find the Rangers.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Something stirred in Adelar’s eyes. “May I see, Lady…?”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Eiarra, my escort,” said Mara. Escort: lady’s maid, chaperone, steward, whatever he wanted to hear. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Adelar nodded, leaning close. “Lady Eiarra, then. May I see what gifts you have?”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Eiarra was, by all accounts, a fairly minor Force adept. She glanced at Mara, and her mind gave off a burst of well-concealed nervousness -- the first time Mara had ever sensed that from the Chalactan Adept. Lips drawn tight, Eiarra focused on the fire. Tongues of flame began to swirl, ebbing and rising like a tide. Shapes took form or suggestion, then vanished and reappeared again. Sweating, Eiarra leaned back, and the fire returned to normal.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Beautiful,” breathed Adelar. “Quite lovely. Thank you, Lady Eiarra. Are you...self-taught, then?”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“I’ve travelled,” said Eiarra. “More when I was young.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]An unhealthy chuckle. “So quickly do the young disavow youth. And you, Lady Mara? Are you so eager to surrender such a useful companion to the Kilian Rangers?” A confirmation, perhaps, that the Rangers still existed. Either that, or he was onto them. Again, she felt little but mild amusement from his direction. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“I’m interested in the Rangers myself,” she said. “Superhuman power tends to corrupt, and I’ve often wondered how traditions can bind power to selflessness.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“And there’s no corruption to be feared in selflessness?” Adelar murmured, still amused by some private joke. He coughed into the back of his wrist, muffled by his heavy robe. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Mara blinked. “Suddenly I feel like you’re shoving me toward deeper currents.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Indulge me.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]She glanced at Eiarra, who was still intent on the flames. “All right,” Mara said. “Selflessness can corrupt easily. When your power stems from peace of mind, tranquility, emotionlessness, that’s all well and good. Better than drawing your power from emotion.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Is it? I’m sorry -- go on.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]She hunched closer to the hearth against a flicker of draft. “Not all kinds of emotion, but plenty of them, can make you lose control. Lose yourself. Anger for some. Pain...for others. Guilt.” She glanced up; Adelar’s eyes gleamed, but he said nothing. She wet her lips and slurped down the dregs of the warm wine, returning her attention to the fire. “Makes you do things you regret. But when you go bad out of emotionlessness, the greater good, too much tranquility even when your choices should disturb or condemn you -- that’s a kind of evil too. The source of your power matters, but how you use it matters more. That’s why I’m interested in the Kilian Rangers -- a tradition of pride, yes, but also service. Self-denial, self-subjugation.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Mm.” Adelar grinned, exposing pre-technological but well-cleaned teeth. “You wish this for Lady Eiarra, your servant? Denial, subjugation?”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Clever, friendly with an edge. Mara couldn’t deny it without exposing herself to a counter-thrust: the fact that he almost certainly knew she was the Forcer, the reason for the hunt, not just Eiarra. She’d babbled too much. “I’m afraid you’ve drawn so many words out of me that you’ve caught me in contradictions, Lord Adelar.” Even if he’d twisted her words to get her there. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]The gnarled hands unlaced and spread in a gesture that could mean anything; she took it as a shrug. “You are the river, I am the hole in the dam. The pressure is not mine. Or call me a spigot, if you prefer that analogy.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]There was, she realized, a non-negligible chance that he was more than he seemed. When she tasted his emotions she consistently found less than she thought she should, and a dozen little bits of the conversation added up to be, if not conclusive, than at least suggestive. “I won’t deny I have strong feelings on the subject,” Mara said at last, trying to wrap her mind around both the concepts and the dialect. The combination had come so easily to her a moment ago. “I’ve known too many...lords who believed that anything they did was right, so long as they did it calmly. Massacres and so forth.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“And so forth,” Adelar echoed with a lopsided smile. “The claws of universality.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Pardon?”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=14.6667px]“The besetting need to claim paternal primacy over universal truth. Thus have the Ranger and Renegade traditions splintered and interwoven in a dozen combinations. Thus has the greater good betrayed its own ideals, and those who counted on both former and latter.” A hacking cough. “The Rangers are not extinct, but they should be.”[/SIZE]

 

[Mara D'Lessio Merrill]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Something cold and hard settled into Mara’s gut. [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]Suspicion[/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px] didn’t cut it; [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]dread [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]was closer. The fear of an inevitable truth and all its consequences. Maybe that certainty had no foundation, but it didn’t feel that way. And instinct had led her across trillions of miles of trackless space, taken her through battlefields unharmed. The same gut feeling told her that their host was more than he seemed. A Kilian Renegade, perhaps, though what a Dark Master would be doing in a decrepit hall like this was anyone’s guess. And he would have to be a Master to fool her empathic senses so thoroughly. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]She had, admittedly, little evidence but the tone and content of their conversation. But then there was the premature ageing, the gnarled hands and wattled neck and drooping skin of his face, the eyes that reflected the orange firelight a little too well. The cough itself. It could well be Dark Side corruption, his aura hidden.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Fortunately, there was a way to know for sure whether her host was hiding Force-sensitivity and a Dark Side orientation. In one of her small pockets, she carried the Ankarres Sapphire on a silver chain. A transcendent healing artifact of unknown provenance -- and it would grow warmer and warmer, to the point of burning flesh, if held by a Darksider. But one didn’t play around with a flawless gem the size of the end of one’s thumb, not anywhere and not in a place like this. Where the Ankarres Sapphire could buy...kingdoms. A noncommittal thought flitted through her mind: if Lord Adelar Tionc was on the level, she could use the gem to heal him, and he’d give her his castle, his town, his guards in exchange for it. That wasn’t the sort of person she was, and the temptation didn’t linger in her mind, but she kept it as a warning of the risks of revealing the Sapphire. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]And if he [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]was [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]a Force-sensitive, a Darksider, there were greater dangers than her own personal foibles. The Ankarres Sapphire, according to legend and Aunt Rave, could be twisted to the Dark Side of the Force. What that would do to its healing properties, even Rave couldn’t say, but it would certainly burn Lightsiders instead. A treasure like this couldn’t fall into Darksider hands or be corrupted. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]She found the resented the gem for bringing those tired terms and issues here. She’d come here for a host of good reasons, but a change of pace had been one of them. A change of venue and obligation, in hopes that it would shake her out of her post-traumatic issues. But she couldn’t regret bringing the Sapphire, not if it could actually change lives.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]She realized he was waiting for a response. Waiting for her issues to spurt blood after the stab. Waiting, in short, for her to talk more -- about herself, about her goal. She found she didn’t feel like complying.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Is that why you live the way you do?” she said quietly. Eiarra’s mouth tightened, but the hooded Chalactan kept her attention on the fire. Behind the similarly hooded lord, Styr shifted, eyes glittering inscrutably in firelight. In torchlight by the wall, a young servant glanced at her, a boy or man, then glanced away and resumed pretending to work. He had a warrior’s hands. A glance over her shoulder told her that he had Kolatta’s attention.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“A lesser man,” said Lord Adelar mildly, “a lesser host, would take offense to that.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Why?” said Mara, straightening up. “Your people and your guards seem prosperous enough, you clearly have the assets to do right by them -- so my question can’t be an insult to your status.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“There is more to status than wealth, Lady Mara, and not all offense stems from direct insult. I should have thought a woman of your evident breeding would know such things.” His eyes flicked to Eiarra. “Clearly your educators have been remiss.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Eiarra made no response. Mara sat back in the rough-hewn fireside chair and folded her arms. “Are you sure you’re not taking offense?”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]The hooded lord gave a lopsided smile and inclined his head in acknowledgement of a point struck. “And are you sure your question was not an insult? To my conscience, my judgment, whatever you think lies behind my lifestyle? Especially given the context of the question? You took a leap of logic, a counterintuitive term because intuition led you but logic did not follow.” The twisted black cane prodded the hearthstones by his feet in thudding emphasis. Tension filled the great hall.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“You’re right,” she said, because there was nothing else to say. “I spoke without thinking about it.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“I blame myself, of course. My aim tonight has been to make you feel you could converse openly. I have drawn you out too well.” Lord Adelar choked down a cough and stood, leaning on his cane. “Come -- dinner is prepared.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Along one side table of the great hall, servants had cleared away the mess of previous meals and other uses. Candlesticks lit a spread of wine, cheese, tubers, dense bread, roast quartered fowl, and hard winter fruits. Mara’d spent the last few weeks acclimating her gut to the difference between whole foods and freeze-dried tomo-spiced Karkan ribenes -- a Merrill staple. Dad had once taken her to Companion Esk and back on nothing but reheated Karkan ribenes. Spacer food, honest and long-lasting. By comparison, Kilian rural fare was like choking down bricks, wine or no wine. Without those weeks of acclimatization, she’d have been in serious pain. The old adage about not defiling the ‘fresher as a guest went double for a place where indoor plumbing meant a hole and a chute running down the outside of the castle wall. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=14.6667px]The embarrassing part was that she’d let her body get so accustomed to food like that. She’d grown up on Q-27, eating fish and yams and tree-nuts. Leavened bread hadn’t quite caught on there, to say nothing of domesticated food animals. Once upon a time, a bare handful of years ago, this would have been a feast to her.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Styr and Kolatta, of course, dug in heartily. By the rural standards of Midvinter and Zahat’n’ira, this was all the comfort of home. Mukami, who’d spent time training in an Asahian monastery, ate in a matter-of-fact way. Eiarra, clearly thinking and disturbed, picked at her food. Mara did her best to fill up; life on Q-27 had taught her that hospitality-focused cultures could take insult in leftovers. And for good reason, too. Food wasn’t a luxury here, and waste wasn’t acceptable.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Lord Adelar Tionc did not eat.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Still robed and cloaked, tucked in on himself onto nothing showed but his nose and chin in the hood’s shadow, Adelar sat at the head of the table. A slice of cheese lay on a dry trencher before him - the thick slices of stale bread that served as plates here. It was a high-carbohydrate diet, this one, though the bread had its share of protein. At this season, vegetables were few. Subsistence living, this. The great valley’s farms and markets were only a day’s travel from here. Adelar could afford better.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]There were, she knew, Sith traditions that focused on self-deprivation. The name [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]Calypho[/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px] came to mind. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]She made herself eat, still feeling nothing of substance from Adelar: mild satisfaction at best. The guard who’d escorted them here was gone, leaving her people the only ones armed in Adelar’s great hall. The young servant she’d noted was clearly a warrior; just as clearly, he wasn’t armed in a serious way. His simple, well-worn trousers and shirt couldn’t hide anything bigger than a knife. A guard? An assassin? Something else-[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“You should eat, Father,” the young man murmured to Adelar. “You’ve fasted long enough.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Adelar’s eyes, color indeterminate, glinted as he glanced at Mara. “My son shares many of your questions, Lady Mara. And with him, I cannot deflect them by playing the offended host. I can, however, distract him. You’re remiss, son. Introduce yourself to our guests. I’ve taught you to skulk too well.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]The young man drew himself up, raising his chin. “Lady Mara, I am Sir Germaine Tionc. I beg your indulgence for forgetting my duties as a host.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“You were looking to our food and lighting torches for us,” she said. “I’d call that a good welcome.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“You’re too kind.” His head tilted slightly in evaluation -- of her, and of her party. He’d evaluated them in secret before; this time, he wanted to be seen to observe. That was all right: she’d been watching him too. “I caught the edges of your conversation, before. You’re looking for the Kilian Rangers? Why here?”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“We’re on our way to the great valley,” she said. “Yours was the first village we encountered.” She sipped the heavy, weak wine, still steaming from a servant’s hot poker. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“There are better roads,” said Sir Germaine, taking a seat across from her and close to his father. That put him near Kolatta, who gave him a veiled once-over he didn’t seem to notice. “What led you here?”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“We do not interrogate our guests, Germaine,” said Lord Adelar, amused. “I think you owe Lady Mara another apology.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Mara grinned at Germaine’s discomfiture. “Oh, now you’re just baiting him. Sir Germaine, as I don’t doubt your father has guessed by now, I have what he calls the Spark. For me, it manifests as navigation by instinct.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Kilia IV’s Force-sensitivity rates had been a known quantity when the Rebel Alliance first rediscovered this world. Perhaps three or four potential Rangers were found every generation. Revealing her Force-attunement had been one more calculated risk, and the gathering seemed in need of good will. Both Germaine and Adelar seemed to take it in stride, Adelar with palpable amusement and Germaine with an interest so keen and hot it almost glowed in her mind’s eye. “So the will of the Force itself led you here?”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Not, ah…” Mara shrugged and swirled her goblet, examining the murky wine. “I don’t know. It’s worked for me a thousand times. Sometimes I can feel it, sometimes I just end up where I’m supposed to be. This was one of those, I hope.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Father on-”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Germaine.” Adelar’s voice cracked like a whip, and the young man fell silent. Mara glanced back and forth between them, then sought refuge in her goblet.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Lady Mara has a unique talent,” said Eiarra after a moment, farther down the table. “I apologize, Lord Adelar, for implying I was the one with the Spark, not her.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Did you or she make the fire dance?”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Eiarra met the old man’s gaze solidly. “I did.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Then I wouldn’t call it an active deception, just a half-truth told out of loyalty. A convenient omission. Say no more about it, Lady Eiarra; be at ease.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Thank you, milord.” Eiarra returned to her food, leaving Mara to stew in the knowledge that her revelation had been what forced Eiarra to confess her earlier deception. There’d be firm words later about being on the same page, that much was clear. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Sir Germaine drummed his fingers on the table beside his trencher. “You’ll find no Kilian Rangers here,” he said, apropos of nothing.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]His father groaned. “Oh, just call them Rangers. They don’t and can’t represent all of Kilia. Their claim to universality is empty. But yes, there are no Rangers in service to me. Several groups of them answer to various lords in the valley, of course, though they shift and schism and merge like churches.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Mara blinked and found herself chuckling. “A far cry from when there were only five at a time.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“That was true for...oh, perhaps as much as a thousand years,” said Lord Adelar, studiously ignoring the slice of cheese on his trencher. “After the Alliance found Kilia Four and the population expanded, though, Jedi traveled here to learn about the Rangers, and a few stayed. And a larger population meant a larger proportion born with the Spark. At times, there have been upwards of two or three dozen Rangers. Currently I would imagine there are no more than ten or fifteen. They train new blood and kill each other off in duels of honour, and the wilds are not welcoming to the Rangers either. And it doesn’t take very many men to kill a Ranger, not even a well-trained one.” Faint bitterness rose off him like a cloud of flies, to Mara’s empathic senses. [/SIZE]

 

[Mara D'Lessio Merrill]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“So what would you ask of the Rangers, if you found one?” said Sir Germaine. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]His father grimaced. When he said nothing, though, Mara decided to answer with something like the truth. “I would ask them whether they base their sense of honour on their hearts or their deeds.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Adelar exploded in bitter, kinetic laughter, a sharp sound in a silent hall. “Don’t ask that of a Ranger, girl! Don’t make a man look too close at his soul. Serenity justifies all. [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]Justification [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]justifies all. What we do is for the best, therefore what[/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]ever[/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px] we do is right! Honour bites its own tail and rolls around in circles!”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Germaine looked away, embarrassed, and he was not the only one. “You’ve fasted long enough, Father. Take some nourishment, for the Force’s sake. Get some rest.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“No.” One bony finger stabbed at Mara, black sleeve flapping. “When you find a Ranger, what you’ll find will disappoint you as greatly as the man that made you think of that question. And if the hope in your eyes-” Adelar dissolved into a coughing fit. Nobody else said a word. Gradually, the decrepit lord got himself under control. “Don’t think they’d train you, either one of you. The Ranger’s ways aren’t for [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]women[/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]. Women are to be dreamed about, written about, uplifted, protected, thought about, spoken of, lusted after if a knight can face mild disgrace.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“And what’s wrong with uplifted?” said Mara.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Eiarra’s lips thinned. “He means,” she said, “that to the Kilian Rangers, at least as they are now, women are the object of the sentence. That sentence may be positive or negative in intent, but women lack agency. They [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]have things done to [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]or [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]for [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]them. They don’t [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]do[/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px].”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Lord Adelar nodded. “Precisely. You go to them as the mysterious fair maiden, and you will be an [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]object [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]of admiration. Unless, of course, they start to fear you. Such blindness has its uses, for those who wish to live outside the sphere of responsibility of such men. Understand that I mean this forewarning well -- my duty as a host is to let you know what you may encounter on your course.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Let me guide them, Father,” said Sir Germaine. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“My son, ever the knight. Would you be offended by his offer to verb the object, hm?”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“[/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]Father!”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Come now, Germaine. Context escapes you. Not everything is a double entendre, and not everything I do must embarrass you by default. If you look for the disgraceful in mankind, expecting to find it, you surely will.” Adelar squinted down the table. “Lady Mara?”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Germaine’s play of emotions -- amusement, frustration, embarrassment at the keen jibe that accused him of both exceptionalism and objectification -- swamped Mara’s senses for a moment. She numbed them down, reducing her receptivity. “I’m sorry?”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Do you accept my son’s offer, tone-deaf though it may be? He knows the paths between here and the great valley, and he knows the young knights of the West Shore. He’ll lead you to -- where would you look first, Germaine?”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Castle Miriamele, I think,” said the younger man, focusing on the question rather than the context as if to prove he could. He eyed Adelar, perhaps expecting a rebuke, but the lord nodded. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Aye, that’s the best choice. Mind Lord Berift, though. He’s got a soft spot for the Rangers, doesn’t care what stripe they follow. When you knew him he was spending time with Orren’s folk. Nowadays I’d wager Stanek’s faction is more to his liking.” [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]And you were a boy then[/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px], Lord Adelar very obvious didn’t say, but Mara could almost taste the words just through basic empathy. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“We’d be glad of your company, Sir Germaine,” she said, and the young knight relaxed.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Then it’s settled. Eat your fill, and I’ll have warm rooms prepared for you to stay the night. Whatever sleeping arrangements you...enjoy.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Father!”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Oh, stop clutching your pearls, Germaine.”[/SIZE]

 

[Mara D'Lessio Merrill]

[SIZE=14.6667px]They wound up in two rooms. Mara in one, with Eiarra as maidservant and Kolatta as close guard; Styr and Mukami in the other, across the hall. Eiarra took care of calling in on the miniature comlink she’d brought along. Once they’d verified that all was well, and assured the ship of the same, Mara huddled in the main bed under layers of rough cloth and fur. On a cot, the Zahat’n’ira bow-maiden snored like a bandsaw, but the castle room was larger than the quarters on the [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]Bullet Time[/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]. Eiarra meditated by the fire, or maybe she’d just fallen asleep while tending the hearth. Her business.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Mara kept the Ankarres Sapphire in hand. It stayed cold -- she wasn’t a Darksider -- but it seemed the kind of thing to do. After a sleepless half hour or so, the gemstone remained chillier than body heat should have allowed. Eiarra remained slumped by the hearth. Kolatta kept snoring. Mara slipped out from under the furs and padded for the door.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Lord Adelar Tionc’s castle might be disreputable, but it was larger than it had looked from outside. Mara wound her way through its corridors, coming at last to the great hall. The torches were doused again, the table strewn with forgotten leftovers, as if Adelar had forbidden the servants to clear it. By the light of coals in the hearth, slivers of shadow danced behind the head table on the dais. Adelar had moved back to the high seat. He sat with his elbows on the table, hooded head bowed, hands clasped into a knotted bole. The hands were all she could see.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]The drafts had increased, making this room as cold as it had been when she first entered. Her nightshirt slithered cold against her skin as she made her way up the centre of the hall, between the sleeping hounds. She stretched out through her empathic senses and felt nothing but dreams. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]He was a tall man; she’d noticed that as he limped around on his cane. Standing on the dais beside him, she wasn’t much taller than his slumped, seated form. Breathing as quietly as she could manage, she pulled out the Ankarres Sapphire.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Healing was not her strongest suit, not by a long shot, but the Sapphire had its own powers. What she’d learned from Aleidis and the Yavin Academy was enough to guide the Sapphire’s healing radiance, maximize its effect. Blue light glimmered around the stone on its silver chain. In his sleep, Lord Adelar sighed. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]She delved his flesh, targeting the Sapphire’s effect toward the damaged lungs and throat, the withered hands, and other points of need as she sensed them. She’d never had the chance to examine true Dark Side corruption in her mind’s eye before, and frankly she couldn’t tell if this was it or not. Certainly some Jedi at some point had delved Palpatine’s health and found none of that corruption; qey’tek meditation and Force Dispersers had their uses. If an artifact like that was keeping her from sensing Adelar’s potential Force-sensitivity, nothing around here looked to fit the bill. If it was a technique, of course, that could explain that. Qey’tek, Art of the Small, White Current Force-scattering…all workarounds to let people impose a specific desire on the world, on the ‘verse: [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]Make me undetectable. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Make me normal.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]The Ankarres Sapphire dangled near the back of his hooded neck. Was it warming up? She touched the gemstone and felt nothing, but that was hardly conclusive; it might take direct contact. She hadn’t exactly spent much time with Darksiders, not enough to test the Sapphire’s thresholds of response. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Barely breathing, she leaned around and rested the Sapphire against his interlocked knuckles. He shifted, and she froze, but the shift was nothing more or less than healing’s relaxation. She felt that much in his mind, just around the edges, all she dared delve.[/SIZE]

 

[Mara D'Lessio Merrill]

[SIZE=14.6667px]A hand gripped the back of her left wrist and spun her around. She bit back a yelp, heart hammering, and found herself facing Sir Germaine. He wore the same battered trousers and shirt as he’d worn earlier -- hadn’t slept, then -- and he kept a firm grip as he hustled her out of the great hall’s side door. He eased the door shut one-handed.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“I-”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Quiet,” he said, and led her forcibly through another door. He was barefoot too, moving silently. Only once the second door was latched, putting them in a dingy, overstuffed library, did he let go of her aching wrist. She rubbed it and put a good three paces between them, warily. In theory, she could have choked him with her mind, but that wasn’t the kind of thing she practiced, and it might take a good while. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“What were you doing?” he bit out. “And what is the gem? Poison?”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“What? No -- the opposite.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]He snorted. “Medicinal rocks? Healing crystals? I took you for smarter than that, and so I believe you about halfway.” He took a step toward her, and she flinched back. “What were you doing to my father?”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Indignation flared up, fuelled by fear. “Healing him, or trying to.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“With what? Show it to me.” He gestured. With a grimace, she stepped forward and handed him the Ankarres Sapphire. Moonlight through foggy glass illuminated the library; he held up the gem by its silver chain and squinted. Then his eyes went wide. “I’ve never seen a gem this size, this well-cut. The chain’s fine work, incredibly fine. This is...old. You’re from offworld, aren’t you.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Yes.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“All of you?”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]She nodded.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“What did you hope this stone would do? Is it something of the Force?”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“I hoped it would…” He was watching her closely, and though she could lie and lie well, she also sensed he wasn’t satisfied with her earlier explanation. He suspected she was holding back, which was, of course, true. “It’s one of the most powerful healing artifacts in the galaxy,” she said, holding out her hand. The Sapphire floated from his grip to hers. She settled the chain around her neck and slipped the cool stone down her nightdress. “Pound for pound, probably the strongest -- the combined Healing Crystals of Fire and the full Kaiburr are both stronger, but they’re also much larger.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Where did you get such a thing?”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“You wouldn’t believe it if I told you.” No, still not satisfied. She looked away. “It heats up when it touches a Darksider.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Germaine blinked once, twice. “You think my father is a Sith in hiding?”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“The way he talks-”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“That’s guilt, Lady Mara. Guilt, regret, bitterness, disillusionment. Call those paths to the Dark Side if you like, but my father is no Sith, no Kilian Renegade.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“What is he, then?” she snapped.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Retired. He was a Ranger when he was younger. Now he’s a penitent who rarely gets even that much sleep-” Germaine’s head snapped around and his eyes went wide, staring at a dark corner of the library. An arrowhead glimmered in the shadows. Mara sensed a cool focus from that direction, and a familiar mind. Kolatta, of Zahat’n’ira and the Underground. The bow wasn’t quite drawn, the arrow not exactly pointed at Germaine.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Lady Mara,” said Kolatta evenly, “are you feeling alright?”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Another mind, coming through the door behind Kolatta: Eiarra, who could hear through impenetrable walls. Just as calm, just as prepared. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“I’m well, thank you,” said Mara. “Sir Germaine and I-”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“This is not seemly,” said Eiarra. “Lady Mara, come with me, please, and we’ll get you back to bed.” She offered Germaine an inscrutable look, and Mara allowed herself to be ushered out of the library, then to their room.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]One explanation later, the men joined them for a discussion of propriety and personal security. For all that Mara could have bought and sold them a million times over, choked them, put them through walls, she was forcibly, if tactfully, reminded that she was also the youngest by about ten critical years. Sleep came as a welcome relief.[/SIZE]



[SIZE=14.6667px]Sir Germaine and his [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]pulka [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]met them in the morning, as they readied their packs in the courtyard. He wore a coat of ring mail and a straight sword. A steel-clad spear was socketed near his stirrup and tied with a quick-release knot where the saddle curved toward the [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]pulka[/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]’s spine. The spear’s weight was balanced by a round shield on the other side. Germaine offered Mara a stiff nod and another [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]pulka[/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px], this one pale-furred and less shaggy. Dainty, almost: good for the valley, not the crags. With an equally awkward acknowledgement, Mara climbed into the saddle. She’d ridden other beasts on Q-27 and elsewhere, not to mention every kind of swoop and speeder bike, but acclimating to a new kind of mount was a task and a half. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Her name is Witherwind,” said Lord Adelar from the door of the keep. Still in the black robe, still hooded, he leaned on the gnarled black cane as he came out to sit on the steps. In daylight, she still couldn’t decide whether his features spoke of age and regret, or full-scale Dark Side corruption. His eyes were warm hazel, not Sith yellow -- probably. He kept them lidded. “A good steed, hardier than she looks.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Mara clucked experimentally and shifted her knees, and the graceful [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]pulka [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]turned a circle to face Adelar and the door. “Your hospitality is more than I deserve,” she said.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Not an error I regret. Travel well, Lady Mara, Lady Eiarra. Son.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Germaine nodded abruptly. “Father.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“When you reach Castle Miriamele, give Lord Berift my regards if he asks after me.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Any other message, milord?” said Eiarra.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]The hooded lord shook his head. “Nothing he doesn’t already know.”[/SIZE]

 

[Mara D'Lessio Merrill]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Castle Miriamele showed up on Germaine’s ragged map as a splotch of red, nestled between lakeshore and a range of foothills. The bulk of Kilian civilization centered on the great valley, a complex geological formation the size of a small continent. Numerous lakes dominated the valley, fed by the mountains and feeding torrential underground rivers that led who-knew-where. Even eight centuries after Kilia Four’s population had increased drastically, the territory beyond the valley often constituted unknowable wilderness. Range roads led to plateau enclaves like Adelar’s, or small valleys trapped between high forbidding mountains. Most of the planet was mountainous, a deathtrap of snowy rock and thin air. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Orbital scans had confirmed only that the underground rivers went [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]elsewhere[/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px], eventually winding up on the sparsely populated shores of cliff-rimmed and ice-choked seas. Swaying on the back of the [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]pulka[/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px] mare as it ambled its way along a cliffside road, Mara fancied she could spot the sea between acute peaks. It helped keep her mind off the long fall to her right and the impassable, unscalable cliff to her left. The [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]pulka [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]was unconcerned, and Sir Germaine’s back didn’t appear to hold much tension. The Kilians were mountaineers by necessity, especially those that lived outside the great valley. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Mara’s own state of mind was difficult enough to handle, but her companions -- Eiarra and the three Underground guards -- couldn’t keep their fear from radiating. She’d never been terribly skilled at locking down her empathic senses; she’d spent most of her life on Q-27, where terror was infrequent, or in space, where there just weren’t many people. Now, it seemed, she’d better learn what most Zeltron girls learned long before this age: how to avoid feeling when necessary. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]One more lesson overdue, as if she needed a reminder that she’d been unconsciously fountaining pheromones, last night in the library with Germaine. [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]That [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]was a problem. Eiarra had noticed before she did, and had not been sanguine about it. Mara took a bit of private, slightly guilty satisfaction in sensing her chaperone/translator/PR consultant go green around the gills from mingled nervousness and vertigo. Eiarra was a trained Force-sensitive, but the Chalactan Adepts and the Theran Listeners -- the two traditions she’d followed, as far as Mara knew -- weren’t overly talented at handling very long falls. If anyone here could survive an accident on the cliff, it was Mara, and even then she was hard-pressed to think about how she could save herself in that circumstance, let alone them.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]No doubt Jedi generals had to wrestle with their own superior survivability. No doubt her father had wrestled with it, emerging from battle after battle when other Underground and Rebel Alliance and Vagrant Fleet ships had been shot to pieces. There were issues of conscience to being a Force-sensitive and, in any way, a leader. Not least the fact that she could all too easily lead people into circumstances where she could live and they couldn’t. She found she didn’t much care for the sudden weight of responsibility, the more so because up until now, it had been Eiarra and the Undergrounders who’d kept her safe. The reversal didn’t sit well. Presumably, though, they’d known what they were getting into when they signed on.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]That thought didn’t sit any better than her breakfast. Stoneground bread, hard cheese, and cured meat threatened to introduce themselves to the chasm on her right. Locking out her sense of the others’ nausea helped reduce hers, and among the healing and body-control arts that Aleidis had taught her, she’d learned the trick of suppressing her own nausea. Making it work while faced with the inescapable risk of the drop, however, was a whole different animal. No laboratory conditions here. Gradually, though, her stomach’s unease stilled.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Mara looked up sharply as Germaine’s [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]pulka [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]stopped. The warmount nearly blocked the trail, which had to be two paces wide or less at this point, carved from the rock face by ancient technology. There were voices ahead, and Germaine was readying his short lance and shield. She unlocked her empathic senses and caught a whiff of sharp focus and grim apprehension from both him and Styr, who walked between them. Behind Mara, Kolatta and Mukami were growing aware also, and Eiarra a moment later. And farther ahead, just beyond a ridge, Mara felt other minds, less familiar and intent on violence. Desperate and lacking inhibition. What better place to hold up travellers than a ledge like this? [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Eiarra slid past Mara’s stirrup, right by the edge, and passed Styr as he drew his sword. Germaine’s back was stiff, and his warmount shared his tension; Eiarra could go no farther. Her head tilted, and Mara felt the Force stirring in the Chalactan in a familiar way. At a guess, she was listening for far-off things, whispers between conspirators, hidden ambushers. Deciphering their secret codes by instinct. Abruptly, the Chalactan’s stance stiffened. She barked something at Germaine, who glanced back at her and spurred his [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]pulka [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]around the bend. Styr went after him. The Force carried surprise, pain, and fury in equal measure, source uncertain. Mara urged her [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]pulka [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]ahead, but Mukami’s hand closed on the reins, and Eiarra glanced back, shaking her head. Kolatta edged past and paused at the bend, drawing a clothyard shaft. The Zahat’n’ira warbow sang, and the emotional terrain shifted as a part of it vanished and other parts gained fearful focus. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]This, too, was apparently something leaders did: hang back and let others risk their lives. But it was worth remembering that they didn’t answer to Mara, not really. They answered to her father, who’d led them from the front a hundred times. Even Eiarra -- her past with the Underground was unspoken but obvious. And the holdout blaster half-concealed in the Chalactan’s hand essentially confirmed that Mara was not her sole employer. Styr, Kolatta, and Mukami probably all carried the same within their armour and furs, no matter what Mara had wanted for the mission. That left Mara in the odd position of being the only one without a high-tech weapon.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Then again, she’d probably have used it at this point, this close to someone’s death. Eiarra had been the one to recommend leaving her sabre at the ship. A reminder, if Mara needed it, that her ostensible employees were all older and significantly more experienced. They were fine with taking a hit if it meant keeping cover as locals, and they were fine with blowing that cover if it meant preserving Mara’s life. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Irritation flared up in Mara, and Eiarra shot her a sharp glance. Mukami’s grip tightened on the reins; the Asahian blademaster wasn’t Force-sensitive, but reading people was part of his skillset, and he’d been in close quarters with Mara for weeks. Mara clamped down on her frustration and looked away. She could focus, instead, on the emotional palette of the ongoing fight, getting a mental picture of it even though it was out of sight. She threw in the Theran techniques that Eiarra had taught her, and warcries became clearer, both in sound and in meaning. Place-names and tribe-names, she felt instinctively, and boasts from named men. Sir Germaine and Styr answered in kind as iron and stone and wood grated against each other. Kolatta didn’t bother with such things; her contribution to the noise was the slap of her bowstring against her horn wristguard, and the heavy thunk or harsh crack of arrows striking men and cliffs. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Mara felt the turn of the tide before she heard it. The ambushing bandits retreated en masse into crevices and boltholes, darting down cliffside paths better suited for mountain goats. The battle vanished as quickly as it had appeared. Kolatta kept watch, arrow still on her string, as Eiarra and Mukami led Mara and her [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]pulka [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]around the bend. The trail broadened to as much as three or four paces across, and the cliff on the left was riven with fissures -- she could see the bandits down there in the dark, just flickers of motion and frustration. Germaine was still on his [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]pulka[/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px], his lance and shield dripped blood, and Styr looked about the same. Emotionally, though, they couldn’t have felt more different. The huge, half-Valkyrie swordsman was actively resisting his own battle-lust, his desire to follow the raiders into the cracks. The Kilian knight, though, was an island of clear calm. She felt the Force in him, hints of it. Not surprising, considering his father. He might not be a fully-trained Ranger adept, or perhaps their tradition just affected the Force in subtler ways than those she knew, but he had the mind of a Jedi Knight. Blood streaked his face; he glanced at her and looked away, muting what felt like embarrassment. So he could mute his emotions when necessary. Useful. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“We should keep moving,” he said, eyes slanting away. He hung the battered shield on his back; broken arrows protruded from it, several of them, though neither he nor his [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]pulka [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]had taken arrow-wounds. [/SIZE]

 

[Mara D'Lessio Merrill]

[SIZE=14.6667px]That night, on a crag overlooking the great valley, Mara built a fire in a ridge’s lee and asked Germaine about the Force. He paused while wiping dried blood from his face, and glanced around the fire at her companions. A private man, unwilling to talk about it, equally unwilling to offend, he resented her a little for putting the question to him in these circumstances. But he suppressed his resentment; she could sense that effort. “My father was a Kilian Ranger, as you know,” the knight said at last, leaning forward to place a flat rock and a sausage at the edge of the fire. He leaned back against the stone face and rested his arms in his lap. “I was his Squire.” A Ranger rank as much as a chivalric one, if Mara remembered correctly. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Mara pulled her cloak tighter against a nightime draft. “Your shield -- you were catching arrows?”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Did better than that,” Styr grunted. “Sir Germaine batted them out of the air with his fething spear. Caught some meant for me, and I don’t mind saying it.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]The knight inclined his head at the hulking Midvinter native. “Nothing you and the Lady Kolatta didn’t do for me in turn.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]The ghost of a smile hid under Styr’s beard. Kolatta grinned openly, looking up from her work. One arrow had lost its head, another had shattered its shaft, and the Zahat’n’iran archer was combining the two with expert fingers. “Anytime,” said Kolatta, eyes dancing in the firelight, and Mara looked away, dampening her empathic senses. Her gaze met Germaine’s; he, too, had sensed Kolatta’s surge of interest, and was likewise embarrassed, though not a little interested. Kolatta chuckled knowingly and went back to work. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Eiarra was slicing cheese in a businesslike way. “The Kilian Rangers are known for shield-work, and for an emphasis on interception and deflection. It seems you’re a worthy inheritor of their legacy, Sir Germaine.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“I’m nothing special,” said the knight. “Maybe someday. The Rangers used to have offworld shields as light as a feather; some of the great houses still have them, though who knows if they work anymore. They use lightweight metal, expensive.” He rapped his knuckles on the dented shield beside him; the metal-clad spear lay beside it. “Steel and timber is all I have to work with. Slow and clumsy. Not an especially dignified channel for the Force.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Mara shrugged, meeting his eyes again. “I don’t see any intrinsic spiritual worth in energy-shield gauntlets, and sporting blasters with bayonets.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Germaine chuckled. “My father’s said the same. I’ve reminded him, though, that anything passed down for generations -- teacher to student or father to son -- can have spiritual value. Someday I’ll inherit his shield and Siang lance. They’re just like mine, but they’ll mean more.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Well spoken,” said Mukami, who never said much of anything. He got a look or two for that, but he shrugged and patted the single-edged knife sheathed at his waist. Mara had seen it out, and knew it was made of songsteel, the Asahi system’s heirloom metal. “My great-grandfather’s tanto, and the mark of our school.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Tradition,” said Germaine.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Mukami nodded fractionally. “Tradition.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Embarrassment demanded a contribution, and to Mara’s faint surprise she found she had one. “I fly my father’s ship, his raider. I’m hoping I’ll get the keys to his real ship eventually.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Eiarra looked away, tangibly embarrassed on Mara’s behalf. Germaine sighed. “You...fly. Gods above and below, it hadn’t fully...of course you fly. How else would you come here?”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Kilia Four hasn’t seen starship travel in a long time,” said Eiarra, perhaps diplomatically, perhaps covering for Mara’s gaffe.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“I’ve seen a ship,” said Germaine, eyes distant. “I was young.” His gaze refocused, flicking from Eiarra to Mara. “Don’t be embarrassed, Lady Mara. Don’t think of me as unprivileged, though I suppose you come from places and...planets of wonders. My home is what it is, and I wouldn’t leave it. But tell me.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]She wet her lips. “Tell you what?”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Tell me what you’ve seen.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Mara looked around the fire, at these people whose life experience dwarfed her own, and found all of them looking at her. The Merrill scion, the girl with a super-hyperlane named after her. The Warden of the Sky. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]It was a cloudless night, lit by brilliant stars. She looked up at the broad streak of the galaxy, and pointed at the densest region. “I flew my father’s ship into the core of the galaxy, through the Force-storms of the Tython system, the place where the Jedi began. I ran a scouting mission through that system and saved pilgrims from the Sith that control it. We ran away through storms the size of worlds. I’ve been outside the galaxy, out where I could see it all. There are seven smaller galaxies around it, and I’ve been to the farthest one. On my way out, right at the edge, I found a dead Oswaft -- think of a bird or fish the size of a mountain -- and its ghost appeared to me, told me things I don’t want to think about.” In the starscape, she recognized formations and sparks of colour. The sector’s maps were strong in her memory. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“I’ve walked on a comet and places where nobody had been for centuries. I’ve seen places where they’ve never heard of war and don’t need laws. I’ve seen gemdivers climb out of a gas giant pulling a fortune in Corusca jewels on miles of electromagnetic leash. I’ve seen shipyards that surround entire worlds.” And owned stock in more of them than she could remember offhand. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“I’ve seen my father touch hyperspace. Out of the corner of my eye, I’ve seen what he sees: the creatures that live in hyperspace. I’ve probably spent more time past lightspeed than in realspace, long enough that I keep expecting the world to turn blue-white around me.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]She’d shut herself off, closed down her empathic senses; she didn’t want to know what they felt. Germaine blinked. “Hyper space is...blue and white?”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“After the stars turn to rays. It’s beautiful.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]He laughed bleakly and pulled his food from the fire’s edge with a knifepoint. “And here I was thinking my little shield-tricks were something special.” [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Hey,” she said, sharper than intended; he looked up. “I’ve seen all that, and I still came all this way to find [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]you[/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px], and your father, and people who know what you know. The Ranger tradition has value; it saves lives. Do you know how many Force traditions can claim that? It’s not many. We came here because the Sith are [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]everywhere[/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px], and protecting others isn’t a common skill. I can fly a ship, but I can’t stand toe-to-toe with a Sith Lord long enough for my friends to get away.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Germaine snorted. “And you think I can?”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Not with wood and iron,” said Mukami quietly, drawing his tanto. He flipped it and passed it across the fire, handle-first. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Germaine reached out and took it. “What metal is this? It’s light, and the sheen is all wrong -- [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]gods[/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px] it’s sharp.” He sucked the ball of his thumb, eyes wide. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“It’s called songsteel,” said Mara. “Mukami’s people use it for the weapons they pass down through families. And there’s stronger -- phrik, beskar, alchemically altered metal. There’s energy shields and weapons that dwarf the old Kilian Ranger gear.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“You’re trying,” he said slowly, passing Mukami’s tanto back to the Asahian, “to draw us into your war against the Sith.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“No. I came here looking to learn what you know, so I could pass it on and save lives.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Be honest with yourself, Lady Mara.” They might have been the only two present; the rest were silent. “You came here knowing you would find men of conscience. Take accountability for what you’ve offered me, whether or not you said it out loud.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Intensity radiated from him; she steeled herself and looked closer, but found no anger. A touch of resignation, no more. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“This isn’t fair to him,” said Eiarra softly.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Styr spat off the cliff; Mukami nodded. “It’s the same choice we had to make,” said Kolatta. “We love our homes. We love places like this. But the cause is bigger than love, and we’ve all gone places we don’t much like. Styr once sat on a glacier for a week.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]And just like that, the tension was bearable. The bearded half-Valkyri shrugged at their laughter. “Next to that, a little time on a starship, not so bad. And Sith aren’t so bad either.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“What’s it like, fighting a Sith?” Sir Germaine sounded almost dreamy, to Mara’s mild alarm. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Depends,” said Kolatta. “There’s Sith and there’s Sith. There’s Dark Lords that can’t wipe themselves. General rule of thumb: if it looks like a cheap harlot and throws lightning around like spines off a hedgepig, you can probably out-think it. Same goes for just about anything in spiky black armour, especially if it-” She ran her hands up her ribcage and down to her hips. “-accentuates things. You ran into one of those, didn’t you, Mara?”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“There were three of them, two of’em dressed like that. One was all black and spiky, the other one had, uh...the term in Basic is ‘boobplate.’”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Germaine snorted. Apparently the term translated well enough. “Ornamental.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“That was probably the intention, yeah. So I hit her in the chest hard enough for her own armour to crack a few ribs.” And cut her leg off, but that wasn’t something that made Mara especially proud. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]The knight grinned. “When I was a boy, Father took me to a grand tournament in the valley. Prince Harlan was there in the most ornate armour I’ve ever seen. He got too familiar with his wine and entered the melee. They were picking rhinestones out of his skin for weeks, and I’m told he [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]still [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]pisses silver.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]A collective wince ran around the fire; they chuckled, but Styr laughed until he had to wipe his eyes with his thumb. “Princelings make me happy,” the big man said. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]The food was hot now, and they dug in for something more substantial than a snack. As the conversation faded, Mara leaned closer to Germaine across the pile of bags that separated them. “I’m sorry I ran my mouth earlier,” she said quietly, the sound masked by the crackling fire. Scrub-pine burned loud. “I didn’t want to build myself up or…”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Sure you did,” he said, but lightly, to take the sting from his words. “You aren’t used to being held back, and you wanted to prove your value. That’s normal. It’s half the reason I asked.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Oh. And...the other half? Don’t tell me you wanted to hear that much about the things I’ve seen.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]A shrug. “I wanted to meet the real you.” He leaned back away from her and engaged his food in earnest, a hint of a smile playing around his lips. She had to admit that was fair; she’d made it her business to play her cards close to the chest, keep secret, give out half-truths. That had likely been the source of his anger last night -- that, and the suspicions she’d held about his father. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Fair or not, she found herself irritated again, though she couldn’t quite say why. She consoled herself with cheese.[/SIZE]

 

[Mara D'Lessio Merrill]

[SIZE=14.6667px]They drew lots for shifts, and if Mara cheated a little, Eiarra only gave her a moderate look of warning. At the end of Mara’s cold late-morning watch, when she woke Sir Germaine for his, she stayed awake with him. He was glad of the company, despite a token protest. They huddled across the fire from each other, talking about nothing and watching gray light start to peek over the mountains. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]When the others woke, she didn’t try to disguise that she’d been awake already, but if they noticed they didn’t seem to care. Stiff and sore, they got the [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]pulkas [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]moving and shouldered their packs. They ate on the trail, which left the cliffside and ambled down through a gully until the valley came into view. Mara couldn’t see the other side, even using the Force to sharpen her sight. Planetary curvature, then; the air was crystal clear, in a way few inhabited planets could match. She couldn’t do the math off the top of her head, but that made the valley very large indeed. Its size escaped her; there’d been other things in the briefing package to study. Suffice it to say, kingdoms had risen and fallen in this valley simultaneously, without stepping on each other’s toes.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]At a switchback, Germaine paused and pointed out their destination. Castle Miriamele was a jagged dark shape slouching at the edge of a lake, perhaps half a day’s journey from here. Its master, Lord Berift, had a liking for Kilian Rangers of various allegiances and inclinations, if she remembered Adelar’s commentary correctly. Germaine’s goodwill was one thing, but connecting with the Rangers en masse could yield options in excess of one young adept’s favour. She tried to manage her expectations, telling herself how closely Adelar’s observations matched her father’s opinion of recent Jedi history. Even so, she couldn’t help but hope.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]The trail merged with another and became a dirt road through thick-treed foothills and farmland. Windmills and watermills and [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]pulka-[/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]drawn carts were the highest technology in sight. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“This is Ranger Stanek’s protectorate,” Germaine said. “Here down almost to the coast. Any farm or hamlet can call on him with red smoke signals -- easy enough if you burn a local plant. Sometimes a raider will plant red decoy fires, but Stanek always knows which alarms are real.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]That sounded like instinctive navigation, precognition, farsight...something along those lines, anyway. “Your father mentioned him, I think.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Stanek and Father have never seen eye to eye. I trained with his sons. They’re good men, and I wouldn’t worry about trouble on the road. Stanek’s people keep good order.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Order. A loaded word, to a Warden, but perhaps not to a scion of minor nobility raised in a heavily feudalized world. The notion of order could influence ostensibly light-side Force-sensitive groups in all kinds of ways. “What’s your father’s concern?”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“He doesn’t think Rangers should rule. My uncle Barris was Lord when I was young; he died around the time Father put away his lance.” She caught old tension and a touch of pain, but Germaine forged ahead. “Ranger Stanek’s protectorate has no lord by birth; the Rangers defeated the last one a long time ago. He was a Renegade.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“And your father didn’t take it well when the Rangers took over governing this area like the man they’d just deposed.”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=14.6667px]“It was more complicated than that. A lot more. I don’t envy my father his guilt.” Germaine sat up straighter. “But Ranger Stanek does right by the people here.”[/SIZE]