Little Furry Things and Big Trees

[Long Gone]

Spoiler

http://youtu.be/qK0KuC-nEuE

A child lost - a girl that felt broken.

Everytime she turned around, she was nowhere closer to finding her mother or her father. Each day that passed, she was losing hope that they were still alive. Fortunately, she had no more tears to cry and no more sorrow to feel - just a bit of emptiness. The Force couldn't comfort her - not Light or Dark - there was just herself. Her right hand would grasp the pendant her mother gave her, while her left examined a holo of the entire Gyndar family. [member="Falcon Gyndar"] - a strong, proud man who loved his children more than life itself. What was he doing if he was alive? How far would he go to get back to them? It would be assumed that he would rip dimensions apart to get to his little girl. Afterall - she was a daddy's girl. [member="Aaralyn Gyndar"] - the matriarch who had once rode a leviathan up from the depths of the Manaan ocean - half dead just to face her enemies in combat. Where was she? What would she do to see the little girl who looked so much like her - more her mother really but that didn't matter in the end. Hope told her that, Aaralyn was out there...and Force forbid for anyone who got in her way.

Then there was [member="Aton Gyndar"] - her twin. As much as he annoyed her, as much as he ran rampant through her room when they were younger or even into the years of young adult life - they shared a bond that wasn't something people could relate to. They were twins. They could speak to each other without speaking, feel without feeling, know without knowing - anything to do with the other, but that connection was lost. In the chaos that was the universe - he was nowhere to be felt. Mira had been away from Coruscant a while, where she woke up in a trash pit and abruptly taken by some scum in the lower levels. She knew almost right away something wasn't right with the Force when she tried to push something away from her and it backfired - sending her into a stack of empty crates.

So she stopped talking to it.

Rumors swirled the Galaxy of rifts and people emerging who were once missing, rumors that they came back insane or so angry they killed people on sight.

Why was this all happening?

She sat at the edge of Vader's Pyre - a place her mother once told her about, a place where she thought she might be able to feel a connection - but there was nothing. There was an eerie silence and the occasional sound of maybe an Ewok patrol reporting in over a horn - but beyond that - nothing. She would gently tuck away the holopicture and rest her back against the monument - her left hand gripping The Guardian - something that held some meaning to her...and her family. Her knees would come up to her chest as she unclipped the lightsaber and placed it in her lap, still gripping it with her left hand. She simply stared off into space - into the dense forest.

Was this her new life?

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

The last time she had visited Endor was a lifetime ago, or at least it felt that way. It was over a decade now, the sort of time that allowed one some growing up. In her younger years she had been untamed, a wild storm of emotion threatening to mow down anything in its path. Younger years was a loose term considering she was only 28…but so much had changed. The last time she’d walked among these trees she’d had one real arm, and the other had only recently become that first brutal cybernetic. She’d been angry at herself, at the man who’d taken her arm and her ability to trust, at the galaxy at large for no true crime other than thrusting her in to exactly what she’d asked for. She’d come to practice mind shards on Ewoks, picking through their ranks and destroying their brains with the amount of power she unleashed without care. It had been excellent practice, but it had been wasteful. No…she had learned much since then. She’d gotten quiet.

She found herself on the Sanctuary Moon perhaps for its very namesake. So much of the Galaxy had changed since the Disappearance and Matsu had been working her fingers to the bone (figuratively speaking) to see both her homes regain their footholds. The silence of the forest was total, comfort. She surrounded herself with others all day, the nature of the beast of power and progress.

But she liked being alone.
She liked stopping to listen to the sound of nothing but wind through the leaves.

But she had a destination in mind. Vader’s Pyre held no real significance to her at least as the monument itself, but she allowed herself to believe that maybe standing where he’d transformed would mark some turning point in her own journey. Certainly not his, dying in the Light. Hers was something darker. She hadn’t counted on company.

There was something remarkably familiar about the young girl though for the moment it escaped Matsu, perhaps because she hadn’t gotten the full measure of her features (hadn’t seen those eyes). But she caught a glimpse of the saber folded in her lap. “Nice piece of hardware,” she said quietly as she found a perch on a fallen tree, loathe to break the sounds of Endor’s nature too loudly. She didn’t ask why the girl was all the way out here – it would be more than a little hypocritical. They each had their reasons.

[member="Mira Gyndar"]​

 

[Long Gone]

Normally - yes, normally - she'd be startled and snap herself up into a posture of defense and even ignite her saber, but normal was out the window. She'd glance up at [member="Matsu Xiangu"] and nod softly as she lifted it from her lap. "My mother gave it to me, it was a gift from her father." She tilted it back and forth, the perfectly balanced lightsaber showing a bit of wear and tear after all these years - it could have used a good polish by now. She brought it back down and set it back into her lap. Her hands coming up to clasp her knees as she brought her chin between both legs and stared at Matsu.

"Am I in trouble? Is that why you're out here...?" She'd take a good look at the woman, she was decent height - with a set of unique arms, obviously not flesh. She'd catch herself staring at them for a moment before her garnet gaze came back up to the face of Matsu. Her voice was depressive, almost pathetic in-fact.

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

She wasn’t unused to people staring. Women with cybernetics were far from unheard of, but Matsu had never been shy about them. Where she might have had them covered with something more human-looking she chose to leave them. So when the girl took a good, long look Matsu wasn’t bothered.

“Trouble? No, not with me at least. I'm sure you've got a reason to be up here,” she answered. She spoke as she would to anyone else, and she'd kill her just like anyone else if she had intentions against the Fringe. But she seemed to be contemplating the world at large, not a conspiracy against Matsu's home.

She’d never been good around kids. Babies and really young kids set her teeth on edge, their crying making her contemplate things better left unspoken. Older ones were somewhat more tolerable, but a person who could barely stand her peers wasn’t usually up for pandering. She might have left the girl and her depressing outlook were it not for those eyes.

Force, she KNEW those eyes, and with the hair the resemblance was almost unmistakable.

“What’s your name?”

[member="Mira Gyndar"]​

 

[Long Gone]

Mira raised an eyebrow and gave [member="Matsu Xiangu"] a look - the same look of defiance that would be undeniably a dead giveaway. It would confirm whatever suspicion was in the mind of Matsu in regards to whom she believed that Mira was related to - Force or not - she'd recognize the features and similar attitude. For Mira, she had no clue why the woman was staring at her in such a suspecting manner, no she was analyzing her. Mira would adjust uncomfortably and slowly rise up to her feet, clipping her saber to her belt before she brushed a loose strand of hair from her face. Her garnet colored eyes narrowed in suspicion as she spoke. "Mira Gyndar..."

She brought her right hand under her left elbow, cupping it gently as she gestured with her left hand towards Matsu - "And what is your name...lady with the robot arms?"

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

There it was.

Funny how all it took was five minutes with someone on a battlefield and you knew parts of them better than people you saw every day. True, she didn't know Aaralyn Rekali - or Gyndar it would seem - beyond what they'd shared grappling for each other's lives. But she'd know that defiant expression. So she'd married and spawned what was essentially a clone. A clone that was now in Fringe space for some reason. Marvelous.

"Matsu Xiangu," she answered. And your Mother gave me one of these robot arms. Awkward. "I knew your Mother once." Knew was a relative term. I felt her blood pour out on my hands and I wore it on my skin when we took Manaan.

But the details seemed good to keep to herself for the moment, though for all she knew Mira's Mother had warned her of small Atrisian women with robot arms. Matsu had been in the Fringe for over a decade and hoped her name might prompt an explanation from the girl as to what she was doing in Fringe space.

[member="Mira Gyndar"]​

 

[Long Gone]

"Matsu Xiangu?" She brought a finger to her chin in thought for a moment before she shrugged lightly. "I remember my mother speaking of a woman she once fought on the water world of Manaan - that had that name..." She nodded softly before dropping her arms down to her side with a heavy sigh. "My mother said it was probably one of the most memorable duels of her life - next to some creature that sings." She shook her head softly. "If you are who you say you are..." She turned away and faced Vader's Pyre. "I have your Dagger in my room..."

Mira never was told what had happened that day - or how close she came to never coming to pass. Maybe it was for the best - or maybe it was for another time. She simply turned and looked at Matsu, her suspicious gaze shifting to one of curiosity. "Tell me, what happened that day?"

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

She had to admit, at least to herself, that Aaralyn’s apparent discretion when it came to explaining how she’d come in to possession of Matsu’s dagger was interesting. Protecting the innocence of a child, harboring her from the cruelty of the Galaxy, was a foreign concept to the Sith and it didn’t even cross her mind that the Jedi Master had been attempting to spare her daughter the gory details. On further thought it was just what she would expect from a Jedi, or at least a great one – discretion, all things in their right time.

Great being relative. Matsu found the majority of them insufferable.

“I don’t suppose she said you could give it back to me if you ever met me,” she queried in regards to her dagger. In all likelihood Aaralyn had been hoping her daughter would never, ever run across the Sith Lord.

“I met your mother in front of the bridge that led to one of the generators keeping the city afloat. We duelled. I stabbed her with that knife you have in your room and, as I’ve heard it, she nearly died when she fell off the bridge. In return, she took my arm,” she said, holding up the sleek piece of machinery that served as her right appendage. “I was already missing the left one.”

She watched the younger girl with a predator’s sizing-up, thinking it’d be relatively easy to kill her and patch pictures of her headless body back to her Mother. But first thing was first – it would be a dreadful mistake to kill a fellow Fringe member. “What brings you up here?”

[member="Mira Gyndar"]​

 

[Long Gone]

"I'm here because I was brought here - for my own safety..." She gestured. "I've been helping out where I can in this turmoil and it happens to be helping the Fringe." She shrugged lightly. "I am repaying a debt...I guess." Of course, she had lied to [member="Matsu Xiangu"] about one thing, the dagger. She reached down to her ankle and pulled free the dagger to which Matsu sought. The sound of the metal grinding against it's sheath made a noise that would sound like beautiful music to the ears of Matsu, but horrifying to others.

"I do have this..." She gestured as she turned to Matsu and held it out. "So, I wasn't really telling the truth about where it was..."