Private Lost In A Lost World

[Starlin Dinn]

Unknown Planet
The Outer Rim Territories
Desert Dunes
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Though he had gone to sleep on the surface of an ocean, safely nestled aboard Leviathan, Starlin Dinn awoke to find himself sprawled out in the sun, surrounded by coarse sand and endless dunes interspersed with jutting red rock.​

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His ship was not immediately visible, that is - he was not within the confines of its shell. The contrast was disarming, and in the minutes following his rousing the boy felt certain he must have been trapped within the bounds of a dream.​

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No dream, not even a nightmare, just cold, hard reality awaited him as time ticked on and the heat became all the more oppressive. He traversed to the top of the nearest dune, glancing out over the horizon, and spotted the tail end of Leviathan jutting from the sand in the near distance. She didn't seem in bad shape, there was no smoke swirling, no debris scattered, just partial submersion.​

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He had no idea where he was, no idea how he had even come to be there, and the lack of water in his proximity left him rather on edge and delirious in a way that made little sense anatomically. He was no Selkath, he did not need to be misted or submerged in order to survive and yet his innate connection to the water's flow left him off-kilter when none could be found.​

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"What did you do this time, PL?" he huffed, as he staggered down the dune toward the submerged jellyship. Given Starlin's inability to pilot, it only made sense that this had to be the blasted droid's doing.​

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Jasper Kai'el ​

 

[Jasper Kai'el]

Outer Rim
Tags: Starlin Dinn

Lightsaber, Refuge, Respite, Jedi Outcasts, Grafted into Stone
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A faint melodic tune would drift over the dunes, a deep voice accompanied by a seven-string hallikset. The wind would carry the song, which fought out against the haze of the midday sun...

"I dreamed my love came in my sleep
Lowlands, lowlands away me John
Her cheeks were wet, her eyes did weep
Lowlands away..."

No sailor in these deserts, but a Jedi Master perched atop a beast of burden. A trial of his own was what had brought him here, as Jasper Kai'el was seeking to train his abilities. In the extreme heat he meditated, his body uncovered and left to the elements. In the night he improved his mastery over Tapas. As a Jedi who had always been lesser than his peers in Force capabilities, this was a means to better hear the universal energies.

And the Jedi Master meditated through song. After all, the universe was a song of sorts. That was how he came to understand the Force, anyway.

It gave him plenty of time to reflect upon the last few days. The forming of the Jedi Outcasts, the joining of the Farworlds Alliance, the raid on Dromund Kaas. His role as a father to both his student Braze and his infant baby boy, little Cole. The loss of Sacorria in the Core, now in the clutches of the Sith, only to bring those people to an ancient ringworld. A place which seemed to hide many secrets, even as they called it their new home. For the path that Jasper had chosen to walk, he had to ask if he was doing the best that he could. Then he had to find the strength to continue to walk that path, even as he struggled. So naturally, a retreat of this nature was a Trial of Spirit. A trial 'passed' as a padawan learner, but one that never truly ended.

Before long, though, a vessel appeared on the horizon. It was submerged in the sand, and a distant figure clambered down the dune to reach it. A pilot, a mechanic, and a natural-born civil servant, Jasper could not help himself but alter his course to approach the stranger. When he was in range, the man called out with a wide smile on his face.

"Hello there! Do you need any assistance?"

 

[Starlin Dinn]

He knew how to walk in sand, he had been raised in the heart of a desert for as long as he could recall, and while his Uncles weren't the fondest of him wandering off from the safety of the City there were times he would go alongside his caretaker to sit at the edge of the winding river that fed through its valleys.​

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Scaling dunes, or descending them more aptly, was not as common an excursion, but he managed to resist the natural urge to tumble that came with an off-kilter momentum. Shuffle became walk which began a full blown race to reach the bottom.​

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Then, a pause. Or, as close to a pause as one could get when crumbling sands were the only foundation beneath him. In the distance, music. The melody might have been unfamiliar to him, but hearing music where there was none? That was not uncommon for the Dinn boy. He'd been dealing with such phantom sounds since he was just a small boy, the pull of the Force was melodic for him as it had been for his Father though he did not yet know that.​

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Starlin did not deal in Force, or Father's for that matter, he just knew that the draw was insatiable.​

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This did not feel quite like the other times had, it was no repeat of the arch incident which had seen him pulled from his home and spat out into the greater Galaxy alone and confused.​

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For one thing, it had never been accompanied by lyrics before.​

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Turning his head, he looked around the empty desert and furrowed his brows. It was getting louder, in spite of the fact that he was barely moving. Whatever it was, it was coming his way. Seeking, rather than sought.​

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Then, from behind him, a voice. Starlin about jumped out of his skin as he swiveled in the sand to face the saddled stranger; not in his head, then, he was not sure if he should be relieved or upset.​

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Starlin Dinn was no fan of strangers.​

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Still, his Uncle's voices echoed through his mind in tandem. Don't be rude, it's unbecoming.​

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"Hello, Sir" he chirped, trying to keep his voice from becoming too terse, "Maybe, if you've a shovel in your pack." He thumbed toward the sunken ship. "Might take a while though." Forcing a smile, despite the way his tummy twisted with nervousness, Starlin half shook his head. "I wouldn't want to impose on you, Sir," he settled on.​

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Jasper Kai'el ​

 

[Jasper Kai'el]

Outer Rim
Tags: Starlin Dinn

Lightsaber, Refuge, Respite, Jedi Outcasts, Grafted into Stone
​

"No shovels, I'm afraid," Jasper responded as he hopped off of his Eopie. "But I think I've got a way to help still."

He began to rummage through his pack until he found what he was looking for. A pink gemstone, about the size of a large cooking pot. It hummed with a faint harmonic energy that filled the air around it. Jasper didn't have the energy on his own to pull off a feat of telekinesis that large, so he always had a back-up plan to augment his capabilities.

The Force Crystal had plenty of energy to spare.

Jasper sat himself down and crossed his legs, the crystal still within his grasp. His eyes would flutter closed, and the man would begin to concentrate. It would start with a low rumble, then a quivering in the sand. Slowly but surely, the vessel once submerged would begin to rise up out of its prison. The vessel would set down slowly before the man opened his eyes... and immediately moved his organic hand to rub at his temple. It seemed that the strain of subverting his limitations had caused a headache.

"There we go..." he finally spoke again, managing a smile. "No problem at all."

At least now he knew that a nap was in his future. That would surely chase the headache away. After a moment the man stood up and put the stone back into his pack before he turned and offered a handshake.

"Oh, apologies, Jasper Kai'el," the man greeted. "I probably should have given my name earlier."

 

[Starlin Dinn]

The last thing he expected, when the stranger assured him he could help, was for a giant pink gemstone to be pulled from his pack. Starlin stared at it, blinked, then furrowed his brows.​

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"And that will help, how..?" After a moment, he hastened to add: "Not to look a gift Zaathri in the mouth, but..."​

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He fell silent as the man sat cross-legged in the sand, the same way Uncle Theryn had taught him to settle when it came time to quieten his mind and meditate. He tilted his head a little to the left, all the more confused, and simply watched. The man sounded certain of himself, after all, and who was Starlin to say whether or not his plan would work?​

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Starlin stood there slack-jawed as he felt the energy thrumming from stranger and stone, heck even his ship felt momentarily alive. Music swelled, only this time it did not come from the cross-legged man but the space between them, setting the tiny hairs on the back of his neck on end.​

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Eyes widened as he saw the ship first tremor, then wobble, before it was slowly released from its sandy prison. The act reminded him of the party trick his namesake had shown him back in the Deep Core, only much, much more impressive. When it settled upright, landing gear stabilized within the sand at last, the boy could not help but shake his head.​

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"That... was awesome."​

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He had seen unexplainable feats done before, of course, Uncle Theryn was known for making plants blossom and grow from nothing, and Uncle Darien could speak to him from across the Ziggurat, his voice echoing in the lad's mind, but this... this was spectacular.​

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"How did you do that?"​

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It made Starlin's control of water seem trivial.​

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After a moment, he stepped closer and offered down a hand to help the man up.​

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"Starlin" he mirrored, "Starlin Dinn, it's nice to meet you, Sir."​

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He couldn't recall the last time those words had been sincerely uttered.​

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Jasper Kai'el ​

 

[Jasper Kai'el]

Outer Rim
Tags: Starlin Dinn

Lightsaber, Refuge, Respite, Jedi Outcasts, Grafted into Stone
​

"How did you do that?"

"The Force, of course. Ah, but you could say I had a bit of help," Jasper stated, gesturing to the stone he placed in his bag. "I'm not an incredibly Force-inclined individual myself, a bit on the less-than-average side of Force users. But with a little concentration and a bit of energy to spare, anyone can do anything. You just need to have a creative solution."

As Jasper took the younger man's hand as he helped him up, his head cocked ever-so-slightly. Starlin, huh? He knew a Starlin. Starlin Rand . That chain-smoker guy. Jasper never knew the guy well, but he sure did know when he was around. Dinn, though, was the name he knew better. Any relation to Eloise Dinn?

Perhaps. Best not to spring a load of questions on a guy who was maybe dehydrated.

"Pleasures all mine," he answered to the greeting. "You had a string of good fortune. I'm here on a training sabbatical. Then again, someone once told me that true coincidences are rare. Not sure if I buy that though."

Jasper turned his head to the vessel. Strange thing, it was, nothing he'd quite seen before. Even so, he quickly gathered that it was likely gyroscopic. It was far more alien than anything he was used to working with, though. His mechanical knowledge might be enough to navigate it's core systems, even at the deficit of familiarity.

"Any clue what brought you down?" he asked. "Any strange noises or vibrations you can recall?"

 

[Starlin Dinn]

The Force.​

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While it wasn't the first time he had heard that phrase in recent weeks, it was still a very new one and he had yet to fully wrap his head around what it actually was. One thing was clear, it did a whole variety of different things, and he was beginning to wonder if it had any part in Uncle Theryn's blooms, and Uncle Darien's telepathy.​

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... or his own aquatic sensibilities.​

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"What exactly is it?" he cautiously inquired, "The, erm, Force? Never heard it back home, but out here? Seems like the go-to phrase."​

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Same name? More like namesake, though Starlin wasn't to know that the man he'd met back in the Deep Core was known elsewhere. Nor was he to know that his eldest sibling had gotten out of the family business and had found herself in the wider Galaxy too.​

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How could he know that? Nobody told him anything.​

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As for the what, Starlin shrugged. A troubled expression played over his face, and he rubbed the back of his neck. "Beats me, when I went to sleep last night we were floating on an ocean." Looking to the sky, and noticing the difference in the number of suns and moons on show, a deeper frown settled in. "No clue how PL got us here."​

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An oddity to be sure, but then strange things had happened around Starlin Dinn as of late.​

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"Where is here, by the way?"​

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Jasper Kai'el ​