Private My Shadow Runs With Me

[Lily Rhodes]

Lily was laying on the landing ramp an arm draped over her eyes trying to convince herself that not everyone could see her the way Sonere had. She didn't look up straight away, snorting in repsonse to his question. "Oh she was definitely something, I feel like shes peeled layers off me just by looking." A visible shudder ran through her. She'd been fighting the urge to trun tail and find a different planet to hide on.

"That's not even the worst bit " she sat up finally looking at him and her face instantly filled with concern. Something was wrong but she couldn't pinpoint what Her eyes were searching as she continued to speak looking for an injury."I couldn't get a read on her, something I'm normally pretty good at, so I dont know her game and that makes me nervous." She shrugged unable to find anything obvious and instead settling her eyes back on Veloks "But there's a temple south of here we've been invited to visit... What happened?"

Velok Brokentusk

 

[Lily Rhodes]

Lily was laying on the landing ramp with an arm draped over her eyes trying to convince herself that not everyone could see her the way Sonere had. She didn't look up straight away, snorting in response to his question. "Oh she was definitely something, I feel like she's peeled layers off me just by looking." A visible shudder ran through her. She'd been fighting the urge to turn tail and find a different planet to hide on.


"That's not even the worst bit " she sat up finally looking at him and her face instantly filled with concern. Something was wrong but she couldn't pinpoint what Her eyes were searching as she continued to speak looking for an injury.


“I couldn't get a read on her, something I'm normally pretty good at, so I don't know her game and that makes me nervous." She shrugged, unable to find anything obvious and instead settled her eyes back on Veloks "But there's a temple south of here we've been invited to visit... What happened?"

Velok Brokentusk

 

[Velok Brokentusk]

Velok settled on the shuttle's back wing and slumped against the hull. The landing struts creaked and sank an extra half inch into the Jaibrek dirt.

"Trust your instincts. I should have." He closed his eyes. "Instinct has worth. Your instincts have kept you safe a thousand times. Instinct is part biological, part experience, part supernatural. My grandfather made quite a study oh, fifty years back, of rare and specialized ways that any given person could learn to feel and touch the Force. He even wrote a book on it. And it took him time to realize he was wrong. Anyone can touch the Force; it takes dedication. That was the truth lurking behind half of what he found. The Jedi and the Sith don't know this, see it differently, or simply prefer that the public not know."

He cracked an eye and glanced over at Lily Rhodes "I'm not saying anyone can become a Jedi. The great feats and so forth - there are elements of natural strength and natural talent and even biology. I doubt you could throw lightning if you tried for thirty years. But if your instincts fail you when faced with a known Force user, that suggests to me that the Force is a subconscious component of your instincts, which is true of....millions. Billions. Just another reason to trust those instincts."

 

[Lily Rhodes]

Lily pondered his words, pulling her knees up to her chest and hugging them. It made sense, the force was created by all living things, so it was only logical that all living things, to varying degree could touch it. That, and her instincts had never failed her. Her expression went vacant for a long moment as she ran through her memories, recalling moments of clarity that had ultimately saved her life.

A blink and she looked up at him. "You're deflecting, Velok Brokentusk , we split for an hour and you look almost as bad as you did after you took down the toff ship, only without all the blood. Are you going to tell me what you tried, or am I filing it under things that the big lump doesn't want me to know?"

There was no venom in that last statement, Lily respected his want to keep things from her, pegged it down to a want to protect her and it was nice to have someone watching out for you, especially after a lifetime running on her own.

 

[Velok Brokentusk]

"The latter. I don't know what happened, what it means for my health and curse, or how I feel about it. I met a knowledgeable Force practitioner of a kind I've rarely encountered. I think I made a deal. I'm not certain about that either. Probably a dead end."

Still sitting on the wing, he tried to relax against the shuttle's sloped hull.

"You couldn't read the Nagai. Tell me about her as a person. Maybe some of your instincts were silent, but apply your judgment. Breathe deep and slow. What do you remember? Think of the details. What stood out to you about her?"

The Force could enhance short-term memory.

 

[Lily Rhodes]

Lily frowned, thinking the suggestion peculiar. She'd never looked to hard at anything that didn't sit right, preferring to move away and simply avoid it. Still, she recognised an opportunity to learn something and did as he said, slowing her breathing and closing her eyes, replaying everything from the moment she laid eyes on Sonere.

Noting the first thing that had drawn Lily's attention, the wide berth people were giving, she'd assumed out of respect, but now she noticed something else. "Everyone moved out of the way for her....but they didn't look at her, or bow. Not a single smile went her way." She tried to recall the stalls she'd stopped at, the way she spoke to people, the way they'd spoken to her. "She didn't belittle anyone, she was polite but none of them wanted to look at her. They all gave her something...and non of them were Nagai." Sonere's eyes moved to her in the memory and Lily drew in a sharp breath and opened her eyes.

"Those fething eyes." she dug the heels of her palms into her own eyes as if trying to push the sensation out. "Frak, its like she's reading more than just your mind, like she can see everything you've ever done and its effortless and invasive. I hate it." she uncovered her eyes, blinking away the stars she'd force into them and got up trying to shake the sensation off.

"I can't make a judgement, this isn't Coruscant, culture is different," she wiped sweaty palms on her trousers. "But, if it was Coruscant, I'd say people are afraid of her because she's blackmailing them with their secrets."

Velok Brokentusk

 

[Velok Brokentusk]

Velok rumbled a snarl. "I don't like the odds that she was rooting around in your thoughts. There are exercises to...build your mind so that you're more aware of that kind of invasion and better able to lock it out. I'll teach you those. Nearly anyone can learn them, it just takes practice and resilience."

He left certain things unsaid. That the exercises he would teach her were Sith in origin; that bringing her to the temple before she had a good grip on this skill was asking for trouble, if the Nagai actually was a telepath.

 

[Lily Rhodes]

Lily looked up at the sky, it was still early afternoon, they had some time left. They'd had almsot two whole days in Drakeport before the toff ship had arrived. But Velok had gone into the wilderness and away from the people.

"Do we have time for that, if what you tried didn't work? She was the only one I saw, it may be not everyone at the temple is like her. I'm not saying no, hell I'd love to never have that happen to me again, but right now the most damming thing in my head is that we're running around in a stolen ship. She can't hurt me with anything else in there."

Velok Brokentusk

 

[Velok Brokentusk]

Too tired to press the point, Velok fumbled for words and couldn't find them. "Tonight," he said eventually. "We'll go to the temple tonight. I flagged it on the horizon." One of the benefits of being almost ten feet tall: you always had the high ground. "If it's the structure I think it is, it's a bit of a-"

He started snoring.

---

Presuming Lily didn't wake him, he woke after sundown. He could wake at the time that best suited him, one of the more useful Toglannoq skills on his travels; calling down avalanches was rarely relevant to his day-to-day life. He searched how he felt, in mind and body. Not restored, still drained, but more conscious. The sleep had taken the edge off.

He rubbed his eyes and looked around for Lily.

 

[Lily Rhodes]

The snoring made Lily roll her eyes, how was it possible for anyone to fall asleep mid sentence? She set about finding a homes for the new stack of books, picking one on Nagai history she settled herself just inside the ship, back resting on the internal wall, facing out to keep an eye out for anyone that might try to interfere with a loudly snoring whipid. She doubted anyone as daft as her to try such a thing, but she wasn't going to leave him either way.

---

The metal of the back wing groaning, as he stirred coupled with the sudden absence of his snores was enough for Lily to realise Velok was awake. Folding the corner of her page to mark where she was, she tucked the book away and stepped out onto the ramp, folding her arms and looking up at his perch. "You spooked some of the locals with your snoring, they though I was harbouring a monster." she teased. "Do you feel better?"

Velok Brokentusk

 

[Velok Brokentusk]

"You are harboring a monster. Best for everyone to keep that in mind."

Jaibrek was on the edge of Firefist, with a coherent view of the Prime Galaxy by night. The galaxy stretched across a third of the starscape. The view hadn't been nearly so clear back at Drakeport.

Regretfully, Velok tore himself away from the view and got down off the wing.

"Ready to walk? And are you armed?"

 

[Lily Rhodes]

Lily rolled her eyes. "You might be a big grumpy lump of fur, but you're not a monster, Velok." She descended the landing ramp, closing and sealing it shut behind her, tapping the blaster pistol at her hip in way of response to his question. She could have taken one of the Toff blaster rifles but the idea of walking to a Nagai temple bearing gun used by their ancestral set her already frayed nerves on edge. If she could avoid aggravating whatever they were walking into she would.

The bazaar gad a different energy after the sun set, less about people going about the daily business and more about enjoying themselves, music came from different stores and conversation flowed effortlessly between patrons. Lily gave it all a wistful look as they passed by without stopping. It would have been the perfect opportunity to lift a few purses and hear tales like no other.

A quick glance up at Velok and her face set into one of determination. If she could help him remove his curse, then they could both enjoy themselves a little more.

Velok Brokentusk

 

[Velok Brokentusk]

For his part, Velok carried a knife and his battered cleaver. A world like this, more often than not, was light on meaningful recourse (whether or not it had authorities, an entirely different question). Lily might feel wistful. Velok felt grim. A long habit of pessimism bled all the hope from the moment.

The temple south of town proved to be a structure of rough-hewn stone, surrounded by high tough hedges. Velok was conscious of eyes between the ranks of hedges. Starlight glinted on the occasional blade. He kept to the main walkway.

The Nagai Forcer, the stately woman who'd unnerved Lily in the market, met them on the main structure's steps.

"You are called Velok in the girl's mind," she said. "Is that a common name?" A reference, presumably, to his grandfather and great-grandfather.

"If I was the Velok you've heard of, I could solve my problem alone. But you know I'm not him, or you wouldn't have dared get into her mind."

"Surface thoughts, no more, no real intrusion."

Velok bared the metal-capped stubs of his tusks.

 

[Lily Rhodes]

"On a different night, I might call bantha crap on that , because it definitely felt like an intrusion." Lily stepped up and placed a hand on Velok's forearm. giving him warning glance. "But I don't have the knowledge and we don't have time."

Swallowing against her own apprehensions she looked up at Sonere whose gaze was fixed on him. "You didn't say what the cost, or a catch to helping."

"I didn't say I would help, I said I would look, child."

Lily gritted her teeth. "Sonere..." She finally stopped looking at Velok and instead looked at her, Lily had to fight the urge to step back, instead, her fingers tightened slightly on Velok's arm. "Can you help or not?"

"Perhaps."

Velok Brokentusk

 

[Velok Brokentusk]

Velok glanced down at Lily's restraining hand and buried the growl in his throat. He'd known she would play the pragmatic peacemaker, giving him the latitude to stand up for her aggressively, but that foreknowledge didn't make his reaction any less genuine. Nagai telepaths had a reputation for cunning and manipulation. People like that had no place in Lily's thoughts - worse, in her mind. Minds could be reshaped, made to serve. He regretted bringing her somewhere she could be vulnerable.

So why had he?

Maybe a spark of hope after all. Maybe this was the night, and he wanted her here to see it.

"An elder of my people cursed me," he said. "Almost thirty years ago. Any settlement where I lay my head for more than a night or so will get attacked. It's called the Curse of Ultaht. It was justice. It still is. But my life isn't fully my own anymore, and there's no justice in the harm and the risk my curse has put on my friend. So I'm seeking an end: a Jedi Master to scour it away, a Sith Lord to rip it away, or whatever methods the master practitioners of this galaxy would use."

 

[Lily Rhodes]

Lily winced, whatever the method left so many things open to interpretation, he was already weak from whatever he'd already tried.

Sonere cocked her head, her eyes taking on a slightly glassy appearance as she studied him. "Hmmm, I see it. You've already tried to take some of it though, but not enough...not enough." she turned her attention on Lily. "And you child? Why do you help this being you've known for such a short time?

Lily as surprised by the question, but the answer came easily. "Because he doesn't deserve it. Whoever and whatever it was that earned the curse, is different to the one you see before you."

"You don't know what he did, in truth, you don't know him at all, so how can you be sure of that?"

Lily scowled at her. "I know what you're doing, but it won't work. I believe in him."

The answer seemed to satisfy her and she nodded. Looking back at Velok. "We can help. It will take many of us, and she will need to assist."

Velok Brokentusk

 

[Velok Brokentusk]

The same discomfort rose in him that always did when Lily said things like that, when she brushed aside his past. And as Sonere offered help, the discomfort blotted out the relief entirely.

"Wait. Hold." Velok leaned on the stone pillar of the entryway. The Slaine had taken more of a bite out of him than he'd thought. "A group ritual has costs and risks. I won't have her involved."

"She is an adult, and your friend. She's bursting to interject. If you want this done-"

Velok snarled, a true Whiphid growl. It resonated in the stone of the temple doorway. "So be it." He turned to Lily. "But if you're going to risk this, I won't have you-" He swayed and screwed his eyes closed, furious that he was coming off as a pitiable figure; that tainted everything. "You're going to make that choice with open eyes. I am a raider, a reaver. I've burned ships and towns."

The final secret hung heavy in his mouth; it didn't want to be spoken, but he spoke it anyway, and knew that somehow Sonere already knew it - by telepathic interjection or Force-borne revelation or simply because the story was out in the universe.

"I killed someone I loved," he said at last. "I brought her head and her heart to my grandfather's cauldron to take her power. Her name was Suture. My curse was justice."

 

[Lily Rhodes]

The silence that followed his confession seemed to stretch on for an age as Lily simply stared at him. She was trying to process it, to understand but she couldn't put such a hideous act together with the Velok she'd come to know.

She closed here eyes and shook her head slightly, a lump forming in her throat. How many days had it been since she'd taken the risk to kick him awake? A man who could cut out the heart of the woman he loved and deliver it with her head, would have cleaved her in two. Or he would have let her attempt to fly a ship in hyperspace and likely get herself killed. He wouldn't have cared about the lives at stake when his curse struck Drakeport, and he certainly wouldn't have taken down a toff capital ship to protect it.

Her statement still rang true. Whoever, and whatever he was then, was not who he was now.

She opened her eyes, tears spillong over her cheeks. "Thank you for telling me." She said after a moment "I won't say it doesn't matter, because that seems dismissive of what you put her through...and also what you have suffered because of it. But I don't believe for a second, that you don't regret it." Her voice cracked "and I don't believe you would do such a thing again. You are my friend, Velok, and I know your heart is good. So please," she stepped forward "make this the last time you try to make me turn away."

Velok Brokentusk

 

[Velok Brokentusk]

"That's not what this is," Velok growled. "Not this time. I want to keep you around, Force knows I'm tired of solitude - but if I'm going to bring you any more risk, you deserve to know who you're taking on that risk for. And as for doing it again...feth, the only reason I'm not that man anymore is because I never let myself forget that I'll always be him." He whirled on Sonere. "Consider the show your payment in kind. Let's get on with this."

The Nagai telepath's face went cold and hard, or perhaps it had gone that way when Velok laid out his crimes. "That is remarkably ungracious, Lord Velok."

"Just Velok. Lord Velok is my grandfather."

Other Nagai had watched from various corners inside and outside the temple - the crypts, the hedges. They gathered with a coordination that suggested extensive telepathic conversations had been ongoing since, perhaps, Sonere first met Lily in the market.

"And we have qualms about undoing his work," said Sonere. "Far as we are from Toola. But in this case there is a higher authority than the one who cursed you. Your victim's mind and soul have been embedded in your heart since the beginning, hasn't she."

Velok flinched. "She possessed me on and off. She had her revenge more than once. But she's been silent for, oh...a decade or more."

"Silent, yes. Drained, because her hate and her life force have powered your curse. The one who wrought it bound her to you for that purpose. She's as much a prisoner as you are."

Shock flooded Velok. "That's...no, he wouldn't. And..."

But it made sense. It made horrible sense. The curse had deep power, and that power had to come from somewhere. He'd often assumed it came from him, fed off him, and maybe it did in part. But when he cast his mind back to the most painful memories he had, he couldn't find anything in his grandfather's outrage that would have made it impossible. In fact his grandfather might have found it elegant.

"It wasn't justice," said the telepath with, perhaps, a note of empathy. "It was punishment."

"No. No, this is what I deserved."

"Yes, it was, and might still be. But it wasn't what she deserved. Let go of the curse, Velok. Your grip is getting in our way."

The Force hummed with a deep power - not high-minded and glacially calm like a Jedi, not furious and implacable, not explicitly aligned but strong as ice. He resisted. To give in, to let them take the curse away, fundamentally still meant that he thought he should be free of it. No matter whether his grandfather had had justice in mind, Velok could still hold himself to account. But on the other hand, Lily was right. Holding himself to account was about active change, not just punishment. About the act of being different than he'd been.

A knotted old pain unclenched. He caught a spectral glimpse of Suture, a Surgeon. Her eyes held a tired old kinship but no mercy, not that they ever had, and Velok's heart broke again for all the things he'd broken. She bared her fangs just once and was gone.

 

[Lily Rhodes]

Voices whispered in the back of Lily's mind, calling her name she retreated from them. Another Nagai laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Don't resist, we need your connection to him to aide us." her words were low enough that only she could hear them. Lily swallowed nervously glancing back at her friend as he wrestled with Sonere's revelation.

A nod, and she let the Nagai draw here away slightly. Another moved to her other side, laying another hand on her shoulder.

Close your eyes, and open yourself to the force.

I don't know how to do that.

Just breath deep and focus on your friend. We will guide you through the rest.

It took Lily a moment to realise the conversation she was having was inside her head, but she tried not to focus on it. She'd heard Velok's voice in her head once, it was no different to then. She closed her eyes, her whole body tingling, the Nagai's whispered ritual words were like a song in her mind, carrying her along a river of colour and light, encircling something familiar, entwined with something dark and twisted.

The curse was entwined with Velok's essence gripping him as much as he was it, she saw the moment he let go, the way the strands of it seemed to relax and the ritual song reached its peak, in her mind it was like many hands gently untangling threads, Lily reached in to help them, gently tugging at the curse peeling it away from him. It seemed to sigh as the last thread was pulled away, hovering for a moment, before fading like dust in the wind.

Lily opened her eyes, the tingling sensation of the force that had flooded her left her feeling cold, her legs were weak underneath her. She made to step forward, to ask if it had worked, if he felt better. Her legs gave underneath her as she did, the Nagai either side of her caught her under her arms.

"Velok..."

Lily fainted.

Velok Brokentusk