Private Not By Chance

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

Avalore

"I suppose you don't know who I am, come to think of it. About a decade before you were born, I was Empress of the Sith, and my wife Spencer was my apprentice. Later on, we conquered most of the Unknown Regions. And until about a year ago, she was queen of this planet. Suffice it to say we had enough money and resources to put pretty much anything we want in our home. If you learn well and choose to stick around, you'll probably accumulate access to similar wealth and resources. I grew up lower-middle-class myself, even spent a year homeless on a slumworld: I understand going from that to wealth has its challenges."

 

[Avalore]

The noodles fell out of her mouth, back into the bowl.

"Oh..."

She lowered the bowl from her mouth entirely, her hunger lost to facts that played through her. Of all the people she had walked out with-- A Queen. An Empress.

She was wearing a princess' clothes.

Oh. She had thrown a fit against an empress this morning. Heat filled her cheeks as she looked at Ashin, and the wealth around her, a little differently. Was this really all in her reach?

She wiped off her chin, looking back to Ashin with a bit a resolve. "When's the next lesson?"

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

"Once you have a full belly, we'll learn a bit more about violence, fear, and keeping warm."

***

Apart from a light jacket each, they only had the Force to stave off hypothermia and frostbite. Snow crusted Ashin's hair long before their speeder reached icetromper territory.

A dozen huge, flat-faced, ferocious herbivores huddled in a circle to keep warm. Ashin pulled up the speeder on a downwind bluff.

"The pantry is empty back home," she said over the wind. "Our job here is to separate one from the herd, kill it, scare the rest away, and drag its carcass home for butchery."

She held out a lightsaber.

"Think of this like a flaming branch and you'll be fine."

 

[Avalore]

Oh fek, not the snow.

Unlike earlier empress Ashin received no complaints. Her skill with tapas was patchy at best, requiring her constant attention. Shivers ran intermittently against Ashin’s back as Avalore tried to melt every snow flake off her with sheer will alone.

She stepped down from the speeder, giving the saber a wary look. “But the men are the hunters back at home,” came the thoughtless response.

This tube wasn’t going to light on fire, was it?

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

"By the left nut of the Left-Handed God..."

Ashin activated the saber. Snowflakes sizzled on the burnt-orange blade. She swiped it through the ground with casual ease, spraying steam and burning dirt downwind. She deactivated it and held it out to Avalore , pommel first.

"It's called a lightsaber. It can cut through virtually anything, including an icetromper or your arm. Someday you'll make your own."

 

[Avalore]

Avalore took it, the motion snappier in light of Ashin’s exasperation.

“Oh, like the stories,” she commented, pointedly suggesting she had known all along. She fumbled for the button, her fingers tightening on it as it thrummed to life. Heat pulsed off it, sending a subtle ripple of distorted air around its body.

She looked up to the creatures, a realization hitting her over the head. Fire branch with short reach, animals with legs— “We’re chasing them, aren’t we.”

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

"You're not ready for that quite yet. The Force can make you fast, and I hope it does if you need to escape - but no. I suspect you'll get the greatest chance of success by sneaking up on them in the blizzard from downwind. A well-chosen strike should send one of them charging away from the herd. Ideally it'll already be dying, but you'll need to hurry that along with another saber strike.

"Not much will scare the rest of the herd away. Successfully killing your target would probably do it, so you'll have to be quick.

"Make no mistake, this is a task that'll stretch you to your limits. Exactly like I promised."

 

[Avalore]

Oh there was definitely no 'we' in that explanation.

She skimmed the area, taking in the tall snow banks and the subtle signs of white dancing over them. Ashin did not need to clarify on 'downwind' or her plan. Nature had been Avalore's books. She did not lessons on how to read it.

That wasn't why she hesitated.

The unreasonableness of her swiping down creatures of that size size stuck to the back of her throat. Her concerns swirled in her mouth, unexpressed. Ashin didn't have patience for her complaining. Her breath puffed around her, warming the air. "...If I can't?" Came the small, concerned question.

Oh she would try. But then what.

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

"Then I'll save you, and we'll try again tomorrow." Ashin indicated the herd with a flick of her chin. "Enjoy."

She went around to the cargo hatch and pulled out a favorite from her longstanding collection of sniper rifles: a MandalTech MX-1. The big shattergun had seen plenty of action since she got it from Jasper Ordo, a long-gone surrogate father of sorts. She slotted a large durasteel dart into the mass driver's ready chamber.

"I have you covered. Don't worry."

 

[Avalore]

Avalore's eyes bulged at the rifle, none the less reassured. Her gut churned as she forced herself to walk off. She was starting to understand that she needed to take a leap of faith-- things might hurt a little before she got somewhere. She didn't walk away with confidence, but she walked away willing to try. Just like with the readings and... okay, she had not been willing to play with fire this morning.

But it had turned ok fine!

Once she tried!

These were the words she used to push herself further, slipping and sliding and shivering as fought against the snow with the saber. She was already growing found of the snow carver as she came around at the right angle. She dropped to her knees and crawled up atop a ridge. It was a good position, down wind and a few feet above their horn levels. As it would turn out, it would be the only good move she would make today.

She pressed herself flat, a shiver reminding her to clumsily warm herself back up. When her muscles relaxed, she looked up to Ashin for sign that she was ready.

She best not shoot her.

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

Avalore would see nothing except the muzzle of the sniper rifle resting across the back end of the speeder. The girl had her marching orders.

Through the scope, the icetrompers looked like especially large specimens. Ashin shoved aside a twinge of doubt. Even if something genuinely dangerous happened, she could probably drop one or two icetrompers with the MX-1. It was a 1.0 caliber Mandalorian-engineered inertially dampened mass driver that could fire anything up to an inch across. She'd even used it to launch a lightsaber once or twice, though the internals played havoc with the saber's circuitry in irrevocable ways. This time around, a clip of ten durasteel darts was plenty. In theory she could kill the entire herd with this gun. But that wouldn't teach Avalore anything.

 

[Avalore]

None came.

Avalore's express faltered, the girl forced to look into herself and take lead. Right. Well. You know it would be hella inconvenient to go through all the effort to get her here just to have her die. The creatures looked massive, but from up above she she not have to stare down their teeth. Avalore slowly steeled herself, pushing aside the horrible fluff she was lying on. The chill. Her concerns. Their mammoth horns. One by one she locked the thoughts away to focus on the plan.

Surprised them with a slash.

While the rest run, slash again.

It should kill the beast.

Should.

Don't get shot. Don't get stomped on. Don't miss.

Avalore held her breath, her muscles coiled as she waited for one to approach closer. It was the second largest of the group, it's back ambling past her at eye level. She let out the breath in slowh hiss... then jumped.

As it turned out, Avalore was a lot less afraid of icetrompers than she was of fire.

She let out a wild scream, holding her snow-carver out before her. It seared through hair and skin, catching in the beasts side. It was a noise of victory, spare the fact that she kept falling... and the saber laid stuck behind. The creature squealed in agony.

Chaos broke out.

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

Icetrompers, by virtue of their sheer size, had few natural predators here in Eshan. Despite her limited senses, Ashin felt the herd's shock distinctly. As others scattered or paused, the injured one reared up, intent on squashing Avalore underfoot or wrecking her with its tusks.

The MX-1 barked, staggeringly loud, and punched a ragged hole through the rearing animal's skull. It slumped toward Avalore - dying quicky, but still capable of flattening her into the snow.

 

[Avalore]

Avalore huffed into the snow bank, the wind knocked out of her as she struggled to process events. All she had time for was a flash of fear, the bang over head telling her that a shot had been fired. The Icetrooper careened dead weight over her. She did wild barrel rolls away, not thinking things through as she went the wrong direction. But it was too late to roll the shorter distance out. Her momentum carried as the icetrooper fell. She barely had three feet left to go before its weight slammed over her side.

The impact drove her deeper into the thick snow drift, the curve of the animal's back the only thing to prevent a true squashing.

She wheezed for breath, spatting snow and fur alike from her mouth.

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

Ashin suppressed a flicker of something like worry and trained the rifle's scope on the fallen icetromper. Avalore had fallen right about there, rolling to get away. From this angle, Ashin couldn't tell if the crushing impact had been lethal.

As the other icetrompers scattered, lowing with unease, Ashin set the rifle back in the speeder and slid into the driver's seat. She eased down the white slope.

An idea struck her. As she pulled up and left the speeder again, she dug deep and called the Dark Side with a raised fist.

The dead icetromper levitated off the ground.

"You're all right?" she said over the wind. This took enough focus to interrupt tapas: she felt the cold keenly.

 

[Avalore]

Light washed over her, dimmed by the sight of a floating carcass as the pressure left her body. She coughed through the keen cold and the shock, appearing in one piece. The snow wasn't pink, at least. Avalore groaned, making slow moves to peel herself out of the packed snow.

"I totally had that."

What she had was bad bruises and sore bones-- just one roll shy of a punctured lung. "Ow," she breathed under her breath, rubbing her sternum as she pulled herself out of the hole.

"How are you doing that?" Came the wary question, her eyes on the icetrooper.

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

"What do you think I'm teaching you to become, Avalore ?"

She reached out - one hand toward the floating icetromper, one.to the speeder - and unfurled tow lines that snugged tight around the huge carcass. Only then did she let it come back down. A couple thousand pounds of meat and bone settled in the snow with an authoritative thud.

"The Force is everywhere and in everything, and people like us can control it. If we can control ourselves."

 

[Avalore]

Well, actually... she wasn't entirely sure. The stories talked about sith and jedi the same way one would talk about two parties in a distant war. The force was their tool and they-- they killed each other over it.

No where in there did it talk about floating icetroopers, okay? She didn't point this out, her curiosity only going as far as her pride.

"I meant how," she grumped, straining to refocus herself enough to flush the feeling back into her toes. "Not... how." Color reentered her cheeks, the task of tapas coming to her with increasing ease. The cold was a strong motivator.


She watched Ashin work, her butt in the snow as shake off the adrenaline inducing experience. She got the distinct feeling she had failed. She kicked at the snow, limbing up to find her borrowed snow-carver.

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

Ashin's first instinct was to pursue the lightsaber or push Avalore for it. Since the kid had already started searching, and since she'd done reasonably well within five minutes of holding a lightsaber for the first time, Ashin let it slide.

The icetromper looked delicious, frankly. She'd enlist the girls to help her butcher, learning lightsaber work in the process, and incinerate the rest of the carcass. The workshops had a powerful dehydrator and a stasis chamber and half a dozen other ways of preserving meat. Apart from the cold, of course.

"Do you have the saber yet?" she said eventually.

 

[Avalore]

What was the animal called.

How did the saber work.

What would Ashin have done if she had been squished squished.

Were they really going to eat all this meat?

The questions went unexpressed, tentative steps taken around the fallen beasts. After a few testing prods to be sure it was done, she climbed up its legs and ambled up the small mountain of its back. She could be seen up there, yanking it out. "Ugh," came the complaint, her noise crinkling at the over burnt smell. "Yup." She fussed for the saber's off button and debating jumping from her perch to the ground.

After a moments deliberation, she turned on her heal and limped back the way she came. Yeah no, not today. She pushed to Ashin's side, saber extended in offering.

"Are we gonna try that again..."