Private One for the Road

[Rin Taal]

Rin listened without interruption, her attention never wandering from either the road or the man beside her. As he spoke, she found herself looking inward almost despite herself, examining habits that had become so deeply woven into her life that she'd long since stopped noticing them. Elegance. Patience. Reserve. None were qualities she had consciously cultivated. They had simply become part of her, worn as naturally as old leather softened by long use. Her first instinct was to disagree, to dismiss his observations as kindness or exaggeration, yet each time the thought rose she found herself holding it back. Interrupting him would accomplish little beyond denying him the chance to finish. Besides, she had lived the equivalent of two human lifetimes. Perhaps there were parts of herself visible to others that she could no longer see. She had not expected curiosity to become such a constant companion since finding him leaning against the tree beside the wreckage of his ship, and yet here she was, discovering that every answer he gave seemed to quietly unfold another question she hadn't known to ask.

Only after he had finished did she speak, a thoughtful smile lingering at the corners of her mouth.

"You give me rather more credit than I deserve."

The words carried neither embarrassment nor false modesty. They were simply honest. She had never thought of herself in quite the way he described, and hearing her own life reflected back through another's eyes felt quietly unfamiliar. For a fleeting moment she wondered whether he had simply noticed things that had become invisible through long familiarity. It was an unusual thought, though not an unpleasant one.

Her gaze drifted across the camp where familiar routines had already begun unfolding beneath the steady rain. Canvas shelters stood firm against the weather while lanterns glowed warmly beneath their awnings, turning the gray afternoon into pockets of amber light. Men and women moved easily from one task to the next without waiting for instruction, each seeming to know instinctively where they were needed. A pair of younger travelers secured a line that had loosened in the wind while an older woman quietly relieved another of a heavy basket without either of them speaking a word. Years spent living upon the road had transformed countless ordinary chores into quiet instinct, until the camp seemed less assembled than grown, each person fitting naturally into a place they already understood.

"One thing, though..." She turned her head just enough to meet his eyes again, a gentle shake of her head accompanying the small correction. "I don't command the caravan. I'm only its guide." The distinction seemed important to her, though not because she wished to diminish her role. "The road is my responsibility. The people are their own."

A quiet smile returned as her eyes wandered once more through the camp. Mara disappeared beneath the cook awning carrying another stack of bowls while Kaio paused beside one of the older drivers, exchanging a few easy words before lending his shoulder to a support pole that had shifted in the strengthening wind. Neither issued orders. Neither needed to. The caravan had long since learned how to care for itself.

"I knew Mara and Kaio when they were children," she said, the memory softening both her expression and her voice. "Back when I was still learning this world myself." She watched them for another thoughtful moment before adding, "They live here. I do not." There was no sadness hidden within the admission, only the quiet acceptance of someone who had watched generations grow where she herself remained much the same. After a moment, her attention returned fully to Muad, and the faint smile found its way back. "They don't travel with me because I ask them to." Her eyes drifted toward the road disappearing beyond the trees before returning to him. "Each morning we simply choose the same road."

For a little while neither of them spoke. Rain whispered against stretched canvas while laughter drifted across the camp from somewhere near the cookfire, mingling with the comforting clatter of pots and the muffled conversations of people settling in for the evening. The silence between them felt neither awkward nor unfinished. It simply existed, as natural as the weather surrounding them.

Then another thought surfaced, one nearly lost beneath everything else they had spoken about.

"Thank you, Muad."

She offered no explanation, nor did she seem to think one was necessary. Somehow, after everything they had shared since the previous evening, she suspected he would understand exactly what she meant.

Rin watched him disappear into the growing camp before turning her own attention back to the speeder. Years of habit guided her hands through a familiar evening ritual. She checked the catches that held the roof securely in place, hung the lantern beneath one of the support braces where its warm light would later spill softly through the little cabin, made certain the dry blankets remained protected behind the seats, and latched each storage compartment against the weather. Only after everything sat exactly where it belonged did she step back into the drizzle and make her way toward the pavilion, the steady rhythm of rain upon canvas and the smell of woodsmoke and simmering stew drawing her toward the heart of the camp.

By the time she reached the great pavilion, Kaio had already claimed the broad camp table beneath its heavy canvas roof. Maps lay spread across the weathered surface beneath smooth river stones while charcoal lines traced tomorrow's route, alternate crossings, and the places where swollen streams might force yet another detour. Lantern light danced across parchment as rain drummed steadily overhead, the pavilion alive with quiet conversation and the comforting sounds of a community settling in for the evening. Rin slipped naturally into place beside him, brushing a few damp strands of hair behind one ear as the two quietly discussed the roads ahead.

The entrance flap lifted once more as Muad ducked beneath the shelter, rainwater dripping steadily from his sleeves and hair. Kaio looked up immediately, crossing the distance with the easy confidence of a man accustomed to welcoming strangers who seldom remained strangers for very long. He extended a broad, weathered hand.

The entrance flap stirred as another gust of wind swept rain against the canvas, and Muad ducked beneath the shelter with water still dripping steadily from his sleeves and hair. Kaio looked up from the maps almost immediately. Leaving the table, the broad-shouldered foreman crossed the pavilion with the easy confidence of a man accustomed to welcoming strangers who seldom remained strangers for very long. He extended a weathered hand, his grip firm, uncomplicated, and entirely sincere.

"I'm Kaio."

His other hand swept casually around the pavilion, taking in the cookfire, the tables, the people gathered beneath the shelter, and the little community that seemed to spring to life wherever the caravan stopped.

"Our fire is your fire. Our table is your table." His steady gaze met Muad's without hesitation, warmth replacing any trace of ceremony. "What we have is yours for as long as you choose to travel with us."

Nothing about the words sounded rehearsed. They were simply the oldest custom the caravan possessed, spoken so often over the years that no one remembered when they had first been said.

Before Muad had much opportunity to answer, hurried footsteps splashed through the wet earth outside before slipping beneath the edge of the pavilion. Tavi appeared first, concentrating with remarkable seriousness as he balanced an oversized wooden tray almost as wide as his shoulders. A steaming bowl of stew occupied its center beside several thick slices of fresh bread and a mug of hot tea that threatened to slosh over the rim each time he took another careful step. Close behind him came Arlana, a girl a few years older carrying a wicker basket comfortably against one hip. Folded towels rested atop extra bread, wooden spoons, and a few odds and ends she'd undoubtedly been collecting for anyone arriving from the rain.

Tavi came to an enthusiastic stop before Muad, lifting the oversized tray as high as his small arms would allow. The steaming bowl of stew wobbled dangerously beside the thick slices of fresh bread while the mug of hot tea trembled with every determined effort to keep it level. His expression remained one of absolute concentration until Muad relieved him of the burden. Only then did the seriousness vanish, replaced by a grin so broad it seemed incapable of growing any wider. His now-empty hand immediately patted the pocket where the little carved tuk'ata rested as though reassuring himself it was still there. Looking up with unmistakable pride, he announced, "Thank you, mister. I showed everyone."

A weary sigh escaped Arlana beside him, though it carried considerably more affection than exasperation. Balancing her basket comfortably against one hip, she rolled her eyes toward the pavilion roof before looking back at the younger boy. "You showed everyone," she corrected with the practiced patience of someone who had spent years following just a few steps behind him. Tavi was quick to defend himself. "They all wanted to see." Her eyebrows rose ever so slightly. "They wanted you to stop interrupting dinner." The response earned a thoughtful frown as he considered the possibility with complete sincerity. After a long moment, he conceded, "...Maybe."

The corner of Arlana's mouth betrayed the smile she was trying very hard to suppress. Without another word, she reached into the basket, withdrew one of the neatly folded towels, and placed it into Tavi's hands with all the solemnity of assigning an important responsibility. "Give him this before Mara complains he's dripping all over the pavilion." Tavi's eyes widened in sudden realization. "Oh!" With renewed purpose, he held the towel out toward Muad with both hands, careful not to wrinkle it in the process. "And this!"

Only after making certain that Muad had accepted both the meal and the towel did he brighten once more. Spinning on one heel, he hurried back toward the serving flap at the rear of the pavilion, his voice already carrying ahead of him. "Mum!" he called excitedly. "I need another bowl!" His words disappeared beneath the steady drumming of rain upon the canvas overhead and another ripple of affectionate laughter that spread through those gathered around the cookfire, as though everyone present had seen some version of that same little exchange a hundred times before and still enjoyed it every single time.

Across the table, Rin exchanged one last quiet observation with Kaio before folding the corner of the map beneath a waiting river stone. Only then did she lift her eyes toward Muad, raising two fingers in a small, almost understated invitation for him to join them. There was no urgency in the gesture. Dinner, warmth, and the comforting bustle of the pavilion would make the evening pleasant, but they would not alter what waited somewhere beyond the curtain of rain. Whether the four strangers became tomorrow's concern or tonight's remained uncertain. The storm had hidden them from sight. Neither of them believed it had carried them away.

Muad Dib

 

[Muad Dib]

The big foreman ambled over, immediately abandoning the table. His large stride carried him to Muad, where he extended his bear-like hand in greeting. Muad took it in the old-fashioned way, forearm gripping forearm. Upon their release, Muad gave a slight nod; the three fingers of his right hand slid from his lower lip to his chin, dragging across the stubble there.

"I thank you for your gift of hospitality and swear my aid is yours as long as I enjoy your gift."

It was the old way, nearly forgotten but brought back to memory by his words—a remnant of his mother's kiffar bloodline. Kaio returned to the table, and Muad stepped farther within the pavilion before the arrival of two children, one Tavi and the other, older and taller, whom he had seen playing with the other children throughout the day. The tray was raised for him to take as Tavi looked up, wide-eyed, hope and innocence in his gaze. Muad took the tray with a small smile, holding it with his right hand.

"Thank you, my young friend."

Tavi's eyes lit with excitement and pride until Arlana forced the rough spun towel into his left hand, which was quickly transferred to Muad's empty hand. Then, with his joy undimmed, he ran off begging for another bowl. Muad caught Arlana's eye before she turned to follow and gave her a wink. There was a blush, and then she was gone. He chuckled and turned with a small shake of his head in amusement. His eyes caught the small gesture of invitation, and he crossed the tent and straddled a bench. With his tray resting before him, he vigorously rubbed the towel through his hair and face before focusing on his tunic. Finished, he draped the towel about his neck, his hair disheveled, and retrieved the warm bowl of stew.

"How many children are in the camp?"

The toasted bread crunched under his bite as his eyes traveled over the map spread upon the table. It was good. Hot and charred with a generous portion of butter slathered and sprinkled with local herbs. It accented the roasted vegetables and stewed meat. Quietly, he observed the free talk which filled the tent. Camaraderie and familiarity made the interactions light and joking. Yes, they traveled together, but their bonds went deeper. Almost as if these people were a single clan. He smiled at the thought while chewing the last bit of food.

As he claimed the cup of now tepid tea, he ran his fingers along the map. Kaio, or someone else, placed a round stone along one of the roads. The forest line went deep across the map. His eyes searched the drawn forest, looking for any indication of the ruined temple. But nothing existed. Instead, his eyes traveled back along the path seeking the stone formation where the quartet of soldiers surely still waited. There, a small glyph represented the boulders. He measured the distance and did the math as he considered the course the caravan had taken since passing the stones—roughly sixteen kilometers. For a single man in good health, the distance could be traversed in an hour and a half. He could easily do it in an hour.

Absently he sipped from the mug and considered the timetable. An hour to get there, an hour to recon, strike, and remove the evidence of the violence from easy discovery, and an hour to return. And none would know the end of the soldiers, especially Haymitch. He would wonder if they were killed or simply abandoned him. The uncertainty would give the vile snake pause at the unknown. Perhaps slowing his search for the temple. Or possibly speeding it. Regardless, four fewer enemies would aid Muad's cause. He drank deeply as he turned his attention away from the map.

Facing Rin, he shrugged his shoulders to loosen any tension therein. With approval, he found neither tension nor any pang of discomfort. The day's leisure travel agreed with his healing. And the company was pleasing. Mara rushed in, a whirl of activity as Kaio approached her in conversation. He smirked and turned back to Rin.

"You spoke of knowing them as children. Whether you believe it true or not, there are roots with these people. A guide, you call yourself. But a true leader does not have to say they are the leader. You are as important to them as Mara. Or Kaio. This is not a bad thing. It's simply the truth."

He finished the last of his tea and replaced the mug on the tray before leaning in, his words not a whisper, merely softly spoken.

"You do not seek attachment or a role of responsibility. But believe me, you carry the mantle of both—the why of your denial invites exploration, my friend. Not for my probing curiosity but for your own insight."

Mara approached, and Muad straightened, one hand pulling the tunic much wider for her obvious desire to inspect the wound. She would find a puckered scar, not a day-old injury that had cost him his life. That is, before her ministrations and Rin's aid.

Rin Taal

 

[Rin Taal]

Rin watched the old greeting pass between Kaio and Muad with quiet interest. The gesture itself was unfamiliar to her, but the ease with which Kaio answered it was not. Travelers collected customs as naturally as they collected stories. Some lingered for a single journey before fading into memory, while others became so familiar that no one could remember where they had first begun. Whatever history rested behind the clasp of forearms and the words Muad offered, Kaio accepted them without hesitation, returning to the table with the same easy smile he wore whenever another traveler found warmth around their fire.

Her attention found Muad again almost without thought. It had become an oddly familiar habit over the course of the day, her eyes returning to him between the countless little rhythms that kept the caravan moving. She never lingered long enough to notice the pattern herself. She simply looked to see whether he had found a place to sit, whether the tea had reached him before it cooled, whether the warmth of the pavilion was beginning to chase the damp from his clothes. To her, it was no different than making certain every lantern had been lit before nightfall.

As he settled onto the bench beside her and asked his question, Rin let her gaze drift across the pavilion rather than answering immediately. She wasn't counting. She didn't have to. Instead, she found herself watching the familiar choreography that unfolded every evening. Steam curled lazily from wooden bowls. Lanterns painted the canvas above them with warm amber light while conversations rose and fell like gentle music. Tavi darted between benches with his newly claimed bowl held carefully in both hands, grinning as though entrusted with something priceless, only for Arlana to intercept him with practiced ease before he collided with one of the elders. Beyond them, one of the older youths disappeared into the drizzle, carrying a coil of rope over one shoulder, while another quietly helped secure a loose awning without anyone asking.

"Fifteen," she answered at last, the corners of her mouth lifting. "Although they'd argue among themselves about who still deserves to be counted."

Her smile deepened almost imperceptibly as she watched Arlana vanish after Tavi.

"We don't really measure adulthood by birthdays. Once someone is old enough to carry their share of the road, they're simply one of the adults." She nodded lightly toward where the young woman had disappeared. "Arlana crossed that line some time ago. She'd probably be rather offended if I called her a child."

Her eyes wandered slowly around the pavilion once more, taking in each familiar face with quiet affection.

"There are a little over sixty of us altogether. Large enough that no one has to carry the journey alone." Her gaze lingered for a moment on the circle of lantern-lit faces before returning to Muad. "Small enough that if someone doesn't come to supper, everyone notices before the first bowl has been finished."

While Muad continued eating, Rin allowed the comfortable silence to settle between them. It was only then that she noticed the map no longer held his attention in the way it had held everyone else's. His fingers wandered over roads rather than settlements, tracing forests instead of villages before returning again and again to the small glyph marking the stone outcropping they had passed that afternoon. He wasn't studying where they were. He was measuring where they had been.

She watched the tiny movements almost absently, finding herself curious less about what he sought than about the quiet patience with which he searched. It occurred to her, not for the first time, that Muad looked at maps much the way she looked at people. He seemed to assume there was always another story hidden beneath the surface, waiting for someone willing to notice it.

"You're looking for something," she observed gently.

There was no expectation that he explain himself. It was simply something she had seen.

Her fingertips rested lightly upon another stretch of woodland several kilometers from their present route.

"If it's ancient stone you're hoping to find, there are ruins somewhere in this forest." She gave a small shrug. "I've never had reason to visit them myself. The caravan has always had somewhere else to be."

She withdrew her hand from the map.

"People ask about them from time to time. Historians. Treasure hunters. The occasional scholar." A faint smile returned. "I can point them toward the right trail. What waits beyond it has never really been my business."

His reply settled over the table as softly as the sounds of the camp around them. Rin listened without interruption. She had heard people thank her before. She had heard them call her kind, dependable, even wise on occasion. What she had never quite grown accustomed to was someone insisting she carried something she herself had never claimed.

She lowered her eyes to the map for a moment, not because she disagreed, but because she found herself turning his words over in the quiet place where she kept questions without immediate answers. Somewhere behind them, Tavi burst into another fit of triumphant laughter, answered almost instantly by Mara's mock exasperation and Kaio's booming chuckle. The familiar sounds wrapped around them like an old blanket.

Her gaze lifted again, settling on Muad. She found herself studying his hands rather than his face. They were scarred hands, weathered by years of work and conflict, yet they had accepted a child's tray with the same care they might have accepted something precious. A small smile appeared before she realized it had.

"Perhaps," she admitted softly.

She let the word rest between them for a heartbeat before continuing.

"Or perhaps I've simply been fortunate enough to spend a very long time walking beside good people."

She didn't argue with him. Nor did she agree. Somewhere between the two answers felt closer to the truth than either one alone.

Their conversation was interrupted by Mara's arrival, the healer moving with the brisk certainty of someone who had already decided exactly what she intended to do. She scarcely acknowledged either of them before extending an expectant hand toward Muad.

"Open it."

There was no mistaking her meaning.

As Muad drew his tunic aside, Mara leaned closer. Her practiced fingertips gently explored the puckered scar before stopping altogether. A crease formed between her brows. She examined it once, then again more slowly, as though expecting it to transform beneath her touch.

"I don't believe this," she murmured.

Her eyes lifted briefly to Muad before returning immediately to the scar.

"I stitched a man who was dead yesterday." Her fingers brushed lightly across the healed tissue. "This is the sort of scar I'd expect to see after several weeks, not a single night."

She let out a slow breath through her nose, the disbelief gradually giving way to reluctant admiration.

"I've spent my entire life patching up stubborn travelers." The corner of her mouth finally curved into a smile. "You're the first one stubborn enough to heal faster than common sense."

Her fingertips pressed gently around the scar one final time before she gave a satisfied nod.

"No swelling. No heat. Nothing reopening." She shook her head again, equal parts healer and bewildered witness. "If I hadn't stitched it myself, I'd swear this wasn't the same wound."

Rin watched the exchange in quiet silence, amused less by Mara's astonishment than by the patient way Muad accepted it. Twenty-four hours earlier he had lain motionless beneath unfamiliar trees, a stranger whose life hung by the narrowest of threads. Now he sat beneath warm lantern light with his hair left hopelessly untidy by a rough-spun towel, allowing an incredulous healer to prod at a scar that should not yet have existed while the scent of fresh bread, herbs, and slow-cooked stew drifted through the pavilion.

The healing itself was remarkable. She knew that.

Yet, as laughter continued around them and the caravan settled into another ordinary evening, Rin found herself thinking not about impossible recoveries, but about how naturally his presence seemed to fit beside her map. Like another traveler who had merely chosen the same road for a while.

She never questioned why that thought brought with it the smallest measure of contentment. It simply did.


Muad Dib

 

[Muad Dib]

"I can only believe the gods worked through your healing touch and another's healing hand. Thank you."

He raised his right arm, the one he shouldn't have been able to use due to the damage sustained in the crash. He clasped her own, still wandering in wonderment, and raised it to press his lips against her wrinkled, leathery palm. Hands that knew the labor of hard work and the gentleness of healing.

"Alas, if you were just a few years younger, you might find yourself a suitor."

With a wink, he released his hold and turned back to grip his empty tray. There was already a barrel set up at the edge of the pavilion filling with water runoff from the awning. He deposited the dishes, except for the mug, and moved to a kettle to refill it. Easing back onto the bench his hands cupped the steaming beverage and glanced once more at the map before turning to Rin.

"You are not the only one fortunate enough to walk along with good people this day. And perhaps I need not worry myself about these ruins. They have kept their secrets for a thousand years. Who's to say they will not continue to keep them?"

His brow twitched, and he smiled wryly. Why couldn't he stay and enjoy the road and the company for a few more days? And he found, upon consideration, he very much wanted it. Near the fire, several crates held excess firewood. Their preparation was admirable. The onslaught of weather would have limited the ability to feed so many fires if not for their foresight. He chuckled and stood, carrying his mug over to where he scissored his legs and sank comfortably on the dry ground. With his mug set to the side, he unsheathed his blade and began whittling. His small efforts would birth fifteen more figures. Each a detailed carving of other animals he found himself seeing on his many journeys.

His hands toiled easily, his mind free to wander. An eagle, a hawk-bat, a raawk from Kaer, and on. It took very little time, as he had devoted many hours to the hobby—minutes drifted by. Conversation echoed around him while he toiled. It was warm, the fire and press of bodies raising the temperature in the pavilion to a comfortable level. Several times, he raised the figure he was working on and blew away errant shards of wood before examining his work. A grunt of satisfaction usually met each look. More than once he raised his head to glance at Rin as she ate, drank, and exchanged words with one of the campers. Then he would return to the current figure in his hand, the blade deftly carving away.

More than one camper eased over to look at what he was working on. They would share a brief word with Muad, who would lift his head and reply before re-engaging with his tedious labor. After fifteen carved figurines, smaller than the tuk'ata, lay before him, he took two more pieces of wood. The first was quick work—a thin shaved spine with a round head. Multiple deep scours came next, followed by long curved peels of wood that fell to his lap. A little more finesse, and he held the wooden flower by its stem. A smile of satisfaction with the result, and he set it with the others before working on the last piece.

Again, he glanced up and studied Rin's profile while she spoke to Kaio. His eyes traced the errant hair that framed her face. The tips of her ears peeked above her hairline. When the corners of her lips raised, her eyes would light up, and a slight crease would appear between her brows. Then they would melt away, and her face would once more be smooth. Her high cheekbones mirrored the elegant slant of her jawline.

With each observation, his blade worked the dead hardwood until he held the small rendering of Rin's face in his hands. He captured the initial smile that would sweep across her features, which turned the dead wood into a lifelike rendering. He wasn't sure he could, but he managed to catch the light humor, shadowed by a hint of mystery. For the finishing touch, he carved a spiral for the base, turning it into a pedestal spring that reflected her own coiled tail.

Satisfied with his work, he brushed the wood shavings from his clothing and lap and swept them from the ground and into his hands before depositing the excess into the fire. Nimbly, he climbed to his feet and collected the shaped figures, then walked over to Rin, waiting for her to finish a conversation with a camper. Muad gave the man a nod as he moved to refill his own mug. Carefully, Muad placed the items on the table beside Rin.

"A figure for each of the children. And a rose for Arlana since she isn't a child but would most likely still feel left out if she didn't receive one. And one more for the caravan's guide, rescuer, and musician, though not always in that order. I'll be right back. I need to go have a mug of tea and a piece of bread from one of those families I assisted earlier. I don't want them to think I backed out on our deal."

He grinned at the woman before heading out of the pavilion. But not before he retrieved his cup from next to the fire. With the towel now over his head, he dashed out into the storm, headed to the small tent where he repaired the stove. Boots splashed through the puddles as he attempted to dodge the rain unsuccessfully. He managed to reach the small enclosure without getting soaked and was invited in by the elderly couple.

Fresh baked bread and hot tea filled his stomach, but he couldn't get away without a small slice of pie, which he eagerly consumed. After a genuine show of appreciation, he dashed back into the storm, headed for the pavilion. Once back in, he rubbed himself down once more with the damp towel and headed back to his seat beside Rin. As he sat, his head swooned, and he blinked several times.

His teeth gritted together, and instinctively he spat the dirt from his mouth. A cough wracked his chest while his hands pressed against the ground to roll him onto his back. Weakness clawed at his body as much as the wet earth clung to his form. With a splash, he landed on his back, disturbing a puddle of water with his impact. He blinked at the rain hitting his face while he felt the mud suck at his body again.

Darkness.

That was all he could see—no hint of light anywhere. And still the rain fell. With a grunt he rolled to an elbow before he pivoted to his hands and knees. With a lurch he stood. And slammed the crown of his head into a stone ledge above.

Again, he dropped to the ground, into the wet embrace of mud—this time warmth spread from his hairline to mingle with the cold rain continuing to fall. A groan escaped when he rolled onto his side and felt along his belt. Fingers found the cylinder, and he stretched his arm out before igniting the violet blade of his lightsaber. A purple hue cast about by the ambient glow revealed his situation.

He was in a cave. As far as the light stretched, all that could be seen was the wet stone and soil of an underground cavern. From the ceiling, hundreds of stalactites hung, icicles made of stone. One such was the cause of the cut on top of his head. Littering the cavern floor were an equal number of stalagmites thrust up as though seeking their heavenly brethren.

There was a single column where it seemed the roof and floor had finally united. Muad carefully climbed to his feet and turned to the aberration. And it was an aberration. At the center of the pillar, a red gem glowed warmly, beckoning him forward. His boots unbidden stumbled across the cavern until reaching the source of the glow. A red crystal sparked within, and he hesitantly reached out. The moment his fingers found the surface of the gem, everything flashed red.

He turned in confusion, the cavern whirling in a maelstrom of crimson until he stood in the pavilion. Faces he recognized but had no name for lay with eviscerated bodies. Then those he knew. Tavi, Mara, Kaio, Arlana. Each looked upon him with clouded eyes and flesh devoid of life. Muad stumbled and watched two figures standing with him—the monstrous form of the Patron of Doashim and Haymitch. The Falleen male and Doashim stared at him as he returned their gaze. Each of their forearms was covered with red. Blood dripped from their claws.

But they weren't just looking at him. They gazed upon his limbs, which drew his attention. His own hands were stained with blood. A gasp escaped as he felt his stomach turn. Now he could see the carnage. Clawed and taloned hands left deep marks in the flesh of the people belonging to the caravan. But there were other prints—ordinary handprints. That matched his own gore-covered ones. His gorge rose as he stumbled to the exit of the pavilion and fell to his knees, spewing whatever lay in his stomach. A massive stake was before him, and as his eyes rose, he knew what he would see.

The tail was limp. The one he stroked not hours before. Thighs and torso were torn, and arms fell unmoving. A pale, lifeless gaze stared down at him. Ones that were once so full of life, mystery, and amusement. Gone were the amber eyes with flakes of gold. Only empty sockets looked down upon him.

He blinked and leaned heavily on the table, the mug of tea trembling in his hands as he set it down. His eyes closed, and he breathed deeply. When he told Rin he wasn't prone to dreams, it was true. But occasionally he would see things. A portent of things to come. Sometimes his actions could affect what he saw. Sometimes he couldn't. As he looked around the warm tent and observed the good people within, he swore he would not see them come to an end. If only he could clearly interpret who the danger was.

Three blood-speckled faces floated before his closed eyes. Would it be Haymitch, Doashim, or his own blood-smeared visage that the Force warned would be the cause?

Rin Taal

 

[Rin Taal]

Rin remained at the table after Muad wandered toward the fire, her own meal forgotten more often than eaten as conversation drifted comfortably from one camper to the next. Someone asked whether the creek crossing farther south had finally settled after the last storms. Another wondered if the old bridge west of the valley would survive another season. Kaio insisted it would if no one insisted on driving overloaded wagons across it, which earned a chorus of amused disagreement from half the pavilion. The topics were wonderfully ordinary, rising and falling with the same gentle rhythm as the lantern light and the steady drumming of rain upon the canvas overhead. Every now and then Rin offered a thought or answered a question, but even while she spoke, part of her attention wandered toward the fire where Muad had settled himself.

She never watched him directly for very long. There simply seemed to be something quietly absorbing about hands that knew exactly what they wished to create. His knife moved with remarkable certainty, every shaving falling away with purpose instead of haste. There was no wasted motion, no uncertainty in the blade's path, only the patient confidence of someone who had spent countless quiet hours allowing wood to reveal what already waited inside it. Before long another camper slowed to watch him, then a curious child wandered closer, followed by an older woman carrying fresh bread back toward her family. Each lingered only briefly before continuing on with an appreciative smile, as though they had stumbled upon some small wonder tucked into an ordinary evening.

Rin found herself smiling as well. It wasn't simply because the carvings were beautiful, though even from across the pavilion she could see the care with which each tiny figure emerged beneath his blade. It was the expression on Muad's face that held her attention. The weight she had glimpsed in him throughout the day seemed lighter here. Whatever burdens had followed him into the caravan had loosened their grip, if only for a little while, replaced by the quiet satisfaction of creating something with his own hands. She thought there was something deeply comforting about that. Some wounds, she suspected, healed best when one's hands remained busy.

Time slipped onward almost unnoticed. Muad gradually disappeared behind the little gathering that had formed around him, and Rin returned herself fully to the conversations surrounding the table. Mara good-naturedly accused Kaio of pretending broken wagon wheels were opportunities to socialize rather than inconveniences, prompting Kaio to defend himself with theatrical indignation that fooled absolutely no one. Rin laughed softly along with the others before answering another traveler's question about the safest route north once the rains finally passed. The warmth of shared company settled comfortably over the pavilion, making the storm outside feel very far away.

She scarcely noticed Muad's return until the quiet sound of polished wood touching the tabletop drew her eyes away from her conversation. Before her rested a small gathering of carved animals, each distinct from the next. Tiny wings folded naturally against carefully shaped bodies. Curled tails, delicate paws, alert ears, and patient eyes all seemed to carry a surprising sense of life despite being fashioned from nothing more than wood. Beside them rested an exquisitely carved rose whose petals seemed impossibly delicate, and finally one last piece. Her own face looked back at her, captured with such gentle familiarity that for a heartbeat she simply stared.

Carefully she lifted the small carving into both hands, her thumb brushing lightly across the spiral pedestal that echoed the natural curl of her own tail. Her eyes lingered upon the tiny smile worked into the polished wood. It wasn't the polite expression she offered strangers, nor the broad laughter shared around evening fires. It was quieter than that. Softer. The smile that appeared before she realized she was wearing it. Somehow he had noticed it. Somehow he had captured it. For perhaps the first time that evening, Rin found herself without words. By the time she looked up to thank him, he was already disappearing into the rain with the towel draped over his head, intent on keeping the promise he had made to the elderly couple. A quiet laugh escaped her. "He does seem rather determined to keep every bargain he makes," she murmured fondly.

The children needed very little encouragement after that. They drifted toward the table one by one, their curiosity overcoming any lingering shyness. Rin smiled as she held the little collection before them, allowing each child to choose whichever creature spoke most to them. Delighted smiles spread across young faces as tiny carved animals disappeared into eager hands, immediately becoming treasured possessions. Just as Muad had predicted, Arlana accepted the carved rose with exaggerated composure for all of three heartbeats before the grin she had been trying so hard to suppress escaped anyway, drawing warm laughter from Mara and several others nearby. When the last carving had found its owner, only Rin's remained upon the table. She rested it carefully beside her mug, not quite ready to tuck it safely away where no one could see it.

When Muad returned some time later, considerably wetter than when he had left despite every effort to shield himself from the rain, Rin's eyes lifted almost immediately. The corners of her mouth curved with quiet amusement as she watched him rub his hair dry beneath the towel before settling once more beside her with a fresh mug of steaming tea. She found herself wondering whether the pie had been worth the journey through the storm. Judging by the contented look he wore as he sat, she suspected it had been. She was just beginning to turn toward him when something shifted.

It was subtle enough that no one else appeared to notice. His posture scarcely changed. His hands remained wrapped around the warm mug. Yet the focus quietly slipped from his eyes. They no longer rested upon the pavilion or the people gathered within it. Instead, they seemed fixed upon something far beyond the canvas walls, somewhere only he could see. Rin had seen expressions like that before. Travelers lost in old memories. Healers listening to whispers carried through the Force. Musicians hearing melodies that had not yet reached anyone else's ears. Whatever held Muad's attention, it was not the warm pavilion around him.

She made no move to disturb him. Instead, she allowed the conversations around them to continue naturally, answering a passing question from Kaio while keeping Muad comfortably within the corner of her vision. There was no alarm in her expression, only patient observation. If he had simply wandered into thought, then he would find his way back in his own time. If whatever held him ran deeper than memory, interrupting it would likely serve neither of them. So Rin simply waited, calm as the steady rain beyond the canvas, quietly trusting that when he was ready, whatever path his thoughts had carried him down would eventually lead him back to the warmth of the pavilion once more.

Muad Dib

 

[Muad Dib]

He peered into the liquid of his mug—tepid tea. The surface was undisturbed, a single sheet from rim to rim. And yet a single motion of the table affected the liquid within. How simple the truth. The peace of the mug changed for nothing while everything it held coursed with the vibration wrought from without. What it meant, this truth, was that no matter the stalwart form you show the world, inside was shattered by actions of those near. All one could do was hope, pray, that the world around you would not shatter whatever tranquility you managed inside.

A fool's desire.

The only way to keep whatever tranquility you held was to remove yourself from others, secluding your soul from the effects of any who could disturb your peace. Or you could freeze your soul. At least then there would be no consequence within, though your heart be frozen. Or empty yourself and be devoid of whatever substance would echo.

There was a final option. Control.

Endure the storm. Survive calamity. Do what you must to contain yourself, and when whatever shattered the peace is gone, find the gentleness that returns. It was the hardest way, but the only path to truly living.

Jedi trained to be empty of self. Sith would freeze themselves with cold passion or fiery rage as they seek to turn turbulence to power. However, Muad found his own truth. To empty yourself is to deny yourself. To change yourself through emotions was to be controlled by the same emotions. He would neither rid himself of what made him nor be a pawn to the fire and ice of the worst parts of himself. He chose acceptance of the turmoil, to endure, to remain. He would not shun the things that shook him, but embrace those about him. Like the people in the caravan, his aliit, his clan, those he cared for.

Flashes of his vision echoed in his mind. Doashim, cold with hate and fiery with rage. Haymitch, empty of any humanity, morality, or decency. And himself, the cup half full.

He blinked away his thoughts and allowed no purchase. To the Netherworld with vision, fate, destiny, and the Force. There were no strings on him.

Muad raised the mug and drained the tea. The small tribute he carved remained near Rin, a facsimile of the woman at his hand. It had been a long day, and yet he would not see company parted. Winds blew gusts of rain in waves outside the pavilion but did not encroach on the people or the atmosphere within. Kaio looked over the map, and it was clear he pondered the route between bridges, the potential for a river to swell, and a third path with a longer trek for the caravan. However, Muad looked at the forest, a place Rin had motioned to and spoken of earlier in the night.

The boulder glyph in one direction and the lost ruins in the forest. Pursue his mission or protect the caravan should the quartet of soldiers seek them out. Not that he hadn't grown confident in the camp's abilities to keep themselves secure. He gazed into the bottom of his mug and wished for something stronger.

At the other end of the table, young Tavi sat. His head nodded and then drooped. Several chuckled at the youth. A long day, excitement abounded, and one of the men scooped him into his chest, draped a half-sheet tarp around them, and headed into the rain to deliver the child to his family.

Outside the pavilion, lanterns were dimmed, and individual fires grew low. Several more departed with waves and final words before braving the storm to their own hearths. The evening was still young, yet the weather showed no sign of easing its fury. Lightning split the sky, illuminating the raised roof of the pavilion with eerie light. Distant thunder reverberated on the table.

Muad's hand slowly passed across the boards thrust into place. Each plank was sanded then varnished. Every grain in the wood stood out in relief. Ingenuity took every unique board and united them together into a singular being. They stood uniform in length, if not in width. But they worked in whatever dual purpose they had.

His gaze turned once more to Rin as his hand slipped into his boot and pulled free the bes'bev. The dual-purpose blade was set on the table, just shy of the map, and he arched a brow as an amused grin split his face.

"You spoke of music, did you not?"

Rin Taal

 

[Rin Taal]

The evening settled gently around the pavilion as the storm slowly surrendered its anger. Rain still whispered against the canvas overhead, steady now instead of violent, its rhythm blending with the murmur of easy conversation and the occasional burst of laughter from one corner of the hall. One by one, bowls were emptied and stacked beside the wash barrel while mugs of tea replaced hearty meals. Families gathered sleepy children from benches where full stomachs and warm lantern light had proven stronger than youthful determination to stay awake.

Rin found herself smiling as she watched Tavi disappear beneath the arm of one of the older men, the boy already asleep before they reached the edge of the pavilion. Around them, others drifted back toward their wagons and tents, offering waves and quiet goodnights before stepping into the rain. The weather no longer demanded respect so much as patience, the thunder having wandered into the distance while the steady rainfall settled over the camp like a familiar companion. It would likely continue until morning. No one seemed particularly bothered by the thought.

Those who remained naturally gathered a little closer together, conversations softened by the hour. Kaio continued studying the map, tracing one route before abandoning it for another. Mara and two of the older women quietly debated tomorrow's breakfast while someone farther down the table absentmindedly tapped a lazy rhythm against the rim of their mug. Another answered on the tabletop itself, and before long the pavilion carried the beginnings of a melody without anyone ever deciding to make one.

When Muad finally spoke, his question slipped effortlessly into the rhythm of the evening.

The quiet that followed was almost imperceptible. It wasn't silence so much as the subtle shift of a room recognizing something familiar. Conversations paused mid-thought, smiles appeared without explanation, and more than a few eyes wandered toward Rin as though everyone had been waiting for someone else to ask.

She looked up from her tea, meeting Muad's amused grin with one of her own.

"I did."

Without hurry, she reached beside her chair and lifted the worn leather case onto the table. The buckles gave with practiced ease beneath her fingers, releasing the scent of well-oiled leather and polished wood. Nestled inside rested a travel harp, small enough to accompany a wanderer yet beautiful in its own quiet way. The pale grain of its carved frame caught the lantern light, its strings gleaming like fine threads of silver as she lifted it free with the easy familiarity of someone greeting an old companion after a day's walk.

She settled the harp lightly against her shoulder, one hand cradling the frame while the other drifted across the strings. A handful of soft notes shimmered into the pavilion, bright and delicate, weaving themselves through the patter of rain before fading into the warm air. The corners of her mouth lifted another fraction.

"I play a small harp and sing now and then."

Her eyes wandered over the faces gathered around the table, lingering on those already wearing knowing smiles.

"Though I usually let them do that."

A few chuckled. Someone farther down the table leaned back with a satisfied sigh. Another nudged their neighbor with an elbow.

It seemed everyone in the pavilion understood exactly what came next. The music had never belonged to Rin alone. She had simply always been the one willing to begin.

Muad Dib

 

[Muad Dib]

His question did not remain between the two of them. In the others' defense, Muad didn't choose to speak in a conspirator's whisper. So when he asked his question, the campers within earshot leaned forward. There was almost a baited expectation as each person waited for Rin to pick up her instrument or for one of their number to begin a tune. But this night, it was the stranger who precipitated the long-held nightly tradition.

The atmosphere changed at his query, and he looked about to see the half-smiles, nudges, and whispers. The caravan members who were still awake waited for the first note to break the night sky. Muad's blue eyes gazed out from the pavilion to see that, though the campfires had grown small, many were awake. And waiting.

Even in the main tent, there were grins and smiles as people leaned forward, waiting for the music to begin. Clearly he was in for something special.

Rin leaned down and collected the case, her fingers moving nimbly at the clasps and eventually removing a harp. Her fingers floated over the strings, and a sound of heaven drifted forth. How else could he describe the high and clear notes that resonated with the people? And himself. Muad smirked as he shook his head.

"Of course you play the harp and sing, if but a little. Angels do the very same thing."

Then it began. One note struck, a mournful sound followed by another equally soulful. Behind him, one of the older women raised her voice, words melding to the melody. One by one, voices rose to carry the tune as the harp led the music. It wasn't one leading another but many different voices and tunes melding into a single song that stirred the entire camp to lend their voices. The sound was another example of disparate beings coming together to make something with one voice, much as they traveled the road together with one purpose.

Slowly, Muad took his bes'bev and raised the hilt to his lips. First he listened. The first verse flowed into the chorus before returning for a second verse. His head tilted while his fingers sought the correct position on the blade as he listened. His eyes half-closed as he felt the rhythm and the rhyme, and then joined the music with furrowed brow.

Rin Taal

 

[Rin Taal]

Rin's fingers stilled lightly against the harp strings at Muad's observation, and her golden eyes lifted to him across the polished curve of the instrument. The smile that appeared was small but unmistakably amused, warmed further by the easy familiarity the evening had somehow already built between them. "I'm missing the wings and halo," she pointed out, allowing the observation to stand with perfectly straight-faced reason before her fingers moved again. A bright cascade of notes spilled from beneath them, light enough to earn a few quiet laughs from those nearest before she eased naturally into something older and far more familiar.

It was not a Zorren song. Rin had deliberately chosen one of the old human traveling songs that had wandered farther across the galaxy than anyone could reliably trace, carried aboard freighters, sung beside campfires, and changed slightly wherever travelers had made it their own. Most of the caravan recognized the melody almost immediately. The older woman nearby caught the opening first, her voice rising into the first verse before others joined her one by one, some knowing every word and others only enough to find their footing when the chorus returned. Rin did not sing immediately. She let the harp carry them instead, her fingers weaving the familiar melody beneath voices roughened by age, work, laughter, and countless miles traveled together.

By the second verse, the song had escaped the pavilion entirely. Voices answered from beneath nearby awnings and half-darkened wagons, someone outside confidently supplying a lyric that earned an immediate correction and a ripple of laughter before the melody swallowed them all again. Rin finally added her own voice, clear and warm without attempting to rise above anyone else's, because songs like this had never belonged to the finest singer around the fire. They belonged to everyone who knew enough of the melody to join. Her tail curled loosely beside her as she played, one foot keeping an almost imperceptible rhythm beneath the table while the steady rain softened into percussion against the canvas overhead.

Then another sound entered the music.

Rin's eyes found Muad as he raised the bes'bev to his lips, and for several measures she simply listened while he searched for the shape of a song he could not have been expected to know. He did not force his way into it. He listened first, following the verse through its turn into the chorus, learning its rises and falls before offering anything of his own. Something about that drew a lingering warmth into her expression. When his first notes finally joined the harp, she adjusted almost instinctively, leaving a little more room between her chords for the deeper, unfamiliar voice of his instrument to settle among them.

Her gaze remained upon him a moment longer than the music required before returning to the strings beneath her fingers, a quiet smile still touching her lips. Different instruments, different voices, people gathered from lives that might never otherwise have crossed, and somehow none of those differences mattered once they found the same rhythm. Rin remembered something he'd said earlier that day and understood it a little differently now. Two notes on different instruments. Completely different, yet the same tune. She said nothing of it. Instead, when the chorus came around again, she lifted her voice with the others and let the music answer for her.

Muad Dib

 

[Muad Dib]

Her words brought a smile to his face. Not all angels wore halos or sprouted wings from their backs. He believed the people in the caravan would agree with him, at least as far as Rin was concerned.

When her fingers flew over the harp's strings, he paused. There was no doubt in his mind the music she performed would be beautiful, and he was not disappointed. Soon the others joined their voices to the melody and the song grew and matured with their additions. It wasn't a forced choir, but rather an interweaving of personalities. Not every voice was in tune; however, the passion they sang with brought a unified force that brought chills up the spine. Souls bared in a uniquely wrought spectacle. This was the heart of the camp.

His fingers slid along the fluted blade, his own offering welcomed into the people's souls. The clear notes of his fluted blade fit into the beauty of the syringed harp. Rin didn't force her instrument into leading but made allowance for others. For him. And he accepted the place made for him. He rocked as Kaio good-naturedly pounded his shoulder to the beat for several breaths before joining Mara with his arm around her waist. They swayed to the song's heartbeat.

His own boot rocked, a slight tap to the beat established. Music was like that. It could create life and touch all who heard. It wove as a tapestry as each person lent their talent, or lack thereof, to the purpose with single-mindedness. Togetherness. And he, an outsider, was welcomed without suspicion or wariness. It was a feeling of belonging. A piece of home. Not in a place but in his chest. Just like what Rin said earlier in the day in their quiet conversation. The truth of it could not be seen but felt.

Then a voice plucked strings that no hand could touch. He paused, breath held, as Rin's voice joined the others. His earlier comment of angelic comparison came to fruition. The bes'bev was forgotten at that moment. Her voice rose and hit notes the others in the choir did not attempt. A golden voice that matched her eyes flowed forth, a treasure familiar to the others in the camp. One he did not expect yet did not surprise. His eyes closed as his fingers found their place and he gave breath once again to the bes'bev.

The camp embraced the two handmade instruments and raised their voices in harmony. A young woman plucked two wooden spoons and spun them in her hands before tapping a rhythm on the table. The song grew into a crescendo until it met the final note, voices trailing off until it was only Rin's golden voice holding the final note. Muad placed his instrument on the table and rubbed his eyes, feigning a yawn while using the benign gesture to rid his eyes of moisture.

"It would seem you are a master of two musical instruments, my friend."

The rain, which had fallen in torrents before, had noticeably calmed into a gentle shower. Due to the passage of time, nature having spent its fury, or being charmed by the song the camp had so energetically performed, he could not say. Though he knew the tempest that ever lay in his soul found a type of peace. The camp quieted as though this was what they waited on. Akin to a cup of tea or warm milk that soothed one into slumber, the song was a salve to the day's exertions. Muad sheathed his bladed flute back into its sheath in his boot.

"What other mysterious talents do you have, I wonder?"

He teased with a small wink to Rin before his fingers thrummed silently on the table. Kaio returned to the map, his gaze concentrated once more on the morrow. Muad's own eye roved to the stone glyph again and knew that though the camp was settling for the night, his own day had yet to set. He felt her amber eyes on him and raised his head to meet them patiently.

Rin Taal

 

[Rin Taal]

Rin never stopped playing when her voice joined the others. Her fingers continued their sure passage over the harp strings beneath the swelling chorus, sometimes carrying the melody and sometimes retreating until the instrument became little more than silver threads woven beneath dozens of imperfect voices. She smiled when Kaio abandoned whatever dignity his size might have afforded him and drew Mara against his side, the two swaying together while someone farther down the table found percussion in a pair of wooden spoons. By the final chorus, the song seemed to belong less to any individual than to the caravan itself. Voices reached them from beyond the pavilion, faint but recognizable through the softened rain, joining from wagons and shelters until the entire camp seemed to breathe to the same rhythm.

Her own voice rose with theirs through that final crescendo, clear and effortless without ever trying to overpower those around her. When the last chorus began to fade, Rin let the others fall away naturally until only her voice remained with the harp beneath it, holding the final note for one lingering breath before allowing it to disappear into the quiet patter against the canvas. Silence followed for only a heartbeat before laughter, murmured appreciation, and the comfortable shifting of tired bodies returned. Rin smiled and reached for her drink, taking a slow swallow while the warmth of the alcohol settled pleasantly through her before setting it aside.

She did not put the harp away. Instead, her fingers returned to the strings and found something quieter.

There were no words this time. Only a slow melody composed of gentle descending notes, simple enough that no one felt invited to join and soft enough that conversation could exist comfortably above it. Where the traveling song had gathered everyone together, this one seemed designed to release them again. The notes drifted beneath the pavilion like the last glow of embers, accompanying quiet goodnights as more people rose from benches and prepared to cross the damp camp toward their beds. Rin had played for travelers long enough to know that sometimes music was meant to awaken a room, and sometimes it was meant to tell tired people that they had done enough for one day.

Muad's comment drew her eyes from the strings, amusement warming the gold within them. "I can dance as well as sing," she offered, her fingers continuing their quiet pattern without interruption. "Does that count?" His wink earned a slightly deeper curve at the corner of her mouth before her attention returned to the harp, though she remained aware of him beside her in a way that had become increasingly difficult not to notice. Perhaps it was simply curiosity. He had arrived in her life leaning against a tree beside the wreckage of a ship and, in less than a day, somehow become someone whose silences she had begun to recognize almost as readily as his words.

It was one of those silences that caught her attention now.

She saw where his gaze went.

Not toward the dwindling fire or the people beginning to retire for the night. Toward the map. Toward the small stone marker representing the formation they had passed earlier that day. The place where four armed men had waited beside the road.

Rin's fingers never faltered.

She watched him study the marker before his attention finally lifted, and when his blue eyes found hers, he discovered her already waiting. Something passed through her expression then, subtle enough that anyone watching might have mistaken it for nothing more than the quiet understanding shared between two musicians after a song. She held his gaze while her hands continued coaxing that gentle melody from the harp, allowing several heartbeats to pass as she considered something she had no certainty would work.

Then she reached carefully through the Force.

There was no pressure behind the contact, no attempt to enter where she had not been invited. Rin merely shaped a thought and sent it toward him as lightly as she might have offered a hand across the space between them, hoping that whatever sensitivity she had already recognized in him included the ability to hear what lips could not safely say.

What is our plan for the four men?

Nothing outwardly changed. Her fingers continued moving across the strings. Her expression remained serene, touched by the faint warmth left behind by the song, while around them the caravan gradually surrendered itself to sleep.

Only her eyes betrayed that she was waiting for an answer.
Muad Dib

 

[Muad Dib]

He chuckled at her words. Then returned her knowing smile. For a brief moment, he allowed his imagination a dalliance. Her grace with every movement. The way she carried herself. He could easily picture her form gliding across the ground, feet carrying her through nimble patterns, her hair falling to her shoulders and the smile that reached her eyes. Yes, he could imagine such a thing.

"I am sure it would count."

His smile came easily when another of the campers clasped his shoulder. "You're a wonder with that instrument. Not like Rin, but good in your own right. G'night, my friend." Muad's glowing eyes followed the man as he spoke with several others before leaving the pavilion. He found himself relaxed, almost as though he was in the halls of Clan Farr or the hearth of House Dib. And yet, here he was, stripped of title and station, even of identity, and found himself at home. At ease. Not a simple thing to find for anyone, let alone the Mad Master.

Simple notes haunted his ears. Strings reverberated with every pluck of the harp. He knew she watched him even before turning his head and finding it true. Little wonder, for he found his eyes drawn to the mystery that was Rin Taal. A connection grew between the two. No longer strangers, but what they were, he possessed no name. Alike and very different at the same time. However, this time there was more to her golden gaze. He felt it. Almost as though she was reaching out despite her hands being occupied with the instrument she held to her shoulder.

Then there was pressure. Not a force, but more like a shift in the weather. Or how a handshake could convey a presence beyond physical contact. Comfort, strength of a persona, or even a sentiment of unspoken emotion. It was hard to describe. An intimate whisper that tickled the ear. Words that carried no sound but delivered intent.

His brow twitched as he felt the words resonate. A Force user, Muad, had already determined that she was. And confirmed by this action. Still, reaching out in communication in this manner offered a kind of vulnerability. To reveal another facet of the woman who sat before him. Another barrier she lowered, whether she considered it or not. No, Rin did nothing by chance. His gaze remained locked with her as he responded in kind.

I would say this need not be 'our' plan. Something tells me you would not agree. Very well. I plan to make my way back on foot, using the rain to my advantage to hide my tracks and eliminate the threat. Then returning under cover of darkness and the weather.

Through the Force, he reached, mirroring her own action. Not with any pressure. He extended his thoughts directly to her, taking care not to invade her mind—a mental handshake.

Meanwhile, those in the pavilion were none the wiser. Especially considering she continued to pluck the harp. The only hint at anything untoward was their fixed gaze on one another.

Again, his mind went back to the previous night when her hand was on his flesh. Mara had told her to do this, which meant the older woman either knew or had an inkling of what Rin was capable of. The Living Force obeyed her bidding either through conscious control or instinct. But this act of conversation came from willfully skilled use.

More of the group under the tent departed, and lanterns were extinguished as families bedded down for the night. Mara, Kaio, and a few others remained to speak of tomorrow's travels, resupplying their water storage, and potentially visiting a village down the road. Buying, selling, or bartering for items they needed with the people in the small town. It was the way of life. And what the caravan didn't have or couldn't buy, they created along the way.

I plan to leave momentarily after raiding my satchel and collecting the beskad. Death is what they shall have. I would warn you away, but I feel as though you are familiar with doing what is necessary. I also plan to leave these people in the dark about what is planned.

Rin Taal

 

[Rin Taal]

Rin's fingers continued their quiet journey across the strings while Muad's answer unfolded soundlessly between them, each plucked note leaving a faint vibration beneath her fingertips before surrendering itself to the rain. If the promise of death disturbed her, nothing in her expression revealed it. She had lived too long and traveled too far to pretend every danger could be reasoned away, and she had seen enough of the four men to understand what allowing them to remain might eventually cost. What did draw the slightest change was his insistence upon making the journey alone. One corner of her mouth lifted as her golden eyes remained steadily upon his across the warm space between them, catching little reflections of lantern flame while something almost amused passed through her expression as clearly as spoken words. You're not going alone.

Around them, the pavilion seemed to understand that the evening had reached its natural end even if no one beneath its canvas understood the silent conversation passing between the two who remained seated near the map. The soft melody had done its work. People departed gradually, but never empty-handed. One carried the last stack of clean bowls toward the cook wagon while another dried the final mugs and nested them carefully into their traveling crate, each piece disappearing into its accustomed place with the unconscious precision of long habit. Benches were returned where they belonged, scraps gathered for tomorrow's use or disposal, and lanterns extinguished one by one until the pavilion slowly contracted into smaller islands of amber light. Damp boots left dark impressions upon the ground that vanished almost as quickly beneath passing feet, while the lingering scents of stew, fresh bread, wet canvas, and woodsmoke mingled beneath the shelter. No one directed any of it. They had traveled together too long to need direction. By the time Mara finally coaxed Kaio away from tomorrow's route, little remained beneath the pavilion except the map table, a few deliberately placed lanterns, and those things meant to stay until morning. Rin played throughout it all, her melody growing softer with every departure until it seemed less like a performance than the camp itself slowly breathing toward sleep.

Only when the last goodnights had been exchanged and the final footsteps faded beyond the curtain of steady rain did Rin's hands begin to slow. The pavilion felt larger without everyone in it, orderly and nearly empty now, its few remaining lanterns throwing long shadows across the packed earth and turning every raindrop slipping from the canvas edge briefly to gold before it disappeared into the darkness below. Her fingers swept once more across the harp, drawing a final chord from the strings that shimmered softly through the vacant spaces left behind by laughter and conversation. Rin let it live until the last vibration trembled beneath her fingertips, then gently laid her palm across the strings and silenced them. In their absence, the rain suddenly seemed enormous. Thousands upon thousands of drops whispered against the canvas overhead, ran in silver streams from its edges, and gathered in the darkness beyond. Rin tilted her head slightly, half a smile still resting upon her lips as she answered his warning along that same private thread of thought. You can warn me away if it makes you feel better. It won't change anything.

She lowered the harp carefully from her shoulder and began returning it to its case, each movement carrying the same unhurried precision she had shown all day. There was no visible transformation from musician into whatever Muad might have expected to accompany him into the darkness. No sudden hardness entered the face that had been softened by laughter only minutes before, and no grim anticipation replaced the warmth still lingering in her eyes. Her fingertips passed once across the polished curve of the harp before settling it into the velvet-worn hollow shaped by years of travel, as casually as though she were putting away an old friend for the night. Perhaps that was answer enough to his observation that she seemed familiar with doing what was necessary. One did not live a century and a half, much of it alone upon unfamiliar roads beneath unfamiliar skies, without discovering that gentleness and helplessness were very different things. Rin had simply never found any reason to sacrifice one in order to prove she possessed the other.

When the final clasp clicked shut, the small metallic sound seemed strangely distinct beneath the endless murmur of rain. Rin left one hand resting upon the case and lifted her eyes to Muad once more. The half-smile deepened by the smallest measure, carrying a glimmer of the humor that had threaded itself so unexpectedly through their day together, from poetry in a speeder to music beneath a rain-darkened pavilion and now, apparently, a sixteen-kilometer walk through the night toward four armed men. Somehow, when considered in its entirety, the progression was absurd enough to amuse her. Besides, she added through the quiet connection between them, the thought carrying that same understated warmth, you were wondering what other mysterious talents I possess.

Her hand lingered atop the harp case for another heartbeat before she rose, her long amber tail uncurling behind her in one fluid motion to find its natural balance. Warm lantern light followed her upward, gilding the edges of her hair and tracing gold along the graveful point of her ears before surrendering both to shadow. Beyond the pavilion waited another world entirely. The rain hung like a silver veil beyond the canvas, softening the distant shapes of wagons and shelters until lanterns became hazy stars suspended in the dark. Water ran in narrow streams through wheel ruts and gathered in hollows beneath the grass, while somewhere beyond that small constellation of warmth the forest waited, black and sprawling beneath a moonless sky. Sixteen kilometers of mud, darkness, and cold rain separated them from the men beside the stones.

None of it appeared to trouble her.

Instead, Rin stood within the last pool of amber light and met Muad's glowing blue eyes with calm golden ones. The contrast struck something quietly beautiful in the moment, warmth behind them and darkness ahead, the harp packed safely away while the steady rain erased the road they were about to retrace. Less than a day ago she had found this man leaning against a tree beside the wreckage of his ship, barely alive and entirely unknown to her. Since then she had learned pieces of him in fragments: his humor, his music, his poetry, the violence he carried without pretending it did not exist, and glimpses of something gentler he seemed almost surprised to discover still lived within him. Now curiosity stirred again, familiar enough that Rin no longer noticed quite how readily it appeared whenever she looked at him.

That lingering half-smile never left her face.

You'll get to see another set of skills I possess.

Then her gaze flicked once toward the rain-darkened opening of the pavilion before returning to him, the invitation contained entirely within that small movement. The music was over. The caravan slept around them. Somewhere sixteen kilometers behind lay four men who had made themselves a threat to people Rin had known for much of their lives.

And Rin, apparently, was going for a walk.

Muad Dib

 

[Muad Dib]

You can warn me away if it makes you feel better. It won't change anything.

The words, unspoken but felt, were as he expected from her. It wasn't stubbornness, but a simple statement. She would join him on his journey. As she unhurriedly returned the harp to its case, he stood. The pavilion was empty of all other souls, and he found the seclusion in the giant tent anything but deserted. He could imagine her in the wastelands of Manda'yaim, devoid of all life. But as long as she resided there, it would possess a heartbeat and a welcoming presence.

He shook his head as he reclaimed his mug and moved to the kettle set back from the low flames of the fire. Pouring a generous amount of tea, he turned to watch as she finished securing the instrument. As she rose, he tilted the cup and drank the tea, embracing the warmth that flooded him. The flavors were unfamiliar to him, yet it was homely all the same. A new, exotic taste of something familiar throughout the galaxy. He decided he liked the feeling, not necessarily thinking of the tea specifically.

His eyes followed her to the edge of the pavilion; the curtain of rain created a haze beyond her form. Her tail whipped around her without thought. In less than a day spent with the woman, she had revealed several facets of an intriguing personality. Strong yet gentle. Quiet and reserved but opinionated and unwavering. She embraced the peaceful silence and initiated a rousing, spirited song that filled the camp. He remembered the lightest touch of her hand and the strength of her body when she carried him as a helpless babe. And even then, she took care to bring him comfort despite the power she exerted. The duality suited her. Even the vigorous vitality in her form was tempered by her soft curves and delicate features. Pleasing in more ways than one.

A soft shake of his head returned him to the moment, even in the face of her half smile, which lingered longer than many of her blink-and-you-miss-it smirks. Rin was prepared, as she confirmed through another unspoken communication that he had yet to see a set of skills.

I'm sure there are many skills I have yet to see …

He stood beside her then, taking in the view of the camp. The rain fell in a blanket of sound, a constant wave which drowned the gentle noise of the slumbering camp. Lanterns were extinguished, save for the random few marking the waterlogged paths. Old wagons creaked under the weight of shifting bodies. Tarps fluttered in the mild wind. Flames guttered out, leaving the deep ruby color of hot coals that continued to lend warmth to the wet, chilly air. The skies were still full of foreboding clouds, cloaking the stars from sight. The ambiance begged for loved ones to draw nigh together under the warmth of blankets and body heat.

This, however, was not the plan. He turned his head and observed Rin silently before nodding. No time like the present. He stepped out into the rain and headed for her speeder. Boots avoided the larger puddles and stepped on matted grass and fallen limbs with nary a sound. One encampment carried the sounds of children's voices as they whispered spooky folk tales. Another carriage carried sounds of a more adult nature, soft whisperings that could barely be heard by other camps marked off by distance but easily noticed by the duo slipping through the night.

Once at the speeder, Muad quietly opened the door on well-oiled hinges and retrieved the gun belt to be fastened round his waist again. The beskad found its place once more on his back. Searching hands delved into the pack and pulled free a bow of ebony bone and obsidian. The silvered song steel string emitted a deep purple glow that would only appear when drawn, activating the plasma coupler and converter. He quietly closed the door and tossed a wink cloaked by the shadows.

"Oya, let's hunt."

And then he was off. Once they cleared the alcove in the forest where the caravan settled for camp, he lengthened his stride. His body warmed to the light exertion. It was neither a jog nor a run. Something in-between. Like the long gait of a deer, he loped beside the well-traveled road near the forest. The shoulder of the compacted path was firm yet far enough from the bare, grassless trail to keep their passage hidden. What trail they did leave was covered by wind and rain as the weather erased evidence of their passing.

Several times, he glanced to his side to see Rin keeping pace with no effort visible. Not that he expected to see proof of labor. A few times in their journey, their silent appearance startled some of the planet's fauna, a small herd of gazelle-like creatures leaping back into the forest. Time disappeared, and all there was were the two people silently pacing along in the dead of night. The rain created a haze, reducing their visibility. After almost an hour, a mist began to form, cloaking even the giant trees and turning them into indistinct shapes.

He knew they were close despite not seeing the outcropping of boulders in the distance. His pace slowed, and he moved deeper into the forest, intermingling their forms with the trees' trunks. Now he slowed to a walk, feet taking time to navigate the deep roots thrust into the soil along the base of the giants. His free hand pulled the glareshades from the pouch of his trousers and slipped them on to conceal the glow of his blue eyes. Their pace stalled as he spoke from his mind to the woman beside him.

We're close. Do you need time to rest?

But as he asked his question, his nose detected a foreign smell in the forest. One he knew well from the course of battle—the coppery scent of blood spilled. Crouched along the roots, one hand on the moss-covered surface, he crept deeper into the trees. His right hand tightened on the grips of the bow as he moved a dozen meters further, where he paused. Even with the shades blunting his vision to a degree, his senses were well-honed and amplified by family genetics and the Force. There, in a slight hovel in the ground, lay bodies. By the shapes, there were five adults and three children. The odor of ozone still clung to the ravaged bodies where they were unceremoniously dumped to the earth. He knelt, his knee close to a small pool of blood, and reached out with his free hand to gently close the eyelids of one of the children. Rigor mortis had set in and resisted his light touch, the unseeing eyes of the girl child staring up into the branches that made up the canopy above.

There was no debate as to the source of the tragedy. Boot prints littered the area before heading toward the boulder formation. He slipped off the shades and laid them on the wet earth as he took in the carnage. Not only were the people killed, but the evidence of their disarray revealed their possessions had been rifled through in search of valuables. His hand smoothed out clothing and readjusted their bodies tossed down like garbage to be forgotten. The woman's skirt was pulled down and her face raised from the soil. Gently he wiped the mud from her pale cheek. With the obstruction gone from his eyes, he could make out a familial resemblance between the adults and the children—a family.

Slowly he eased them from their death pose and disheveled forms into a more gentle setting. He sat on his haunches and released a low tune of guttural, unintelligible words. A solemn hymn sung for the departed. To find a peaceful journey from this plane of existence and a blessing on their rebirth. When it finished, he stayed there, feeling the stirring of rage within his breast.

Rin Taal

 

[Rin Taal]

Rin watched Muad leave the pavilion without needing to ask what he intended. Rain had softened the camp beyond the shelter of the canvas into wavering shapes of shadow and amber light, lanterns glowing like small earthbound stars through the silver curtain while water whispered from wagon roofs and gathered in shallow streams beneath their wheels. She followed him as far as the edge before her steps carried her in a slightly different direction. There was one thing to be done before they left. Rin had traveled too many roads and survived too many uncertain nights to simply disappear into darkness without leaving word behind, particularly when others might suffer for not knowing where she had gone. Muad continued toward the speeder while Rin turned between the sleeping wagons, leaving the harp safely behind in the pavilion until she could collect it again.

Kaio and Mara had not fallen asleep yet. A muted glow remained behind the canvas of their wagon, warm against the rain-darkened wood, and Rin stopped outside rather than intruding. She tapped twice against the frame, quietly enough not to carry through the sleeping camp but firmly enough to announce herself to anyone still awake within. Kaio appeared a few moments later, weariness upon his face and the remnants of interrupted conversation still lingering in his expression. Whatever question he might have asked faded when he saw Rin standing there in the rain at an hour when she should have been settling down with everyone else. She looked much as she had all evening, damp now and without her harp, but otherwise unchanged. Perhaps that alone told him something. Rin was not a woman inclined to bother someone in the middle of a storm without reason.

"Muad and I are going back toward the stones we passed earlier," she told him quietly, keeping her voice beneath the endless murmur of rain. There was no drama in the announcement, only the calm certainty with which she might have discussed tomorrow's route. "The four men we encountered may still be there, and I don't think they're people we should leave behind us without knowing more." She did not tell him what Muad intended if they found them. That choice belonged to the two people making it, and Rin would not burden Kaio with knowledge he neither needed nor had asked to carry. What he did need was enough information to protect everyone who depended upon the caravan if she did not return.

Her golden eyes held his steadily as she continued. "If we're not back by morning, don't wait for us. Take the longer route and keep everyone away from the boulders. Don't send anyone looking." She knew Kaio well enough to expect that last instruction might be the hardest one for him to accept, but she offered no argument before he could make one. These people had traveled together too long for either of them to pretend the possibility beneath her words did not exist. Rin had watched some of them grow from children into parents. She had held newborns whose own children now ran laughing between the wagons. If something waited in those woods capable of preventing her return, the last thing she wanted was Kaio leading more people toward it because loyalty demanded they search.

For a moment, neither needed to say anything. Rain filled the space between words, running from Rin's hair and tracing cool paths along her cheeks while warm light spilled around Kaio from the wagon behind him. Then the faintest smile returned to her expression, gentle enough to soften what might otherwise have sounded too much like farewell. "I'll see you in the morning." She offered the words without making them a promise. Rin had lived too long to promise returns before walking knowingly into danger, but neither would she leave him with something that sounded like goodbye. A small nod passed between them, carrying everything else that did not need saying, before Rin turned away and left Kaio beneath the shelter of his wagon.

Muad was already at her speeder when she reached him, reclaiming the weapons he had left there earlier. Rin moved past him and opened the driver's door, then reached beneath one of the narrow benches for a concealed compartment built into the speeder itself. The woman who had spent the evening coaxing music from harp strings did not disappear when the compartment opened, nor did anything colder replace her. There was no transformation to witness. The same hands that had drawn music from strings and carried bowls to tables simply began fastening weapons into familiar places with the quiet practicality another person might have used to pull on a coat before stepping into bad weather.

Three knives came first. One disappeared into a sheath at her waist, another was secured along her thigh, and the smallest found its familiar concealed place beneath her clothing. The two blades already resting along her forearms needed no attention, hidden where they had remained throughout the day and evening, silent secrets against her skin. A blaster settled against her opposite hip before Rin reached deeper into the compartment and withdrew her rifle. She checked it by touch and habit, fingers moving across familiar mechanisms with economical certainty born from repetition rather than haste, then slung it comfortably across her body where it would remain close without hindering her movement. A pair of glareshades followed, folded and slipped for the moment into an easily reached pocket. No sword joined the collection, no grand blade waiting dramatically across her back. What she carried had been chosen for usefulness. Nothing was ornamental, and nothing needed to announce what she was capable of before necessity asked her to prove it.

When Muad closed the speeder and offered his shadow-hidden wink, Rin's golden eyes caught what little lantern light reached them, their unnatural luminosity momentarily brighter against the darkness surrounding her. "Hunt," she echoed softly, a trace of that lingering half-smile touching her mouth before she turned with him toward the dark. The camp fell away around them, one small island of warmth at a time, Rin moving through its sleeping edges with the instinctive care of someone accustomed to leaving places without disturbing them. Her steps chose wet earth instead of loose stone, and grass instead of puddles whenever either was offered. Children's conspiratorial whispers slipped through one shelter, voices dropping dramatically as some frightening tale approached whatever monster waited at its conclusion, while elsewhere came softer murmurs belonging to adults enjoying the privacy darkness and weather afforded them. Wagons creaked as sleeping bodies shifted within and canvas breathed gently beneath the rain. These were people asleep beneath roofs they trusted, surrounded by companions they expected to find again when morning came.

Those ordinary sounds carried a little more weight for Rin now because Kaio knew. If she did not walk back into camp before dawn surrendered to morning, the wagons would move without her. Children would be gathered, fires extinguished, canvas folded, and wheels turned toward the longer road. The thought brought neither fear nor sadness, only the quiet reassurance that what needed to be done had been done. A guide could not promise always to remain upon the road. She could only make certain that those traveling it knew how to continue if, one day, she was no longer there to show the way. Whatever she and Muad were about to do belonged beyond these little circles of warmth, and Rin intended to keep it there.

Once the last lantern vanished behind the trees, Muad lengthened his stride, and Rin matched him without ceremony. There was no dramatic burst of speed, no visible effort to prove she could. Her gait simply opened until the distance between steps lengthened, her body settling naturally into the demanding pace as though some older rhythm had awakened beneath the quiet grace he had seen all day. Her tail became part of every shift in balance, flowing behind her and adjusting almost imperceptibly whenever roots, slick ground, or uneven terrain demanded it. Rain gathered in her hair and streamed along her face, darkened her clothing, and traced cold paths across exposed skin, but her breathing remained measured. Once, when Muad glanced sideways to find her still effortlessly beside him, Rin caught the look and the faintest curve touched her lips. She said nothing. There would be time enough later for him to decide whether this counted among the mysterious talents she had promised.

The world narrowed as the hour passed. Road became forest, forest became shadow, and eventually even those shadows began dissolving into mist. Great trunks emerged from the haze like pillars of some roofless cathedral, only to disappear behind them again, their crowns lost somewhere beyond sight while rain whispered endlessly through the leaves overhead. The rifle rested securely against Rin as she ran, never knocking awkwardly against her stride, while the weapons she carried seemed to disappear into the shape of her until they were less an arsenal than extensions of long habit. There was something strangely peaceful in the movement despite their purpose. No conversation was necessary. For a while there was only rain, breath, earth passing beneath their feet, and the quiet certainty that whenever either looked aside, the other would still be there.

When Muad slowed, Rin slowed with him, the transition from distance-eating stride to careful silence passing through her almost seamlessly. Her steps shortened as they slipped deeper among the trees, each footfall finding its place among roots thick enough to break an ankle and patches of mud eager to preserve the story of anyone careless enough to cross them. She watched Muad draw the glareshades over his luminous blue eyes and reached into her own pocket almost at the same moment. Rin unfolded hers and slipped them into place, extinguishing the warm golden glow that might otherwise have betrayed her position between the dark trunks. The world dimmed behind the lenses, but not enough to trouble her. Better to surrender a little sight than allow two pairs of unnatural eyes to move through the forest like wandering lanterns.

His voice reached her mind without disturbing the silence around them. We're close. Do you need time to rest? A flicker of amusement might have answered him under any other circumstances. Rin had barely begun forming the thought when something in Muad changed. It was almost nothing, merely a pause where there should not have been one, the smallest shift of his attention away from the path ahead, but she had spent enough time observing people to notice when movement ceased for a reason. Then the wind threaded between the trees and brought something with it that required no supernatural sense to recognize. Beneath rain, bark, wet leaves, and freshly disturbed earth came the unmistakable copper tang of blood, and whatever amused answer Rin might have offered vanished before it ever reached him.

She followed several paces behind as Muad moved deeper into the forest, her rifle slipping soundlessly from where it rested into her hands. The scent strengthened with every careful step, something terribly warm remembered within a forest gone cold, until shapes slowly gathered substance through the mist ahead. At first they were only pale interruptions against the dark forest floor, things the eye might desperately have mistaken for fallen branches or discarded cloth if instinct had not already understood. Then distance surrendered its mercy, and the details became impossible to misunderstand. Five adults and three children lay beneath the trees, and for several heartbeats Rin simply stood where the sight had stopped her while rain whispered around eight lives that would never hear it again.

Water slipped from the ends of Rin's hair and traced cold lines down her face while her hidden golden eyes traveled slowly across what had been left behind. The scattered possessions told their own ugly story. Belongings opened and emptied. Clothing disturbed. Bodies abandoned wherever they had fallen or been thrown once whatever value they possessed had been taken. Lives had been treated with less consideration than the objects stolen from beside them. One of the children was small enough that Rin's gaze faltered away for a single heartbeat before returning, because looking elsewhere would not undo what had happened and the dead deserved better than to become something the living refused to see.

A century and a half had taught Rin many things about death. She knew the peculiar stillness it left behind and how quickly warmth departed the body. She had buried strangers and people she loved, had seen death arrive gently after long lives and watched it tear people from the world with terrible cruelty. Familiarity had taught her how to stand in its presence without breaking, but it had never taught her indifference. Perhaps she was grateful for that. There were lessons a person survived long enough to learn and others they should hope never took root, no matter how many years accumulated behind them.

Muad moved among the bodies, and Rin gave him the space to do what he could for them. She remained several steps away with the rifle lowered but ready, keeping part of her attention upon the living forest while he returned what dignity remained within his power to give. From the corner of her eye she saw him straighten clothing strangers had left disordered, lift a face from the mud, and arrange limbs left carelessly twisted. Small gestures, perhaps useless to the dead if usefulness were the only measure by which kindness was judged, but Rin had never believed it was. Each movement was a quiet refusal to leave these people as their killers had left them, some final declaration that they had possessed names, histories, loves, annoyances, laughter, and lives before someone else decided they were worth less than whatever could be stolen from their belongings.

Then Muad began to sing, and Rin became still enough that even the forest seemed to move more than she did. She did not know the words and found that she did not need to. The low hymn moved beneath the rain rather than fighting against it, guttural syllables threading themselves through the endless patter of water upon leaf and earth. There was something ancient in its cadence, something that seemed less performed than remembered. Rin lowered her rifle until its muzzle pointed toward the ground and bowed her head, giving Muad and the eight souls lying beneath the trees the only offering she possessed that would not intrude upon his own. Her silence remained with them while rain gathered upon the dead in tiny jeweled beads, washing mud from skin and darkening clothing already stained beyond cleansing. Somewhere far behind them, children dreamed beneath canvas roofs, lovers whispered in darkened wagons, and fires settled peacefully into embers, none of them knowing how close death had already walked beside their road.

When the final words faded, Rin did not immediately move. The silence afterward seemed somehow different from the one that had preceded the hymn, heavier without being louder, as though something had been acknowledged that could never be made right. Her gaze rested upon the smallest bodies first, then traveled toward the boot prints churned deeply into the wet earth and the trail leading toward the boulders. Whatever uncertainty she might once have carried about what needed to happen tonight disappeared somewhere between those footprints and the small, sightless faces behind her. The men ahead were no longer merely a possible danger to the caravan or an obstacle standing between Muad and forgotten ruins. They had already found someone else's family, and whatever choices remained tonight had begun with the ones those men had already made.

Rin stepped quietly beside Muad and looked down for a moment at the family he had arranged with such care, her expression softening with a grief too old and too familiar to require tears before her attention returned to the mist-shrouded forest ahead. Rain whispered over her glareshades and slipped from their edges as her fingers settled more firmly around the rifle. I don't need to rest, she answered at last, the thought passing silently between them with a calmness far colder than fury would have been. Rin did not need a dramatic vow or hatred sharp enough to burn. She simply followed the footprints until mist swallowed them among the trees and allowed certainty to settle into the place where hesitation had once lived. And now neither do they.

Muad Dib

 

[Muad Dib]

There was nothing more to be done for the fallen. Rin's whispered thoughts paralleled his own sentiments. His hand slipped the glareshades back on before wiping the rain from his face. Rising, he brushed his knee free of the forest's debris and looked up to the canopy above. The gods of Batuu mourn your passing. Sleep well, and awake to new life. He turned to move next to Rin and viewed the woman at his side. She had taken the journey with him, witnessed the cruel lethality of the soldiers, and now prepared to deliver death to the unsuspecting soldiers. The bonds of those who traveled together were about to be strengthened by the shedding of blood among those they both deemed enemies.

His free hand lightly touched her shoulder, both comforting and directional. Where they stood now, at the edge of the treeline, the upthrust stone of the boulder formation was just visible. The rain fell harder and, when combined with the mist enveloping the terrain, made visibility very limited. At this angle, the boulders rose high; the bowl-shaped depression in the center remained unseen. As far as he could tell, there were no lookouts. However, that would be poor planning by the soldiers on a planet not their own. He stretched out in the Force, sensing the quartet in the boulders.

Surprise, he didn't sense merely four. Instead, their number had grown. And not just there. Now he sensed twelve members. Each as cold as the others. Whether the family was felled when the number was four or twelve, it mattered little to Muad. They would all taste death this night. With the Force outstretched, he sensed their positioning.

Above them, hidden in the branches of the great tree, were two tethered to the trunks. He could sense their annoyance for having been sent there. Water ran beneath their collars and dampened their clothes, causing one to mutter in frustration. The other merely fought with the branches which obscured his view and tried to scrape sap from his armor. During the climb, his tools pierced the tree deeply, and they were coated with the sticky fluid, marring both his rifle and his helmet.

Hidden in the long grass of the meadow lay another pair of watchers. One was angry. Small insects had found their way to his flesh and were valiantly trying to carve pieces away with small pincers. His attention was divided between these and the movement of the grass near his face. He thought he had seen the tail of a snake, and he could clearly hear the hissing. What he mistook for the tail was only a clump of damp grass that waved due to the wind. The meadow still felt the strong breeze and rubbed long wet strands of vegetation against one another to emit a low hiss—the sounds of nature, unfamiliar to the city-born soldier. The second soldier was silent and watchful, ignoring the pests, weather, and his comrade, to the indignant annoyance of his partner.

The rest were in the boulders in various stages of slumber. This made their endeavor more tedious. If just one of their number raised the alarm, it would rouse the rest of the soldiers and risk a transmission sent to the Corvette, wherever it may be.

His thoughts reached out to Rin as he shared his findings. Though from what he had learned over the course of twenty-four hours, he wouldn't be surprised if she knew everything he did.

Two spotters in the trees above us. Two in the plains. Each pair needs to be neutralized before we assault the camp. Lady's preferences on which she wants. And a countdown so we both act in unison.

Rin Taal

 

[Rin Taal]

Rin remained still beneath Muad's hand as his findings reached her through the quiet connection between their minds. Twelve. Her golden eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly behind the darkened glareshades, but surprise never quite reached the rest of her face. She had already begun to suspect the four men they had encountered earlier were no longer alone. The rain had done its best to erase the evidence, turning old tracks into shallow impressions and washing scents deep into the wet earth, but twelve bodies disturbed a place differently than four. There had been too much passage through the grass near the stones, too many broken stems bent beneath boots, and beneath the rich smells of rain, bark, and churned soil lingered traces of beings who did not belong to the forest. She had not known how many. Now she did.

Her gaze lifted slowly toward the canopy, following the immense trunks until they disappeared into a ceiling of mist and rain, then traveled outward toward the meadow beyond. Four sentries between them and the boulders. Two hidden among branches woven so densely overhead that they seemed to hold up the darkness itself, and another two swallowed by long grasses silvered beneath the rain. Rin could not clearly see any of them from where she stood, nor did she need to. She had spent most of her life learning to read wilderness by what it revealed rather than what she wished it would tell her. A branch displaced where the surrounding growth remained undisturbed. Water falling strangely from leaves where something larger interrupted its path. The faintest metallic complaint swallowed beneath the endless percussion of rain. Beyond the treeline, grasses bending against the prevailing wind where bodies pressed into the earth beneath them.

Lady's preference on which she wants.

The faintest smile touched Rin's mouth.

Both.

Her golden gaze shifted toward Muad, and for just an instant there was something almost playful in it despite the grim purpose that had brought them here. He had asked which pair she preferred. The answer, apparently, was that she saw little reason to choose.

You may take whichever pair you prefer.

Her attention returned to the forest before them. She had promised him another set of skills, after all. She simply had not expected the opportunity to demonstrate quite so many of them before morning.

Something old stirred quietly within her as she studied the living world surrounding them. It had been many years since Rin had thought about those childhood lessons by their proper names. Perhaps she never truly had. They belonged to her earliest years in the same way songs, recipes, and the proper way to follow an animal trail belonged to childhood, things learned so young that eventually one forgot there had ever been a time before knowing them. Veradune had taught its children that a forest was never merely scenery. It lived. It breathed. Trees remembered wounds and reached patiently toward light. Animals spoke through movement, scent, fear, hunger, and instinct long before words ever existed. To those willing to listen, the wild was rarely silent.

The soldier above had wounded the tree. Rin could smell the sharp sweetness of sap beneath the rain. Her expression changed by only the smallest degree.

Give me a moment first.

Her fingers moved briefly against Muad's wrist before his hand left her shoulder, a small acknowledgment that she understood the need for perfect timing, and then Rin lowered herself beside one of the enormous roots rising from the earth. Her rifle remained secured against her, untouched. So did the blaster at her hip and the knives hidden along her body. She possessed enough conventional ways to kill a man, but gunfire was precisely what they wished to avoid, and climbing after armed sentries would accomplish little except offer those men warning that death was coming. There were quieter weapons all around them. Older ones.

She removed one glove and settled her bare palm against rain-darkened bark. For several breaths, nothing happened.

Rain whispered through thousands upon thousands of leaves. Water streamed down ancient grooves in the trunk beneath her fingers, gathering briefly against the heel of her palm before continuing toward the roots below. Rin closed her eyes behind the glareshades, not reaching outward with the broad awareness of a Jedi searching the Force for hidden enemies. Her attention narrowed and, in some ways, grew much deeper. Into the living thing beneath her hand. Into the slow passage of water through wood, the patient tension held within roots and limbs, the innumerable tiny responses of something alive yet moving according to a measure of time profoundly different from her own.

She did not command it. She asked. The answer was almost too subtle to notice.

Leaves trembled overhead despite the wind briefly falling still. A root shifted beneath her palm with a sound like earth quietly settling after rain, and somewhere far above, a burdened branch gave a low wooden murmur. Vines climbed those ancient heights, some slender and young, others thickened by years spent winding themselves around trunks and limbs in an endless search for light. One loosened almost imperceptibly from the branch it embraced. Another followed. Then another. Their movement was so gradual, so perfectly hidden beneath wind and weather, that anyone watching might have blamed nothing more than the weight of rain.

But the trees were only half of what Rin heard.

Beyond the treeline, beneath long grass beaten wet and heavy by the storm, smaller lives stirred.

Her awareness brushed them differently. Trees possessed a patience almost beyond comprehension, but animals were bright sparks by comparison, alive with immediate impressions of warmth, shelter, hunger, fear, and threat. Rin did not need words to reach them. Words would have meant nothing. Instead, she offered something simpler, a gentle pressure of instinct against instinct, an awareness passing through the living web between them.

There where the warmth is a threat. The response came first as movement so slight it barely disturbed the grass.

One of the soldiers had heard hissing earlier and dismissed it as wet stalks rubbing together in the wind. He had not been entirely wrong about the sound. He had merely been wrong to assume there was nothing beneath it.

A slender shape unwound itself from beneath the shelter of a half-buried root, scales slick with rain as it slipped silently through flattened grass. Another emerged farther away from beneath a stone warmed by the memory of the day's sun. Then a third. Native vipers, creatures that had sought shelter from the storm until something older than language touched their instincts and drew their attention elsewhere. Rin did not seize their minds or hollow out their natural will. She gave them direction, sharpening awareness of the foreign bodies lying hidden where the meadow met the forest and turning their defensive instincts toward a threat that had intruded upon their world.

The soldier who had imagined a snake's tail shifted irritably among the grass. This time, something shifted back.

Rin opened her eyes.

Through the living connection beneath her palm, the wilderness unfolded around her in fragments no pair of eyes alone could have provided. Above were two foreign burdens among the branches, metal driven cruelly through bark, boots and tether lines pressing against living wood. Beyond were two pools of unnatural warmth lying low among the grass while serpentine bodies drew silently nearer, concealed by the same rain and vegetation those men had trusted to hide them.

Four sentries. Four lives balanced upon a moment they did not yet know was coming.

Rin's golden gaze found Muad through the rain. Ready.

She did not need to explain what she had done. If Muad looked carefully toward the meadow, perhaps he might notice the faint wakes moving through the wet grass. If he looked upward, perhaps he might see vines hanging where moments earlier they had not. Or perhaps he would see nothing at all until the wilderness revealed its intent.

Rin remained kneeling beside the ancient tree, one hand pressed gently against its bark. Water traced the line of her cheek and gathered beneath her jaw before falling away. Her breathing remained slow and even, her expression almost peaceful despite what waited at the end of their silent coordination. She had spent much of the past century and a half carrying rifles, blades, and blasters across worlds far removed from Veradune. She knew their usefulness and had never hesitated to employ them when necessary. Yet those weapons had never been the first language she had learned here.

The forest remembered that language even if she rarely spoke it anymore.

Above, vines eased silently into place. One curled along a branch behind an unsuspecting sentry, moving by fractions until rain and darkness concealed it against the trunk. Another crept nearer the second man's position, finding purchase among wet bark and the equipment he had driven into the tree. They did not strike. Not yet. They simply waited, held in living tension around men too distracted by discomfort and weather to notice the forest had quietly rearranged itself around them.

In the meadow, the vipers waited as well.

One lay coiled beneath flattened grass scarcely more than a body length from a soldier's exposed hand. Another had slipped near the gap between the armor and the boot, where fabric disappeared beneath the protective plating. The third remained farther back, tongue tasting rain-heavy air while its body formed a silent curve among the roots. Rin held no rigid command over them. She offered direction and intent, then trusted creatures shaped by countless generations of survival to understand what came next.

Her eyes remained upon Muad. Take whichever two you like.

The slightest curve returned to one corner of her mouth. The others are mine.

Then she waited for his count.

Nothing in Rin's posture changed when the first number touched her thoughts. Her palm remained against the tree, fingers relaxed upon rain-slick bark while the world breathed around her. On the second, she drew one slow breath, feeling the readiness held both high among the branches and low beneath the meadow grass.

On the final count, her fingers curled gently against the bark.

Above them, the forest closed its hand.

Vines that had moved with the patience of growing things suddenly possessed none. They tightened in the same heartbeat, living coils snapping into place around limbs and bodies before either sentry could understand that the branches surrounding them had ceased to be cover. The trees swallowed movement and sound alike beneath the drumming rain, holding their unwanted occupants within the canopy rather than allowing gravity to betray what had happened with a falling body.

Out in the meadow, the grass came alive.

Scaled bodies struck from concealment in flashes almost too quick for sight, guided toward the vulnerable spaces between armor and flesh. One viper recoiled only to strike again while another vanished beneath the wet grass almost as swiftly as it had appeared, nature offering neither ceremony nor warning. Whatever pair Muad chose for himself, the other two discovered in that same instant that the wilderness they had dismissed as miserable, wet, and inconvenient had never been empty.

Rin did not move from beside the tree until it was done.

Only then did her hand soften against the bark, something almost like gratitude passing silently through the connection before she withdrew her palm. The forest had not become hers. The vipers were not servants waiting upon her pleasure. They were living things whose paths she had touched for a moment and whose aid she had asked in a language learned long before she ever left Veradune.

She slipped her glove back over her hand and rose smoothly, rain gleaming across the dark lenses concealing her luminous eyes. Somewhere beneath the quiet practicality of what they had just done lingered the faintest trace of the woman who had smiled at him over harp strings only hours earlier.

She had promised him another set of skills. Apparently, she had neglected to mention there was more than one.

Muad Dib

 

[Muad Dib]

Both.

His head turned, and he looked at her cloaked in the shadows of the giant trees. He could have sworn there was an almost playful lilt to her voice in his head. Her fingers lightly touched his wrist as he removed his hand from her shoulder. His hand twitched, most likely from the recently healed nerve endings. Curiosity colored his face as he watched her remove one glove before placing her palm on the ancient tree's trunk.

Water dripped steadily from the heavens. He wasn't sure if it was considered rain if it fell from the canopy's leaves above. Regardless, they continued to be soaked. Though she wore glareshades, he knew her eyes had closed as she reached out. He felt the connection in the Force as she wove intent with an askance of nature. He knelt on the leaf-littered ground and waited patiently, sure he was about to see another layer peel back from his traveling companion.

He wasn't disappointed.

Communion was the best way to describe what Rin performed—a mutually symbiotic effort. There was no forcing of will or nefarious coercion. Instead, she slowly integrated her thoughts and understanding with the plant life as well as several points of life in the meadow. The Interlopers had desecrated nature, gouging deep into the trees' flesh, and there was very little wordless debate to prompt the ancient giants to act in self-interest.

In the meadows, he felt the coldly calculating reptiles who were nudged to awareness. When the men found their spots in the wet, high grass, they disturbed several small mammals, which fled from their slumber. Food for the snakes chased away by men. And unknowingly, or perhaps with clear thought to their actions, a small den of the serpents collapsed, sealing the young deep in the moist earth. The vipers needed no aid to bring their cold fury to a simmer of action.

His head turned as he observed Rin, whose breathing had slowed. The night had grown chilly, and her breath escaped in the heat-born fog produced by her lungs. Other than the slow rise and fall of her chest and the occasional exhale of mist, Rin was still. But in the Force he could see her activity. Long tendrils of thought and emotion traveled across the still meadow and the weeping trees to intertwine with the will of nature. Simple suggestions led to the unnoticed activity as vines crept with the slow stealth of plant life and serpents neared the bodies of heat that trespassed and damaged their homes.

Until the countdown ended.

The vise-like grips of vines, with the strength of roots, claimed the pair of violators, the figures to remain mummified for all time. Meanwhile, the vipers struck, and struck again. The highly venomous fangs injected deadly neurotoxins into the two in the field who would never rise again.

A feeling of thanks drifted from their connection as Rin replaced her glove. The slow consciousness of the tree returned to their slumber whilst the serpents explored the fresh bodies their strikes gave them. Muad shook his head ruefully and looked to the boulders while speaking just loud enough for Rin to hear his whispered words.

"Remind me not to piss off the pretty lady …"

She certainly didn't lie when she said she had skills he hadn't seen yet. What she had done was an extraordinary feat of power and cohesion. Many force users trained to learn plant surge, and most of them gave up, choosing to utilize telekinesis instead. To truly commune with nature, as she did, required an understanding of nature and a balance of ability and power. She had shown all the above. Speaking to animals was simple, if you wanted to use telepathy to control your subjects. She did not. What she used was her understanding of the situation to give the creatures options afforded through knowledge not their own. Yeah, Rin had most assuredly shown him something.

Yup, she's definitely a witch …

This time the thought had him wondering if she had spent any time on the planet Dathomir. Then he swept the musing away as he turned to Rin, who once again joined him and waited for him to react.

Why do I get the feeling she's enjoying this far more than she should. Always waiting for a reaction from me. Well, I'm not going to give her the pleasure …

He smirked knowing that he had neither severed their internal communion nor muted his thoughts. Instead he gestured with his right hand to the boulder and the eight slumbering soldiers.

Well darlin' I think I've decided to follow your lead. What's next my guide, rescuer, and musician, in no particular order?

His teeth gleamed in the sparse light, a bemused feral grin. His curiosity in the woman grew as he wondered what their next action, dictated by Rin with home field advantage, would be.

Rin Taal

 

[Rin Taal]

Muad's whispered comment earned exactly the reaction he had apparently hoped not to give her. One corner of Rin's mouth curved beneath the rain, subtle at first, though the amusement behind it became considerably harder to conceal when his thoughts followed closely behind. Their connection had never been severed, and apparently Muad had forgotten that particular detail somewhere between watching the trees swallow two soldiers and deciding the woman beside him was enjoying his reactions far more than she ought to. Rin slowly turned her head toward him, the dark lenses of her glareshades concealing whatever expression might have been waiting in those luminous golden eyes, but the smile beneath them was unmistakable as her answer slipped quietly across the connection between them. I can still hear you.

The thought carried such perfect calm that it somehow held more mischief than laughter would have, and Rin allowed the reminder to linger just long enough for him to appreciate his mistake before turning her attention toward the distant boulders once more. Rain whispered steadily through the canopy, gathering upon broad leaves before descending in heavier droplets around them, while beyond the shelter of the trees the meadow bent and shivered beneath the weather. Somewhere above and behind them, vines remained wound around the soldiers who had driven metal into the ancient trees, their purpose fulfilled and their movement gradually subsiding as the great trunks settled once more into their slow existence. Farther out, the vipers had disappeared again into the wet grass after delivering their venom, reclaimed by a landscape that seemed almost untouched by the violence it had just committed. Batuu had swallowed the disturbance with remarkable ease, leaving only rain, darkness, and four fewer threats between the caravan and whatever waited among the stones.

Muad's next thought drew another faint curve from Rin's lips. Guide, rescuer, and musician. He had apparently settled upon those three titles for her now, in no particular order, though the list seemed increasingly inadequate considering how often he discovered something about her that he had not expected. Rin did not bother correcting him. There was considerably more amusement to be found in allowing Muad to make those discoveries for himself, particularly when his reactions afterward proved nearly as entertaining as the surprise itself. His decision to follow her lead, however, deserved more serious consideration, and the playful warmth gradually faded into concentration as she looked beyond the trees toward the boulder formation.

Its upthrust stones were little more than enormous black shapes through the shifting curtains of rain and mist, distant across the meadow exactly where they had been when Muad first sensed the soldiers within. Ordinary sight offered little more than an impression of their shape from here, and although Muad had already given her the number waiting inside, knowing that eight men remained told them little about where those men were positioned or what awaited anyone attempting to enter. Crossing the meadow merely to discover more would surrender much of the advantage they had so carefully preserved. The four outer sentries had died without a warning reaching the camp, and Rin had no intention of wasting that silence when there might be another way to see what waited beyond the stones.

Fortunately, she did not necessarily require her own eyes to do so.

Rin lowered herself beside one of the enormous roots at the treeline, remaining well within the shelter of the ancient forest while the boulders waited across the open ground beyond. Her rifle remained securely across her back and clear of the wet earth as she settled into a comfortable crouch, then closed her eyes behind the dark lenses of her glareshades. This time she did not remove her glove or place her palm against the tree. What she intended was subtler than the communion Muad had just witnessed, requiring no great ancient consciousness to awaken and no shared grievance to turn toward a common enemy. She needed only to listen carefully enough to discover what other lives occupied the darkness between here and there, and whether any among them might willingly lend her senses her own body could not provide.

Her awareness reached outward into a world that was almost overwhelmingly alive. The forest had never truly been silent despite the smothering weight of night and rain, and now every layer of it seemed to reveal something different beneath her attention. Insects sheltered beneath bark while tiny burrowing creatures tucked themselves safely beneath saturated earth. Something feathered shifted irritably beneath a distant canopy before settling again, and small nocturnal hunters moved through brush and root with the patient certainty of creatures that had followed the same paths long before Rin or Muad ever arrived. None possessed what she needed, and so she touched each awareness only lightly before moving onward, never intruding deeply enough to startle or disturb lives that had nothing to do with the violence unfolding around them.

Her search passed beyond the edge of the trees and spilled quietly into the meadow, where the texture of life changed beneath tall grasses heavy with rain. She felt faint, cool impressions of reptiles moving through places the vipers had recently reclaimed, while small mammals huddled beneath whatever shelter they could find and insects clung stubbornly to stalks bent nearly double beneath gathered water. Rin passed among them without asking anything, allowing her awareness to travel farther across the open ground until it reached the looming darkness of the boulders.

There, among the stones, she found something.

The consciousness was small, tucked somewhere within the formation where the worst of the rain could not reach and larger creatures could never have followed. Its thoughts possessed none of the complexity of the people occupying its territory, shaped instead by warmth and hunger, the memory of movement, vibrations passing through stone, and an instinctive displeasure toward the enormous creatures whose arrival had disturbed familiar hunting grounds. Rin paused at the edge of that little awareness and touched it as gently as she knew how, only for the creature to recoil immediately from the impossible presence that had suddenly appeared at the borders of its world.

Rin withdrew just as quickly. She made no attempt to catch the creature before it could escape her, nor did she close some invisible mental hand around its consciousness and force obedience from something too small to resist. Instead, she softened her presence until what remained was no more threatening than warmth filtering through sunlit stone and simply waited. She had learned long ago that trust could not be dragged closer merely because one possessed the strength to do so, and eventually curiosity accomplished what force never could.

The little creature tentatively reached back toward the strange awareness lingering nearby, and Rin met it halfway.

For one disorienting moment, she seemed to occupy two places at once. Rain continued gathering upon her clothing beneath the trees, cold moisture tracing paths along her skin while somewhere far across the meadow dry stone pressed beneath a small scaled body. Her ears heard droplets striking leaves overhead even as another awareness perceived the faint scrape of fabric against rock, the subtle rhythm of breathing, and heavy vibrations traveling through the ground whenever something much larger shifted nearby. Two worlds overlapped without either completely surrendering itself to the other, her own senses remaining present even as another set slowly opened before her and offered an entirely different way of understanding the darkness.

Sight came gradually, and it was nothing like looking through her own eyes. The shadows inside the boulders possessed different meanings to a creature made to survive close to stone and earth, shapes distorted by senses that valued motion and warmth more than the details Rin herself might have noticed. A shifting hand became immediately significant, while the turn of a sleeping body altered the little creature's entire perception of the space around it. Hidden safely within its crevice, it watched the enormous intruders occupying its territory from a place none of them had ever thought to notice, and beneath the distant trees Rin breathed slowly and allowed herself to see with it.

Muad had been right. There were eight.

Several slept wherever shelter and exhaustion had allowed them, stretched across bedrolls or resting against packs, but not all had surrendered completely to sleep. One remained awake near the interior of the formation, his posture carrying the loose vigilance of someone enduring a watch he clearly did not want, while another lay down but shifted too often and too deliberately to have fallen deeply asleep. Weapons remained close enough to be reached quickly, some resting beside their owners while others had been leaned against stone or placed among equipment, and Rin quietly gathered every fragment the borrowed senses offered her.

She needed more than numbers, however, and rather than command the little creature forward, Rin shared her curiosity with it in impressions simple enough to fit naturally among the instincts already occupying its mind. Movement might have disturbed insects. Warmth might promise prey. Familiar cracks farther along the stone remained inviting despite the lumbering strangers who had invaded them. Whether any of those possibilities interested it remained entirely its decision, but curiosity won again and tiny claws began finding imperfections invisible to larger beings, carrying the creature through narrow passages while Rin remained a quiet presence within its awareness.

The perspective shifted constantly, offering only fragments at first, but fragments were enough. Rin began assembling the camp piece by piece from what the creature encountered: sleeping positions and weapons, packs and equipment, narrow approaches between the boulders, places where shadows gathered deeply enough to conceal movement and others where anyone crossing would become exposed. She paid particular attention to the routes through the formation, already imagining how those confined passages might prevent eight soldiers from ever becoming a single coordinated force, but there was something even more important she needed to find before any plan could begin.

Communications.

Killing eight soldiers would mean considerably less if even one survived long enough to warn whatever vessel had brought them here, and Rin continued searching through borrowed senses until the little creature slipped through another narrow opening and something caught her attention. A compact communications unit rested beneath a covering intended to protect it from the weather, positioned close enough to the wakeful soldier that he could reach it quickly. Whether it possessed the range to contact their ship directly or merely another receiver capable of relaying the message did not matter. It was a voice beyond the boulders, and therefore it had to be silenced before anyone inside realized they needed it.

Rin lingered only long enough to understand its position relative to the approaches she had already seen before gently withdrawing from the little creature. The separation was as careful as the joining had been, leaving no command behind, no compulsion for it to remain where it was and no expectation that it involve itself further in a conflict belonging to beings far larger than itself. A quiet impression of gratitude passed through the fading connection, accompanied by the suggestion of plentiful insects beneath another sheltered stretch of stone away from the intruders, though whether it chose to investigate was entirely its own affair.

The world beneath the trees returned to Rin in slow layers. First came the steady murmur of rain, followed by the cold dampness of her clothing and the earthy perfume of moss, soaked leaves and dark soil. The immense root beside her regained its solidity beneath one hand, while the distant boulders once again became nothing more than shadowed shapes across a meadow veiled in mist. Last came the familiar awareness of Muad nearby, waiting without interruption while she found her way entirely back into herself, and Rin remained still for another breath as the peculiar sensation of seeing through eyes not her own gradually faded.

When she finally lifted her head toward him, the playful warmth that had colored their earlier exchange had given way to precise calm. Eight, as you said. Some sleeping. Two awake enough to cause trouble. Through the same private connection still open between them, Rin shared what she had learned as accurately as the creature's unfamiliar senses allowed: the positions of the soldiers, the narrow approaches through the rocks, where their weapons had been left and which two men were most likely to react immediately if something went wrong. Most importantly, she showed Muad where the communications equipment waited near one of the wakeful soldiers.

That comes first. We take away their ability to call for help before they know they need it, then deal with the two who are awake.

Twelve soldiers becoming aware they were under attack would have been dangerous enough, but eight were considerably more manageable, particularly when six of them had yet to awaken. A corvette learning that someone was systematically killing its people on the surface could turn their quiet hunt into something far larger, however, and several kilometers behind them slept an entire caravan of people who knew nothing of what Rin and Muad were doing on their behalf. Silence had protected those people thus far, and Rin intended to preserve it for as long as possible.

Her thoughts returned to the terrain she had glimpsed through borrowed eyes, fitting those strange fragments to the silhouette of the boulders visible through the rain. The narrow passages between the stones could work in their favor. Eight soldiers possessed numbers, but numbers mattered considerably less when terrain prevented them from acting together, and if she and Muad entered correctly, confusion could become another weapon. The two awake would have to fall quickly, preferably before either understood that the silence outside their camp meant their sentries were already dead, and once the communications unit was removed from the equation, the remaining six could be dealt with before they ever had the opportunity to organize.

After that, we don't give the others enough time to become eight.

The faintest hint of amusement returned as Rin remembered his earlier words. Guide, rescuer, and musician. Apparently she was guiding again, although this particular journey was rather different from getting a wounded stranger safely back to a caravan. Muad had asked what came next, though, and now she had an answer.

Rin rose smoothly from beside the great root, leaving the rifle secured across her back as she remained within the concealment of the treeline. The weapon had its uses where distance and open ground favored it, but what waited among the boulders would be fought through narrow passages and confined spaces where its length would become more hindrance than advantage. She made no move to draw it. The blaster at her hip offered a quicker answer wherever the rocks allowed a clear shot, while the three knives positioned within easy reach and the pair concealed along her forearms beneath wet sleeves provided quieter options once distance disappeared altogether.

She possessed other weapons that required neither holster nor sheath, gifts of her Zorren blood hidden so naturally in her appearance that most beings would never recognize them as weapons until far too late. Her nails could become sharp enough to cut through metal when necessary, while the pronounced canines behind her lips were considerably more formidable than their elegant appearance suggested. Rin had survived too many roads to dismiss any advantage nature had given her, but neither held any particular appeal tonight when steel and careful planning offered cleaner choices. If everything went as intended, the soldiers among those rocks would never force her into circumstances desperate enough to require either.

Her head turned toward Muad, the dark glareshades concealing the glow of her golden eyes while a small smile returned to her lips. And since you've apparently decided I'm the guide again, stay close. There was no challenge in the words and no suggestion that she doubted his ability to keep pace. It was simply practical. She knew more now about what waited inside those rocks than the soldiers themselves realized she knew, while Muad possessed abilities and experience she had already learned not to underestimate. Whatever happened next would work considerably better if they moved as two parts of the same plan rather than a pair of individuals improvising separately.

Across the meadow, the boulder formation remained silent beneath the rain, its occupants sleeping or enduring their miserable watch without any idea that the four people guarding their perimeter were already dead. They could not know that a creature small enough to escape their notice had carried the secrets of their camp into the mind of the woman watching from beneath the distant trees, nor that the two figures concealed within the forest were already deciding how best to ensure no warning ever reached the sky.

Rin studied the open ground separating them from the rocks, considering the route she had pieced together through borrowed eyes and how best to move from the concealment of the meadow into the close confines of the stone. Her rifle remained untouched across her back, and she drew none of her other weapons yet. There would be time enough for that when they crossed the distance and knew precisely what the first few seconds of their attack required. For now, the greatest weapon they possessed was that no one inside those boulders knew they were coming.

She glanced once toward Muad, rain tracing the dark lenses of her glareshades as the smallest remnant of that earlier amusement lingered at the corner of her mouth, then returned her attention to the route ahead.

Let's go.

Muad Dib

 

[Muad Dib]

His head turned while rain slipped down his collar and along his spine to settle at his tightly cinched belt. Even in the shadow, he saw the flash of her amusement. It would seem she had yet to grasp the full measure of his humor. Her head turned in his direction, a composed monarch surveying a subject. Her smile stole whatever sting that would have been offered by her carriage. Her thoughts brushed his own, pointing out his failure at keeping his innermost ponderings to himself. His smile widened into a grin as he sent a response back.

Oh? Nooooooooooooooooo ...

The snark and sarcasm were real. However, there was no barb within the impotent retort. Their connection reverberated with mischief and humor, and he looked forward to the next riposte.

He searched the skies to confirm there would be no sudden revelation of light. Turbulent forms of dark clouds congested the skies with purples and blue so deep they appeared black. And though the stars remained in their heavenly tapestry, no illumination reached the cold, wet ground. Not even the moons, luminous beings bright enough to beat back the shadows, could make headway against nature herself. His only concern for their being sighted would come from the fickle and powerful lightning that remained conspicuously absent.

And then there was the rain. Torrents fell in waves. Yet beneath the expansive canopies of the ancient trees, they did not receive the rhythmic patterns that fell amongst the grass. Instead, the branches and leaves above slowed the fall of water, turning singular drops into full splashes that were dumped onto them unceremoniously. Not that Muad was uncomfortable or irritated. He found secret pleasure in watching another large splash upend onto Rin, plastering hair to her skull and cascading down her chin to her chest. He was well aware he most likely resembled a drowned rat, but he was quite curious what her tail looked like. Perhaps she was the proverbial drowned cat to his rat.

A chuckle escaped in the night as he turned, a retort on his lips. But he kept his silence. Rin grew still, and at first he stretched out, his senses on alert as a threat neared their location. Upon finding none, he returned his attention to the soaked companion for the night. Well, for a night, then a day, and another night. Perhaps he should just say, companion. Yet the word did not reflect their current status. Initially, she was just a companion. However, as minutes grew into hours, then stretched into days, he found himself adding another title to the litany she collected—guide, healer, musician, and friend.

He shook his head and emerged back into the present. Clearly, his companion, err, friend, was back at work in the Force. He could follow the streams of power that flowed from her lithe form, but to delve into the stream, even as an observer, may distract or even cause pain. And Muad would not return pain for the kindness she had shown him, in both the night with his wounds and the engaging presence offered so freely throughout the day. Rather, he followed the flow where he sensed her presence traveled. There, in the boulders, he felt her search for life, choosing a communion with something small and unseen.

He marveled at her delicate manipulation of the Force and her integration with the unseen life. It took more power and control to commune versus control. And it spoke to the character of the woman whose focus was far away in crevices most would never think to look. He gently retreated and allowed her to work her care in peace. However, his observance did not cease.

Rocking back on his haunches, he turned just enough to bring her fully in view. Undignified in her current state, and yet, she still managed to make of it something more. She was beautiful, there was no doubt. But it was the reason she was here that caused him to make the distinction. A choice to defend those who could not. And the decision not to allow another warrior to enter into the fray without a battle-buddy. With every little discovery, he found himself liking her more and more, even with dealing with creatures whom most considered beneath them. Yet she treated them with respect and honor. It was something he rarely came across in his travels. And it endeared her to him, even if he didn't give voice to the thought.

As she was otherwise occupied, he simply watched over her body. There was no near or present danger other than the one she spied upon. In the Force he sensed no thoughts from six of the men, just the senseless meanderings of their dreamless minds. Two were not in slumber, and he chose not to make contact. There was little likelihood they would feel the presence of his mind against theirs. But neither was there a need. Rin was doing enough reconnaissance for them both.

Sharp eyes spied a massive centipede the size and length of his forearm scuttle down the tree and near her shoulder. Without thought, he collected the creature, which curled about itself, mandibles the size of the woman's pinky fingers searching for who dared to pluck it from where it was heading. Innumerable legs wavered beneath the hard carapace of its body. Long whiskers searched the air for a presence to either cling to or attack. Softly, Muad placed the creature on the next tree, far from the woman who was slowly rousing from the fugue state of her mental travel.

Patiently he waited in silence. First the subtle move of her neck, controlling her tilted head. The glareshades concealed her golden eyes, yet one hand braced against the damp root where it merely lay a moment before. He gave her time to collect herself, neither rushing her with action or words. When she was ready, she touched the link between them and spoke with an internal voice that was all business.

Brief images, strengthened by smell, taste, and vibration, wove a tapestry of information that came through the bond they shared. The sight of a communication device was concerning, but not entirely unexpected. More thoughts collected against his consciousness as he gave a curt nod of understanding and agreement.

She had the tactical knowledge and the understanding of how to utilize it to the most efficient effect. He would follow her lead and orders, should they come. Then there was the fact that tracing her steps gave him a rather pleasant view. Though perhaps he should pay more attention to their path instead of the way her wet leathers clung to her backside. Yeah, he probably should, though a small smile slipped onto his face from the entertaining perspective he glanced at.

But then it was to work, and he banished idle appreciation of her form. Especially since their bond still reverberated with her commanding words.

You're the guide. I'll stay close. Cloud cover from above hasn't diminished, so our approach shouldn't be illuminated unless there's a flash of lightning.

Her weapons remained where they were strapped and sheathed, within reach, which allowed her hands to remain empty. Only his bow occupied a hand as he emulated the wisdom of her advance in remaining prepared for the unknown. They surveyed the possibilities of their approach, the long grass still leaning on its side from the wind. Between the rustle of grass and the eternally falling rain, their approach would be minimized. Though even if there was silence, he knew Rin could move like a shadow, no sound and no appearance unless she decided to reveal herself. His own training and experience made his stealth abilities similar.

With a smirk of amusement, Rin gave the order to move out. He returned the look, amusement and excitement.

Yes ma'am.

Rin Taal