Private Prepare the Ground

[Efret Farr]

Sunlight filtered through the high canopy. The chatter of various animals tumbled down from level to level until reaching the hikers' ears, though Efret's did not, could not, process the sounds. She could, however, smell the fragrant cedar and feel the slightly humid, fresh, and gentle breeze of the foothills.

"What a beautiful place to be buried," she commented. The mechanic voice of her vocoder was even more jarring to hear than it could be in usual, urban settings, it's flat tones discordant with the diverse life of the forest.

She reached up towards a massive tree growing just above her head at a dramatic diagonal, touching its bark barely and briefly as she passed underneath it after Lysander.

"Visually and philosophically." She stepped off of the path beaten by countless animals wandering their wonderland, and up to another tree. "For your body to feed trees as ancient as these. Your atoms would be integrated into the growth rings. Pieces of you would watch the galaxy change from here." Glancing up, her gaze traced its straight trunk until, even with Force Sight, she couldn't follow it anymore. Her eyes levelled at the trunk. "I wouldn't be scared of a death that promised that legacy."

Not that she was particularly scared of any other death.

She stepped away from the tree and turned back to her newfound brother. When her hands rose, a new topic was on her fingers.

"Did you read the soil survey I sent you?" She had sent the document a few hours after her had asked her to accompany him to this forest. Even a very cursory perusal of the 250 mapped units revealed most of them to be Inceptisols of the Udepts suborder—moderately-developed soils formed in humid environments. Of those, the complexes that she had suggested they dig in were Humudepts, given their organic-rich and deeply friable profiles.

Her question had been rhetorical though. "The complex names don't really matter. Mostly loam, low clay contents. Large fragment content is low too, on average. Depths to restrictive features are more than six feet." The corners of her mouth upturned knowingly. "Which means we won't be spending hours digging a single grave."

Another lifetime of memories of how hard it could be to dig anything in ill-suited soil, from test pits to trenches, occurred to her all at once. If nature didn't want to cooperate, it wouldn't cooperate, regardless of if one had a good command of the Force or not. And sometimes she had found physical excavation to be less exhausting, especially in bad weather conditions, anyway.

But, fortunately, today seemed to be an ideal day for this venture.

She had spent time with a few cultures over the years of her ethnographical tours that had each made involved, ritualistic arrangements for death for a member as soon as they anticipated its imminence, past a given threshold. Days, sometimes weeks, even months. She had once gone with a group of proactive mourners to witness them dig the soon-to-be grave of the yet-living. Many outsiders would think such a process macabre, which it was even to insiders, but that was the necessity of it. To deal with death primarily before it came was to limit your interaction with it after, which they believed to be a very dangerous thing indeed. The more you grieved a departed spirit, the more at risk you were of joining it, so you avoided the possibility altogether by adjusting to a person's death before they were even gone.

Though the two covenantors' reasons were different, they were undertaking much the same task, just on a mass scale: preparing this ground for a slaughter, Bogan willing. There were whispers that something shifted on the horizon, both within the ecumenopolis and across the starsea—though maybe not too terribly far. Not far enough. Perhaps not close enough. Some of her new fellows craved battle, she felt that, yet she still didn't know what to desire.

Their code taught that peace was a lie, one she had lived inside for so long. She wanted to move away, but she was still packing the boxes.

If she wasn't ready to contribute to the carnage, she could help prepare for its coming.

She hadn't expected any brand of Sith to do anything except leave the enemies they slayed on the field to rot. Just as Humbarine being one of the few ultra-developed Cord worlds that recognized the value of preserving some of it old growth was refreshing, so too was Lysander's interest in returning nutrients to the soil. Maybe she shouldn't have been so surprised; he had shattered many of the Sith stereotypes stuck in her head already.

Reaching up to her shoulder, she adjusted the crossbody strap holding a shovel across her back. "I'm glad you asked me to help you, Lysander."

She didn't fingerspell his name; she had already given him a name sign. This was the first time using it, as she had decided on it shortly after their encounter on Fondor. That told of how comfortable she already felt around him, and how much she respected him. As did the easy smile she wore along with her unique Sith tunic, as uncompacted as the soil underfoot.

Lysander von Ascania​

 

[Lysander von Ascania]

Efret Farr​

Time unfolded since that mysterious moment in the Force space where their paths first crossed. Since then, Lysander had been spending more time around Efret, carving out pockets of space away from the Covenant's shadows. Bit by bit, trust and curiosity began to sprout. Most profoundly, something human took root amidst their shared enigmas known as Sith.

The air smelled of cedar and damp moss; sunlight danced across patches of the path before them. Though Efret may not hear the forest's song, he registered the pulse of it and cherished the communion within it. He strove to understand this place too through nothing more than scents and textures, so that he might even understand it the way she did.

Stepping closer onto that same fertile soil, relief began softening his youthful visage. In her words, the Sith too welcomed the idea of rest here. Death was not an end, but a return woven back into living matter. Turning toward her along their journey, he spoke calmly, "Here, on Humbarine, this world will even cradle them as kin, for we can not." And that rang true; the rising presence of Mandalorians was anything but secret. For now, all they could do was patiently wait. "If we are to join that cycle here, that is a noble continuity too, I suppose." Not that he was eager to check out anytime soon.

As he understood it, they both shared a hunger for knowledge that didn't always result in bloodshed. "This place is more than sun and shadows. Aye, it is a living archive of every creature that's passed through it." Such a claim was clearly understated, given the rich history of Humbarine.

Air was cooler in the shade, brushing the nape of his neck, lifting the hem of the shirt he wore; a far cry from that infamous peacoat worn under the emissary's mask was in play, and more comforting than the black robes that were forever a prelude to death. Today, Lysander wore the faded Bad Ewoks tour shirt from the Korriban concert during his Kor'ethyr days. The fabric was softened from countless washes. Strange to don.. and oddly grounding..

When her question surfaced, many of those words began tumbling through his mind. But their strangeness wasn't daunting. Just a new language.. a puzzle to value. Weight shifted on the next step; the haft of a shovel tapped against his back. Then the motion bled into a pivot that brought him fully around.

"I did." At least he could be honest here, preferable to being entirely focused on performance. A welcome change of pace. "A few times actually. I.. definitely won't pretend I came to it with any real foundation.. I had to look up most of the terminology. But, I did want to understand what we were walking into. I think I understand why you highlighted those.. uh, complexes. The depth of the.. friable layer?" A sudden glance fell upon Efie; pronunciation of those words felt so clumsy on the tongue. Sure, he was confident in verbally sparring the entire Senate of any given faction on a whim if called upon, but this was uncharted territory.

"So.. basically, something about good soil, deep enough to dig without endless effort. That's pretty useful if you ask me," accompanied with a wry smile. "Less time underground, more time out here. I can totally work with that." Hopefully that meaning was clear.

Twin emeralds were drawn to her hands immediately when his name was signed. That was when he drew himself a little taller; she had given him a gift, a real one, and he wondered too if she might sense the gratitude threading into the Force's currents. Or at least, the warmth blossoming through his being, for it was as rich and organic as the earth beneath their boots.

The corners of his mouth stretched further. "Well, I'm really honored you're here. Your insight is invaluable, Efret. But more than that.. I also appreciate your presence. It feels good to have you here."

A thoughtful hum escaped his throat. "I suppose our work here has a way of feeding the future, doesn't it?" His voice bore a note of mirth. "I don't mind following your lead. You see this world in a way I can only hope to catch up to." Hope wasn't a word the Sith favored, but today it was allowed.