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.

 

[Efret Farr]

". . . The depth of the.. friable layer?"

"Exactly right. Good for barbecue." The flat voice of her vocoder did nothing to insinuate that had been a joke, but the playful smirk, the first Lysander would have seen her make, tugging at her lips was telling enough. Though it dropped from her face as she stopped walking and squatted towards the ground. "It's friable throughout. Look."

She reached out with her nondominant hand, and brushed away the forest litter to reveal a small window down to the brown soil, color deep with incorporated organics and dampness. Her fingers pushed effortlessly into the surface, then closed together. With a slow upturning of her palm, she excavated some soil into the air. A small, collapsed pyramid of the stuff tumbled against her skin to collect in the slight indentation of her palm. Her fingers, long nails now stained with soil, folded toward her wrist and pulled the earth towards the underside of her knuckles. Her free hand signed. "Friable means how easy it is to crumble with your hands." Quickly, she rubbed her thumb against her fingertips. The soil fell away in very small, fluffy clumps, raining back to the ground. "Good for agriculture. And general digging.

Efret turned her eyes up to Lysander and gave a smile as she wiped her dirtied hand on her clothed knee.

She stood and went back to communicating with both hands. "Well, I'm sure it firms eventually," she added, considering her comment about the soil being friable throughout. "There's bedrock down there somewhere between here and the planetary core."

Her gaze diverted again, this time to her wrist holodisplay. A solid indicator represented her location on a zoomed-in map of the forest. She zoomed out with her index finger and thumb to better see the pin she had dropped not too far from here.

"The area we should start in is just past that tree," she told him, pointing to a far-off trunk.

Their trek took them up a gradual slope. Past the tree Efret had pointed out, the forest floor levelled out.

"I suggest individual graves, three by seven feet." Even as she signed, she visualized it in her mind. She had gotten very good over the years of archeological excavations at estimating distances very accurately. But this, if they actually buried anyone here, would be the inverse of anything she had ever done. "Mass graves aren't civilized." She looked at him. "And you and I are certainly civilized.

"The graves only need to be about four feet deep," she went on to explain, wandering onto the forested plateau. "The front line at this latitude is relatively shallow, so frost heave won't cause any shifting at that depth. And, I'm not concerned about animals disturbing the dead, neither scavengers nor robbers. Life comes from death. Continued life, as well as new. The bounty of our victory shouldn't be reserved for microbes alone.

"It should be for anybeing brave enough to seize it." She stopped and looked back at him—her colleague, her friend, her brother. Another smile graced her lips. She was hopeful in a strange way too. The emotion was perhaps more familiar to her than it was for him, but the context of its visit was anything but. "Do you agree?"

Lysander von Ascania​

 

[Lysander von Ascania]

Efret Farr​

The silence between the two Sith grew long; this was another shroud draped over the remains of Humbarine's capital. The governor's mansion, host to parties that once echoed with music and clinks of crystal, was now.. just another shadow. Reconstruction would be a gargantuan undertaking, a timeline of work that made Lysander's bones ache just from thinking about it. That weariness though, he wouldn't dare speak it into existence.

For a time, he moved on autopilot, shoveling damp earth into the four foot abyss. It was mindless labor. Having chosen a spot across from Efie, there was a sense of grim choreography in their teamwork. Well, at least to him.

They were surrounded by fallen Mandalorians; they'd been stripped of their armor hours ago, and a pile of beskar lay nearby. A fortune in credits, or a king's ransom. And yet as he looked at the volume of it, there was only detached exhaustion. The Emissary didn't quite have the energy to figure out how they'd haul it, let alone the heart to even care about the profits while tucking more bodies away into the dirt.

Inhaling another breath, he leaned on the handle of the spade before glancing across at the woman. Lysander's face was a mask of soot and grime; moonlit strands were plastered to his forehead. Muscles were screaming.

The capital was still burning in the distance, smoke curling into the sky. A lopsided smile appeared. "I'm so hungry I could eat a whole Bantha." Perhaps it sounded absurd, some gluttonous thought amidst a graveyard, but the body's demands were one thing even the Force couldn't ignore. "I daresay this makes a compelling case for civilization, Efret," he continued, wiping his brow and leaving another streak of earth across skin. "And if we're going to be 'civilized' enough to dig these properly.. we're going to need fuel to finish the job, right?" A terrible excuse, honestly.. but it was the best he had while trying!

Leaning slightly against the mound, he ventured, "When we're done with this row.. how about lunch? I bet I can find something less 'friable' than this dirt to eat."