Scratch 'n Sniff

[Scherezade deWinter]

Moab was sitting on the poor excuse for a bed they had given her, her legs stretched out before her, her arms folded, and an angry pout on her face. She'd been sentenced to grounding again, even though that really hadn't been her fault. The other kid had started it, and he kept taunting her, even after she'd yelled at him to leave her the kark alone.

So she'd jumped behind him, grabbed the back of his head, and smashed it with all the might her 4"7 body could muster. Right into the wall. He was still in intensive care, or at least, had been, when she'd been sent to her room.

This was the fifth home she'd been to in the last year alone. And once again, everything had one entirely wrong. As always, her room was shared at first, with two other girls. But then the nightmares started again, and there were screams, and...

Well, one of the girls wasn't there anymore. No one could pin that on Moab though, even though there was a certain amount of guilt gnawing at her insides about it. Because she knew it was her. It was always her, even when she didn't want it to be. But maybe if she wouldn't tell them. Then they woudn't know, right? It would take them forever to figure it out, right?

Well... No.

She'd really tried her best then. But... Well. The other girl was still in the same room, but Moab had been moved to the tiny one in the attic, and she'd been through that story enough times to know where that is going.

And it was too karking quiet here.

Jumping off the bed, there was little evidence to suggest the fifteen year old was in control. She pulled the window open, almost breaking it as she did so, and was out of there before another heartbeat could be made. It wasn't long before she was walking down the streets of...

Well damn. She'd even lost count of which planet she was on anymore. The only thing she was sure of, was that she was getting hungry.


[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Moab Zabel"]

For a few seconds Aela hesitated.

The door to the home was...strange to say the least. It had an odd scrawling pattern of swirls and round about cuts. It looked like a strange carving of the galaxy, though in a very liberal artistic sense. For a few moments Aela simply looked at it, her hand reaching out towards the doorbell.

Why was she here?

She didn't actually know.

Aela was eighteen now, an adult. Things were beginning to move faster, and decisions were being made that her parents would not approve of. Her and Mara had been planning for weeks now, working in tandem to push something...to create something knew. Her hand shook slightly and she reached out towards the doorbell. This was part of it? Wasn't it?

The force was calling her here.

She didn't know why or what it wanted. She didn't know why it had brought her here, but Aela could sense that there was something within this home, something within this place that would help her. Something that she needed. Her hand curled into a fist for a few seconds and she shook her head from side to side. Blonde locks shifted, tickling her shoulders for a few moments before her weight moved to her back foot.

Her head swiveled from the left, then to the right, inspecting everything around her.

Aela hesitated for a few more moments, then rang the doorbell.

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

"You must be from social services," a voice was heard as the door opened. A woman stood in the doorway, the expression on her face making her seem older than the years her general appearance conveyed she was meant to be, "please, come in."

As she turned around, not even waiting for an answer, two children ran past. They were young, and their screams as they played chase sounded almost care-free, until they noticed [member="Aela Talith"]. They both stopped in their tracks, simply gawking at her, and then to a point in the corner of the room, where a third girl was, wheel-chair bound, obviously not part of any fun that was to be had between these walls.

"Are you here to take Mad Moab away?" said the youngest of the children, a boy of about seven.

"Ash, mind your manners," the woman sternly warned him with a finger, before motioning for the social services worker to follow her into the nearby room. "I'm afraid have the same question. We simply cannot take care of her. That girl is too violent, too dangerous. Her being here puts the other children at risk."

=============================================

Moab was about to not be hungry anymore. The food at home sucked anyway, and there was a big juicy rat that ran just in front of her. She moved quickly, catching it by the tail as it tried to make a run for its life, and then smashed his head against the wall time and time again until it stopped protesting. It wasn't the best of foods, but one could do worse too. Her only regret was that she had no decent way to cut its fur off first, and had to resort to first biting its head and spitting it before she could peel it.

Within moments the blood was on her face and on her clothes, but the child hardly minded. That is, until she jumped backwards, her body more alert than her mind, and the rock that had been aimed at where her head was a moment ago completely missed the mark, falling harmlessly on the ground.

"A rat eating a rat," Moab heard someone say, and glanced into the darkness. Three of them, something she couldn't quite understand whispered into her mind, "we don't like it when others take our rats from us."

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Moab Zabel"]

Social services?

She frowned slightly, then looked to the children. Mad Moab? She had never heard the name, though she assumed that it was an insult mixed with a nickname. Her lips drew thin, and her bright orange eyes set before her. Was that who she was here to meet? Had the force guided her to this place to meet someone named Mad Moab?

Her nerves began to frey slightly.

Aela was no social worker, in fact, social was the last descriptor anyone would ever use when referring to her. She was quiet, a researcher, and excellent fighter and perhaps even a good leader, but one thing Aela was not, was social.

Tentatively she moved through the house, the force within her coursing and changing reaching out and searching for what she might be looking for. The woman who lead her forward kept on blabbering about something or other, but Aela was far too focused to listen. She tried to search for something, for a sign or perhaps a thought.

She began to hear voices as they turned a corner.

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

Moab was running for her life. She knew the area well enough, having run through it too many times before. But not when her life felt in danger, and never this fast. Obstacles meant little as her brain shut off, the sounds of her heart and breath pounding between her ears.

She hadn't meant to do it. She really hadn't. They had come so close, and been so threatening. And somehow... Somehow, the arm of one of them ended up detached from its body because of her, and she'd been beating another one of them with it. That was when weapons were pulled out, and Moab had panicked, not understanding how she did it or why, and she began to run.

Garbage cans were nothing as she jumped over them. A fence that blocked a street was quickly climbed over before the child continued to run. And still she could hear them, not on foot anymore, but on vehicles. They were going to get her and they were going to hurt her.

There would be no safe place for her - not even the house. But it was where her legs were taking her to anyway, on and on, until she reached the side o the house and froze. She couldn't make the jump to the second story, from which she'd come. She couldn't come through the door because she'd never be let in.

The vehicle stopped behind her and one of the bullies jumped out, a wide grin on his face. "Not so brave anymore, are you?" he taunted her, and his voice sounded so.... oily.

Moab did the only thing she could.

With a roar, she launched forward, arms and limbs flailing wildly about her.

A moment later, she was down on the ground.

[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Moab Zabel"]

She didn't bother listening to the odd woman anymore. There had been a surge, a spike of panic, of fear, and perhaps even hatred. Aela had felt it in the force, like the drop of a heavy rock into a calm pool of water.

It had seemed to her almost like like a tidal wave.

Aela was not very powerful in the senses of the force. She could not track others, she could not feel emotions that well, yet she could...she could see. It was difficult to describe, yet she knew something was happening, she could see a splash of the future, a tiny dash of what may be. It was a strange phenomenon, but one that she could not deny happening over and over again.

With a burst of the force Aela dashed out of the window and passed whatever may have obstructed her. She moved in a blink, a quick little blur that dashed through the room and out into the light once more. She held no hesitation, and she reached that odd little dash in the force.

“Stop!” Her voice raised, booming.

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

And stop everyone did.

Moab glanced upwards, seeing the leader of the pack. He was still holding his chain, ready to slash it at her. And she saw the other... woman? Girl? Why were they stopping?

The surprise made way to anger.

"Hey fuck you lady!" Moab almost spit at her, "we're in the middle of something here!"

And totally using the element of surprise (or she hoped, anyway), the wild girl made for the thug's leg with her teeth, fully aiming at biting a chunk of flesh off him.

[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Moab Zabel"]

Aela's eyes popped open in surprise.

The victim, the girl, jumped and bit towards one of the mens legs. She gasped for a few seconds, then her hands scrunched. She had no idea what was going on, but she knew that girl was in trouble, she knew she was trying to defend herself, but she also knew that this entire situation looked like it was about to get very bloody.

Her hands swept up, the force gathered around her. The lightsaber that hung at her hip remained in place, but her fingers twitched as the force reached out and wrapped in invisible chains around the entire group.

Force stun it was called.

It was a skill that her mother had taught her, and against people like this, the unprepared and untrained, it was the perfect tool.

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

She had been so frakking close to getting her teeth into the thug. Yet something had snapped her away from it, her entire body suddenly losing the ability for control as something gripped around her, holding her steadily in place.

There was no moment of rest for the girl. She began to writhe and try to make her way out of it, using every inch of physical power she had to kick and lash out. Of course, it wasn't working, though it did take her quiet a while to figure that out.

When all was unkicked and unpunched, Moab did the only thing she knew how.

Moab began to scream at the top of her lungs.

[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Moab Zabel"]

Aela frowned slightly, the urge to block her ears becoming nearly overpowering as the girl began to scream loudly at the top of her lungs.

For a moment she considered knocking her out, but she knew that the girl was only the victim, that she was lashing out at the other not because it was her fault, but because she didn't know what else to do. A sigh escaped her lips, and suddenly Aela's hands snapped closed. The attackers that had surrounded the girl suddenly collapsed, each one of them placed into a deep sleep.

Another thing her mother had taught her.

“Stop.” Aela said quietly. “Please.”

She would release the girl as soon as she stopped struggling, as soon as she stopped screaming at least.