Private Serendipitous

[Ala Quin]

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Wearing
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The scent of freshly fallen rain still hung in the air. Beads of water still lay upon the umbrella sized leaves that made up the ground cover of the forest around Onderon's capital. Her public transport tickets stated that she would be leaving tomorrow, but there was no way Ala was spending her last full day on the planet in a city. Rather, she had determined that she would head out into the forests that started some two or three kilometers across the plains from Iziz. Upon waking that morning she had been perturbed to find rain falling somewhat persistently, but thankfully the forecast was accurate and it had cleared up mid afternoon.

She had spent the morning messing around with her hair, trying to get it into some semblance of a style that Lynmeira would have once appreciated, when she was alive. Slightly tousled and far from what Ala hoped it to be, the loosely braided brown hair fell across her right shoulder while the braids themselves were collected into their own loose braid. She had done her best. And to some extent she was a little proud. In a few years she might actually be able to make it look better than acceptable.

The ground under her feet was soft, and squelchy. She did not stay in one place too long lest her shoes filled with water. Moisture threatened to seep through a couple of holes she had only just discovered today. Apparently standard issue Silver Jedi shoes did not last several months of consistent wear! Nice to know!

There was a small rise that Ala had just finished hiking over. Descending from its crest, she looked down into the deep valley below. One would call it more a gully than a valley. A feeling of coldness washed over her. Not the weather, though it was not warm. No, this ran through flesh into her spirit. The dark side.

Her pace didn't slow, even with the faltering step as the dark energy washed over her. She had sensed this place already, and had been purposely making her way to its source. It made sense that on a world with such a light side presence as the Caves of Ur Durr and their light side connected glow worms that there would be a dark side place as strong to balance it out. The path to the dark side locale began to have more and more foliage encroach on it. Even as she pushed it away to keep moving, it seemed to snap back faster and with more venom. More than once a briar branch sprang back at her, catching her forearm, and hooking into sleeve.

A little blood was drawn on the last such briar branch that hit her left cheek. "Ouch," she said, wiping the blood as she sought to clean herself. The two parallel scratches with the smear of slowly drying blood started to throb more than she would have expected for a mere scrapes. She looked down at her hand, and saw a small pool of blood form from that which she had wiped from her face.

A chill ran up her spine as she looked across the small clearing towards a gnarled old tree stump. In its day, the tree would surely have been hundreds of meters tall. A whole family home could be carved into it without having to skimp on room size. Both left and right sides disappeared into the dense undergrowth, leaving only the cavernous maw before the Jedi Knight.

"I do not fear you," she said calmly towards the opening of the tree.

| Rann Thress | Vanya Aklin |​

 

[Vanya Aklin]

wearing: xxx
tag: Ala Quin | Rann Thress

"You should be." The reply came seemingly from nowhere, echoing through the trees like an invisible threat when in truth it had come from the Nightsister concealed among the foliage. There had no rhyme or reason for the witch's presence on Onderon; Vanya had found nothing particularly interesting about the planet, and had found the people to be boring. But after being dislodged from Dathomir she had become a vagabond, travelling from place to place, taking the time to enjoy the sights and sounds, even if the strange yellow suns had been harsher then the red haze of Dathomir. So the only reason for her being there was that she wanted to be there.

And when she had first arrived on the planet she had sensed the strong light side connection, as well as the darkness that bought balance, and her curiosity had been piqued; what was lurking in the shadows? So the Nightsister had already been in the forests of Iziz in search of what could be felt and not seen, when the feminine voice was heard, though Vanya had felt her approach long before this. She moved with sure-footedness despite the moist and mushy terrain, making no effort to hide herself as she moved into the clearing, moving to where the old gnarled stump had been.

"The hairs on the back of your neck? When they stand on end, when goose bumps riddle your skin, when your stomach knots and your mind is uneasy? That is the body's fear. It is something beyond what we can see. It is engrained into the very essence of our beings." Vanya explained, speaking as though she was schooling a child, imparting lessons unto those not as educated. Her lips pulled into a false smile as fingertips brushed against the stump, the weather-worn bark catching at her skin in a way that should have warned her to not touch. Vanya, as always, did not listen. She was not afraid, after all. "You should listen to your body. Unless you intended to find yourself in danger?"

 

[Ala Quin]

The voice stirred Ala to action and she quickly reached for where her lightsaber should have been. It was still at the bottom of the pool of water deep in the glowworm cave, completely destroyed by being submerged in water. Shame it had not been waterproof. Ala felt almost naked without the metal cylander to greet her fingers, instead she only clutched at the air.

Her eyes narrowed as she watched the mysterious stranger make her way across the mouth of the tree's foreboding cavern. The woman had the air of the dark side about her, unhidden and rippling across Ala's presence like a cold, unpleasant touch from a old leathery hand. "Well...I'm not," came her response. It sounded confident, assured but likely in spite of herself.

Ala paced in a strafe in the opposite direction to that which the woman walked, keeping the distance between them equal at all times. "The natural fear is not something to indulge, nor to fear itself...it is simply biology. Evolution speaking through the eons, but the Force can take us beyond such primal indulgences. We need not relent to our animal nature."

Her eyes glanced quickly into the inky blackness of the stumps cave-like opening. What had she come for? Curiosity? That was most likely it. Or was there some challenge that had guided her here? Some test? Her eyes moved back towards the dark-sider.

"Danger has a way of finding me," she said with a tilt of her head a small smile, "whether I like it or not. Might as well embrace it, right?"

| Vanya Aklin | Rann Thress |​

 

[Vanya Aklin]

wearing: xxx
tag: Ala Quin | Rann Thress

"The natural fear is not something to indulge. The Force can take us beyond such primal indulgences." The Nightsister repeated the words with a hint of amusement in her voice, her tone somewhat mocking. "The Force is can take us to many places, beyond the realms we can see, and while we may have been blessed with the ability to use it, it is a gift--" There was a time and place for everything. Vanya was of the belief that ones natural instincts were as much as part of their person as the Force was part of the universe. The body's instincts could tell a person when danger was near, it told one when to be happy and when to be sad. It was one's logic that dictated how to respond to the instincts of the body.

"--and gifts can be taken away. We choose what to do with our gifts, just as we choose what do to with our instincts - ignore them and or heed the warning." With the words spoken and the lesson imparted Vanya smiled ever so faintly, the expression somewhere between haunting and enchanting, as her chin raised. "Now it would seem we have a problem." She went on to say as steps finally came to a halt once a full circle around the woman had been paced and she once again stood at the mouth of the cavern. "I do not want company on this journey... why are you here?"