Private Sincere Regrets

[Raenlyn Athacorr]

Concord Dawn
Loske Treicolt
​

She could see the attraction of Concord Dawn.

The years and decades since the Sith occupation had been healed, for the most part, and it had once again become a simple farming world. It was a quiet place, and as her rented swoop bike raced over the fields, the wind rustled some of the grains under her. Occasionally, she could make out the distant shape of some farmstead and the evidence it indicated of a life of hard, if not rewarding, work. It was a planet mainly removed from galactic affairs for years now, a place for peace and retirement after years of war, and it would explain why the person she was seeking had settled here.

Not that she ever could settle in place this quiet, but she could see the appeal.

Her mom had never lost track of the woman, keeping a very quiet tab on her. Not that it would have been too difficult, as the woman and her husband had first become Journeyman Protectors of the planet before assuming... what did it mean to be a warlord over a planet when the planet itself was about rugged individualism and community. Nerra would love to know the answer to that question, and it was only one of the reasons she had volunteered to come to the world in place of her mom. One of the others was safely tucked away in the satchel secured on the side of her swoop, the one her mom had given her.

The HUD of her riding goggles indicated she was nearing the homestead designated as the Treicolts. With a deep breath and the curiosity inherited from her mom, she wondered just how this day might go.

 

[Loske Treicolt]

TWO POWERFUL WARRIORS
CONCORD DAWN | HARLAN | TREICOLT HOMESTEAD
THE TWO MOST POWERFUL WARRIORS
ARE PATIENCE
AND TIME

HAVEN'T I GIVEN ENOUGH​

An essential piece of equipment that kept the ground moist and fertile and the grasses as golden as Maynard remembered from his youth, the vaporators of the homestead were used daily. They worked flawlessly, routinely, except for this morning. One of them had clunked down mid-vaporation just as the Treicolts were preparing to go out for the day.

After exchanging a look with her husband, Loske had elected to stay behind and repair it. It was a simpler task than Maynard had to corral all five of their children.

She was on top of the vaporator, precariously perched, when the Force whispered, and brought with it a tickling feeling that she hadn't felt in years. A feeling she only was aware of when nightmares consumed her sleepless nights — but it was deep, connected, and unignorable. She felt a knot tighten and twist into a thick lodge behind her ribs and poked her head out of the isolated chamber she'd been working on.

Seconds later, the security indicator blipped. Someone was on their land.

Loske settled back on her perch, sinking into her seat and brought a hand up to shield her eyes from the sun. A lone speeder travelled in toward their main dwelling area.

She frowned. With the combination of The Force's irritating prickle, and the security alert not being disabled, made her jaw set on edge. At the bottom of the vaporator, Frank whistled the announcement of a trespasser.

"I know, I know." The homestead owner made her way down from the tower of the vaporator, and hopped to the ground. Her hands were slick with grease, and wrung a towel over them before settling them on her hips. Her brows furrowed as the shape got larger and larger and details were revealed.

"You're on private property." Loske raised her voice when the speeder's engine was shut off, and started forward. Whoever it was brought with them that itching feeling at the nape of her neck. And the implications of that sensation had teeth, and gnawed hungrily at her decision-making cortex.
"Can I help you?"

---

---

Raenlyn Athacorr​

 

[Raenlyn Athacorr]

The Force whispered that she should divert from her current course a little ways before the main building. She had been passing vaporizers all morning, a common sight on the world, and the Force was saying to head towards this one in particular. She was also pretty sure from the uniformity of the fields under her that she had driven onto the farm itself and triggered some sort of sensor.

Then again, she wasn't trying to sneak up on anyone.

There was someone perched up on the tower as she neared before the silhouette dropped down onto the ground. Even this far away, and guarded the person was, she could sense them in the Force and their mastery of it. She cut the engine as the woman called out she was on private property, a thick cloud of exhuast billowing out from her rented speeder.

Coughing and waving her arms widely, she dismounted and said, "Sorry, I'm looking for the Treicolt homestead and was told it was this way."

As she took her goggles off, shaking her hair from its windswept state into a state nearing something presentable, there would be no mistaking the purple eyes that looked at Loske.

She reached out a hand and added, "my name is Nerralyn and it is an absolute pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Treicolt."

Loske Treicolt

 

[Loske Treicolt]

Off worlder lungs were sensitive to the constant dust that lived beneath the tall grasses of Concord Dawn. Loske looked a bit sympathetic when the girl started coughing. Still, no answer came.

Loske gave the woman a few moments grace to collect herself, but looked nowhere else. Treicolt Homestead had become something like a landmark, if not an outright bastion, on Concord Dawn. Someone looking for it was not unheard of. But this woman bore no armour, seemed to have no entourage, and flew no discernable crest. She only had that nagging, uneasy feeling about her in The Force that made Loske's stomach feel unsettled and electric.

That electricity sparked wildly, burned at the base of her throat the minute those violet eyes were revealed. Her pulse struck in her veins.

Eyes like those had been her anchor to the real world once. Had bore deep into her soul.

For several painstaking moments, Loske didn't move. The wind blew around them, rustling grass, hair, loose fabric, and she could not blink. Frank rolled anxiously beside her legs.

"Why are you here, Nerralyn?"

It sounded more curt than she meant. Normally she was polite, kind, gentle. Outright maternal. But her instincts were flaring wildly, making it hard to overwrite them with conscious personality.

---

Raenlyn Athacorr

 

[Raenlyn Athacorr]

There was a slight moment of awkward confusion as she continued to hold her hand out, as the moments of silence stretched and the wind played with their hair. Slowly, she lowered her hand as it struck her with her curt question what may have shocked this woman.

"Right, the eyes," she muttered, fidgeting with the strap of her satchel. "Should have kept them gray, but then I thought you would probably appreciate honesty rather than some big grand shocking reveal halfway through a conversation because I know I would be so annoyed that someone had been lying to me about something and then there was the whole legacy of shady espionage stuff and that lying to you would create the whole wrong impression when really that wouldn't be my intent at all and..."

She trailed, taking a breath to stop herself.

"Sorry, I was rambling," she apologized, removing the satchel finally and slinging it over her shoulder. The clinking of glass against something metallic would be faintly heard. "It's really a rather long story... maybe one better told sitting down with a drink in between us. If I'm not presumptuous though, we can totally do this here if you want because I know some random stranger just drives up and is the daughter of someone who did really horrible things to you and those you care for would be awkward at best... sorry, rambling I do that a lot."

She would close her mouth tightly to wait and see what Loske would say, and there would be the faintest use of the Force to calm her own nerves.

Loske Treicolt

 

[Loske Treicolt]

Motherhood made Loske familiar with rambling. She hadn't been self aware enough in her youth to recognize when she'd done it, but one of her girls was a rambler. Listening to tangential spirals made her patient.

Her patience became thinner and thinner the longer Raenlyn Athacorr continued to explain her choice of eye colour. And with her patience waning, it made more room for growing suspicion. She was still, feeling her blood pulse in her temple, her mind agitated.

The answer to her question came in broken parts. It sounded like Nerralyn was here to tell a story, and to..

is the daughter of someone who did really horrible things to you and those you care for would be awkward at best... sorry, rambling I do that a lot."

The Third Imperial Civil War had brought Loske many enemies. She, Maynard Treicolt and Ryv had barely any time to call themselves safe. But the eyes, the feeling, the description, was enough for Loske to instantly draw the connection. She frowned. The sorrow in her expression was brief, but it was deep.

"You're Raaf's daughter."

Years and years and years ago, Loske would have readily accepted amends. Forgive and forget. The grudge was only a poison to herself yadda yadda — but her time as Shursia had cast such a darkness over Maynard that forgiveness was faraway. Proverbs and parables had no place in her heart.

"You're here to...what? Apologize on your mother's behalf?"

When she spoke, her voice was almost reedy-thick: "What's in the bag."

 

[Raenlyn Athacorr]

The tension was probably thicker than a turadium blast door, and likely just as difficult to cut through as she stopped her rambling. The declaration that she was Raaf's daughter and then the follow-up had the edge of suspicion and hostility that honestly, she should have expected, but there had been some optimism or naivety that it wouldn't start off this way.

"Her eldest daughter, yes," she confirmed quietly.

Every instinct in her was telling her to either shrink down or to shift into a defensive posture, but she was pretty sure that either of those would be the wrong choice to make with the veteran and retired Jedi in front of her.

"And yes, you could say I'm here on her behalf and apologize for everything she put you through," she continued, slowly flipping the flap of her satchel open for Loske. Her mother's words before she had left were ringing in her ears about how actions would speak louder than mere words when it came to convincing Loske of their sincerity. It was something her mother had observed about the woman, both while in her mind and after.

In her bag, the Jedi would clearly see the handle of a lightsaber with grey and black filigree, a datapad, and a glass vial holding a very familiar substance to the Jedi. It was the vial that she slowly pulled out, making sure to not have her hand go near the lightsaber, although she was pretty sure what she was pulling out to hold in her hand towards the Jedi was equally a weapon towards her.

Another breeze blew around her hair as she said, "She wanted me to give you this... so you could destroy the last piece of Shursia that survived."

Loske Treicolt