Sinking

[Mariel Dawnrider]

Mijos​

Please... if anyone can hear this. This is Jedi Knight Mariel Dawnrider. I'm stuck in the lowest level of an abandoned settlement, five klicks west of the Lutrillian Spaceport. The settlement has started to sink. I am in desperate need of aid.

Please... if anyone can hear this.....

The distress call played on a loop as Mariel tried to figure out just what she was going to do now. She had come to this settlement to retrieve a number of items she had learned were here, of particular interest a holocron from before the Darkness. How it had ended up here, carried by what hands, she didn't know, but at the time she had been very keen to see if they could be retrieved before the old settlement sunk so far into the mud that it would be lost forever.

The trouble was now, of course, that she was fairly certain she would be joining its fate. While her voice had been calm over the communicator channel, it was very difficult to keep from panicking given the current situation. While she had been searching in the lowest level still accessible, something in the structure had shifted. The weight of the mud above finally forcing a particular weak spot to give way. The metal pylon had pinned her wing when it had come down- the avian caught by surprise as it had. Now the settlement was sinking even faster than it had before and she didn't know how much time she had left before the mud started to do more than drip into the section she was in. The loud, heavy plop plop plop was particularly ominous as she tried, again and again, to free herself.

Hopping, flapping her other wing, she pulled, but to no avail. The Force? Telekinesis had never been a strong suit of hers, and the weight of the fallen pylon was pressed down by tons and tons of mud above. In this moment, perhaps she could be honest with herself that she was not, and never would be, a particularly powerful Jedi. But inwardly she cursed- herself, the moment- and tried again.

[member="Jend-Ro Quill"]

 

[Jend-Ro Quill]

For all his years at space, Quill never could square the circle of his own white knight complex. At one level, he was a Basic-speaking human male possessed of training and skill in the Force. That gave him plenty of layers of privilege that dovetailed awkwardly with his enjoyment of diving in, saving the day, and riding into the sunset before anyone tried to hold a conversation.

But on the other hand, if he didn't answer distress calls, people died. So he put his own feelings aside and answered the distress call. And more often than not, things turned out all right.

This particular call brought him to a swampy little world in the Anoat Sector, fresh from a longtime stormtrooper occupation. Now that the forces of order had had their fun and moved on elsewhere to grandeur, the locals apparently still needed help on occasion. Time was, they'd have just called the stormtroopers.

Well, not this particular call, though. This one came from a Jedi Knight, and being a Jedi often meant being very much alone.

"Jedi Dawnrider, my name's Quill. I should be there in half an hour. Keep talking if you want to."

And that right there was a day's worth of words.

 

[Mariel Dawnrider]

Every now and then, she couldn't help it anymore- couldn't take it. The Songwing would burst into a fit of flapping and feathers, straining against the weight that held her down until she couldn't anymore and dropped once again to the floor. Each time feathers a bit more out of place and taking longer to put back into place. She had tried, without avail, to use her beak on the trapped feathers and either clip them off (desperate times) or tug them out. There was a point where she knew only too well that it simply wasn't going to work, but she kept trying anyway.

The alternative was something she was trying, very hard, not to think about.

So when an unfamiliar, but kind voice came crackling over her communicator, she let out a soft hoo-hoo of relief.

Thank the Winds.

She tapped the comm with her beak.

"Thank you," the relief clear in the voice. Oddly accented, but easy enough to understand. "In truth and with all of my heart, thank you." The idea of drowning in mud was one that she had been trying not to dwell on but had been impossible to banish. Hope then, now. "The sinking is slow, but speeding up. I do think that is plenty of time however, at the current rate."

But she eyed the walls around her critically. Was it truly? She had thought that it was when she had entered as well and that had been a terrible mistake. Yes, she decided. If nothing else changed. Looking up at the empty ceiling, she tucked her other wing in close to her. Feathers brushing the pocket of the vest she wore, feeling the lines of the delicate holocron she'd found that had gotten her into this.

Worth it?

If she got out. Yes. Otherwise....

"I....." A pause, a small cluck of her beak. "I rarely have a problem, finding something to talk about, and yet I find myself at a loss while also being unwilling to give up the connection to another voice."

Normally she didn't much fuss solitude. But this was different. She needed to stay calm, and clear headed, which was deeply difficult with her wing trapped as it was. It was taking all of her training to not simply flap herself into a completely frenzy.

"May I ask if you are a Mijos local?" Curious but also clearly willing to accept a 'no you may not'.

[member="Jend-Ro Quill"]

 

[Jend-Ro Quill]

[member="Mariel Dawnrider"]

He'd been quite content to let her talk. Didn't have much to say.

"I'm not," he said to her question, but didn't want to get coy about it: "I'm a Jedi same as you."

Must've been the Force or blind luck, maybe both. Jedi weren't exactly thick on the ground in the Anoat Sector, hadn't been for decades, not since the Omega Protectorate ran the show around here. And even then, Jedi and Omega hadn't gotten along all that well, had they.

A straightforward question in return, both to keep her talking and because he didn't much want to discuss himself. "What brought you out here, Jedi Dawnrider?"

Quill's old freighter slid around the abandoned settlement and plopped into the mud. And up again, because the landing gear hadn't met bedrock, and the last thing they both needed was a sinking ship.

But then again, a life came first, so he dialed down the repulsors and let the freighter belly-flop in the muck.

 

[Mariel Dawnrider]

None of those.

At least, not to Mariel.

The Slipstream guided all of it. Good luck, bad luck, the Force, it made up every believed in deity.... and every one forgotten. At the best of times, it could lift you up, guide you to greater heights. But take it for granted, or forget for a moment that you did not control it, only coasted on it, and it could smash you to the ground faster than the down draft of a hurricane. All one could do what seek to learn the thermals and how to read them. When to trust them to lift you... and when to brace for impact. It was a lifetime of study for a Songwing, and even their eldest members knew better than to claim mastery. There was no mastering the Slipstream.

There was only surviving it.

To say that there wasn't a greater surge of hope and relief when he said he was a Jedi would be a lie. But she would have accepted anyone, of any stripe, in that moment, if the choice was that or drowning slowly in mud.

"A holocron," she admitted with some chagrin. "I am an archivist, and I got wind of one here. So much has been lost to the Sith, as they encroach on old Jedi territory. Every one is precious."

The pressure of the ship, sinking into the mud, made something shift. Nothing she could feel. Not until the mud started flowing faster, the drips thicker and starting to run.

"The-the mud's coming faster, Quill." The note of worry was keen in her voice through the communicator. She flapped her wings- or tried to, only the free one managing it. Violet eyes on the mud starting to ooze through the doorway and along the floor.

[member="Jend-Ro Quill"]

 

[Jend-Ro Quill]

[member="Mariel Dawnrider"]

Quill fumbled as he switched the conversation over from the ship's comm suite to his personal comlink. Static squelched.

"I'll hurry. Five or ten minutes at most." He eyed his ship's sensors, which weren't great - but up close, with only one big lifesign around other than a herd of happy mudhogs, he could get an approximate bead on Mariel's location. He left the ship running, didn't lock up, no cooldown, just scrambled out the hatch as quick as he could. His boots immediately sank past the heel.

"Mud's a problem here too. Slow going." Despite the urgency of the moment, he stopped to think for a few heartbeats. He found himself doing so out loud, half under his breath. "Mud's incompressible. Telekinetic force applied evenly will stabilize. Alright."

A slow breath, then another one as he raised his empty hands. He closed his eyes, let out a final breath, and brought his hands down like a hydraulic pump relaxing. The ground trembled. Mud squelched far off to the sides of the patch he was stabilizing, but by and large, the mud around stayed much as it was -- just shivering under evenly-applied pressure. Pressure sufficient that, when he yanked his boots up and out, the holes filled in immediately. Pressure sufficient that he could stand on the high-tension surface.

Stand, and run.

"Five minutes."

 

[Mariel Dawnrider]

"That- that is g-good."

She was trying.

Very hard in fact.

To contain the panic that was trying its hardest to gain a claw hold on her. Help was near, but pinned the way she was and not a very large creature, it wouldn't take much mud for her to end up beneath it. She felt the depth of her mistake here keenly- of boldly going down into the settlement sat like heavy spikes along her shoulders, the pressure of it threatening to increase at any moment.

Plop.

Mariel startled, shook out her feathers and looked up-

Plop.

A squawk that melded insult and consternation. Flapping about, she tried to get out from under the drip that had started above her.

Plop.

The mud was cold and wet, too thick and adhering to her feathers, plastering them down against her. She managed to move enough out of the way of that so that she was just getting splashed each time a new drip dropped, but now the Songwing was thoroughly bedraggled. A small flinch of her shoulders every time she got splashed with more mud.

"It's the lowest level," she said in the comm, forgetting that she had already said that in the initial message. "I came down through the main lift shaft, it is open at top, and the lift itself is dead at the bottom but the maintenance hatch is open." A paused, thoughtful. "I do not know how big you are, if you will fit. It was rather small, but if you have a lightsaber with you.... well.... there's no one left here to file a complaint is there?"

[member="Jend-Ro Quill"]