Sleep, Sleep My Darling (Aran or PM)

[Ahani Najwa-Zambrano]

Myrkr
Jungles

He'd started to sniff, before the thin long groan purged the quiet of the night. At first the Echani thought an intruder must have broken in to the quarters she shared with her new beau. So new, in fact, they weren't sleeping in the same room, nor did Ahani sleep at all. Eight hundred years of meditative states were hard to kick and besides, Ahani had enough nightmares when her eyes closed to avoid the state all together. What passed for sleep in the Elder Echani's life was a brisk and constant flow of meditation, halted by the gurgles which waxed familiar in her trained ears. The groan grew, as Ahani knew it would. [member="Aran Ordo"] was having a nightmare. Ahani grit her teeth and put her hands on her knees, rising up from her view of the cosmos outside the small ship veering from Tatooine toward Mandalore. Was the familiar space of the Mando'ade going to cure her companion of his nightly horrors, or was the pain a deeper burden?

Ahani padded into the bedroom where Aran slept, nudging the door open and sliding against the wall. His chest rose and fell in stages of distress, neck twitching, face a mass of twitches and groans. Aran's left hand grasped at the sheets, his legs shifting under the film of his nightly terrors. He was a man imprisoned by a history of horrors and that was a state of being his companion was as familiar with as she was the scars on her own skin. She sat by his bedside, incapable of the further motion of waking him from his sleep. How could she?

Had she not the cause to feel as guilty as any Party? The menace stroking his face had the feel of the Dark. Had the Dark not been her bastion, her respite from the tortures of her past? Ahani dared to drift a finger along his brow, yanking the hand away as he twitched violently. No, Ahani didn't have the trust embedded in him yet to wake and try to comfort him. But helplessness wasn't a trait Ahani cared to acknowledge. The Echani pulled a thin piece of tac-tech from her pocket and pushed the fingerpad. A slight sonic reverberation echoed, barely detectable by human ears. Manu had given it to her for her own attempts at sleep. The vibrations triggered a different state of the sleep cycle, pushing the individual past dreaming into a more restful solid state. It couldn't cure nightmares, but surpass them until the body naturally worked to rise. Ahani stuck the suggestive noise on the underside of his bed and walked out. By morning it would disconnect, turn silent and discintigrate. Hopefully in that time Aran would sleep more soundly. Exiting the room, Ahani walked through the Isdihar I'Timad to the small bridge, the luxury yacht had been a gift upon receiving her Mastership, how empty it seemed now as a bastion of tin, tesh terenthium and old ghosts. Putting herself in the pilot's chair, Ahani kicked her boot up on the console and bit at her finger.

Myrkr. Hope sprung in that jungle world. Yet, Myrkr wasn't the only den of the once mad Exhani's Favorite pet and animal companion. Munto Cudro also, but too Sith. Too foreign. The spirits which lied in Munto Cudro's orbit sat shallow in their graves - Ahani's training in the Sith took place there, her life with the past was placed in that soil. Not Munto Cudro. That left Myrkr.

But the Ysalamiri were a deep rooted concern. Would the Force Bond keeping Manu alive be sustained if she were caught in the yellow creatures' bubble? To hunt Vornskr on Myrkr for the respite of her future lover was to give her son and possibly herself a dance with the reaper. Cut from the Force, would Ahani survive? Would Manu? Ahani brushed a tear from her cheek, feeling the liquid bleed from her eyelid as she changed course.

Genuine evil had stolen Aran's nights and his disquieted moments. Ahani Najwa had been a cog in the demonic machine and did she not need to correct the wrongs done in days and years past? 'Manu, forgive me if this causes your eternal sleep. Find a place to meditate on the Living Force, son. Keep to it until I tell you otherwise. I love you.'

She waited until she felt a positive emotional response from her son before the engines burst and Myrkr came within her sensor array. Manu had told his mother to find a life, and what a life she'd found. Was one act worth a life potentially ended in the pursuit of wholeness for Aran?

Ahani pulled on her jacket and slid Anandi in its sheath to her right hip, pulled her hair back in a ponytail and left directions for her scant crew of Handmaidens and Guards to give Aran a hearty breakfast in the morning. . . And stand by if her vital signs cut out completely. They were to tell him only if in the six hours from the point she touched down what she'd done, and to withhold any news from Sabarene until she found her way back.

The ground was soft, the jungle pleasant in mid morning where she'd landed. Ahani took in a deep wanton breath, and let her senses in the Force spread around her. Pockets of void had Ahani holding her breath as she walked through the trees and searched the ground cover for padded, claw born paws and a stiff growl.

 

[Ahani Najwa-Zambrano]

The forest stuck to her skin, slicking her blouse and jacket to her back, chest and stomach. Anandi clanged against her hip, the trousers slid against her thighs in the tight, moist air. She pulled the back of her palm against her brow and continued working into the deep jungle. Hopping onto a log, she worked carefully, picking her footfalls as she tracked a loose paw print trail in the sod. Kneeling down, Ahani put her fingers in the nearest paw print and felt for texture. It was solid, ridged and cold. She shut her eyes and concentrated outward for the essence of the creature which made the trail.

It was nearly no use, the trail cut off by a low hanging tree and the Echani gulped. Her head swayed, she stood and shook it then tracked on. After another mile through the jungle, she came upon a stream of rushing water. Ahani sat on a boulder and cried for the joy of no overhanging trees, and thus no lizards of death. Putting her hand to her forehead, she scanned down the stream then up it. Upstream, a splash. Downstream, a splash. She sniffed up the air and slid her hand onto the hilt of her sword. A sniff of the atmosphere was laden with the moss, green growth and lichen native to a moistened jungle environment, yet there was a further scent on the wind. The scent of fur and blood unravelled on her nostrils. She put a boot in the water, splashing it back and forth as if she were an animal in panic.

"Come on, be useful. What are you? Come on." Be a predator.

 

[Ahani Najwa-Zambrano]

Vornskr hunted sedimentary prey, for the most part. Once a Ysalamiri dug into its tree, it got the nutrients from the trees, repelling the force through its bubble. Jedi and other force sensitives were seemingly the second favourite treat of the creature who hunted by night. Should she wait? Instinct told her if she was to capture a vornskr, it was best done during its normal sleeping hours. To capture two would be best done by finding youths or pups and to do that, she'd need an easy follow.

She'd need a tired mother or a pack on the down. Ahani felt outward and outward. Vornskr loved the feel of a force sensitive ad one 'struggling'? She stepped into the middle of the stream and began to 'limp' walk upstream. Make the prying eyes see a struggle, make it think this would be easy. Ahani pulled her utility knife out of her boot and kept her mind on the task of the hunt. Three snarls fill the air.

An adult and two tiny youths. A hunting trip for the young, did they eat meat yet? Ahani grinned. She stopped limping and lowered herself on her haunches. "Sweeties, you're coming with me. You'll love it, trust me." Fight the mother. Dominate her, take the young. It was a simple enough plan.

Until the fourth, fifth and sixth snarls sounded around her back. "Takes a pack, eh? Alright darlings. I'll beat all of you."

 

[Ahani Najwa-Zambrano]

Ahani jumped clear into the air to get a better view of her situation. Eyes darting in the distance, encircling her position and tracing down. Ahani unsheathed her sword Anandi and landed in the water.

Pity there had been a sliding rock under her landing pattern. The Master of the Force went down under the flow of the river, slashed her arm open on a branch in the undercurrent and slid back up from the water's flow in time to roll back under as a vornskr pounced. She shoved her head up and gasped for air, pushing one leg out of the water and kicking into the body of one of the beasts with a sickening thud. It had been the log downstream she'd been after. The vornskr landed with a Yelp, a growl barking out of its throat as two more attacked for her back. Rolling in the river, Ahani yelled and thrust her sword in an arc wide enough to slash into the maw and belly of two more of the beasts. She rolled and splashed to her feet, swung her sword back over her head and slapped it into the water. Her other hand was held shakingly up, Crimson droplets flowing from the gaping wound in her forearm. Two of the vornskr were sliding downstream, two more adults and the youths.

"You really got me off kilter. I hate Myrkr. . . I think."

 

[Ahani Najwa-Zambrano]

The flat of her blade hit one of the adults in the brow bone. It went down twitching, yet alive. She sent it veering into the sod on the other side of the river so it wouldn't drown. These were majestic creatures Ahani loved, she didn't want them to be dead in defence of their young. An easy meal had turned into defence, as Ahani stalked toward the mother creature she flashed her bleeding hand at the mother, splattering her face with Echani blood. "Memorize that scent, deary. Your pups will be raised by that scent."

The vornskr licked at her face, stalking closer and closer. Ahani sheathed her sword in favour of her boot knife, keeping equidistant as the youths scurried toward the bank. They barked and growled, Ahani kept her eyes flickering between the three and saw the second the mother vornskr tightened her hind muscles and began her pounce. Letting the vornskr drift by her, Ahani came to her quarry and snatched her hand out to grab the beast's tail. Vornskr could be tamed, which was easiest done by slicing off the barb on the tail. Said tail was firmly in her hand, yet Ahani dropped the knife in her wounded arm's twitch. She yanked on the tail and threw her weight into it, bearing over the side to send the creature off kilter. The mother snarled and bit and scratched on her back, Ahani ditched the tail and rolled the beast over, yanking her body on top of the large black beast. Curling her arm around the mother vornskr's neck, she pulled tight, placing her Palm on her own neck in order to cynch off the beast's air supply. She kicked at the vornskr's tail until it started to slow. She was beaten across the shore and the stream, knocked into a log but Ahani wouldn't let go. She couldn't. Short of killing the creature, she had to dominate and defeat her.

The beast tired. Ahani slid down and shoved the mothers snout into the ground. "Mine." Silver eyes stared at yellow irises.

 

[Ahani Najwa-Zambrano]

Ahani stared down the creature until the Vornskr's eyes fell. With a tired Hufflepuff, the beast laid on the ground and turned to her side. Her pups barked and helped to their mother's side and Ahani sat back at a short grabbing distance and watched the bond of babies and mom. Tying off her wound, Ahani pulled the strap of her sleeve across the wound and tightened it with her teeth. She rubbed a loose tear from her eye and pulled up on her haunches. "What a mess I'll be, eh? Pups, come here."

Hopefully Aran would like the gift. Ahani picked up the two puppies and heard the mother bawl and howl as she turned away. One of the pups tried to bite at Ahani's hand, she chuckled and nuzzled her chin on it's black head until it quieted. The pup began to lick at her bleeding arm, "Don't get yourself a taste for my blood, little one."

That was when she realized she was lost. Ahani leaned against a tree to catch her breath, and the sickly feeling of a fevered sleep stole her. The pups bawled, pawing at her as the Echani slumped over under the soft glow of a yellow creature whose power was worst of all.

 

[Ahani Najwa-Zambrano]

Thub dub. Thub dub. Thub dub. . Thub dub. . . . Thub. . .

The Ysalamiri nested in the tree was most likely unaware of the effect it was having on the octocentarian Master. As her heart slowed down, she felt the connection with life itself fade off with the waning Force. Her body began to feel warm, solid as the wood she leaned against. Eyes fluttering, Ahani drifted off into a dense and longing sleep.

A striking pain sliced into her wrist. "Son of a.. Hey! I'm not dead, mangy.. Oh for th.." She rolled away from the tree and held the puppies to her chest as they wiggled around and growled. Her head was pulsing in a vice which felt as if it was being jumped on by unruly children. Ahani stumbled to her feet and tapped at her homing beacon until it gave her a direction. Soon she'd be back at her ship. Soon. The pounding in her head increased, she licked her lips and found them dry. The pups began to increase in weight as she tromped through the jungle. Her eyes continued to scan for yellow, her senses pulling at the distant horizon. She stumbled, shook her head and forced herself to fight through the bloodloss. It wouldn't be so bad, she thought, if not for the Ysalamiri. The Isdihar appeared in the distance and Ahani felt herself getting lifted. She glanced over to see one of her Handmaidens coming beside her and helping her walk. "Take the pups. . . Get a b-b- bandage."

Two steps from the hangar door, Ahani passed out flat. Four hours had passed since she left [member="Aran Ordo"] 's room on the Isdihar, and twenty minutes after making her way back, Ahani was washed, bandaged and draped across the couch in the quarters' living area facing the bedroom door. The pups were washed and kept in a crate in the cargo bay, ready for the moment their new masters woke up.