Private Stolen Friend

[Amos]

As Sophelia felt around her back for the ointment she would feel the com-link she was searching for. It sat nestled within the bag just as it had been before. Untouched. The Sith had not taken it, though she would soon find out why. As she offered the ointment, he simply tilted his head towards the bed. Letting her deposit the jar there before she proudly stalked away.

He did not try to stop her as she picked up the bowl and moved towards the entrance of the cave. His head simply turning to watch for a moment in unspoken amusement. Gaze flickering down towards the small jar she had left behind. Amos didn't touch the ointment as he watched her move outside. Not because he did not believe her. Not because he thought she was lying, but because pain was it's own salve. One which no one could replicate. Not for him.

After a moment, the Sith stepped away, following after her.

As Sophelia walked outside she would find that Amos' words had rung true.

Just outside the cave lay a landscape which seemed to stretch for near an eternity. The cavern he had called his home was situated near the top of a cliff, dug into the mountain itself. As she moved outside, a small lip extended almost like a balcony, but beyond that lay a forest of untold size. It's visage stretching out as far as the eye could see.

If she looked up, the Jedi would see only more cliff. A sheer face that even someone like Amos would struggle to climb. There was nothing, an emptiness. The sun was just setting as she stepped outside, birds called in the distance. Nature ruled here. A calm that could not be bought.

Peace that could not be found on other worlds.

 

[Sophelia Ardemark]

Amos

Heart dropped as she stepped outside. The wind like fingers curling through golden hair and picking at the fabric of her clothes. It was...strange. Staggering. She almost dropped that bowl of stew. Fingers tightened around it quickly. Grip turning white-knuckle. Neck craned, seeing sheer rock around and above. And that thick wood far, far below.

And nothing but the wind in her ears. The cackle of birds below. And the buzzing of something Soph assumed were a kind of insect, she'd never heard before. Nothing here felt familiar to the way she'd grown up. It was strange in a way like hearing a new language for the first time. Beautiful and unsettling in equal measure. Even the force itself moved differently here, followed currents she couldn't see and rules she'd never learned.

Lips thinned.

Even as she stood dangerously close to the precipice. Tore her eyes away from the endless horizon and looked down. Down doooOOWWWN. She wasn't scared of the fall. She'd never been scared of heights. Perhaps she should've been.

She knew Amos had followed her. She knew he was watching, behind her. Raising the bowl, she took a sip.

Why did it have to be good?

She grimaced. "Whatever you want me to open. If it's going to hurt people. Kill people. I'm not going to do it." The wind snatched up her words and threw them back toward the sith.

 

[Amos]

Amos stood still in the mouth of the cave as he watched the Jedi react to the scene laid before her. His face an unreadable mask as he studied Sophelia. He could see the rightness in her muscle. The tension forming as she took in the truth of his earlier words. Could feel the sense of fear running through her veins.

It was bare. Slight, but it was there. Not because of the heights. Not because of the situation he had put her in, but because of what it might mean. What he might ask her to do."It won't kill anyone."

The words were not a lie. Not yet.

In truth he did not know the result of the path he had asked her to walk upon. He did not know the end of the one he stepped his way through.

"Sit down." Amos told her, slowly breaking away from the mouth of the cave. Soft leather boots crunching stone as he approached her. Eyes wandering over the long landscape which sat before them. "The wind can catch."

As he spoke the clouds above them seemed to turn, slowly gathering to a dark grey. Wind slowly sweeping up the lengths of the valley and drawing up upon the cliff. "You don't need to trust me."

He said, looking down at her with a complete lack of expression. "You'll see I'm telling the truth."