Private The Riders of Dryland

[Brandyn Sal-Soren]

Blaster fire fizzed through the air. Dirt and rubble from the errant blasts erupted behind the scattering townsfolk. A mother held her children close as they hid behind the market stall. Beside them, the dead shopkeeper that had stood up to the attackers.

Chaos that was quiet. People, suppressing their sobs, ran. They hid. But they stifled their cries for fear that they would be the next to die.

"When next we find ourselves in your lovely...little...township..." The voice was booming, scratchy and dripping in derision. "...we fully expect to be gifted the supplies we seek."

No reply came.

Stained teeth were revealed amidst an unkempt beard as the speaker offered a callous grin.

"That's what I thought," he said, while tugging on the reins of his mount - a large bipedal creature with an attitude as foul as the man's dentistry.

A half dozen others rode in from various quarters of the small township. One of the riders, a large, armoured Gen'dai warrior, approached the speaker. "They only had twenty barrels," he said. His stolid tone added to his already intimidating visage.

"Twenty barrels? Next time we take some of them as collateral," came the boisterous reply.

The Gen'dai shifted uneasily in his seat. The burly, bearded man glared at him as if to silence the unspoken complaint. "We ride."

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"Sometimes you just have to follow your gut," Brandyn said, as his fathier lumbered along. The creature was thirsty. That made two of them.

Alongside him rode Brandyn's new padawan. Another inherited apprentice with a cargo ship's worth of baggage. So long as Ochi worked out better than the last two, Brandyn might be able to shake his growing reputation.

The backwater world they had come to had lived up to its nickname. Dryland in name, and in features. If it had not been for the moisture farmers they had bartered with the day before, they would have had to turn back. Thankfully, they had enough water for the remainder of their journey. Those at the destination would have to assist in providing necessities for the return journey.

Republic legislation was working slowly on the fringes of their realm. Previous governments had restricted repulsor and prop based aircraft to only designated landing zones, and within those areas small cities had sprung up. It had originally been all about preserving the native avian reptile species, but now that their numbers had grown to sustainable levels, and poaching had been outlawed, residents in distant regions wanted the restrictions lifted. Businesses in the cities that relied on heavy ship traffic did not agree.

And so, with a few large reptiles flying overhead, Brandyn and Ochi rode towards the settlement that had just come into view.

"This is the exact sort of place that I would expect Filch to be hiding," Brandyn said, speaking of an old contact from the days undercover, "but why he needs help...that remains to be seen."

He looked across the harsh, barren terrain towards the rocky outcroppings that served as shelters from Dryland's intense storms. He could feel eyes on them already. Eyes that were weary. Brandyn moved to pull his bandana back over his mouth. "Keep sharp, Ochi. There is a lot of fear in this town."

| TAG: Ochi |

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[Ochi]

Ochi patted the back of the overturned canteen above his head as his new Master, Brandyn Sal-Soren, said something about following one’s own entrails. Regularly that would’ve concerned Ochi, but Ochi who was only half paying attention knew he’d probably just misinterpreted the older man’s meaning. Ochi almost always lost his grip on Basic when he wasn’t very focused. He believed it was the Atoan in him that did it. It had proven to be a minor annoyance to some Masters but it hadn’t seemed so for Brandyn. Ochi liked his new master because of that.

‘Come on. Come on. Just one drop.' Ochi thought to himself as he shook the canteen over his head with one more vigorous attempt to free any remaining droplets that might’ve eluded his previous attempts. He tried, and tried in vain, then fought the impulse to throw the canteen as far as he could. It would’ve been an immature act, but a justified one. He was thirsty, getting saddle sore, and was actively being blinded by the sun, and on top of that they were meant to meet a man named Filch.

“Please tell me Filch is a given name, and not one he gave himself.” Ochi quipped as dryly as the air around him. He didn’t throw the canteen so he had to let off steam somehow.

"Keep sharp, Ochi. There is a lot of fear in this town."

As checked out as Ochi had been a second ago he was quick to change gears. He straightened, focused and followed his master’s cue pulling the bandana over his own face. He tried to sense the fear and sensed even more. There was a nuance to the fear but he couldn’t quite understand it.

“I feel it!” He said as if it were a revelation. “There’s more there too, Master. Frustration, I think.” Ochi guessed trying to parse through the nuance.

“But why?” Ochi asked. Then his single cybernetic eye picked up movement down the road. “Master, Rider!” He alerted with a nod in the figures direction while his mount huffed seeing the same. A person on a mount headed straight for them.

Tags: Brandyn Sal-Soren​

 

[Brandyn Sal-Soren]

"I see 'im," Brandyn muttered. Truthfully, he had only seen the rider the moment that Ochi had spoken. Brandyn blinked a few times to see if there had been something obstructing his vision. No, he had just been getting a little overheated.

It was dangerous out here.

The fathier flinched, and Brandyn responded by patting its neck. "Steady, girl," he said, allowing the Force to comfort the creature more than his words or touch could. She had been a surefooted beast. One that he intended to take care of.

He leaned over, rummaged in his carry bag, and pulled out a pair of macrobinoculars. His vision took a moment to adjust, and again when his thumb zoomed in to see who it was that approached. A single man, blaster carbine butt resting on his thigh, rode their way. Brandyn pulled the device from his eyes with a sigh, and tossed them to Ochi. "Welcoming party. Best keep your hands clear and not look like you are reaching for anything..."

The path remained steady. And soon enough, the rider was nearing them, their weapon pointed towards them, but Brandyn could just barely see...tilted a little down. "Halt!" He called, moments before the air about them cracked with the sound of a single shot. Dust kicked up a few meters in front of them, and his fathier reared. Again, he comforted the creature which settled under his Force-imbued touch.

He cast a glance at Ochi. "You alright?" He said, while giving the Padawan a look over to insure he hadn't been hit.

The approaching rider continued towards them, coming to rest some twenty meters out. From here, Brandyn could make more sense of who this was. "You the..."

"You can just turn around and get back to where you came."

Brandyn's ears perked. He had expected a gruff, male voice, but instead was greeted with what seemed to be a fairly young woman. His eyes narrowed, trying to make out any noticeable features that would give it away. But the rider was dressed in heavy coats, a bandana pulled up to their eyes, and a wide-brimmed hat pulled down to hide their eyes.

"I...am...afraid that we will not make the return trip. Our fathiers are in desperate need of water...and we aren't far behind them..."

Brandyn flinched as the rider's blaster was trained on them. "We are no charity, now get..."

"Whoa...hey now..."

He cast a glance at Ochi. "Don't move...stay...calm..."

"...you don't want to be killing us."

"I reckon I ain't gonna care if I do."

"You ever killed a Jedi before?"

The rider was the one to flinch now. But her blaster remained on the Jedi. "Yer lyin'."

Brandyn dropped one of his hands slowly, pointing it toward the rider. Her clearly feminine voice hurled expletives telling him not to move. But her blaster was already moving to point towards the ground. She put up a fight, of course, trying to keep the weapon pointed up, but ultimately relented to Brandyn's telekinesis.

"Karkin' huttspit..."

"Now. We are quite thirsty."

| TAG: Ochi |

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[Ochi]

"I'm alright." Ochi replied quickly, getting the spooked fathier in line. "But if this shoot first and ask questions later routine is gonna' be commonplace on this planet, I'm not gonna' be." Ochi muttered under his breath with a wrinkle of annoyance developing over his brow. His hand itched overtop his lightsaber but he didn't act on it. Instead, Ochi let his Master handle it. They were better off for it, because after a quick back and forth and a textbook use of the force, the rider, a woman judging by their voice, started leading them to a nearby boom town, or at least a town that used to be one, to get water.

As their mounts marched over a dusty hill, the town came into view. Even from afar, it looked sad and somehow dustier than the hill. Ochi's psychometric senses tingled as they got closer. There was a strong event that left folks with some charged emotions here, but Ochi was focused less on it or seeing the view and more on sensing the rider's feelings.

When Ochi stopped being annoyed, frustration picked up inside the rider. She was caught between two force users, which wasn't always a good position to be in. If she noticed their lightsabers, she would probably be thinking she was in the company of Jedi or Sith. Ochi hoped it was clear they weren't the latter. Regardless there was an unwillingness to help two obvious travelers. But why? Ochi thought to himself, before realizing he could just ask. There was a still a ways to travel down the dusty hill and valley, so he figured there was time.

"Hey, Rider. Why'd you shoot at us?" Ochi asked plainly, and without the permission of his master. Although he wasn't too sure he needed it.

Tags: Brandyn Sal-Soren​

 

[Brandyn Sal-Soren]

The fathier lumbered with an increasing weariness into the town. The folk in the town looked out from various ramshackled half-buildings. Children who had not known a bath in their whole life by the looks of them, and people aged prematurely by the sun, observed the strangers with caution, from what little safety they could find.

"Filch...is all I know him as...all anyone...knows him as?"

"Frekkin' ay? You know Filch?" The blaster-toting young woman seemed to lean back in frustration, and it seemed a signal for the man himself to emerge.

Brandyn's attention was taken away from the conversation that was starting between Ochi and the young woman, as he spied Filch hobbling out from behind a tin shack. He looked worse for wear, and for Filch that was saying something.

Brandyn swung a leg over and slid off the saddle, hitting the ground with a thud. His quick action seemed to startle a few onlookers, who ducked back into their meagre shelters.

"Zed! You came! Knew you couldn't resist a deal like this..." said the wizened, but not particularly elderly Filch. Brandyn shot Ochi a glance that said all that was needed, "Just go with it."

"Filch! Good to see you!" He said, embracing the man before turning back to Ochi, "Ock. Take care of the Fathiers...keep your eye on them." He flicked the young rider a cautious glance. And he was lead away by Filch to talk business.

The young rider, who had just been staring daggers at Brandyn, turned her attention to Ochi. The daggers were not sheathed for his sake. "People round these parts are a might bit antsy," she said, before pulling her bandana down. Beneath the guise of a calloused thug was a face that might’ve graced Naboo’s elite - marred only by a jagged scar from temple to brow. Despite her hardened stare, and early onset of crows feet from being in the blazing sun so much, she was clearly not much older than Ochi himself.

"Two lone riders comin' into town don't be fillin' us with any sort of confidence, not in these times," she said, and with a flick of her head gestured towards a post to the side, "tie your beasts up there. If you are here to see Filch...its gods only knows how long you will be staying."

She spun herself around, in a practiced dismount and tied her blurrg to a different post. "Yupa. Get these critters a bit of water...and bring us something a bit stronger would you?"

There was hesitation, but an eventual nod. "Right away, Cindel."

"You gotta name, traveler? Or you just want me to call you an inconvenience'?" She said, side-eyeing Ochi like he was the plague.

Ochi

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