The roads must roll (Magdalena Lethe)

[Jorus Merrill]

Zoronhed Spaceport
Zonju System
[member="Magdalena Lethe"]

The Gossamer massed as much as the city. This late in the day, it cast a shadow across the whole port and a chunk of the industrial district. We'd put down here for repairs after Skor, and we weren't leaving anytime soon. See, some First Order suit called [member="Karl Von Strauss"] did a number on our junker fleet. The Gossamer had been lucky and then some, compared to the half-dozen ships we'd lost. A few others had picked Zoronhed for repairs, and together we were straining the local services to the max.

Then again, maybe they should thank the First Order for creating jobs, right?

Wasn't much I could do at the moment, not with half a hundred work crews doing everything I'd have done. And Dingo Darr and Shenna'vala had all the coordination locked down. So I found a little patch of torn hull on the underside, got up on hover boots with an angle grinder, and started making sparks. Waste of time, but I couldn't sit around while folks worked on my ship.

 

[Magdalena Lethe]

What do you want to do, Magda?

I want to go home.

Where is home?

I don't know anymore.

Then maybe you should spend some time looking, hm? Home isn't going to find you.


Home wasn't here on Zonju V, of this Magda was certain, but it was the first step to looking. The Hydian Way had brought her here to the edge of the galaxy, pulling at a curiosity years old she'd never had the opportunity to revisit. What lay out here in the Outer Rim was a history now quieted by tragedy and time, kept in the hearts of the survivors and the faith of the believers.

Aesirs. Moross. Living Gods and the power of the eternal tree. A hallmark of her ancestors and a shadow of her family.

Magdalena Lethe disembarked from the Magesteria with nothing to follow but a strange feeling. One that told her she was meant to be here and little more. Her father had always said she was gifted with a keen sense of direction and an instinct for knowing where to go and how to get there, only she didn't presently feel that way. Perhaps because the local port employ wasn't being particularly forthcoming.

The Magesteria was in need of a refuel, resupply, and a few minor repairs. Magda was alone, unknown, and not particularly oriented. This place could use the touch of GUIDE - something friendly for an outsider such as herself to get their barings. Get some help.

That's not what you're here for, she told herself, you're clocked out. Indefinitely.

After enough time of being brushed off by busy mechanics, she decided to take a walk. Maybe find some food, talk to a local, figure out what the deal with this place was. Her steps brought her along the spacedocks - an intriguing adventure through various types of ships and alien technology. Eventually the shadow of a massive freighter stopped her in her tracks. Bright eyes took it in from behind her environmental suit visor, scanning the bulky beast to take in all manner of bumps, bruises, and mechanical wounds. It had seen battle ... or perhaps had been the very unfortuante victim of a mynock swarm. Hard to tell so far out.

Was this why no one was free to bandage the Mage's minor scrapes?

CLANG.

Something had fallen nearby - a metal tool implement that she had no idea its use for, but it wasn't any use there on the ground for the man above her head that appeared to be looking for it. See a need, fill a need; Magda moved forwad to pick it up and reached upwards with a gloved hand to hold it out to him, "I think you dropped this."

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Magdalena Lethe"]

"Yeah, that's me," I said, and started climbing down the scaffold. "My dumb shebs hooked up and trusted the micrograv strap. Too much time floating, if there's such a thing."

My boots hit dust. The day had cooled down some, and the shade helped, but a hot wind still rolled under the Gossamer. I spat grit -- more like mud -- and wiped my mouth on my sleeve, which went about as well as you'd think. "Blech. I hate planets. No offense if this one's yours -- Zonju's better'n most."

I popped up half my collar against the grimy wind and held out my hand for the angle grinder.

 

[Magdalena Lethe]

Were it not for her brother Magda would have no reference for the word shebs. Gabriel liked to talk a lot about them, particularly when Togruta or Twi'leks were in the vicinity. This man was neither and had a fair amount of grime caked on - but he wasn't hard on the eyes. Scruffy, sweaty, dirty ... a bit like [member="Isaiah Dashiell"] after a particularly harrowing adventure. Magda smiled faintly to herself at the thought, though the expression was lost behind the color of her mask. She passed over the tool without any fanfaire.

"Not mine," the woman replied, voice carrying a slight mechanical undertone through the speaker of her helmet, "so I can't speak to its defense, but it's not the worst place I've been." She could do without the swelter, certainly. Her suit helped to regulate internal temperatures, but only to a point. Magda could feel the sting of heat in the wind through the thinner areas of material around her legs and arms.

"What happened to this ship? It looks like a space worm had its way with it."

[member="Jorus Merrill"]

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Magdalena Lethe"]

"You could say that," I admitted, and chuckled, and checked the angle grinder for damage. Yeah, that cutting wheel was toast. I started unbolting it.

"Couple days back, the First Order hit the Skor system. We got asked to round up some local defense boats and take a swing at one of the smaller fleets."

My toolbelt had a spare wheel. Bolted it on pretty quick and took a seat on a rock. Zonju has a lot of rocks.

"Gave as good as we got, but what we got was plenty, so here we are. Could have been a lot worse. We've got solid shields, but you never know what guns the First Order's built lately, y'know?"

 

[Magdalena Lethe]

Couldn't help the feeling she was interrupting the man. He seemed like the hard-worker type, judging by the grime. Something Magda could appreciate, but not quite so much as a someone with a story to tell. Couldn't help herself there either, especially now that he opted to have a seat. Maybe a break was in order.

"I'm sorry to hear that. We don't-" caught herself there. Wasn't a we to speak of presently, "well, I don't make a habit of getting in the Order's way. Try to steer clear of them, really. They don't seem to like my type."

Her gaze broke from the rock-occupant and hovered back to the damage of the ship, "They don't seem to like much of anything I suppose."

Back to the rock, "Did it make a difference?"

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Magdalena Lethe"]

I barked a laugh and finished tightening the bolts. The angle grinder whirred pretty good. I set it down on the rock, dragged out a little cooler, and popped a tab on a can of lum. "Tell you the truth? I've got no gorram idea. I mean, we kept that chunk of fleet from joining a dogpile on a hurting ship, and from joining a base delta zero -- an orbital bombardment -- but the ship still died and so did a good bit of the city. Moral victory, right? Tactical victory? One of those words folks use when it wasn't a victory at all? Something like that's what seems likeliest."

I held up the little cooler. "You want one? Wife packed me plenty. It's been that kind of a day."

 

[Magdalena Lethe]

"You mean a Pyrrhic victory? You've taken such a loss that it doesn't feel much like achievement..."

Seemed to sum things up pretty well. Magda gently waved away the offer, "I don't drink, but thank you."

Gave him a moment to whet his whistle, the man deserved it for certain. Made her own situation a little more difficult to swallow, the loss of a few due to her own decisions versus the loss of a countless many due to the creeping tendrils of war. Was it war? She wasn't really sure. Now that the Alliance had dismantled who was to say it wasn't anything but the tide rolling in over open landscape.

"You ... look familiar," she crossed her arms in thought, "but I can't place my thumb on it."

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Magdalena Lethe"]

"Yeah, I get around. A few failed businesses, a few things blown up." Slurp. "I'm Captain Jorus Merrill, if that means anything."

 

[Magdalena Lethe]

Oh.

OH.

Wat.

Magda stole herself for a moment, thankful he couldn't see her eyes bug through the visor covering her face. She never did have a good poker face. Biting her lip to contain the sound of fangirling that so desperately wanted to be free, screeching across the docks, the young woman instead shifted anxiously on her feet.

"I ... " saw you at the Southern Systems Bazaar but couldn't get close enough because of the quicksand that was the Dashiell family dynamic?

"...uh-" think you're an imposter?

"-hom," want you to autograph my datapad?

Magda forcefully cleared her throat, suddenly having a need for a lavatory. She suppressed it by pointing at the man sitting on the rock, "You're looking very lively for someone who is supposedly dead."

Wow. No takesie-backsies Mags.

 

[Jorus Merrill]

“Yup.”

I crumpled the can, dug out another one, and put the angle grinder away. I may not have much use for health and safety regs, but even I'm not dumb enough to run power tools on my second can. That little bit of make-work hull damage could wait.

“A few years back, Alna and I were getting up there. Ran into someone weird who gave us a second shot, new faces, no more health problems or bad prosthetics. Never bothered to tell people or make a thing of it, so yeah, a lot of folks figure we died. Some of'em think I'm the son of the original or a cousin or just trading on the name.” Slurp. “It matter to you if I'm the real deal? Doesn't matter to me, but…”

 

[Magdalena Lethe]

Taken-aback by the bluntness of the story didn't quite describe it. The man was so forthright that it drew out suspicions from her he'd practiced this tale before. Magda didn't want it to be a fabrication, she wanted him to be real. The real deal Jorus Q. Merrill. Her childhood hero and man-crush.

The woman withdrew her hand and gave him a once-over for posterity.

Sure he was cute now but somehow it didn't have the same effect as the salt-and-pepper she remembered from pictures of yore.

"I grew up on stories of Captain Jorus Merrill," Magda folded her arm at her front again, holding those memories close, "he was my hero and my idol. The undisputed Master of the only gift I inherited from my father; instinctive astrogation. I dreamed of becoming his student as a child and later becoming his equal. Then I saw the news of his death and I knew I would never have the chance."

"It matters."

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Magdalena Lethe"]

That hurt, and I'm not much good at hiding how I feel. I tried anyway, mostly to be polite. The lady was right: I'd ditched a whole lot of baggage without much thought for who else might feel some impact. I've made a career of that. Consideration don't come as easy to me as some. Must be the Jedi in me.

"Sorry," I said, and meant it. That second can was well on its way. "Had my reasons, stand by'em, didn't think it through from, yeah, a few angles. Here, you wanna learn?"

Maybe twenty yards off, sparks waterfalled -- waterfell? -- out a hatch. I put my can on the rock and stood up, a little tipsy but good to go.

"C'mon."

So I started walking through the sparks. A sidestep here, a pause there, turning sideways, funky angles. I turned around and let her see my eyes were closed.

"See, it ain't that -- OW -- hard."

 

[Magdalena Lethe]

Mags wasn't much up for saying that it was ok, but the apology was appreciated all the same.

"That's fair..." was it? She didn't really know. Wasn't as if his life choices were hinged on her wants or needs. How dare you die and then come back in a new body and not tell me. That wasn't fair.

Probably best just to drop it. If he was the real deal, well, she was better served by respecting this time with him rather than resenting it. Magda's glass-covered gaze followed the man as he walked over towards the waterfall of sparks and began ... what was he doing? She turned slowly on the spot to watch, head canting to one side. Baffled.

What was he doing?

"What are you doing? You're going to set yourself on fire-" a few strides carried her towards him but she hovered just out of range, "I've had some preliminary training and I'm fairly certain I was told that under no circumstances should I attempt to astrogate while under the influence."

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Magdalena Lethe"]

"An' I bet they used words like 'preliminary' when they told you that." I guzzled the last of the can and dropped it.

"Look, Jedi rule number one, other than 'don't get jiggy unless you really want to' and 'don't get rich unless you really want to' and 'don't use the Force to attack unless you really want to' -- screw all of that and do what they did right. 'Let go your conscious self and act on instinct.' Loosen up, unlock some doors, see what happens. I'm not saying fly drunk, but just... stop thinking. And using words like 'preliminary.' Hic."

 

[Magdalena Lethe]

Magda scoffed, arms unraveling from her front to fall at her sides, nonplussed.

How dare he?

She brushed off the offense. No, she'd managed to deal with Isaiah just fine, she could handle this. Maybe.

"I will not be embarassed by or shunned from the education provided to me by my parents," her hands found her hips, case-in-point, a moment of defensiveness quickly overcome by the want to learn and listen.

"Ok," Magda gestured to him and his spark shower, "so you want me to ... feel like a Jedi?"

This all seem very unstructured. Weren't Jedi all about structure? Regimented training and schooling? Discipline? She eyed the man through her mask as he hiccuped, sparks bouncing off his shoulders where he stood, grimey and sweaty and slightly inebriated. Some Jedi. Where was the vision of Jedi Master Hal Terrano when you needed him? The quintessential burlap brigadier.

She digressed with a huff of breath.

"Let me try," her arms loosed from her hips, awkward in her suit without the ability to roll up her sleeves, and left her hands bobbing listlessly at her sides. She waited for him to move and walked forward, eyes closed, trying not to think. Trying to feel. Couldn't feel anything. Magda turned on the spot to face him again, eyes open, to discover the sparks were no longer falling.

She sputtered.

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Magdalena Lethe"]

I squinted up into the hull. Didn't see much. "Guess they finished grindin' down that patch. Two things."

Zonju provided another rock and I sat down.

"Thing one: when the moment's here, it's here. No fuss, just do the thing. Thinking things through has its place, but some opportunities are here and gone like that." I snapped my fingers. "Maybe that's a gap in a fire pattern or a warp in an unstable hyperspace field, or whatever. I don't really have a word for this: it's half mindfulness and half command edge and mostly just being aware and ready and willing to take the leap.

"Thing two. What the crap was thing two? Oh, right. Okay, so, the thing with Jedi is, the stuffy formalism is pharasaic. Yeah, I can use long words too. I was just poking you before. Most Jedi, hic, go for formalism because the form of somethin' is easier than the substance. What's inside, that most Jedi never get to understanding, is the spirit of it all. The Force can affect what you do, control it if you let it. Most Sith would never. Maybe that's why the best astrogators are mostly the good guys, yeah?

"Come to think of it, you're a good guy, right?"

 

[Magdalena Lethe]

Oportunism.

Seize the moment.

Formality with substance.

Magda thought she could handle all that. Thought she already did. But if time galavanting across the starts had shown her anything, it was that she was perfectly imperfect. That was exactly how she ended up here.

"I most certainly am not," her arms were folded again, visor gleaming under a fresh flow of sparks from another part of the hull, "I'm a good gal." She was smiling behind that plate of glass, even if he couldn't see it. Magda reached a hand out to offer a handshake for a more formal greeting, "Magdalena Lethe. For what it's worth, I believe you're the real deal now."

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Magdalena Lethe"]

I froze halfway through the handshake. "If I'd'a known I was gonna make a fool of myself in front of the founder of GUIDE, I'd have...well, probably bought better lum. Good to finally meet ya. Am I remembering right that we've got the Dashiell family as friends in common?"

Another spark waterfall started coming down, maybe five, ten paces off. Considering how the wind could shift, and how I didn't want to get sparked out of nowhere, I gave it a bit of distance. Just common sense.

"So what's brought you to Zoronhed? Zonju system's not the most, uh, cosmopolitan place."

 

[Magdalena Lethe]

"I'm surprised you know about me to be honest. I didn't think word of GUIDE reached this far out," her smile broadened, a bit of warmth and color reaching her cheeks. She was as grateful for the visor obscuring the view as she was for the unspoken compliment given by Jorus Merrill himself.

"And yes, Isaiah Dashiell was one of our best Pathfinders. Judah was one of our first big Sponsors and now his son Malakai stepped in to renew the contract with Salacia Consolidated. They're good friends to have in common." A glance followed his gaze and she took the que to give the shower of sparks a bit more distance with a matching sidestep.

"Well, typically I would be out here exploring the locale for GUIDE, but uh..." Magda cast around for the right words, "I find myself in the unfortunate predicament of making the executive decision to shut GUIDE down. I needed time away to think. When I got in my ship I chose a random location on the charts ... and here I am."