Leos
Dirk
Braze perked up at hearing the title of respect and cast a glance back toward Leos, mild surprise touching his features. An almost knowing smile followed, accompanied by an easy demeanor, and he reached over to ruffle the boy’s dark hair in an affectionate pat.
“Sure, have fun exploring. I’m going to chat with our new friend here. Call me on your coms if you need me,” Braze chirped softly.
And sure enough, that strange call still seemed to be reaching for Leos…
It pressed at the edges of his consciousness, subtle as breath against the ear, neither voice nor sound and yet somehow carrying the shape of both. It brushed across his thoughts in a way that made the fine hairs at the back of his neck rise, a sensation like soft-spoken words just beyond understanding, or the faint hum left in silence after a note had already faded. Something in it tugged, gentle but insistent, drawing his attention further outward, away from the others and into the quiet waiting stretches of Dantooine.
Braze did not seem especially worried for his student’s safety. Dantooine, at least on the surface, wore peace and serenity well...
The land rolled wide beneath an open sky, all long grasses and weathered stone, the kind of countryside that seemed to breathe slowly. The earth rose and dipped in broad green swells, patched with wildflowers in pale violet, yellow, and white, their heads bending under the lazy pass of the wind. Footpaths, thin and half-swallowed by age, wound between outcroppings of rock and low hills where the soil showed through in warm bands of brown and rust-red.
Farther out, the terrain grew older in its shapes. Stone shelves jutted from the hillsides at odd angles, worn smooth in some places and split sharply in others, as though time itself had cracked them open and simply left them there. Here and there, ancient ruins broke the horizon: lonely walls half-collapsed into the grass, broken columns leaning under the weight of centuries, foundations swallowed by roots and moss.
Leos might find himself led between those remnants, through narrow trails cut by weather and wandering beasts, where the grasses brushed at his knees and seedheads caught against his clothes. Small insects trilled in the distance. Somewhere overhead, a bird cried once, then fell quiet. The breeze shifted often, carrying the dry scent of sun-warmed stone, crushed green things, and the faint clean trace of water from somewhere unseen.
The farther that feeling pulled, the quieter the world around him seemed to become.
Ahead, the ground sloped gently downward into a shallow vale tucked between ridges of rock and flowering brush. Shadows pooled there in soft blue patches where the sun did not quite reach, and the path narrowed as if guiding him into some place the plains had chosen to keep hidden. Tall grasses bowed and rustled in the breeze. Ivy clung to fractured stones here...A few pale trees, bent by years of wind, spread thin silver branches overhead...
Nothing about it felt dangerous...at least not openly...
