Tribal Tribulation

[Alara Slayn]

The Gardens of T'alla. Once a sacred place, now little more than ruin.

The barren ground of what was once the garden felt odd as Alara's utility boots walked all over it. There was an ethereal, desolate quality to the earth - probably the aftereffects of the Cron Supernova that wiped the planet clean at one point. This was the homeworld of her mother, of the Ysanna people - feral, savage to the misunderstanding, but from the perspective of the Force, pure. Knossa may have been no more, but the primal spirit of the Ysanna lived on.

This unplanned visit, a stopover of sorts, was meant to be a quick stopover on the trade lanes to Korriban, but it'd be two entire rotations before the next shuttle would jump in, and it's not as if the orbital elevator to the freeport was far. That, and surely the ruins of the Jedi temple which the gardens overlooked would make for some interesting 'digging'. In her typical clothing but now brandishing a little toolkit hanging from her left hand, she moved between the jagged rocks, down the garden's main walkway, or what was left of it over the millennia. In the distant skies behind the clouds, the silhouettes of Adega Prime and Adega Besh were peeking down at the deathworld below. It was said that the occasional tribe or recluse shaman could be chanced upon, but an hour into her little trek Alara had yet to see any. Well, the Jedi temple's still a good 1 hour stroll away from here. Should run into something by then.

Alara highly doubted if she'd actually find anything salvageable from the ruins, but from what she'd learned prior the best lessons didn't come in the form of artifacts, but of enhanced knowledge. Even a lightsaber would be just another trinket to an ignoramus, as even the most intricate holocron sample would be lost to a child, or a jungle savage. It was the insight and knowledge gained that always counted - sometimes placebo, but every now and then, a gem of a find that justified the hunt.

Reciting a little fragment of recovered Ysanna poetry to herself, she pulled her datapad up from her bag slung around her torso, and read again the last few entries she'd made before alighting from the trading barge in low orbit.

The Cron Supernova washed across the planet, cleaning its surface of life and subsequently the Jedi polis. Isolated reports suggest the presence of Kyber crystals as a bi-product of the cataclysm. Further reports as to remnant devices or artifacts among the ruins of the Old Jedi Temple are unverified.

It looked promising.

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Alara Slayn"]

Her soft track against the backdrop of a ruined city did not go unnoticed.

Out of every world that Onley and him had been dropped on by their father, only one truly stood out for Silas. The Ysanna had been weary of them at first. But after many months, they had finally accepted them as brothers, as part of the the over-arching tribe, capable of going through the rites and learn the higher mysteries. He left them behind, yes, but sometimes the lad still felt that feint tugging at the edge of his spirit.

Pulling him back to Ossus and his second family.

Whispers had reached him that someone walked among their holy sites - this, in itself, was not something new, often did outsiders seek out Ossus and what it hid, but this time it felt special. So Silas offered, for old time sake, to be the one to study this stranger and find out her intentions.

His back was against Adega Prime, yet, the clouds did little to obscure his vision. All he had was leather drenched in muddy colors of grey and brown, to fade into the background of ruined duracrete and worse.

Red like blood smeared in anger and fury. Silas thought to himself, as he studied the tracking silhouette of Slayn through the ruins of the city. As he was about to take a better look, he overstepped his weight and some loose duracrete crumbled behind the faded leather of his boot.

Small pieces of rock cascaded down, which might alert Slayn.

But Silas had already retreated back into the shadows.

 

[Alara Slayn]

Ysanna?

In a heartbeat, the young girl quickly unholstered her Westar and fired off a shot to her eight o'clock; her young frame still moving somewhat lankily as the seemingly oversized blaster (relative to her) almost flew off to the side. Nothing? Alara didn't seem convinced, and quickly surveyed the old duracrete ruins surrounding her. If there were Ysanna tracking her, they probably already had her surrounded and she'd be in for a fight. But the hunting tactics of the Ysanna were well-documented and because of that predictable. This stalker seemed lighter, almost phantom-like in its agility. It would have taken, at most, half the time for it to make that mistake and then retreat before she was able to lay off that suppressing round. Impressive.

Another glancing look around as she kept her blaster close, and Alara came to the conclusion that it wasn't a fluke. Something, someone, was here. A kind of droning paranoia began to take over her as her pupils dilated, her breathing gradually picked up, and her movements became more calculated. Frak. she whispered under her breath. She hated herself for always panicking in situations like this - particularly when she should be composed and prepared for any contingency. Yes she was young, but that was no excuse - at least it did not seem so to her.

Another few tense seconds passed, and Alara couldn't take it anymore. By her estimates, the temple would be just another ten minutes away from her current position; 5 if she mad a run for it - and that's exactly what she did. In a moment's notice she immediately took off, dashing straight down the ruined gardens' ancient promenade walkway as she frantically tried to run to the hills, proverbially speaking, and head for cover where she wasn't out in the open like a sitting Ronto waiting for death to come. If something was stalking her, she'd attempt to lure it in and engage it on her own terms.

[member="Silas of Ossus"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Alara Slayn"]

The whine of the blaster echoed through the jungle and passed Silas by a relatively wide margin.

A growl forced itself through his lips regardless, because she had been far too accurate with his position regardless. it meant this was a hunt on a fellow predator... regardless of how untrained she might be right now. You didn't need training to kill on instinct, this was a truth that Silas knew far too well. Instincts had served him well in the beginning... when he had been a little cub with another brother cub at his side.

Once the shadow had managed to reinsert himself into the situation, the bloody fire was already raging through the ruins towards goals unknown.

But the purpose behind it was clear.

Draw him in, further and deeper into the net, until Slayn could turn the table on him. A grin now started forming as the game became clear to him. Already the Ysanna was pushing himself off the duracrete, already his form blurred as his run was propelled forward by adrenaline and a thirst for the hunt.

Already he could feel the weight of his axe on his belt, just waiting to be drawn and for blood to be spilled in white-hot anger.

As Silas ran, his mind went before him. Suddenly a little pebble, small in stature, yet with velocity behind it to bruise and pain, shot out from the ruins towards Slayn's legs.

The camouflage was still on him, but if her focus was well enough, she would be able to see a humanoid image dashing from one rooftop to the other for figments of seconds.

 

[Alara Slayn]

High above her flanks, Alara could just barely make out the silhouette of her stalker dashing from place to place, almost like a visage warping in and out of reality as it blended in well with its surroundings. A trained hunter, she thought as she slowed down to a steady jog to pace herself but still keep going. No ordinary tribesman, this one. Might even be a Mandalorian. (?)

"No, no, not now", Slayn then thought to herself as she shook her head to stop herself from logic-chopping again in the middle of engagement. It didn't help either that that blaster she carried around was mostly for show a - a deterrent against thugs and goons: she had no real blaster training, let alone blasted someone. At the tender age of 16, it was by mostly wit, guile and sheer luck that kept her alive. She wasn't a killer. Not yet. That simple truth was a disadvantage working against her, as even she knew the galaxy wasn't as kind - run into the wrong person and her flame could go out in the bat of an eyelash. People didn't care, and why should they?

As she quickly honed in again on the phantom tracker bolting about, Alara knew she only had a fraction of a second before she lost it again. She immediately fired off another two rounds - again, in that general direction, but still missing by a wide margin. Not exactly a hotshot, girl, she groaned to herself. Little beads of sweat were beginning to trickle down her face now, and the front and back of her t-shirt were beginning to get soaked under her vest. And then suddenly, she felt a sharp sensation heat up like a little patch on her thigh. He shot me? At first Alara didn't dare check as to not let that reality sink in - not just yet. A few seconds further and finally she momentarily glanced down, finding nothing but feeling that aching sensation against her skin. That'll bruise, definitely. She then turned back up, slowed down, and placing one foot far in front of her person and angling it off at a 90 degree angle perpendicular to her, she came to a full stop.

Telekinetic. Frak my stars.

As she stood there trying to catch her breath, she kept looking around for signs of her assailant. Chances are they both already knew it was only the two of them here, but fortune favored the one still shrouded in darkness and away from her sight. After what seemed like the longest 30 seconds of her young life, she decided to call it out.

"I know you're here. Show yourself pathfinder."

It was an enormous risk. Bold bravado only worked in stories, at least most of the time by her estimates. It could go one of two ways really - either she's confronted with someone far more adept at the art of the hunt than she was, or she just blatantly gave away her position and was about to be snuffed out, turned to Ysanna chow, and what'd be left would be Bantha poodoo in a few rotations' time.

[member="Silas of Ossus"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Alara Slayn"]

She didn't look down until a few seconds after, definitely good instincts.

But currently Silas was readjusting his opinion on her shooting experience. The shots went wide on a wide basis, which made him wonder why she had one in the first place, it was only dead weight if you couldn't actually make use of it. Can't all grow up on dead worlds surrounded by hostile wildlife with only a dull knife to protect yourself with, the Ysanna pondered to himself, while studying Alara's 'last stand' with something of interest.

Bold.

This pleased Silas, slightly, yet boldness alone could not carry you for long in this Galaxy. His father had taught him that lesson over and over again, until it was finally drilled into his head.

Instinct drove him onwards then, another piece of duracrete flew out of its hiding place. This time the velocity dissipated only a few moments before going straight through Alara's neck. There it drifted behind her, until it briefly ticked her against her skin. As she moved to turn around, to see what was had touched her in that very moment, the silhouette of a young man dropped behind her in silence.

His short axe already raised and with a swift motion it found its way around her, cradling her throat gently.

"Three deaths, you owe me." His voice cut through the silence as the Ysanna stood so close behind her that his hot breath washed over her with every raise in his chest, up and down.

"Drop the blaster."

 

[Alara Slayn]

"Can only wonder what took you so long."

Alara grunted under her breath as she raised her hands and dropped both her toolbox and her blaster. She was breathing heavily herself after that whole ordeal, but the youngling really had no other option than to concede, at least for now - the only other alternative was death, and that wasn't really an option when she thought about it. Alara rolled her eyes in a fit of defiant bravado, while letting out a little hiss of disapproval - mostly at herself for being outsmarted by one of her own.

A few tense moments of silence passed, only occasionally interrupted by her gasping for air, and Alara finally attempted to look up and back to get a visual of her assailant, while also gently dancing just a few millimeters short of [member="Silas of Ossus"]'s axehead, which at any moment could cleave her entire head right off. For a bit she glanced around again to see if he had company, but after concluding that the two were alone (It made no real difference. She was out of tricks), attempted to speak to him in Ysanna, albeit in a disgruntled tone and with an odd accent (and diction) that hinted of time spent with the Mandalorians.

"You don't look like a tribe headhunter - you haven't hacked me dead yet. What do you want?"

From the corner of her eye she could see that this one, a male, was near-Human enough - not quite of Ysanna stock perhaps but definitely trained by them all the same. She'd read scientific journals about how the Ysanna could supposedly alter projectile trajectories mid-flight, and throughout the millennia had the privilege of inheriting Jedi philosophy as its charged guardians on this rock. It was a shame then, in almost poetic irony, that all that had been lost to superstition across the ages.

Either way, none of the lore made any difference at this point. If this one was a thoroughbred Ysanna, she'd be karked for trying to snoop around on holy ground. If he wasn't, then maybe there was hope for negotiating her way out of her precarious predicament.

 

[Jairus Starvald]

"Some things are worth taking slow."

His breath was steady, slow and with a rhythmic cadence that spoke of years of training. This wasn't his first shindig and it certainly wouldn't be the last, yet, this one was different, because there were eyes watching them. Not literally - no, the other Ysanna trusted him enough that this would be his to do as he thought right - but there were ways to handle this.

Ways that hailed back to the oldest years, when the Ysanna first crawled out of their damp caves and laid claim on the holy worlds.

Death to those who disrespected their protectorate.

For a moment Silas wondered what he would do next, to cut her open or to give her a honest fight, the latter had more honor to it. But his decision was taking from him the moment her tongue contorted words in their common language. This complicated things, did it not? Where had she learned the language and what did it mean for her to be here?

She wasn't trained by the tribes or she would have joined them, instead of bumbling about the holy grounds and disturbing the spirits that lay.

"You speak our language, yet, flaunt the laws. Where did you learn the tongue?"

The voice was still rough, the edge of the axe still precariously close to the tender flesh of her throat, but there was an opening there if she could see it. Three deaths she owed him, but it did not have to end with her death to sate the spirits. This much Silas could give her with the wiggling room he possessed through the rites and the verbal scriptures passed along.

[member="Alara Slayn"]

 

[Alara Slayn]

Surprisingly, given how inwardly looking the Ysanna were, this one actually answered back.

Not actually having spoken to anybody in the native tongue before, Alara was a little taken aback and really didn't know how to follow up even the simplest of formalities, however crude and awkward the context. She could feel the rage washing over her deep inside, fed by the anxiety and the frustration of having to put up with essentially being someone's hostage, held at gunpoint lest she said the 'magic words'.

"My mother... My mother..."

It was a sensitive issue for Alara, and seldom did she talk about it. In an instant all the holorecords of her mother came back to her - all the entries her mother had made and left for her, it all felt too real. Her eyes seemed to wonder as for a moment she fell into an odd kind of trance as, for a split second, the stromas of her eyes glowed a sickly yellow-to-red hue. In the milliseconds that followed a small stone, no larger than a marble, propelled itself straight at the two, whizzing past Silas' ear with an odd, electric after-boom. At that same moment Alara pressed against the handlestock of his axe still held to her neck, and with a twisting sidestep managed to pull herself free and took a few strides back to create a safe working gap between the two.

Her eyes now had oddly dilated, and with one hand she held the side of her head like she was having some sort of migraine spasm. With a dazed gaze she looked at him for a moment before continuing:

"My mother was Ysanna. I never met her, but I know she was a good one. She spoke the tongue, so I did too."

However contorted and with the accent bastardized, there was a lyrical, sing-song quality to the Ysanna tongue, and despite the Mando'a bent, there was a strange quality to how Alara was able to pull it off. It wasn't just the fragmented rambling of a bookish scholar. There was a lot of legitimate emotion that seemed to back every word - like the sophism of an oracle, minus the wisdom or the foresight of course.

She now stared him down, breathing slightly more regulated but still leaning towards panting, but with a little more intent and with no intention of coming quietly.

[member="Silas of Ossus"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Alara Slayn"]

It was as he had thought.

A child born from the blood of the tribe, yet, separated from it. What to do with this wayward daughter of the Ysanna? Kill her was out of the question, no Ysanna blood would stain the stones of the holy land, not by his actions anyway. But before any other conclusion could be drawn a stone pebble whirred straight at them.

He side-stepped it and this allowed Slayn to shimmy her way out of his grasp and find some safe distance between the two of them.

"The blood of our people runs through you, this much is clear." Silas responded after a moment, even... even if this one was more Ysanna than he ever could be.

Their blood ran through hers, yet Silas was a man from a different heritage.

"What was your purpose here?"

Now the axe was lowered, pointing to the ground and resting easily in his hand. This did not mean the danger was entirely gone. But for the moment Silas saw no reason to threaten her any longer. A sister, if not by blood, than by shared tongue and thoughts, no wonder she had run as well as she did.

The Ysanna wondered what the tribe would say of this child, what her fate would be if he brought her to them.

Still death? They were unyielding in some respects.

 

[Alara Slayn]

It was a big relief no longer having to put up with that dreadful cold steel to her neck anymore, and it was almost as if weight had been lifted off of her chest and she could now breathe just a little easier. With the axe no longer aimed directly at her vitals she could chill, but she wasn't quite out of the woods yet. There remained the adept before her, who seemed just as capable of cutting her down all the same - distance regardless. At any rate, even with her hands down by her sides she still kept her guard up. Alara may have been young and naive, but she'd be a fool to trust so quickly. She felt no need to deceive or derail however, so she figured she'd just come clean.

"If you're one of them, no, one of us", she awkwardly corrected herself, "then you'll know that the Ysanna have lost everything to time. The Ysanna were once guardians of the Jedi's deepest secrets, but we've strayed. It's been a long time. I wanted to come here to see if there was anything left, but also to find out why."

She continued, still a little shaken but gradually getting herself together, "The Ysanna now are nothing like what they used to be - only shades of the heritage of our people. I did not grow up among the tribes as you did, but the blood runs through me. I came here to study, to understand my mother's people - my people, but also, myself." As she spoke, her hands seemed to match what she was saying, probably in an attempt to further her basic grasp of the language by means of emphasis and gesture, and probably also part because the language itself, at least as it appeared to her, demanded emotion.

She didn't really know what to say more than that, as the semantics didn't really make allowances for that. It'd have to do for now. She almost let herself smile, allowing for the brief hope that she'd get across to him - or he could always take it the wrong way, and take her for a robber.

"My name is Alara Slayn. From my mother, my name is Alara Ysanna. My father is Morellian. From Wild Space. What is yours?"

[member="Silas of Ossus"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Alara Slayn"]

What she said were the same thoughts he had every time he came to visit.

But this Alara was wrong if she thought there would be anything of worth on the holy grounds. The spirits long since disturbed, the ancient knowledge pilfered and all that was left were scraps. The Sith Empire had come down hard on Ossus once it had expanded its influence over the world, they drove the Ysanna back into the wilds and the tribes knew there was little they could do against Star Destroyers in the skies and AT-ATs on the ground.

They simply decided to wait it out, but once they did... once the Sith Empire collapsed two decades ago, they found their holy grounds stripped and plundered.

There was nothing left.

"You came too late." The Ysanna finally responded, before hanging back his axe on his belt. "The Sith pushed our people back into the wilds two decades back, plundered all that there was left to plunder."

His hand waved to the site of the ruins.

"This is all there's left."

Now she was asking for his name and the Ysanna felt the exhaustion. Exhaustion from the memories, from being once again reminded of the failure of the people he considered his family for such a long time.

"Silas, just Silas."

 

[Alara Slayn]

"Silas."

Alara couldn't help but frown at the man's discouraging words, although in her mind she knew that what he was saying was true. Perhaps a part of her always knew it to be true since she arrived on this planet, but a part of her also wanted to believe that something remained to be salvaged. Ultimately there was no real way to answer that question, but the answers [member="Silas of Ossus"] gave were nonetheless leads on what to expect. Alara slowly picked up her blaster and her toolbox again, holstering the former and dusting off the latter. There wasn't really much to say against the proposition that all Ysanna culture had been wiped clean through negligence and tyranny, but personally, that wasn't about stop her.

She momentarily took another glance around, eyes squinting under the bright but still comfortably warm midday sun. Nothing had really changed, but the dogged determination within her remained the same. Young as she was, she'd consorted with powers far more complex than Jedi ruins. Corrupting, damning, but uplifting.

"These are the gardens of T'alla, correct?", she continued as she turned to face Silas again. "It is said this place overlooks the old Jedi temple ruins. Could we go there?"

Even ruins, Alara knew, could hold secrets. Even with just a little equipment, even rocks had stories to tell. In expecting but optimistic silence she waited for Silas' reply, but was already itching to get moving again. Barring what had transpired here, things seemed to be falling into place for the young Alara, and if she could only follow through on her ambitions, she was laying the foundations for what would go on to become her life's work.

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Alara Slayn"]

The Ysanna frowned when she did not seem to have any plans to cease her attempts.

What to do? In truth Silas could probably kill her or maybe knock her out, let the elders sort this mess out - but in reality, he did not want to end her. Not yet, anyway. Much time had been spend with the tribes, but just as his father had wanted... he didn't feel completely part of it. Sith. It sat in his blood from both sides of his parents, it saturated his body and his thinking, even when he did not want it to.

You were born for this. The whisper filtered into his mind, but it only annoyed him more.

"Maybe." Silas finally said, his hand pressing uncomfortably against the pommel of his axe. "We will need to be fast."

"The tribes won't be look, before they send hunters in my place."

He stretched out - the act of a predator warming himself up for another hunt - without much concern of her presence. Then Silas studied the passage of the sun, gauging how long they would have, before the Ysanna would consider him dead and another detachment would be send.

"I hope you will be faster than you were."

After gesturing with his head in the direction they should go, the young man was already off, dashing into the ruins and ruined duracrete.