Walkabout

[Kyyrk]

Voph's brow creased. She was mad that he'd tried to reassure her. Understandable, but... He was having difficulty understanding this girl. And it didn't sit well with him. Likely to get mad at everything he said, no matter how civil he tried to be. "Then it would seem you are out of options, Miss Lechner." He stood, and stretched his arms, turning to set a credit chit on the bar to pay the rest of his tab. "Failing to understand the complexities of modern technology has always been a weakness of mine. And, if it is an unsolvable mystery to you as well, then I would imagine that neither of us know an individual capable of assisting."

Voph turned his head to look at the girl as he adjusted the belt around his waist. "It...is odd, though. Don't you think?" He arched a brow at the girl, a coy smile creeping onto his features. "Evil cult's done away with one of your friends, presumably a member of the Confederacy, if not your...Knights Obsidian." Voph gestured to the girl's armor as he said this, his tone suggesting he was speculating the nature of her relationship with the missing person. "And everyone...wants it gone. Wants...HER gone."

Voph paused for a moment. A bold accusation, and he mentally prepared himself for another verbal lashing from the little woman. "After all...Corpses never stay in one place. They...like to roam. From place to place to place." While a statement like this could have been the pinnacle of snark, Voph's tone suggested otherwise. He was hinting at something. A...rather pointed statement about the unusual situation Alwine was confronted with. "And those in my profession would tell you...There is much that can be learned from the dead. Often times more talkative than the living." There might have been a twinkle in Voph's eyes, if he had them. "But, that's all besides the point. You've been to the place of the battle. You've seen the rubble and ruins. It's been wiped clean. All of it. No records, no bodies, nothing."

Voph smiled, though there was something...sinister about it. "So why would so much trouble be given to a cult that was eradicated completely by the Confederacy? Why such a thourogh clean-up for ants crushed under a boot? I hope for your sake that your Confederacy failed in eradicating the cult. Otherwise...You may have a rogue agent among your ranks..."

[member="Alwine Lechner"]

 

[Alwine Daye]

Out of options. Alwine was used to that feeling. She loathed it. It had accompanied her every single day of her life on Stewjon, and it appeared that it was making a huge comeback in this new life of her away from it as well.

But yes. It was odd. She nodded to that statement. But then she shook her head. "No, that attack was not directed at her specifically," she explained a point that she realized she might have overlooked earlier, "there were a few dozen people taken from the Confederacy, not just the Knights Obsidian. She just happened to be among them. I have uncovered nothing that would even suggest the possibility of this being specifically against her in any way."

Things could be learned from the dead? Another blink from the Lupine. She had no experience in such things, though she knew… No. That ssindossa would never be someone she asked for help. Not after all the things she had done.

And…

"A rogue," Alwine repeated. She did not like the notion of that.

The Lupine sighed and ordered another mug of mead for herself. "How do you find a rogue in a place so big where there isn't the slightest of hopes of knowing everyone?"

[member="Voph"]

 

[Kyyrk]

Voph chuckled quietly, folding his arms over his chest. "You don't. Not unless their bad at what they do....or they want to be found." He looked around the cantina for a moment. "Which would leave you with only one option. Assume there is no rogue, and do your best to draw one out all the same. After all...you start looking into this disappearance...it's going to attract attention."

Voph looked at the girl again. "Enter your newfound associate. With no ties to the confederacy, and a lifetime of tracking and hunting at his disposal. Able to move covertly, and sow confusion among anyone wishing the missing to remain so. Of course...with so little information to go on...I would have to be in regular contact with you in order to ensure data relevance. Lest I be chasing ghosts."

Voph stepped up beside the girl and leaned against the bar, clasping his hands in front of him as he did so. "So. To start, I need memories. A body, clothing, an item, anything that interacts with The Force enough to allow me to see where it has been. And the more its previous owner knew, the better..."

[member="Alwine Lechner"]

 

[Alwine Daye]

Assume there was no rogue and try to lure one out at the same time? It sounded like two things to do that contradicted each other. Alwine remained silent, hoping Voph would have more to say on the matter, since that alone left her as clueless as she had been before.

But yes. There. Now he offered himself as her associate. Chasing ghosts…

He wanted something of hers? Alwine shook her head. "I have nothing," she admitted with a sigh. "Nothing that I could give you, on any account," she corrected herself. No, the letter and the package could never be touched by strangers, and she was certain anyway that by now she had touched and held it closer to her than the woman ever had.

But there were other options. "But I could get something…" she murmured to herself. Yes. They were both Knights Obsidian. She could easily invite herself over and do away with something small that would not be noticed. Or maybe it would. "How do I know how well the previous owner knew the object?"

[member="Voph"]

 

[Kyyrk]

Voph shook his head, a thoughtful look on his face. "In most cases, you don't. I have found that different people value different things. But, the one thing that remains constant. Small items of little monetary value." He gestured as he tried to think of examples. "Trinkets. Baubles. Lucky Coins. A necklace. Things that a person would keep for sentimental value. But, even that does not work with complete accuracy."

He fell silent for a moment. "And...I apologize, you misunderstood my meaning. The knowledge the owner had of the item is...irrelevant. If I am to look in to the history of the item, the more the previous owner knew about your friend and their disappearance, the more I could learn to help you find them."

Voph mused for a second, before turning his blind gaze to the girl. "What little remains in the ruins may be sufficient. Perhaps you could take me there? Let me look around. See what there is to find."

[member="Alwine Lechner"]

 

[Alwine Daye]

Small items with little monetary value. Alwine nodded. She was pretty sure she could gain those from Madalena. It would take time though; she could not simply walk up to the woman and demand it. She would have… She would have to steal it.

Alwine sighed. This was a step into a direction that she was uncomfortable with. Looking at histories, sure. Snooping around, certainly. But out right theft… Perhaps if she'd speak to the woman she could ask to borrow an item instead. But that left the headache of trying to explain what sort of item and why she wanted. Would the goal make the means all right? Those were not questions she could ask this stranger.

But then Voph offered an alternative. Alwine nodded and stood up, tossing a few credit chips at the bar.

"Yes," she said, "let us leave at once. It is a ten minute drive from here."

[member="Voph"]

 

[Kyyrk]

Voph offered her that same near-predatory smile. He was eager to get back onto the field again. It had been far, far too long since he'd had a good hunt. A good mystery to solve. He straightened up, and adjusted his belt, waiting for Alwine to lead the way out of the cantina. He paused on the street outside, taking a deep breath of the salty ocean air that was..frankly everywhere on Rishi. He missed this place. He glanced at Alwine as they walked towards the speeder.

He took a moment to look the girl over. More specifically her armor. He was, after all, in an entirely new world. New factions, new governments...and much could be said about them based on how they outfitted their soldiers. Though Alwine didn't strike Voph as a soldier, persay. And if she was, she was inexperienced. She had too much spirit about her.

"What's your opinion on this...Confederacy of Independent Systems that you work for? I...must admit, I've never heard of them before in my travels." He knew the CIS was a rather large force these days, and knew that it might be seen as absurd that he hadn't heard of them. But it wasn't exactly a lie. He didn't have to tell her everything, after all. If she was smart, she might figure out what happened to him. But given her rudimentary knowledge of the greater secrets of the Force, he wouldn't be surprised if she didn't.

[member="Alwine Lechner"]

 

[Alwine Daye]

Alwine was indeed not a soldier. Not a proper one, anyway. The Knights Obsidian were composed of several fighting units, but they did not really resemble the neat and formal way that actual soldiers went about their business. But as Voph had not specifically asked about it, she saw no reason to randomly speak of it out of the blue.

Walking outside, she motioned to the speeder and hopped into the back, giving Voph time to join her there. Alwine couldn't drive speeders, much as she wanted to. It was on the long list of things she had to catch up with, learn how to do. And she knew she would get it done, sooner or later. For now though, a CIS-issued droid was good enough to do the driving.

"It is a big organization," she answered honestly, "and as such, it is full of dumb people and redundant protocols that have to be followed."

Sighing, Alwine removed a bottle of water from the little box that was on the floor of the vehicle, and offered one to Voph as well.

"I do not care for or against the Confederacy itself," the petite blond explained, "I'm with it because my brothers are here and it is my wish to keep us united. If it was not for them, I would probably not be with the Confederacy at all."

[member="Voph"]

 

[Kyyrk]

Voph snorted. He shook his head and waved the girl down, declining her offer of a water bottle. "I'm afraid it is much the same everywhere else." He reached up to adjust the crest covering his eye sockets. "Yet, some things are necessary evils. In my youth, there was a woman I worked with. A wholly unenjoyable sort, head of law for our people. She never ceased citing rules and regulations on why everything you did was wrong. Or illegal. And yet, she was perhaps one of my greatest allies. Cite a few rules, provide evidence on how someone was breaking them..." Voph shrugged. "Suddenly the problem goes away. Of course, the trick was to make yourself useful enough that they were willing to turn a blind eye to your own disregard of the boundaries."

Voph fell silent for a moment. "It is good that you wish to remain close with your brothers. To often have I seen families ripped apart by petty strife. And...to a degree I wish I could have had one." He was quiet for a moment. "My parents died shortly into my second decade. No sisters...no brothers. Just my wife. And now...Even she's gone..."

[member="Alwine Lechner"]

 

[Alwine Daye]

Alwine did not understand the purpose of the story he had told her about the woman who followed the rules. She did not know such women, or men, for that matter. Law enforces that she had experience with did often nothing and less to uphold the law other than make it comfortable for those in power to bend the law to their will. From what she had observed within the Confederacy, no one concerned themselves too much with the law either. She was certain that if she were to question anyone about it they would not be able to tell her much at all.

"Our family was split apart for months," she said quietly, keeping her gaze directly head of her. Gerwald had left them with the auflaque. She had raged, burned the food stores, gotten caught. For months, she had been imprisoned and tortured. They had been split apart. It was a constantly battle to ensure it did not happen again. To ensure that her anger at what had happened did not cause the strife to renew. "What happened to your wife?"

[member="Voph"]

 

[Kyyrk]

Voph was quiet for a long time. "I don't know." The words hung in the air for a moment, then Voph turned his gaze towards Alwine. "I don't know what happened to her. We...were separated when it happened." Voph shrugged, trying to add a bit of levity to the situation. "I have my theories. I never sensed her passing until...until I was unable to do so. Which..." Voph smiled slightly. "...frankly she had no business living that long. Would have been almost ninety years old. Impressive for one of our kind, particularly in times of war."

Voph looked away from Alwine, instead looking down at his hands. When he continued speaking...it almost sounded as if he were...ashamed of something. "I...can only hope that she died of old age, taken when the maker deemed fit." Almost in anticipation of Alwine's next question, Voph began speaking after a brief pause. "My...memories had been altered to...protect me. I understand now that it was her idea. Her doing. She wished to protect me. So...she wiped my mind, hid me away, and...watched." Voph looked back at Alwine with a sad smile on his face. "I can only hope she was able to move on. Find someone else. Have the family we never could."

[member="Alwine Lechner"]

 

[Alwine Daye]

Sense her passing? Alwine blinked, looking at Voph. This was new territory to her. She did not know that such a thing was possible. Of course, she'd sensed it with her mother and father, but she had also been directly responsible with them as well, so it was not quite the same. Why did one not have business living long? "How long does your kind usually live?" she asked with a touch of gentleness. Lupines, she knew, got an average of seventy. That did not sound like much at all, especially when compared to very long lived species that seemed to clutter the galaxy no matter where she went.

And he did not know how she had died, either. It sounded like a wretched predicament for someone you were supposed to love.

But… "Your memories have been altered?" not it was impossible to miss the interest in her voice, the rising of the heat within it, "why would someone else do that to you? When? How would that even help anything?" He did not know. He did not know what this knowledge meant to her, how it within itself might have had some keys to unlocking Alwine's quest. She had to know.

[member="Voph"]

 

[Kyyrk]

Voph shrugged in response to the question. "For that time....fifty...sixty years. Seventy, if you could afford the medical care." He was quiet for a moment, then said, "These days, I'd imagine we're indistinguishable from humans. At least in terms of life span." He looked at Alwine and smiled softly. "Not long, in the grand scheme of things."

He chuckled softly at her thinly veiled interest in his induced amnesia. "Well...Like I said, it was my wife's idea. My...mind was not my own. Another being had taken control of it. The control was broken, but the damage was done. So she enlisted the help of our order to purge my memories. The man I had been was...gone, more or less. But pieces are beginning to filter through." Voph rubbed the bridge of his nose. "There have been several uses of such techniques over the years. I've even practiced it myself on occasion. The most famous was the Dark Lord Revan, ancient history even in my time. He was a Dark Lord of the Sith, whom the Jedi fought and captured. The Jedi Council purged his memories, rather than kill him."

Normally he wouldn't have explained who the legend was. In his time, he was practically a household name. But in this day and age...especially with Alwine appearing...undereducated about some things, he couldn't be too sure. "I...personally detest using such a technique. It destroys a person. Revan was able to regain his old memories...but he's an exception. Without outside help...most bearers of a mind wipe, like myself, can go their whole lives, only ever regaining bits and pieces of who they used to be."

[member="Alwine Lechner"]

 

[Alwine Daye]

For that time? Alwine said nothing at first, wondering exactly when that time had actually been. Potentially centuries, by his description of it.

"I do not know the story of Dark Lord Revan," she admitted after a short silence. "But what you describe… A person being gone, and pieces filtering through… It is something that is happening now. Something that I am trying to understand about that friend."

What sort of outside help was needed? How did you keep a person from being destroyed?

"The friend…" Alwine decided to explain the main parts of the story, "she sort of killed herself. She had been broken, in mind and spirit, and she could not bear to exist anymore. But she didn't destroy her body. I'm… I'm not sure how it happened, but one moment she was there, and then the next anyone saw her body, there was someone else in there. A woman by a different name, a woman that was not broken, a woman that had no memories of the old one. I know that this was her own doing. She is not possessed. But she removed herself from existence to make place for another one. And parts of the original woman are bleeding into the current one, who has no inkling of what has happened, does not know that she was designed to be as she is. Her brother made an attempt to breach her mind but found walls that he could not break through."

[member="Voph"]

 

[Kyyrk]

Voph was quiet for a long moment. He glanced out at the landscape speeding by. He was silent for a moment. A long moment. He felt like this sort of thing was normally something one should keep secret. But what did it matter? He took a deep breath, then said, "I am on Rishi because I wanted to see what had changed since I had last visited. During the Revanite Crisis." If she was unfamiliar with Revan, he knew she wouldn't know about the battles. "I have been traveling the galaxy, looking for something...anything...that feels familiar. We agreed at the cantina that I was an old man? I'm nearly eight and a half decades old. Might be older, but...I died. Completely, physically....dead. That was in the year twenty three after the Treaty of Coruscant. Or, by your reckoning, three-thousand six-hundred thirty years before the battle of Yavin."

He turned to look at Alwine. "I've borne witness to things you would not believe. Things even I do not believe fully. The Force is a wondrous thing, to be feared and respected, yet celebrated and cherished." He paused for a moment to let all this sink in. "I think I know what happened to your friend. She had been broken, you say? Mind and spirit, no will to continue?" He swallowed for a moment, trying to prepare himself to share something he'd never truly shared with anyone. "That was exactly why I was wiped. The control was not broken because of the mind wipe...no, it was broken well before that. But...thinking back on the things I had done while his slave...My wife wiped my mind to save me from myself." He smiled softly. "So...fear not, little one. There is more than a little hope for your friend."

[member="Alwine Lechner"]

 

[Alwine Daye]

Voph's assessment had bene correct. Alwine had no clue what the Revanite Crisis was, nor when it had occurred, same as the Battle of Yavin or the Coruscant treaties. Neither could she sympathize with the need to look for something familiar. Her own past had taught her that familiar rarely meant anything good; instead it was the new that the Lupine was always searching for; new experiences, new people, new places. "That sounds like a very long time ago," she finally said, not knowing what to make of all the numbers he had given her.

He… He knew what happened? Alwine looked at him like a wolf at prey, trying to sniff out what he meant. But he continued to speak without pause, mentioning the breaking, the mind and spirit, the lack of will to continue. She nodded, her eyes growing wide.

"It is not entirely the same," she explained, feeling suddenly out of breath. Someone knew. He knew about these matters! She was willing to utter a prayer of thankfulness to the gods now, even if she did not believe in them. To call this a coincidence... She would not. "She did the wiping to herself and replaced her memories with false ones, created an entirely new persona who does not know who the original one was at all. New life, new personality, new everything. Her brother tried to break through and claims the original one is buried deep behind self-imposed walls and barriers that even he could not bring down."

She was repeating herself.

Alwine paused to take a breath.

"What hope is there when the wiping was done by the person upon themselves?"

[member="Voph"]

 

[Kyyrk]

Voph chuckled quietly. "All the hope in the world, little one." The way he said it sounded quite natural. He was not demeaning in calling attention to Alwine's size. In fact it sounded as if he was not calling attention to her size at all. "His mistake was to try and tear down that barrier. It is not his place to do so." Voph's gaze turned towards the scenery flying past as he explained. "Every instance of this happening, it was no outside force that brought them down. It was the person willing themselves back. The barrier can only be torn down from the inside."

He waved a hand, shrugging in a conceding gesture. "Now, in every case the person was helped along. Told of what they had forgotten. But not just anything. Something integral to who they are. The mind...WANTS to remember. All you must do is guide it to the place it wishes to be." He glanced back at her. "But there is a danger. What happened to her that she wanted to forget? So desperately that she destroyed herself to escape it? And is it worth subjecting her to that again to get her back?"

Voph let the question hang for a moment, turning back to look at the scenery passing by. It was a question that had haunted him since the day he learned of his own ailment. Did he want to know exactly why? He'd been told, of course. He knew, but...knowing it and knowing of it were two different things...

[member="Alwine Lechner"]

 

[Alwine Daye]

All the hope. Alwine couldn't help but smile a little bit, even if Voph could not actually see the reaction. She nodded to the rest, about Brayden not being able to do it, about Scherezade needing to do t on her own. Only from the inside, not from the out.

And then as though he was echoing her own thoughts in his words, he asked about what happened to her that made her want to forget. No matter how much Alwine uncovered, it never seemed like it was it.

"She was not loved," she said, remembering the words that the Jedi had told her, "she wanted to be loved but she was spurned everywhere. She was seeing… Someone, and then was almost killed. When she woke up that someone told her that it had been her sister he was meant for all along. They both betrayed her while she recovered from nearly being murdered. That was the beginning of her downfall. She became a drunk after that, and I still don't know what the final chord was, what it was that made her decide not to exist anymore."

Sighing, Alwine leaned back in her seat. They were nearly at the ruins.

"How did it happen with you?"

[member="Voph"]

 

[Kyyrk]

Voph arched an eyebrow at the girl. "I wouldn't know. I never bothered to fix mine." He chuckled quietly. "I have been told what happened, though. And I've no desire to go back. It was for my protection, and I know myself well enough to trust them." Voph smiled softly. His head turned towards the ruins, brow furrowing almost as if he was already looking for clues...traces of life, anything. And of course he saw the girl's smile. He'd long trained his mind to perceive the smaller details. One never knew when that would come in handy.

"The...being that took control of me. He wanted to take me for his own. A new host to enact his will. Rebuild his lost empire. I killed...thousands. Women...children..." Voph fell silent for a moment. "And I...I wanted to do it... But when his hold over me was released...I began to realize what I had done. The remorse washed over me like an ocean, and I began to spiral out of control. I would have destroyed myself in my despair, and so my wife erased my memories." He glanced back at Alwine. "Not...unlike your friend, I suppose."

[member="Alwine Lechner"]

 

[Alwine Daye]

Alwine listened quietly, and remained silent after Voph had finished his tail. In truth, she did not know what to say. She did not know what such an experience was like, or how to show sympathy for a story such as that. When she killed, she felt nothing – not joy, not remorse, not… Just nothing. It was something she was still exploring, but was not ready to speak about. With anyone. Not even with her brothers.

"I am sorry," she said at last. What else could she say? It sounded more out of a book of stories than a reality, though she knew her own story didn't sound much different in that regards on its own. "Why were you released from it? It sounds like you were a useful weapon, wiling or not."

[member="Voph"]