https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhwwCWkmYoc
They say the Force had a will of it's own. Some attached a near sentience and intellect to the energy field. Others passed it as little more than a tool to be utilized to the will of the practitioner. For Ijaat? It was something in between. The Force seemed to be, if any sort of independent animus, a disinterested intellect at best. At worst, it's motives were inscrutable and mercurial, and often times cruel & ironic. Originally he had come to this backwater of nothing because he had an associate here. A native, or well what passed for one, who he did business with for Desh and Terenthium.
The fellow had been delighted when Ijaat turned up not dead, and had placed a rather large order for the materials. For regular alchemical workings, the two made great blades when alloyed. A bit less stiff than hoped for, but like stainless steel, they were great for short knives and other purposes. One just had to know the limitations of their material. Ijaat was not some rank apprentice, or even a struggling journeyman. With his talents and trials, and decades of knowledge, there likely wasn't much in the galaxy he hadn't tried to Forge. Actually there likely wasn't much he hadn't forged successfully at this point, let alone tried. So he used a less sterling resource because it was easy, and amply adequate for the task at hand. Even if it meant coming to this backwater.
But as he was sitting in a cafe enjoying some rare native fish baked in herbs and some citrus fruit similar to a lemon with a sweeter finish, he felt it... A shattering presence in his minds' eye. Shatterpoints were something easy as breathing for him, though others struggled. Force senses screamed, even though when he knew her he didn't know the Force. There was a swelling panic in his chest as soon as her foot touched the soil, and like iron to a lodestone the years fell away and he stood, scarcely remembering to pay and when he did throwing a credit chit easily three times the worth of the expensive meal on the table and just striding off.
No clicked notice to Geoff to warm up the ship. She was close. Nothing mattered. It was a struggle to remember to breathe, and people were bumped into or knocked to the ground as he broke into a full run a few yards off the terrace of the bistro. But not many got in the way of a fully armored Mandalorian, armed to the teeth with blades and guns, and Protector colors gleaming. Still, he did not slow. Coat streaming, arms wheeling to move bodies and carts and more out of the way, he moved like a hound on the scent or a man possessed. Theirs was a love, a something, that the bards would sing about or so his brother had said. And when it was taken from him, he had become a monster that those that went bump in the night would come to fear.
Now, she was back. Even that glimmer overrode all caution and thought. It could very well have been a trap or trick, but he refused. Logic and reason fled his mind. His boys had been found, even if one refused to answer him and the other was impossibly distant. Jenna was even speaking to him after years of not. This could not be a coincedence.
And so he rounded a corner, skidding almost into a lovely fruit cart as the owner pushed it down the street, and stood staring. There was so much different, so much changed. And he knew he was not even close to the same man, or anything, that she would know. But a thousand lives and a hundred deaths could have claimed him and he would know. Without question, without hesitation, he would just know. His helmet was yanked off with a hiss of vacumm seals, and he gripped it loosely against his leg. Fear quaked his voice when he finally spoke. Whether through luck, fate, or trickery... He had kept the same voice through all of this.
"... Aerin?"
[member="Aerin Akun Mereel"]
