Private When Your Dreams Go Up in Smoke

[Kestrel Dray]

A R V A L A 7
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Kestrel was on her way back from a mission, the first that she brought her newly acquired Padawan along for. The op was a standard retrieve and deliver, nothing too crazy or dangerous... or, that was what she'd been lead to believe. The sudden arrival of Kastis Van-Derveld, and being caught in her crosshairs, hadn't been part of the briefing. The encounter left Kestrel injured, but how badly... the Knight wasn't letting on. She loathed the idea of needing help, so she ground her teeth and dove her fist into the open wound to staunch the bleeding, trudging through the pain and yelling for her uninjured Padawan, Børre Drage , to run ahead and start the engines of the Rebel Dream. Maybe at one point, the ship could have handled such a quick get away, but it was old and barely holding together. The maneuver they tried to pull, had put too much stress on the engine, and that weird sound she’d been ignoring for months grew louder and louder through hyperspace until the next thing she knew, The Rebel Dream was careening down on some ill-begotten world.

There was no telling how long she’d been out for and when she did finally awake, she found herself in a spin, fading in and out, disoriented a good while before complete consciousness came to her again. Slowly, she became fleetingly aware of her surroundings and of the metallic taste that lingered on her tongue. Her head was throbbing, and a crimson glob was smeared on the dash in front of her. Everything was a mess. Smoke filled much of the cabin, which meant that something, somewhere, was on fire, and the emergency lights were flickering on and off like something outta one of those old horror holomovies. With a groan she struggled to free herself of the crash webbing, looking over, she noticed an unconscious Børre and quickly worked to cut him free, draping his limp arm over her shoulder to carry him out, blood pouring down her side.

A black plume followed them out upon releasing the emergency hatch, her feet only carrying her a short distance before dropping to her knees and carefully laying out her Padawan on the ground.

Matted strands of coal black hair fell around her, acting as a curtain to hide her face, chest heaving in a desperate bid to expel the smoke she’d taken into her lungs in a series of violent coughs. Besides the gash on her head, a possible concussion, and a gaping wound... things were fine. Kestrel didn’t think anything was broken, just severely bruised where the crash webbing had held her.

Sighing, she lifted her head and tried to rise, the shock of adrenaline keeping her going.

And this is why I should’ve learned some healing abilities...

Cerise eyes gazed back at the crash sight of her poor ship. Her lips pulled down in a frown, ultimately deciding against trying to go back in and search for her small stockpile of bacta shots.

There was no telling i---- BOOOSHHHKKKKK The front window shattered, orange flames rushing out and glass shards flying. And just like that, The Rebel Dream went up in a pillar of smoke.

“Kark me.”

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Normally, Kestrel carried an outfit for all of the different types of weather she might encounter, but...well… She awkwardly glanced over to the now smoldering ship that had left her stranded, anything not attached to her when she crawled out of the Rebel Dream was likely ash by now.

There were worse things, she supposed. Being one with the Force, for instance.

Should have listened when Judah told me to retire the Dream, instead of stubbornly digging my heels in.

The ship had been falling apart for a long time, it wasn’t surprising that it finally gave out. Good thing she knew hot to utilize a Force shield, and was an alright pilot. Her eyes lifted to the sky, the unforgiving sun of whatever world she’d crashed on, beating down on her, without a wisp of a cloud in sight. The sweat beading on her skin was the only cooling relief she got, and not a great sign. Kestrel was already pale from blood loss, and pretty soon, what she was using of the Force to sustain herself would be wiped out as well.

Lacking shade, food, and most importantly, water, could make the situation that much worse... and Børre still hadn't woken up, though he was steadily breathing.

She needed to find shade, or someone with the provisions to survive the environment. Question was, how did she plan to get out of this predicament?

The question seemed to be answered in the form of a far-off silhouette approaching.

Salvation? She hoped so. Instinctively she felt for the saber at her belt. While hopeful, there was no telling the kind of mood any locals would be in, or even if they were friendly for that matter, but it was the best chance she had. “Hey!” she called, shakily getting to her feet and waving her arms over her head to try and draw their attention.

“Over here!!” She cried one last time, before her body gave a final protest and collapsed.

Arekk , Vanir Eris

 

[Arekk]

[ A R V A LA 7 ]

The furious engine of a Class 720 freighter roared like an angry Rancor above Arekk's head as it made its way off-world, leaving him behind creditless and seriously injured. Another deal gone wrong meant that heads were going to roll including his own, when was he ever gonna learn his lesson to not lose very important cargo that belonged to the local powerful crime lord?

One of the many rules to the business was to avoid peeking into what you're carrying in the cargo hold but the man's curious instinct got to the best of him. Spice, blasters and enough explosives to make the battle of Malachor V seem like an utter joke. There had been rumours and whispers of a militia gearing up to take over the local city's government but that remained unclear, most people would tell you to let it go and stop meddling in their business.

Arekk, however? He was a man of opportunity and saw in everybody a chance to make a quick baggy credit chip. Trade information that was valuable among parties, sell it to the highest bidder and earn yourself a handsome reward. Perhaps getting out of Lithios, where he lived 3 months ago, wasn't the brightest of ideas as he /really/ wanted to mend his ways but money was hard to decline when it came in heaps.

"Feth me." He muttered under his shaky breath, holding onto his ribcage as he kept walking through the empty desert. Nothing but heat accompanied him, except a few birds going around him in circles ready to gnaw on his rotting corpse. "I gotta stop drinking inbetween jobs. Not very smart now, Arekk, right? You never learn."

After an hour of walking in the middle of nowhere and dying of thirst almost, the fallen Jedi's hazel pools spotted black smoke from afar and some figures. Six to be exact with high-power rifles approaching an apparent ship wreckage. "Scavengers? No, bandits." Two humanoid figures laid on the sand not far from them that haven't been detected yet.

Arekk approached the wreckage at a steady pace yet just enough to avoid detection of these so called 'bandits' who spoke a very peculiar alien language, probably native to the world.

"Kervhit yaj najaal, ya?" One of them said to the other as they loaded up their blasters, ready to salvage whatever was left of the ship. "Jedahra!"

The survivors were in dire trouble as the bandits opened fire as soon as they saw something moving, spreading out in duos to hunt them down. "Hey, slimeball!"

The fallen Jedi turned slicer approached behind one of them with his lightsaber ignited, impaling him with the plasma bean directly in the core of his torso. "Not today."

Kestrel Dray Børre Drage Vanir Eris​

 

[Vanir Eris]

It was the crashing of something massive in the sand that caught his attention. Even in his human form the Lopara had excellent hearing and even though he was underground, some things still traveled well.

He had come to Arvala 7 on the invitation to study some of the subterranean life that existed on the world. While the group he had joined had since left, he had stayed simply fascinated. His location was a small oasis that pooled into a teardrop shape. It was the point of the tear that led into the cave system.

The impact of the ship sent the sound of the impact along the rock beneath. Once outside the stench of scorched sand and burning metal carried on the wind. The wreck happened on the other side of the oasis. From above it looked like a lot of jagged teeth ringing water and green. A narrow path down kept most people from using it as few of the pack beasts were small enough to travel down.

It didn’t take him long to reach the edge of the water, Vanir had already been on his way back up to his small camp. He looked up to see the smoke off in the distance, he moved swiftly to his speeder and headed to go investigate. Touching down behind a mound of sand he proceeded to go on foot. His clothing blended in to the sands, hood up along with a covering over his nose and mouth.

Sand storms weren’t uncommon and this also afforded him protection from the blazing sun above. He heard her yell before he saw her, smoke had drifted to veil the area, but a breeze blew it off just as the woman collapsed. He Sensed other life forms, one was engaged in combat and winning given that he felt a life force snuffed out.

He looked over her form, noting a number of injuries. One along her side was older, perhaps from another fight? When he felt two hostile entities come straight towards him he stood up, blue eyes flashing red gold. As he did so a wall of sand rose up with him and the next the would be attackers found themselves up to their heads in compacted sand. They screamed and struggled, but their bodies were neatly buried up to their chins.

It wasn’t in his nature to simply end life. True, without aid they would die, but they could probably find themselves working themselves free in a span of hours, maybe. Either way, they were neutralized for now and that was all that mattered. He touched the woman's head with a couple fingers and let his energies flow into her. First the head injury and then the others. He didn’t fully heal her, just enough that her life was in no danger and past the worst of it. Of course, her waking would leave her in discomfort, but he might be needed to heal the others.

Once he made sure she was in a more comfortable position in the sand, he left her to see to her companions or what he assumed were her companions.

 

[Børre Drage]

He hadn't been out cold, as such, since he was a boy. Not that he was old, but he was considered a man at thirteen and that was half his life ago. Sand like this was foreign to his touch and senses, and would have been a curiosity if he was conscious and the surroundings peaceful. The heat was far from comfortable, and his unconscious body beaded with sweat in reaction to it. He dreamed concussed dreams, the blow to his head obscured by hair; dreams altered by what his senses gathered, particularly the scents that teased his nostrils during this forced nap.

He dreamed of summer, the beaches of equatorial Islimore setting a scene as per the tales of his grandmother, an obscured face framed by long, dark locks giving off the heady scent of what they both were, her hands planted on his chest, the sounds of pups of the many houses splashing in the gentle to and fro of the ocean, a backdrop. He said words, but they scrambled in his memory. She laughed, her garbled words replying in kind, the movement of her head in this briefly exposing him to the full force of the sun, a deep squint that caused his brow to furrow in reality, but in this land of the mind, he never took his eyes off of her. Her scent was intoxicating, oddly familiar, and when she leaned in close...

He groaned, being pulled to reality, curling as best he could, head throbbing. He was so hot, what was this place? What was the commotion?... but lifting his head to see, too laborious. Keeping his eyes shut did nothing to make things less bright.

"Kes... Kestrel... where..."

Børre slung an arm over his forehead and tried to use the other to prop himself up, which is when he saw Vanir Eris coming towards him, deciphering the sounds of fighting his ears heard, and felt a spike of panic at it that caused him to surge too fast upward, which laid him soundly back out on the sand. It was in his hair, and seeping into his clothes. Grainy and... unpleasant.

"...ugggh."

Arekk Kestrel Dray ​

 

[Kestrel Dray]

A R V A L A 7
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The storm of her black hair still covered her bruised pink flesh, creating a curtain over her face, her soft-pillowy lips slightly parted, and her eyes peacefully closed.

If there were any dreams for the concussed woman, they were fever dreams, and nothing she would note later on. What she would recount about today, however, was what happened to her in the darkness that had dominated the mind. An awakening was happening, and though not conscious, there was an awareness of power unlike anything she’d ever felt before coursing through her veins, like a broken dam filling the canals of a dried up river. It stirred something primal inside of her, a piece of the puzzle finally putting itself into place. Her identity that for so long had been suppressed, was finally surfacing under the beating heat of a relentless sun and dessert sands.

A short distance from her body laid the medallion she always wore about her neck, broken, the only gift Magena Dray had ever bestowed to her, the day she was abandoned on Tatooine.

Arekk | Børre Drage | Vanir Eris ​

 

[Arekk]

[ A R V A LA 7 ]

The bandits ceased to exist the moment they decided to brandish their weapons and try to attack hopeless unarmed people that Arekk considered friends, at least one of them at least.

During the struggle, he had been slashed by the blade of a sword one of the weazels was using as protection, a considerably large gash on his right arm bled profusely under his leather jacket.

Once the foes were taken care of and the sorrounding area was protected, the fallen Jedi made his way to check on those that continued to struggle with recomposing themselves. It wasn't an easy feat to pull through a crash landing as hard as theirs, he knew that from first hand experience during his days as Jedi during multiple sieges throughout the galaxy.

"Anyone alive?!" He shouted as he looked for survivors, a tight grip holding onto his crossguard lightsaber. "You can come out, there's nobody else that can hurt you out here!"

Something familiar echoed from the depths of the wreckage, a signature that he could feel through the Force.

A person carrying the same gift as his but not just any person, someone that he knew. It was a sensation that caused him to feel some sort of nausea, perhaps a side effect from his recovery after severing himself from the Force.

"Say something if you can hear me!"

Hopefully they were still alive.

Kestrel Dray Børre Drage Vanir Eris​

 

[Vanir Eris]

As soon as he made it to the other prone figure, this one looked to have been dragged out into the sand, his nose picked up something surprising enough to give him pause. There was another of his kind at this broken transport. Never mind that he wasn’t full blood, he knew the scent of his father’s people. This one wasn’t of his clan however, but the familiar scent brought an ache to his chest. In fact, now that he was less focused on fighting and healing, both the woman and the man were, which was a bigger surprise. Two? What were the odds? Pushing the trail of thought aside he knelt next to the man, the head injury was the worst of it. The stranger had shifted in the time he’d been getting to him, but was so far conscious. "Try not to move till after I am done, I'll help you to your companion."

He healed the worst of it, making sure that he was healed enough to be moved. He, like the woman outside, would still need to take it easy however they would fully recover. His sandy colored clothing gave him optimal protection for the climate, but also hid everything save his eyes. He didn't have any weapons, but if the eventual feast for ants at his feet didn't show he needed none, whoever looked wasn't observant enough. He was tall, a little taller than the one he started to pull to his feet. His height and lithe build usually gave those shorter and leaner than himself pause, but now he noted with some amusement he wasn't going to be the tallest like usual. His instinct was to leave, to leave no more than the traces he had already left behind, but he couldn't leave injured unattended. He was torn between duty and anxiety, his clan had assumed that all Lupo save themselves were gone. His only directive was to avoid letting those not his kind catch a whiff of what he was lest it get back to those that may seek to hunt him or his clan.

These strangers would find out the moment they caught his scent, but having only known of his clan it seemed only natural he'd feel as he did. It was just a pity these were not the ones he had hoped to find, but he also didn't expect to ever find more of his family.

Kestrel Dray Børre Drage Arekk

 

[Børre Drage]

The ask for him to try not to move only elicited something between a groan and a grunt, but he was at least thankful for the temporary shade from the unrelenting sun that he was close to blind in, when this stranger, whose scent was more familiar than what teased at him in his dream, went to work with the energy that he himself could not harness in the same way, and could only harness in limited ways, otherwise, as of yet. He knew what this energy was, from the feel of it. It was kin to what he felt coursing through himself, and having only experimented with, until meeting Kestrel.

After the unfamiliar blond did his work, Børre felt the throbbing in his head reduced, a good bit of the edge taken off so that the pain was more dull in nature. Other aches dulled too, and any stinging from minor wounds stopped, though some of the rawness remained. He wasn't bleeding anymore.

"Thanks," came the word, a grainy, deep rumble, scorched by a drying mouth. He didn't know who this stranger was, but it was clear he was inclined to help. It was also certain that he was alike, perhaps kin, if he was equipped here to make the determination, but the records were with his clan, encrypted, locked down, safe, and he hadn't brought any equipment with him. He hadn't exactly expected to run into any other Lupo, nor had he been certain how long he would be away from home.

"I..." he began, as he was pulled to his feet, "...would ask your name."

That would at least give him some idea.

Vanir Eris Kestrel Dray Arekk​