Post by Squee on Dec 20, 2008 22:01:51 GMT -5
Faction: Mandalorian Military (For now)
Department: Special Forces (For now)
Rank: N/A? She’s an extra body.
Name: Valry Justic (Last name formerly Keyas)
Race: Human (Mandalorian)
Age: 24
Height: 5’3’’
Weight: 129
Appearance:
This is copyrighted to the respected artist: ~InsinUatioN (click)
Valry’s one of those people who knows she’s pretty. She uses it to her advantage. She has a very thin, very agile frame with a well defined hourglass shape. Stretched beyond that is a build that is taut for a woman, but she’s far from any bodybuilder. It’s enough to get around and swing yourself from one tree to another, or hefting a rifle with a little something extra.
She has cinnamon hair, meaning somewhat of a brown with a kind of reddish color overlapping it. It gives her hair a rusty tone, framing her face perfectly when done and worn the proper way. Her features are soft and a perfect proportion for her. They are soft and curved, but coming from Mandalorian lineage made sure she could give off a stubborn appearance. A simple shift in stances and dropping of the chin and the crossing of the arms could complete the “I’m pissed” look. Those eyes can be friendly, or two of the coldest orbs you’ve found yourself staring into.
Clothing ranges enormously. If she’s taking a day easy and wandering around the place, she will not where her armor. Valry is a pants and tank top kind of girl. The circumstances usually influence her clothing wear. She isn't a skirt kind of woman. She isn't shy about her body either.
Birth place: Concord Dawn
Attributes:
Physical Strength: 5
Intelligence: 6
Speed: 7
Leadership: 5
Unarmed: 6
Melee Weapons: 4
Ranged Weapons: 8
Alignment: 0
Bio:
Mother before Father
Birth - Three
Birth - Three
She was not the first born. She wasn’t the second born. She is the third by mere minutes. The first offspring of Taya and Keltor Keyas became what Valry grew up to know as Juliet Keyas, several years older than Valry and her twin brother, Jauran.
Brought to the world, Valry proved to be difficult to deal with when she was a mere baby. She cried a lot, wanting attention, or wanting something, long, loud wails that woke her parents and older sister up at night. Of course, Jauran, being of the same age and generally within the same vicinity whenever Valry released a wail, picked up on the sound, usually joining in chorus with his sister. Twins, as been told by many others, brought a hardship that wasn’t there when there was only one child. Singing, or crying, together was one of those traits. Feeding had to occur around the same time. Jauran would drain anything given to him and Valry was a slower eater, taking her time with pauses in between.
Years grew and trouble persisted. As soon as the crawling began, Valry learned a bit faster how to gain her balance, and was a little speeder. She made good time crawling from one side of the house to the other, sometimes dragging toys with her. Walking into a Keyas house could be hazardous due to the spontaneous strewn about toys Valry had managed to place. Removing a toy from a place, in her line of sight, might result in a scream of frustration. And when there was one scream from the twins, the other one picked up, even if he didn’t quite understand what his sister was screeching about. In response was the stern growls of either an over stimulating father or a frustrated mother. Mother would yell out in Mando’a. During the beginning years she encouraged the family to try their best to stick to strictly mando’a, to influence such speech among the young twins.
Jauran learned to walk before Valry. It was only fair, since she learned to crawl first. Words were already trying to form from stumbling lips. Every so often, those “words” would be sounds that only the twins seemed able to understand between each other. That or slaps. Or yells. There were times Valry would try to pull on her brother so she’d stand up… but he always ended up falling, sometimes on top of her. Stealing toys became a habit. And they would play the game of “fight, fight, fight” behind the parents’ back, and as soon as the parent turned their nose in their direction, the twins would look up with open mouthed stares, their eyes questioning their parents’ hearing.
When Valry did learn to walk better, and eventually run, out of doors, she would get a pretty good head start when she snuck away from the family. Half the time, her father or mother chased her around the community, much to the amusement of neighbors, some of who would snatch up the girl or let her run by and watch with broad, beaming grins as the Keyas adults ran after the elusive young girl. Jauran? He adopted an observing staring routine, playing the good boy role of the family while his sister ran, once butt naked, and amused the other hunters and farmers and traders of their Mandalorian community.
Valry had an… aggravating relationship with her older sister. Juliet tended to argue with the younger girl, resulting in lectures about how a ten/eleven year old shouldn’t argue with a two/three year old. Valry would respond to every snarl with some kind of mean that stayed in her bones. Sometimes it was an ugly word or a nasty name, such as meany poopy-head or something along those lines. Juliet was known for yanking toys from the girl’s hands if she played too loudly. Valry would throw her toys at her older sister. The two sisters couldn’t be in the same room for more than five minutes without screaming and yelling and carrying on being heard.
Lucky for Jauran, he got along just fine with both sisters. Unfortunately, he was sometimes stuck between the two arguing females. Poor baby Jauran.
Daddy’s Little Girl
Training and Verd’goten
Training and Verd’goten
The age of three rose up on the twins. They had no idea what they were headed into. They day after their birthday, their daddy aroused them, waking them up, helped them dress and escorted them from the house. Tired and whiny at first, the two learned to shut up quickly at the growls Keltor directed at them. Repeatedly, day after day after day, Keltor came to wake up his youngest children and drag them off to different places, mainly places away from the community to train. However, he discovered that he soon had to separate the times he took his children out and taught them more of the Mandalorian ways. The attention span he had when the twins were together was very small, as the children would turn on each other and mess around. Keltor still woke his children at the same time, but would leave one at home for a time where Taya would culture them a bit more into the language while he shared his equipment and harsh teachings.
Keltor Keyas was an expert marksman, he liked to say. Therefore, the influence toward blasters and firing weaponry went into his children. Juliet had been decent when she had been taught. Jauran, as he grew older and took his first shots, was semi-interested, it appeared. Valry was over-curious. As her words and voice matured, she asked so many to too many questions too fast. She would point, ask, then point, and ask, point, ask, point, ask. It went back and forth, and sometimes she wouldn’t pause between questions and Keltor ended up clamping a hand across her mouth many times in her early training just to get her to shut up.
Juliet came of age when Valry was just five. The young lady passed into womanhood after her Verd’goten and then stuffed her things and headed out on her first ticket away from the small time trading and farming community. This meant that now all the focus of her father was on her and Jauran. It only grew tougher.
Daddy grew meaner. He pushed them, shoved them, made them do more, made them do better. He hardened the soft young souls, turning them from flesh to steel. Tears were shed. Some tears were allowed, and even Keltor understood that young children cry when extremely upset. Whenever uncontrolled crying came about in his training, Daddy let them stop, then scooped them up and placed them in his lap. Arms around his children, he would tell a quick tale or two that he knew off the top of his head until the crying stopped. Instead of returning to what made them cry, Keltor would lead them into a different activity. As brother and sister became older, this technique would soon evaporate.
Valry was eight when her first hand to hand lessons began. It was basic stuff that gradually led into grappling training. Taya would sometimes come to these lessons, helping to correct her children and sometimes even her husband. While Keltor was a marksman, his wife knew more about hand to hand and melee combat than he did. She made a better teacher on the subject. Keltor found it necessary for his children to learn hand to hand, especially with Valry coming out to be an excellent sharpshooter, because those who fire rifles may find themselves in situations closer where their rifle won’t be much use. Besides being a club but that might damage the weapon and who wanted that?
Jauran definitely showed potential in the grappling progress. He was steadily showing that he was much stronger than Valry, even early on. Jauran had the advantage of strength, and maybe a little height, and would easily overpower Valry if she didn’t pay attention and think of something quick. As a growing sharpshooter it was essential to be quick in the head. Wrestling with her brother definitely started to hone these skills. Her keen eyes became susceptible to the slightest motion, her brain processing the information quickly, and her decision and answer to her problem spat out in her movements. Whether that was ducking and learning to use her brother’s motion against him or turning to put a hole in a moving target, Valry’s wits were always on her side when her small body was not.
Valry and her twin brother were able to be trained together the older they became. Being able to strengthened a deep brother/sister bond. Exercises and adult escorted hunts were performed side by side. It was noticed that where one went, the other never lingered too far behind. The way they acted, thought, and cooperated together often prompted the memories of a couple of old war partners, sometimes resulting in a tale Valry and/or Jauran could enjoy.
Valry was a pretty girl nearing the age thirteen. She had earned her aesthetic genes from Taya and the rest of her mother’s side of the family. Rumors floated among the boys of who liked Valry. Just as the gossip floated around in the giggly girls group of who liked Jauran. Jauran hadn’t seem to take much interest in girls as the twins neared their Verd’goten, though Valry definitely had an interest in boys. She liked the way they teased her and made her laugh. They were a bunch of silly boys and she was a silly girl. Jauran took to becoming more protective over his sister, and Taya was a vessel of information as their Verd’goten quickly approached. Some of these chats, however, were simply centered about young men and not just about adulthood in general. Taya was full of warnings and insightful advice regarding men, which helped carve a thoughtfulness in Valry about what to expect should she date and later marry.
Side by side, Jauran and Valry survived the Verd’goten in their thirteenth year.
Roughing the House
Maturity and Decisions
Maturity and Decisions
The seeds of discipline Keltor had planted at the tender age of three continued to flourish within Valry. Her biological clock woke her up early, telling her she needed to do her part around the farm and practice with her weapons, which would have been cleaned the night before. Whenever she went out to the range, it was always apparent she would live up to the sharpshooting reputation her father had set. For such a young adult, her targets were further away than most of the other marksmen and women in their little trade and farm community. She had an uncanny ability to always come on or near the bulls eye. Valrys practice was aimed to kill. If anything was called a stray shot, it was, usually, going to cause some kind of pain or damage anyway
When she had chosen on her armor, she went with the more traditional look; the armor plating to cover enough of the necessary and the visor was in the shape of a ‘T’. While it appeared traditional it was fitted for a markswoman of Valry’s position. It was made for a range of agility and would take two or three shots in one place before it ate through to actually get through to her. Valry and her family never expected her be in any major conflicts, hence why the armor was never reinforced with too many metals, which would make it perhaps too heavy for a thirteen year old. Valry was pleased with it though. It was her own armor. It was blue. She was happy.
Along with making sure her accuracy and reactions with blasters and rifles were perfect, Valry grappled with her mother. Most of the time, she ended up on her backside. Jauran was becoming far too big, his growth spurt already hitting him at the tender age of thirteen. Valry’s built a better relationship with her mother that she had more or less lost over the last ten years. Regularly they spoke, and her mother was always full of advice, of course, but it was the likes and dislikes and the laughs and the simple times of having fun that Valry had missed with her mother. Her times facing her mother in every tutoring session of hand to hand built a wall of fun times and several knee-slapping moments.
As always, Valry was on the lookout for boys. She really wanted to marry, have a house of her own, with children of her own and live within this little community she had grown up in. This was home and this was where she was comfortable. She would remain around family and friends that she had known her entire life. She wanted to settle here, in the middle of almost no where on Concord Dawn, nearly out of the way of just about all trouble. Valry knew what was beyond the community by the stories wandering traders had told, and she had no desire to take part in battle beyond a wild animal tussle.
He arrived when she was fifteen, and he was by far the most handsome young man Valry had ever seen. She will always know exactly the moment she had set eyes on him; this dark haired man walked toward the town with such a wide grin. And then, reaching one of the first trading posts, he had dropped his bag, right there in the middle of the main road, stretched, and simply looked as if he was proud to have accomplished something. At the time, Valry had been a dirty young lady, covered in sweat and grime, from her day at the range. From afar, she had watched said man, and as his head turned around, his dark eyes had met hers. Valry had never been so ashamed of her actions; a blush on her cheeks, she hurried her way back to home, later babbling everything to Taya and Jauran: the strong shoulders, the sword attached to his back, the eyes, the smile…
For a few weeks, Valry had simply watched this young man from afar, too shy to approach to say a simple hello. Each time the man noticed her, her face lit on fire in an untamable blush and Valry had to disappear, heart fluttering like a nervous bird, and find a new spot to study him, from a distance as always. Taya poked fun of her, telling her was being too much like a little baby girl and should go talk to the young man. Valry’s mother nearly ran into Candar Justic, the man Valry was having a school girl crush on, and chatted with him on a daily basis. Candar wasn’t looking to move in any nearby future, and had mentioned once or twice he might even remain part of the small, mandalorian community. This would give Valry plenty of time to get to know Candar if she so desired to.
The first conversation was purely an accident on Valry’s part, intentional on Candar’s. She had followed her brother to the battle circle, where a bunch of their friends were gathering with them for their monthly mini-tournament. Half of it was going to be unarmed combat and the other half would take place at the range. One of Jauran and Valry’s friends had befriended Candar, and, because Candar was within the age group (really, about seventeen. The group ranged between fourteen to eighteen year olds) he had been invited. Valry hadn’t noticed Candar arrive, being watchful over the boys practicing one or two drills with one another before the main events and talking with another female mandalorian Valry’s age, and he, basically, snuck up on her. Little Miss Shy wasn’t going to be able to run when he walked up and stated a simple “Hello” to her face, a giant smile plastered across his face. Valry had never come so close to fainting before in her life. If it hadn’t been for her female friend, Valry probably wouldn’t have made it through that first conversation.
Jauren knew, always did know, about the attraction Valry had for Candar. He was the very large, very protective big brother, acting as the quiet, gigantic guardian. Jauran was very proud of his skills as a swordsman and/or overall melee duelist. Since Candar had captured Valry’s heart at first sight, Jauran was arrogant and rather rude to the young man, wanting the boy to remain distant to his sister. Unfortunately, all the cocky words Jauran had sowed were thrown back in his face by the other young man.
As the small tournament spread throughout the day, melee competition was the sole attraction. It was a dance to the eyes and far more interesting than shooting at a few targets, unless the targets were set up to move. But there was just something tantalizing about watching to body lock against each other in a battle circle, scuffling and grunting and pushing themselves to the limits to earn bragging rights about being the top duelist of his/her age group. As it turned out, by fate perhaps, the two competitors ready to duel for the winner’s spot had been Jauran and Candar. Jauran was a giant brute, making Candar look like a small boy. However, there was Mandalorian blood filling their veins, with bones of steel, and pride as big as whole planets. Jauran, being cocky as ever, suggested a duel with swords instead of just grappling. He probably should have just gone with grappling. Candar, smiling as ever, accepted the challenge with swords.
It had been a long time since Jauran had been bested and his face rubbed in the dirt as it had been. Valry decided, after the fact, she was glad she had stayed quiet during the duel (at the time she had been unsure who to root for: her brother, or the person she was crushing on). Candar was more than a formidable opponent. He sliced up every confident, cocky word Jauran had ever stated to him and handed them back to the big boy on a silver platter, served with a prideful, cheery smile. Every brutal assault was easily deflected, and it had been as simple as confusing Jauran and delivering a counterstrike that knocked the large young man back. Valry still didn’t know who to cheer for when the fight was over, either. Candar, the “newcomer” had earned his bragging rights and Jauran was second best and seething in his wounded pride and ego.
It was a short time after that when Candar and Valry started spending more time together. Some of the first, really ugly fights between the twin brother and sister took place. Jauran wasn’t allowed to follow her when she was with Candar. Valry hung out a lot with Candar. They spent so much time together. And Jauran was still very much angry about Candar making a complete fool of him during the tournament. The brother tried getting Valry to look away from Candar, but she refused to. There was a lot of verbal fighting between them, escalating once when Valry had enough and backfisted her oversized twin. From that point, Jauran and Valry all but stopped talking to one another. Candar continued to court Valry. The distance between the inseparable twins grew the longer the dating continued, and soon, words to each other were few and far between.
And then, Jauran completely stopped talking to Valry after her marriage, at sixteen years old, to Candar Justic.
Honey, We’re Going on a Road Trip!
Being Mrs. Justic
Being Mrs. Justic
There was one reason Candar had even ended up in the trading village: he had wanted to travel. There was something that nagged him about staying in one place for too long. During these times, he felt a compulsion to get up, pack his things, and continue to wander. Of course, now he had Valry, his wife, and he could not leave her behind after marrying her. When these urges were coming up again, he hadn’t been but a few weeks married to Valry. He didn’t want to leave Valry. He didn’t want to travel without her. But he just couldn’t stay in the village lest he go insane. So, he proposed going out to travel the galaxy to Valry. The proposition, however, was more like a demand that she come with him, and he had the tool of “You’re my wife” to use against her.
Valry became thoroughly upset. Though she told Candar that she would go, like she had a choice, she knew she really didn’t have much say unless she wanted to lose her husband. Despite this turn of events, she still loved Candar for who he was on a regular basis: a very handsome and charming young man that made her days brighter. The thought of traveling almost terrified Valry, who was very used to the close comfort of her small village with travelers stopping through on at least a weekly basis. Candar was enthusiastic, and though he told Valry he’d take extreme care of her, Valry’s uneasiness was not soothed.
She told her parents. Candar spread the news that he was leaving. Old friends of Valry’s were deeply saddened that they were going to be losing their friend(s). Keltor kept his rage under careful thumb, hiding it from his face after the initial outburst when Valry had told him. Taya was troubled though she supported her daughter’s decision: Valry was wife after all. Jauran, however, was swallowed in anger. He wanted to direct it at Candar, but his parents intervened his outrage and talked him out of anything rash, in case the young man did plan on calling Candar out or worse.
Valry left her home, the community and Concord Dawn, behind. With a bag slung over her shoulder and her rifle to her back, she accompanied Candar across the galaxy. They never remained in the same place once. Candar and Valry took on all kinds of jobs to keep their ship, that they had purchased on a main city on Concord Dawn, fueled and supplied for their journeys. They visited tribal regions where women ruled with absolute authority to places where the fumes and crime were so bad, Valry sometimes wondered if she would survive the visit. They spent their time on a couple of beaches for their vacation, and shot people, on varied locations, for work.
Two years the journey was almost endless. Valry had adapted, slowly, to the constant movement that kept Candar so relaxed. She wasn’t completely at ease as Candar could be, but she wasn’t too high strung about their travels. She had grown a curiosity for the places she and Candar visited. What had become such a big turn in Valry’s life became daily life.
The next major twist in her life had been created through a series of long, private nights between husband and wife. It took a couple of visits to some rather decent doctors before Valry and Candar received the news they wanted: Valry was pregnant. The fear the doctors had had for the pair of Mandalorians had melted for the last several minutes of the visit. There had been such joy between the couple that it was almost forgotten that they were actually Mandos. The reaction from Candar had been one of an overjoyed and overenthusiastic soon-to-be father. He had startled the doctors when he had scooped Valry up in his arms, hugged her tightly, spun her in circles, and pelted the side of her face in kisses. Though just as joyous to hear the news, Valry had had to pat her husband’s arm and tell him to calm down because they were still watched by public eye. Candar hadn’t seemed to care too much then and there, arms firmly around his wife as she actually thanked the doctor for his time. When the couple returned to their ship, Candar was excited again enough to a point her burbled out more sounds than words. And the child hadn’t even been born yet.
Candar was a supportive man. He soon put a stop to their constant traveling and settled Valry into a comfortable, middle-classed apartment on Coruscant as her pregnancy advanced. Though the hormones played hell once more through Valry, causing bursts of unpredictable mood swings, Candar could handle most of the edged dagger his wife’s tongue could be. Rent and doctor’s bills had to be paid and therefore Candar continued to work. It eventually narrowed down to Candar selling off the ship for a little while, much to Valry’s horror when she discovered it. She wanted to take the baby back to Concord Dawn not long after he/she was born. With a kiss to her forehead, Candar promised he would get them back to Concord Dawn.
He never would be able to fulfill that promise. It had been an early morning when she received a buzz of someone at her apartment door. Candar hadn’t returned that night and she had figured it was an overnight job, as it sometimes turned out to be. To her surprise, it was the police at the door who informed her that her husband, Candar Justic was dead. At first, Valry didn’t quite believe it. She was less than a month out from her due date. The more the police officer talked, the more evidence was presented to her that the man who had died in a massive speeder collision had been Candar. Valry did not thank the cops, did not scream or holler, but she simply depressed the “Close” button on her door controls. And once public eyes were gone, Valry wailed and crumpled, crying over the near inglorious death of her husband.
Ke barjurir gar'ade, jagyc'ade kot'la a dalyc'ade kotla'shya. *
Widowed, New Mother, Aye-ya! I’m going HOME!
Widowed, New Mother, Aye-ya! I’m going HOME!
Valry gave birth to a son two and a half weeks after Candar died. She cried then, too, when the doctors had left her alone with her son for the first time. She spent her time in the hospital staring at her new-born boy, stroking his small, pinked head, trying to decide upon a suitable name. She decided on Orak. “Orak” was inspired by Candar’s middle name, “Orion”. She almost took the name itself, but chose not to because of how she felt about the loss of her husband at the time.
Orak became her newest top priority. He also became the biggest fear and biggest pain in Valry’s life. She worried when he cried and she could not get him to stop. She didn’t have the extra brain (which would have been Candar) to help her come up with different solutions. There was no mother to tell her she was doing it right or wrong. Valry worked long hours as a mother, and as weeks wore on, the money Valry had been carefully rationing was growing thinner. There wasn’t a way she was going to leave her baby at home, and she certainly didn’t trust others to care for her child. It they were not Mandalorian, Valry didn’t believe they could care for Orak as she could. Even if one was Mandalorian, she didn’t know if they were fully dedicated and honorable warriors or simply shot down people for the credits, not the glory.
So, she moved them. Valry was determined to return to Concord Dawn one way or another. Her family lived there. She could go back, regain the comfort that was lost when Candar died, and raise Orak in the proper environment. She had wanted to take a transport all the way to Concord Dawn, the amount of money requested was out of reach. Instead, Valry went back to doing what she and her husband did: planet hopping.
The more she planet hopped, the more the credits depleted, but the closer she got to Concord Dawn. There were some circumstances, made by some planets, that would not allow her to leave or she simply did not have the chance to leave. She had been cheated of money a few times during the process of getting her son back to her home. It came down to Valry having to look and accept work for odd jobs just to earn the credits to live in miserable conditions. Valry had mostly seen safer parts of some of these planets and hardly experienced the grunge and dangerous surroundings of the lower worlds. She lived, she worked, and she cared for Orak. Orak was never allowed to leave her. The baby boy went everywhere with her: to work, to the store, down the hallway, down the street, and to different planets. No one cared for him but her.
The baby boy lived around conditions he shouldn’t have had to. He got bigger the longer they were away from Concord Dawn. He became a year and then two years older living under the expanding wariness and strong protection of his young mother. He learned to crawl, learned to walk, and mumbled his first words with Valry’s help. She taught him Manalorian and Basic. When he reached the age of three, Orak could string his mandalorian and basic into choppy sentences. If he knew something in Mandalorian, he used those words. If he knew the word in basic, he used those words. His sentences could be confusing something, as he sometimes used Mando’a and basic together in the same sentence to express himself.
Four years of working and living in terrible conditions, Valry was able to present to her son her home: Concord Dawn. He was her inspiration to get her there, and he continues to inspire her in everything she does. Orak is her life. While she hopes to eventually return to her old hometown, somewhere along the traveling roads of Concord Dawn, there are so many forces that bar her way.
*Ke barjurir gar'ade, jagyc'ade kot'la a dalyc'ade kotla'shya. - "Train your sons to be strong but your daughters to be stronger."
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Databank
RP Sample:
Atiniir…
That was the word. Atiniir. To endure. The very word held value to her. It made up who she was. Her father had made certain that that word, atiniir, had been drilled into her brain as a second thought, a step down from pure instinct. Candar had gazed into her eyes and told her that her greatest strength was endurance. It wasn’t just physical endurance, but emotional, even spiritual. There were burdens upon all three of those, making Valry’s shoulders heavy. She was made of iron, of steal, never waning as the weak moon did, never the politician coaxed down from her debate. She was atiniir. She would always be atiniir. There was no excuse to be anything less, and she would never make up an excuse.
She was more stubborn than the leading police forth. More stubborn than an unforgiving child. More stubborn than the workers on strike. More stubborn than the durasteal that coated the outside of ships. She could take bolt after bolt, insult after insult, pain after pain, and not break her stride. She was more stubborn than all the forces of hell.
And that was why she sat in her chair, leaned forward, blaster in hand with the safety clicked off. Her eyes looked at her weapon. Such a complicated mechanism. There were so many complications about it and all it took was a squeeze of the trigger to set it off. The complications were built one on top of each other, fueling large and fusing together into the blaster that rested firmly into the palm of her hand. Just a touch of the trigger and for a few seconds they were loose and wild, sending a bolt of plasma wherever directed. Someone needed to release her complications. Someone had to pull her trigger, send her off the deep end and let her indulge herself, if only a moment. To satisfy her needs for a moment without a complication and without things piling on top of each other. Her bolt was her fury, and some poor souls were going to feel it sometime soon.
Her eyes were weary and heavy. Her exhaustion was shining through as if someone had simply picked up a drawing tool and etched it within her deep brown eyes. She endured now. With the dark circles starkly contrasting to her face but the eyes remained unwavering, never failing, not the waning moon. She would keep them open for as long as she needed to. She refused to sleep and she bore the consequences and tested her endurance once again.
They glanced at Orak as he sat on the floor a few feet away. His toy speeders were in his hand. He had long ago stopped mumbling and talking to himself, creating little stories behind his toys. If she were to ask him he could spit out and fairy tale or fantasy he had created for each of the brightly colored vehicles. As Valry bounced the blaster lightly up and down, a half smile curved her lips as she gazed at her son. He was everything to her. Her life in a three and a half year old face and flesh. She told him many times they were going home. That she was taking them back to where she had grown up. He could learn better on a planet that belonged to the Mandalorians. The culture, the history, the way he was supposed to be… not a poor boy living in the slums of some backwashed planet. He was as mandalorian as both his parents.
Cinnamon fell away from entrancing allure of tangled black hair on Orak’s small head. They focused on the door she anticipated would open. She waited for her enemies to come to her. She would not leave her apartment only to be shot in the back and her son killed. Her bags were sitting on the bed, waiting patiently for her to pick them up and leave on another shuttle to another planet. She had the money. Her rent was due tomorrow, and if she paid the rent, she’d be here for another near month before she earned all that money back. She planned on stealing away, leaving the rent unpaid, take Orak from this miserable excuse of a slum. At the moment, however, her leave was threatened. Mercenaries would arrive any minute, fed up with watching her apartment and waiting for her to emerge without her guard. She wouldn’t be so stupid.
People were people, stupid was stupid, and scum was scum. People were stupid scum. That was why she had mercenaries coming after her and Orak. This poor excuse of a father was using food money to hire a cheap hunter to take care of both Valry and Orak for a perfectly good three-year-old mistake. He wasn’t feeding his kids, he was getting revenge through the blood of those who ruined his shower. Orak bore the scar of that incident on his face as a healing scab. That was all he deserved. Death would not be his fate any day soon. He would die in the glory his father had not. Therefore, Valry glared accusingly at the door, waiting for the first attempt to be made. These mercenaries would not make it three steps through that door. She would drop them first.
No one touched her baby.
Not a one.
And no one surely did not threaten her baby.
There was a hiss and a clank. Valry sat up straighter, her hand gripping a little bit more onto her blaster. The door. There was a clank, and then a click. Orak was stilled, his breathing a little more labored as he became afraid. She could sense her son’s fearful energy. She chanced a glance at him and held up a finger against her lips, the universal sign for “shush”. He went to go open his mouth but she made a little hissing sound and he closed his jaw. She gestured at him to put his toys away, and as he did so, Valry stood to her feet.
“Buir,” he said softly.
“Quiet, honey.”
“But…”
“K’uur!” she hissed. She had been more viscous than she had intended. Orak snatched his bag of toys and held them to his chest, scooting closer to the wall with big black eyes pinned on the profile of his mother’s face.
The door opened with little more than a hiss. The door had to be the only truly well-working thing in this apartment. The lock failed on occasion. The refresher caused her problems. The lights worked only about half the time. Air conditioning was expensive, and even if she had it, it would be horrible and scented with what came out of the bowels of the scum that lived down here.
There were figures just in the gloom of the open door. It was night time outside, Valry realized. She had lost all track of time hours ago. She had been awake for a long while if it was dark outside. Oh, well, that’s not what she should be paying attention to. She saw the hesitation of the dim silhouettes. They knew she stood there with hate in her eyes. She said nothing, waiting for them to make a move. A boot appeared in the half-lit apartment and Valry’s arm whisked upwards, blaster at ready.
“Stop.”
Why didn’t they just shoot her upon sight? Were they really that dumb? Cheap hunters. Worthless and amateur to the highest degree.
“Lady, think rationally… We’ve probably got more men than the number of times you’ve had sex.” Who was this fool wearing Mandalorian armor? He was a disgrace if he was even Mandalorian. If he wasn’t, why the hell did he have the armor?
“I doubt that. Now, I’mma give you one chance and one chance alone. Turn around and leave me be. Take your brawn, take your weapons, take your transports and get the hell out.”
“Ironic. I was about to say you’ve got one chance to drop your weapons and come with us. That’s the easy way, instead of wasting our ammo on such a pretty lady such as you. Would hate to see you dead.”
Perverted. “Are you Mandalorian?”
“Kind of a personal question to be asking for someone tagged.” There was movement behind the left shoulder of the armored figure. Valry reacted, swinging her arm but a few degrees to her right and squeezing the trigger. The deadly sound of a blaster went off and the molten bolt sliced through the air and struck the Mandalorian mercenary’s partner in the forehead. The bolt burned its way through the fool’s uncovered head. He was dead before the body hit the floor. Her left hand yanked free the sister to her blaster, pointing the muzzle in the other silhouette behind the right shoulder of the lead mercenary.
“Are you Mandalorian?” The other one had raised his weapon to shoot, but the leader had waved it off. She could imagine him smirking behind the T of his visor. She glared at him, projecting as much dominance as she could by being defiant.
”Yes.” And Valry sneered, pulling the trigger quickly. This bolt connected in the face of the other partner, burning nose to cartilage and searing out his eyes and burning the flesh. His body fell to the floor as well, and then Valry angled her weapons at the sole survivor.
“Then, now, accept my offer, brother, though I loathe to call you that. Mandalorians shouldn’t hunt other mandalorians. You, sir, are not a mandalorian by my standards and are a disgrace and should be killed, but I will not if you walk away now. Take your transport and the rest of your men and get out of here. Leave me alone.”
There rifle resting on the man’s shoulder lowered some. “I cannot—“ Valry didn’t hear the rest of it. Her blasters staggered and she depressed the triggers several times on each. A mass burned into the helmet, one after the other, and another stream collected black on his breastplate. Mandalorian armor was tough, but not as tough without shields. His shield wasn’t up. A stupid man indeed. He should have taken the offer she had made by her good graces.
As the fool collapsed in a pile with the rest of his buddies, Valry turned to Orak. He was looking at her, wide-eyed as he usually dead when she had to kill someone before his eyes. Her facial expressions had softened and she gestured him to her. Her hands flipped the blasters and placed them into their holsters. She twisted and hefted her and Orak’s personal bag and her rifle.
“Buir, his armor is like yours.”
“I know.”
“Why? Why make dead?”
Valry blinked down at her son as she took his small hand into hers. She helped him skirt the bodies and they started down the hall. “Because he would’ve made us dead.” And no one was going to hurt Orak if she could help it. She swore by it.
N'jurkad.
---
Njurkad – Don’t mess with me
K’uur – Quiet or silence
+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+
Name: Orak Justic
Race: Human (Mandalorian)
Age: 4 3/4
Appearance:
To the respected artist: ~InsinUatioN (click)
Orak has the appearance of any normal four year old boy. He will grow up to be the spitting image of his father. He shares his father’s dark hair and near black eyes where the pupils are hardly distinguishable. When his hair is on the shaggy side, as his mother sometimes neglects to get him a hair cut, a wave or slight curl becomes apparent in the hair. He has a scar on the right side of his face.
He comes up to his mother’s waist, He’s not short but he’s not big either. It is estimated he might reach his father’s height. However, Valry seemed to get the shorter end of the stick in height, which may affect Orak’s growth. Orak may be a surprise, however, and prove to be just as tall as Candar had been, or taller due to some taller genes in her family’s background.
Homeplanet: Coruscant
A Little About Orak:
He is four years of age with already a heap of experience. His father was dead before he was born and all responsibility on raising him was dumped on his mother. She’s done her best to travel back to Concord Dawn in one piece to have him start learning in a more Mandalorian environment. She wanted him to develop as much as possible on her home planet.
Orak is a little more than the average near five-year-old. He, of course, enjoys his time of play and has a small collections of speeder toys (called “Vroom-vrooms”) that his mother has bought him. He keeps them in good condition because he values them and is especially happy when he receives a new one for his collection. He can keep himself amused for hours with these little figures.
Often people comment that Orak is quiet or shy. He is. He’s seen much and probably more than he should ever have to see in the first four years of his life. He’s not so much as an audacious boy as he is an observant one. He doesn’t go out trying to communicate with others though given strong Mandalorian and Basic bases for his speech. His mother is the only one who can really understand all that the boy speaks. His language is a fusion between basic and mando’a. One thing could be stated in mando’a and the next expression in basic.
Orak learns from listening. His mother will sometimes go on rambles about things he doesn’t understand, but he has learned often times this is when she is upset. It’s when she rambles that he seeks her out and tries to give her a hug and whisper a little, “Love you, Buir”. It’s all about how she speaks, and this is how he has learned how to stay away from most people. It’s the way they sound. If it was sharp and curt, Orak knew to remain away because of how his mother has yelled at him. When there are smiles and gentle words, he knows to acknowledge any way best he can, save for speaking. His understanding of good and evil, through the eyes of a young boy, are outstanding, and he has learned all by watching and listening, observing and remaining quiet. His only questions are directed at his mother, which are generally very surprising questions as to what something meant or what something was.
Obedience is installed within the boy as an act of nature. He doesn’t disobey. If told to do something, he’ll do it. If his mother commands him to do something, there is no hesitation in any action. If Valry is the voice behind the order, he moves or acts immediately because that is what she has taught him to do. Sometimes, after the math, he’ll have a question.
He’s the precious family of Valry Justic. He is the immediate family for Valry. And he is the will that pushes his mother on, even though he does not understand that.
He’s just a little Mandalorian Boy.
