Penance [Sriluur]

[Rugs]

Silence surrounded Tsubasa.

The Epicanthix stood in the middle of a small, circular room aboard the Vagabond, stripped to the waist and balanced lightly on the balls of his feet. His right arm extended out and down, with a slender staff of pale wood grasped in his hand. The staff, about as long as Tsubasa was tall, angled behind his back with the butt poking up over his left shoulder. The far tip nearly touched the ground.

A light layer of sweat clung to his lean torso, but Tsubasa’s chest rose and fell with an easy, relaxed rhythm. If he felt any weariness from the time he’d spent sequestered away in his active meditation, it didn’t show as he lifted one leg with a bend at the knee, letting the whole of his weight balance one foot.

He was, as his eyes fluttered shut, still as a corpse. He was one with the ship, thrumming along through a now day-old journey through hyperspace. He was one with Ifrit and his familiar lack of presence in the Force, droid that he was.

He was one with the Sith, Visarion, and the malignant presence that festered around him.

Tsubasa’s expression flickered. Displeasure skittered across the serenity he’d found in meditation.

In an instant, he was in motion, staff a blur as he flowed effortlessly through katas. The forms, striking high, low, with graceful arcs through the air, were so familiar to the Matukai he could have done them in his sleep. They were the conduit, the focal point for his meditation.

As his body moved, as the Force flowed into him and out through his motions, Tsubasa’s mind returned to the events on Af’el. By any estimation, the city he and Visarion narrowly escaped was now little more than glowing slag, to say nothing of its inhabitants.

I should have done more, Tsubasa thought as he worked from one form to the next, motions flowing like water. But what could I have done? He’d gone to the world to offer his aid to those suffering from the Archeri Plague. He’d been shocked to find that, for all his prowess as a healer, he could do nothing to stop the mysterious disease. He could barely offer comfort to the Defel suffering through it.

It wasn’t only the failed efforts that tore at him. Failure hurt, but it was a part of life.

It was the Sith.

Tsubasa’s form wavered as he recalled Vasarion dragging the life from one of the doomed Sith soldiers guarding the spaceport. He nearly stumbled as he remembered the horror, rage and countless other swirling emotions that choked the Force as the Defel overran the Sith garrison, and Visarioin, basking in it. Amplifying it.

He stopped, facing the opposite side of the meditation room with his staff held in both hands before him. A part of Tsubasa knew that his alliance with the Sith was born of necessity; that, despite their philosophical differences, they had to work together to survive. They had survived.

But at what cost? He set his staff in a small rack at the side of the room and put a towel around his shoulders after wiping sweat from his brow. The question that lingered, that nagged at his soul since they entered hyperspace, remained unanswered. Am I responsible for helping him?

He stepped out of the meditation room, the air beyond cool against his skin. After a few steps, he spotted the Sith and Ifrit. For a moment, his green eyes lingered on Visarion, thoughtful, but he said nothing.

“Tsubasa,” Ifrit said. “We are approaching our destination. We should be exiting hyperspace in a few hours.”

[hugo]

The grove remained dark, shrouded not in the crimson fog of despair that had clung to it during the flight from Af'El.  Instead it rained, thunder rumbling distantly, oblivion safely out of range yet alive in their senses.  Survival had been their goal, and they had succeeded.  It didn't mean that the young Sith rejoiced.  The stench of singed fur, the howls of the damned, the awful chanting of the Chorus, all of it was with him still.  It would make him stronger.  Even under the most impossible of circumstances, his faith was rewarded.  The Force could accomplish all things, and it was clearly with them.  The crystals he was able to limp away with would go a long way to helping the Cult of Mysteries understand the savage threat posed by the Archeri.  The rest was incidental.  If only it felt that way.  

Visarion emerged from his trance gently, the most distant of the lifeless foliage fading to the falling rain and growing darkness until he could see nothing.  The Hapan opened his eyes.  Of course.  He was not in his Grove, but aboard the Vagabond, deep in hyperspace.  What those without faith would call luck, which Visarion and Tsubasa knew as fate, seemed to be with them in those last moments.  Tsubasa's risky atmospheric hyperspace jump hadn't killed them yet, and by all their sensor readouts they were zooming safely out of Sith space, likely beyond the local fleet's ability to pursue.  

Since the initial shock of their prolonged survival had worn off, the two had barely muttered a word to one another.  At Tsubasa's invitation, he'd retired to one of the bunkrooms to take a breather.  Though he was exhausted, his injured leg and recent events denied him rest.  Visarion decided to take the time to clear his mind, to heal, and to meditate.  So he retreated to the Grove.

Many hours must have passed when he finally emerged.  Even deep in the ebony forest, he could feel Tsubasa.  Some time ago he'd begun his exercises.  He was a Matukai; Visarion had read their kind placed great emphasis on the physicality of the Force, and he figured the exercises were part of his ritual.  So that's how you will seek to heal.  

He'd long shedded the bloody, beaten armor suit for the change of a gray tunic he'd stored in his pack along with the Archeri crystals.  Even from across the narrow room, he could sense their peculiar stench.  

He strode out into the corridor and took a seat near the other end of the ship.  Ifrit was there, perched on the small dining counter.  

"Where exactly are we, droid?"  he rasped.  

"Approximately 2.75 standard hours till arrival."  Excellent, he thought to himself.

The droid chirped once more.  "My sensors indicate Tsubasa will be joining us shortly."  Visarion took a seat next to the droid, feeling something like relaxed for the first time in what felt like eons.  It wasn't long until the Epicanthix had joined them.  He paused for a moment, trying to size up his unlikely companion.  He owed his life to the man, regrettably.  

"I don't believe I've properly thanked you for your assistance.  If it weren't for you, I would be molten Hapan by now."  He tried to sound amiable, as unfamiliar of a technique as it was.    "And you proved yourself skilled and capable enough, you would make a formidable Sith."  That one was a joke.  Tsubasa had essentially vomited when he saw what a Dark Jedi was truly capable of, and he doubted he had the desire nor the inner discord necessary to forge a truly great Sith.  The righteousness, the shame, it hung on Tsubasa heavily.  No, he would never be Sith.  But that didn't mean he couldn't prove a valuable ally.

[Rugs]

Tsubasa’s attention started to slide from the Sith and toward his room, where he’d need to clean and change. But Visasrion spoke then, drawing his focus back to the pale, slender Sith Knight.

Darkness clearly lurked in Visarion’s heart; that much was as plain to see as a bolt of lightning from a clear sky. Despite that, and the reputation of the Sith among the Galaxy at large, the Knight had been nothing but friendly to Tsubasa, save his whining at the very beginning of their unusual partnership.

It didn’t excuse his actions — not by a long shot — but he’d given Tsubasa no reason to be impolite. “I believe escape would have been very difficult for both of us, had we not come together,” he said, smiling. Some of the expression’s warmth touched his eyes but not all. “The Force brought us together for a purpose. Whether that has been served or is yet to be, I believe we will soon know.”

Tsubasa’s initial smile was earnest. The one that followed for Visarion’s joke was rather humorless by comparison. “No,” he said, offering a mirthless laugh, “while I appreciate your compliment, I don’t think your Order and myself are suited for each other.” He cleared a few pieces of flimsiplasts from a small shelf behind him and half-sat, half-leaned against it, arms crossed over his chest and towel still hanging over his bare shoulders.

“I took no joy in some of our actions on Af’el, but I am not so naive as to think we could have gotten away without them.” He wondered if any of the Defel made it out of the city before the Imperial fleet brought the world’s burning crust crashing down around them. “Even so, I...”

He paused, letting the comment he’d about to voice — about his discomfort with Viasrion’s actions — fade away in favor of another. He didn’t think it overestimating the Hapan’s intelligence to suspect he already knew of it.

“I know very little of the Dark Side, personally,” he said, opening his eyes after an extended moment of thought. “The Matukai’s teachings are not that of the Jedi, but still, I cannot help but wonder what could draw someone to the Dark.” His voice and gaze, head tilted slightly aside, made evident the question. It was earnest, an attempt to gain understanding of something that seemed as strange to him as willingly sticking his hand into an active starship reactor.

[hugo]

"Indeed," Visarion replied. "Our destinies are, at least for the time being, intertwined." He looked down at the lightsaber on his lap, gripped loosely by a long, almost skeletal hand.

Their meeting had not been fortuitous, surreal as it had seemed to Visarion at the time. No, their meeting and resulting survival could only have been an incident of fate. It was simply not the Force's will that they should have perished, and Visarion could only wonder as to why that might have been.

There was the obvious spiritual threat of the Archeri plague, and retrieving the crystals would help the Sith in their efforts to cure it. Yet the Knight's success thus far in that endeavor was a pale, lone victory amidst the tragedy of Af'El, if it was a necessary sacrifice. But the Force's will was not like that of sentient beings. It was veiled. Cryptic. A low whisper from across a great ocean. Having Tsubasa and Visarion cross paths must have had some purpose beyond their mere survival.

"No, I don't suppose." Visarion smiled for the first time in what felt like a long time. It was an amusing hypothetical: Tsubasa, the altruist humanitarian, as a member of the Sith. They would eat him alive, or maybe not. The Matukai had handled himself well during their skirmishes on Af'El, and the Knight had been favorably impressed by his application of the Force. It was clear he was no third rate, rim-world shaman or a dropout-Jedi. Perhaps he would be more than a match for even his savagest compatriots.

The touch of amusement left him at the mention of the past day's events. "There was no joy to be had in it." He paused, still fiddling with the safe end of the silver hilt. "But we are not the only ones who made sacrifices. The Defel, the men of the armada who rained fire down on Af'El, are not so different than you and me. I'm sure they took no particular joy in ending the lives of so many innocents, yet they made that sacrifice, for a greater purpose." It was perhaps not best to belabor the point, he observed before saying more.

What had drawn him to the dark? Now that was something on which Visarion had not lingered for some time, not that he had never been asked. The very same was asked of him when he first arrived on Korriban many times.

"Do you know the final line our Code? 'Through Victory my chains are broken.' For Sith, the Force is liberation." He looked at Tsubasa intently. Visarion was no master conversationalist, but he did enjoy a good discourse on the nature and value of the Dark Side, particularly when there was so much opportunity for a reciprocal education on Tsubasa's order, of which he knew comparably little. "For the great number of us who began our education under the self-limiting strictures of the Jedi, the Dark Side opened a thousand doors for us. No longer were we to pretend not to feel, not to desire, but most importantly to me, we were no longer to limit our search for truth."

"The light teaches us to release the self, to destroy the ego and only then may we find the truth all things seek. But for myself, and those like me, that was plainly insufficient. The self, and the passions that come with it, irrefutably makes up much of our real life. It is madness to seek to understand the Force when denying so much of its lived experience."

As they conversed, Visarion perked up somewhat. The ends of his lips nearly curled into a smirk, "Please, throw something if I am boring you."

Now that they'd spoken a little about the Sith and his reasons for joining them, Visarion was curious about the Matukai. They were apparently fairly developed Force users. He'd seen Tsubasa heal, produce barriers, and augment his movements; his was certainly not the work of a dilettante or adept.

"And your people, the Matukai, what drew you to them?"

[Rugs]

Liberation. Tsubasa’s eyes narrowed at the word. Visarion claimed the Dark Side offered that, and perhaps it did, in comparison to the famously-stringent ways of the Jedi. Perhaps it didn’t; Tsubasa knew little, personally, of the Jedi Order, though he’d enjoyed his occasional interactions with some of its members.

Liberation. Freedom to pursue one’s goals, in whatever ways you deemed fit. Freedom to seek power for power’s sake alone. Freedom to pursue knowledge deemed unsafe or unbecoming by much of the Galaxy. Freedom to indulge in your own base desires, and to hell with anyone who got in the way.

“All things have a cost,” Tsubasa said simply, almost sadly. In another world, in another life, he could see himself getting on well as a friend to Visarion. They’d developed a sort of mutual respect, though he doubted this relationship was anything but temporary. But their beliefs were too divergent, their ideals and goals — beyond that basest need for survival that united them on Af’El — were too dissimilar.

“I cannot speak for the Jedi Order, but their ways are not the only of the Light,” he said. “Their definition of good, or right, or whatever you may want to call it, is not the only one that exists. Be careful, Visarion, that you have not traded one set of chains for another.”

He wanted to say more — to say that he’d experienced many of the emotions, the experience that the Jedi denied and was as wholly devoted to the Light as any. That he’d seen firsthand the effects of Dark Side corruption, physically and mentally, on a person as their body rotted from within.

But he was not here to turn Visarion and surmised that any of his efforts would be wasted, anyway. Besides, he had a question to answer.

“The Matukai found me, actually,” he said, shifting his weight slightly from one leg to the other. He could still remember the day Barsavi, his tall, broad-shouldered Cerean master, visited his home on Fondor. It seemed like something out of a storybook. “My connection to the Force was weak when I was a child — likely too weak to have made it in the Jedi Order — but he took me under his wing anyway. Said I had a fighter’s spirit and would need guidance.” He smiled and laughed quietly, as if at a joke.

“I got in trouble for fighting a lot as a boy, but it appealed to me. So off we went. The Matukai teach of finding the Force through the body, in achieving balance between the spiritual and physical selves through exercise and intense moving meditation,” he went on. “This, I had a talent for, and my master taught me to fan the flames of my connection to the Force and it strengthened over time.” Tsubasa remembered long nights of hard training under Cerea’s flawless skies, remembered working on the wind-blown fields with Barsavi as he grew from a boy to a man.

“Once my training was complete, I set out on my own,” he said. “The Matukai are a group, yes, but our number is small and spread across the Galaxy. I am not directly beholden to a council, like the Jedi, or sanctum, like the Sith. I live clean, avoid the Dark Side and try to aid those who I can.” He nodded toward Visarion. “Even Sith, when necessary. Beyond that, I am free to live my life as I wish. It's a life I enjoy.”

[hugo]

It was plain that his collaborator was stuck in the primitive mindset that the Force was delineated along moralistic lines, a dichotomy of good versus bad, of light versus dark. It was Visarion's theory that the Force's moral nuances, if they existed, were not so plain as to neatly fit into the pre-formed social values those of uncritical minds placed upon them. Yet he did not wish to inflame the already glaring gaps in their respective ethos, so the Hapan chose not to carry on the philosophical prelude of their conversation.

"I see." It seemed the Matukai were not so dissimilar from the Jedi, taking children and all. "I was taken to Coruscant as an infant, I believe." Visarion knew very little of his origins, only that he was Hapan and born within the Republic. His earliest recollections were in the Temple, which often provoked him to wonder what his life would have been like should he have not been taken by the Jedi. Would he be a foundling, left to the mercies of the social service?

"Even Sith indeed." he mused. How many others had Tsubasa aided in a like manner as himself? He wagered many. To touch others and make them whole--from the darkness and danger Af'El to wherever else the Epicanthix found himself--was its own kind of power, Visarion had to admit. Even small acts of charity, however temporary their real effects, produced ripples in the grand scheme of the universe, imperceptible to the whole but emanating and generating microscopic repercussions. But that power carried no more merit than any other. The power that kindness bore, if wielded unjudiciously, could rob its recipients of struggle, that immortal strife that touched all peoples in all places, that tension which was needed to grow. Just as savagery could be applied wrongly, to great detriment, so too could kindness.

That was a great strength of the Sith, in Visarion's opinion. The Jedi, for all their purported prudence, were in fact, addicted to the self-righteous glow that acts of magnanimity brought, their dependence on it clothes elegantly in self-denial and sacrifice. His Order entertained no such pretensions.

Visarion was going to ask more of Tsubasa's training; it fascinated him just how he'd learned to connect so directly the biological with the mystical. But before he could entertain further conversation, the Vagabond shuttered so violently he flinched. Suddenly, an alarm from the direction of the cockpit sounded urgently. He looked searchingly at the Matukai opposite the room. "That is not enouraging."

[Rugs]

Tsubasa simply nodded at Visarion. He was not blind to the subtle tension that lingered in the air as their philosophical differences became plain — or plainer, perhaps — for both to see. Yet there were things he wanted to ask. Why did a Jedi, raised since infancy in the halls of the great Temple on Coruscant, now fight against the very Order that had taught him to touch the Force? The same Order that educated him, groomed him, fed and clothed him?

His question, he realized after a moment’s thought, wasn’t meant only for Visarion — though he’d surely be interested to hear the tale — but for why so many of the Sith’s number seemed to come from the Jedi Order. Why did so many from an Order devoted to Light to defending the Galaxy and its people turn to the Dark, to conquest?

There were no Matukai, that Tsubasa knew of, who had similarly answered the Sith’s call. Perhaps it was a matter of numbers; the Matuaki numbered a few dozen, in all, while the Jedi had their tens of thousands.

Before he could open his mouth, an alarm blared from the Vagabond’s cockpit. Tsubasa tensed at the sound as the ship shuddered. “It’s not,” he said brusquely as he hurried to the front.

Ifrit scurried from panel to panel in a frenzy. “Tsubasa, we must must an emergency drop from hyperspace.” Panic ran in the droid’s mechanized voice. “The hyperdrive has been under great duress since the jump from Af’El, and if we continue to push it, it will fail.”

Tsubasa leaned over the pilot’s seat. No small number of the Vagabond’s control panels displayed angry red lights, some with chittering alarms. “We were just a few hours away from our destination, right?” A space station on the edge of Sith space and Hutt Space. There, he and Visarion could go their separate ways. “Can it hold out that long?”

“No.” Ifrit’s holographic dragon wings flashed warning orange. “If the hyperdrive fails, we will be ripped from hyperspace. We will re-enter realspace at the point of failure, whether in deep space or in the heart of a star.”

Neither option was appealing. The Vagabond had more than enough supplies to last them until rescue came, if they got stranded, but coming out too close to a star, or slamming into a planet would make all of their effort to escape Af’El meaningless

Not to mention that it would kill them.

“Okay,” Tsubasa said sliding into the pilot’s seat. The back was cold against his bare skin, though he didn’t notice. “Say we drop out now. Where does that put us?”

“We are near the Sriluur system. I have already calculated when to bring us out of hyperspace to enter the system in an emergency exit.”

“Alright, and? How much time-”

“Thirty seconds.”

“Force, help me.” Tsubasa groaned as he buckled himself in, and shouted for Visarion to strap himself to a seat or otherwise grab onto something.

The drop to realspace, when it came, was a shaking, graceless affair. The twisting blue and white of hyperspace gave way to the world of Sriluur itself, swallowing up the night sky as it suddenly dominated the viewport. Tsubasa grit his teeth as his restraints strained against the shifting motion. He heard countless things falling over the rear of the ship. Something banged loudly in the back, near what he could only guess was the power room.

“You alright?” He called to Visarion.

A fresh alarm went off. The Vagabond’s flight systems were damaged, and struggling to keep the ship moving in a straight line as it drifted drunkenly toward the arid world.

“We’re in for a rough landing.”

[hugo]

Fuck.  It was one life-threatening obstacle after another.  Maybe the Neo-Nihilists were right and this Archeri Plague heralded the Galaxy's final doom.  Visarion's, nevertheless, seemed imminent and Force fungus-free.  Impalement on a sharp violet spire or under a trillion tons of alien rock would have been to good, too quick of a death.  No, instead, fate had toyed with him, jerked him violently from one mortal threat to the other, only to have him hurdle in slow motion towards another, fast-approaching alien planet, his demise approaching this time as the quickly rising ground below rather than the crumbling crust above.

When Tsubasa's tone and unobscured worry confirmed just how serious the situation was, Visarion began to follow the Epicanthix and Ifrit into the cockpit to strap himself in safely and lend what aid he could.  Before he rounded the corridor, however, he remembered the crystals.  They were tucked away in his bunk, but he had the sudden urge to retrieve them for fear that, should they (or more appropriately, when they) crash and he survived, the crystals could be lost or damaged, and the last day's harrowing events would have been all for naught. 

Urgency and anxiety fueling his hobbled step, he semi-bolted back to his small quarters.  He'd whizzed into the tight room and had gathered the now faintly violet samples into his pockets when the ship shuddered again, this time tilting violently as, he presumed, the Vagabond broke past the planet's upper atmosphere.  The Hapan, already more or less wobbly thanks to the injuries Af'el had afforded him before its sacrificial eradication had been executed, was easily robbed of his balance.

In the half-instant that he floated in the air, Visarion braced for the white pain that would soon overtake his senses as he was barreled against his will into the pair of metal bedsacross the narrow bunkroom, only able to manifest the weakest of Force push to cushion his fall.  If the last-millisecond push lessened his velocity or spared him greater pain, it was lost on Visarion.  The base of his head smacked loudly onto the metal bunch and the world faded gray then white then black, then returned, only throbbing and painful.  He drunkenly touched the now badly bruised, but miraculously not broken, base of his neck, deafened by a ringing in his ears.  He stumbled to his feet and held on for dear life as the ship was buffeted and tossed violently through the atmosphere, its stabilizer systems apparently inoperable. 

Confirming that he still had the crystals--these damn rocks that had seemed to bring with them physical torment at every turn--he fumbled his way back to the cockpit and strapped himself in next to Tsubasa, by now feverishly working the numerous controls in a vain attempt to gain control of their tumultuous plunge to the earth below.

Visarion remembered the spinning, increasingly detailed view of the planet as it swallowed up the viewing port before his dazed perception.  He did not know it, but it was stark, lifeless, and bright, and he thought, as consciousness and vitality leaked from his bruised head and haggard mind, it was all very beautiful.  "Don't you think it's funny, Ts-" and the Hapan Knight said no more.  

---

 The Vagabond's graceless descent from the wide blue heavens looked to Iqqal like the angels of Iego he'd heard spacers lie about.  They were beautiful, winged creatures, graceful, giant, and majestic.  Only this one seemed to be suddenly without her wings, as she fell helplessly, like they had been plucked from her back mid-flight by her vengeful god.  He watched as the fallen angel ceased to glow and grew nearer the featureless, rusty dunes that stretched in all directions beneath her.

Even as far as he was from the fortuitous fallen star, the young Weequay didn't even have to use the long scope of the slugthrower presently slung over his shoulder to spot the meters high cloud of sand it displaced with its sudden landing. He sat atop the hood of a battered landspeeder and yawned, disappointed.  Sometimes those falling ships unfortunate enough to break down or be preyed upon above Sriluurs searing sky landed with a real bang, an explosion, or at least something of a thud.  But for whatever reason, this unlucky hunk of flying metal had landed more softly than most, as if the vengeful god that had stolen its wings had suddenly changed his mind and afforded the doomed angel a gentler landing. 

His blood brother and Tikko were chattering about nonsense and had missed the spectacle.  The old speeder contrasted with the four figures that stood around or sat within it, for they were young men, perhaps barely college-aged should Sriluur have been a civilized planet.  But it was not.  It was a planet of survivors rather than citizens.  They were tribesmen, self-styled warriors, but really little better than hungry scavengers in such poor times.  Most of their fathers were far away, fighting the battles of other Chieftains and sending what meager spoils they could back to their destitute, remote homeworld, a true backwater among backwaters.

It was in this context of scarcity that Iqqal, by far the small warband's quickest and surest, lead his brothers towards the site of the crash.  In his own unrefined, but considerable, rationale, the crippled craft's soft landing meant that whatever was inside might still be salvageable.  Force knew their band could use anything of even the slightest value.  Food, munitions, and critically, water, were precious as of late.  Anything and everything, even the leather of the pilot's seat, was of use to them in their rugged, improbably bid for existence among Sriluurs fruitless dunes.

Before long they could see a thin cloud of smoke.  There had been no explosion after all, it seemed, and as they crested a steep dune, he could see the thin cloud was actually steam.  At least, no fires or explosions so far.  Tikko drove and Iqqal made sure the bolt of his ancient but trusty slug rifle was primed and ready to go.  He hoped and expected that anyone or thing that had been alive inside before the crash was now as dead as the desert sand, but if not, he wanted to be ready.  Their band was small and inexperienced; he was not so young and foolhardy as to think a fight, under such unsure conditions, was worth any value success might bring, be it glory or always-valuable captives.

His expectation was hedged somewhat, though as the quartet of Weequay youths crested another high dune, this one only a few hundred feet from the downed ship.  What Iqqal saw amazed him.  The ship was battered, to be sure.  Steam poured thickly out of the badly charred engine exhausts.  It was nicked and banged all over, but remarkably, the ship, (which Iqqal thought was a small sort of ship the traders called a freighter) looked to be more or less in tact.  Stranger things the boy had seen, but the physical impossibility of the ship's integrity pointed to witchcraft.  Some among his people, witch-doctors and the like, knew of such things, and the queer feeling he always got in the presence of such medicine men and women always made the young man nauseous.  And it was precisely how he felt now.

He looked behind them, at the long trail of upturned dust and sand the noisy, strained speeder left behind.  If anyone was conscious on board, they had likely been spotted.  He motioned to his brothers to be vigilant.  Strange forces were at work here, and stranger they would become.     


 

[Rugs]

Tsubasa had not the time nor capacity to worry about Visarion’s apparent injury as the Vagaband hurtled through Sriluur’s atmosphere. It took all of his focus to keep the ship steady, and steady was proving to be a very relative term. She did not twist and tumble after the world’s dry atmosphere introduced resistance to her path.

That was about all that could be said for the descent as the ship hurtled, out of control, toward the ground.

Tsubasa’s last thought as he desperately urged the nose up before it collided with the dunes was that he and Visarion alike were quite lucky they weren’t about to crash into harder ground.

---

“Tsubasa? Tsubasa?”

Tsubasa’s eyes fluttered open to prodding from Ifrit.

“Tsubasa!”

An alarm droned on and on. No, not one. Several, all at once. Unceasing. Raucous. “Ifrit?” The word seemed to come from his mouth before his dazed brain could form the thought. Where was he? What happened?

Had he slept on the ship controls?

“Thank goodness you’re okay. Come, you must get up.” There was that voice again. Ifrit.

Tsubasa blinked, pushing himself up from the control panel. His chest hurt where his harness straps had nearly dug into the skin. His head throbbed and felt bruised at the top.

“What’s going on?” he asked, blinking at the droid sitting on the control panel. The cockpit’s transparisteel canopy seemed to be partly covered in sand, for some reason.

“We crashed.” Ifrit spoke matter-of-factly, but his tilted head betrayed some concern for Tsubasa’s condition. “After making an emergency exit from hyperspace. We are on Sriluur, and I believe there are peo-”

Tsubasa gasped as the memories came flooding back at once. Af’El, the jump, falling like a rock through the atmosphere. “I remember,” he said, groaning as he stood up. The crash’s stresses had not been kind to Tsubasa’s body, but he seemed to be in one piece. He’d not be pushing himself anytime soon.

He staggered out of the cockpit to find Visarion, unconscious, on the ground. The Sith was alive, Tsubasa quickly confirmed, but with a serious-looking injury on the back of his neck.

“Tsubasa, I hate to disrupt what you are doing, but there are people not far from here.” Tsubasa looked at Ifrit. It was rare to see the droid concerned of all things. “A group of them. I have not been able to ascertain their intentions.”

“How long have they been there?”

“They arrived several minutes after we landed. They appear to be observing the ship.”

Tsubasa grunted. That didn’t mean they were hostile. Nor did it make them friendly. “Hopefully they’re here to help,” he said, groaning as pain pierced his head. “We’re not in much condition to fight if they’re not.”

He knelt next to Visarion and cupped a gentle hold around the fallen Knight’s head and neck. “Go outside,” he said to Ifrit as the Force, with some struggle, came to him. “See what they want. Do not attack them, but if they are hostile, defend yourself.”

The droid nodded and flew off. Tsubasa focused. The healing he knit into Visarion’s wounded flesh was simple, a stopgap until they could reach somewhere to rest, but it took just about all the focus he had. He prayed sincerely that they were not soon to be under attack, or they might both be in grave danger.

---

Ifrit emerged from the Vagaband a few moments later. The droid perched atop the Vagaband’s battered chassis and turned his photoreceptors to the group of strangers.

“ATTENTION,” he said, amplifying his vocalizer as much as his programming allowed, “PLEASE STATE YOUR INTENTIONS. WE SEEK ASSISTANCE. HOSTILITY WILL NOT BE TOLERATED.”

The droid, satisfied that Tsubasa would be impressed with his diplomatic efforts, watched to see their responses.

[hugo]

"Chaedo jad'at?" Nooki spoke.  He was the tallest of the four, and passed for handsome in Weequay terms, though his craggy visage was hidden by a tightly wrapped, frayed scarlet litham.  He was young, perhaps twenty, but was the band's newest father.  Thus he was under great pressure to provide for his new wife and baby girl.  Incidentally, he was also the keenest of ear among the band of desperate Weequay, and could hear the durasteel buzzard speak to them as if it were a man flesh and blood. 

As keen as his hearing was, Nooki was, like the other three boys, not fluent in the standard language.  Iqqal, their de facto leader and something of an adopted brother to him, who was presently leaned against the speeder's windshield, eyeing the crashsite through the scope of his slug.  He guessed if they could see him, any alarm at the sight of the venerable but accurate slugthrower pointed in their direction would have dissipated in the first minute or two when he declined to shoot the pair of humanoids after they emerged from the crippled vessel.  One of them looked dead, the other, a battered but sturdy-looking near-human dragging him into the open and attending to his wounds.  From the dusty scope lens at top magnification, he thought he saw tiny blue and white sparks or strands coming from the healer's hands as he went about his work.  More witchcraft at work.  Or perhaps the dunes were playing their infamous game of mirage with the wayward warband.

None of the warriors understood the mechanical, alien pronouncement of the durasteel bird.  Iqqal spoke some Basic, but he could not understand what it was saying.  That did not mean its meaning was lost on the quartet, linguistic barriers aside.  "Jad'ar kasyie."  It gives a warning.  He translated needlessly.  The other three, though they seemed to have gotten the meaning loud and clear, spoke only their native tongue, save a few ramblings of Basic, Bocce, and, mainly, Huttese

Iqqal had no intentions of disobeying the strange announcer, but his anxiety, and that of his brothers, was not caused by the droid.  As off-the-beaten-path as their backward home was, they had seen droids.  Their village even had a run-down old protocol droid they used to fetch water from the distant spring when the sandstorms made travel uncomfortable for organics.

No it was the witchcraft.  Iqqal could almost sense it in the air, and his observations of the survivors, and their improbably gentle landing had only confirmed his earlier suspicions.  He explained this fear in his native tongue to his brother-warriors, who deliberated in hushed whispers, as if there were any risk of them being overheard in their obscure, complex language by the shaman-aliens a quarter mile away.

"Dizza.  Chaeno sakar-dat---Sahira Sahira-."  Enough.  They would approach the shamans in peace.  While his grasp of Basic failed him, Iqaal called out in his loudest voice, to be heard down the steep dune they sat atop, "Friend."  He used the Huttese words, hoping the tongue of the traders could be understood by the foreign sorcerers.  To further emphasize the point, he held his arms out, rifle horizontal in his grasp.  

---

This whole adventure was absurd from the start, Visarion thought as he came to under the searing sun.  Here he was, prone and vulnerable, stranded, on a hostile world with poor prospects of survival.  And there was Tsubasa, who's busied face filled his vision as the Hapan gasped for conciousness.  His head pounded, and he felt that he had not been out for long.  Tsubasa seemed concerned, which felt strange.

If the Epicanthix's fortuitous arrival and healing efforts had seemed surreal beneath Af'El's tumbling sky, it seemed more so as the Force adept's face turned from intense concern to something like relief when he realized Visarion was more or less in-tact.  He laid still as his amber-blue eyes darted around to their surroundings.  It had to be a desolate, desert world.  His senses returned to him slowly, the brightness amplifying the searing pain between his throbbing temples.

Sitting up slowly, he felt surprisingly fine, minus a great deal of soreness on his still ginger left leg and the headache.  Tsubasa could probably inform him, but Visarion did not feel concussed.  That was fortunate, at least.

It seemed the Force had not exhausted its uses for the pair of sensitives.  By fortune or fate, the Vagabond was in one piece, dinged and inoperable at the moment to be sure, but more or less intact.  

And they were not alone.  Visarion sat up further from his elbows, sitting up more fully and staggering to his feet with Tsu's help.  There was pain, but he could stand, and presumably walk.  But aches didn't occupy Visarion's emergent thoughts.  There were four, the bright sun giving uncommon clarity to his darkness-adverse Hapan eyes.  He could not make out their appearances, but he sensed, even from the distance that separated them, fear.

If they had meant harm from the start, that wouldn't make much sense.  One of them, standing atop the hazy outline of a landspeeder, extended his rifle and called out to them over the sand.  Friends.  The Huttese word spoke of good will but admitted weakness.  The cadre of locals, who were humanoid but not Human, were somehow privy to their unusual sensitivity to whatever they understood as the Force.  That was fortunate, he guessed.  Perhaps they could lead them to a local settlement, or could be coerced to lend some kind of aid to the stranded adepts.

"I don't think they mean us any harm."  Visarion sized up Tsubasa, who was bruised in a few places.  "Are you in good shape?"  His tone failed to extend the same empathy as his words, as much as he meant him.  As cool as Visarion was towards others in general, he'd grown something like fond of his Matukai companion.

Visarion pondered this, clarity and adrenaline overcoming the throbbing pain in his head and leg.  Tsubasa's efforts must have been blunting some portion of the pain, as he stood with little difficulty, though when he moved around get a better look at their observers he was forced to limp with his left leg.  The four locals had, by that time, mounted their raggedy speeder and were advancing at a non-threatening pace. 

"They're coming."  He pointed in their direction, though Tsubasa would have had to been himself deeply concussed not to notice the growing whine of the speeder as it chugged down the mountainous dune to their steam-heavy landing site.  

[Rugs]

Tsubasa let out a sigh of relief as Visarion slowly came to. He was learning that the Sith was hardier than he looked, after the trials of Af’El and their present predicament. That’s good, Tsubasa mulled, I suspect we’re not out of this yet.

He helped Viasiron to his feet and, through the viewport, watched the approaching quartet of scavengers, mercenaries, curious locals drawn by the sight of a freighter falling out of the clear blue sky — whatever they were.

“I hope they do not,” Tsubasa said grimly to Visarion’s assessment. The would likely approach more aggressively if they did mean harm; Ifrit’s warning had given them pause, and none answered with a shot or any sign of hostility.

“I’ll be fine,” he said as he departed for the back of the ship, ducking into his quarters. He emerged a moment later pulling a shirt on over his head. It was light, for the heat, but he’d rather not greet those people, whoever they were, half-clothed.

“They know we’re here,” he said with a nod. “Let’s greet them.”

Tsubasa led the way out through an emergency hatch on the side of the Vagabond — what with the loading ramp blocked by the ground and all. The desert was scorching, with the sun mercilessly beating down on them from its zenith. Tsubasa squinted as his eyes adjusted to the bright, overbearing light and raised a to his brow to shield against the worst of the sun’s glare.

“They are continuing their approach, Tsubasa,” Ifrit said as the Matukai and Sith stepped outside. “They appear to be carrying some weapons, but have not signaled any hostility.”

“Thank you, Ifrit.” Tsubasa turned to the speeder, sputtering along across the sands with a trail of drifting dust left in its wake.

It stopped a few dozen meters away, engine whining as it powered down. Tsubasa saw the occupants were Weequay. They seemed young, though Tsubasa admitted to himself he was not the best judge of Weequay age at a glance.

One, the tallest of the bunch, took a lead position and yelled something across the distance between them. Tsubasa frowned in thought. Hutteese. He knew a bit of the language, though he possed only moderate ability for deciphering it.

He glanced to Visarion, his expression showing that he only partly understood what the Weequay was trying to say. “Something about friends? Magic from the sky?”

[hugo]

With groans from his battered extremities, Visarion clambered out of the emergency hatch after Tsubasa.  No sooner than his pale face emerged from the hobbled ship, the Hapan was struck with an unpleasant wave of heat, dryer and, if possible, hotter than even Korriban.  He squinted somewhat.  The sun was high overhead, and the gusts that rolled down the innumerable, starkly orange dunes brought not the relief of a midday breeze, but the blistering sensation of an ion exhaust vent.  He frowned deeply as he scanned the horizon.  Sand, piled in great dunes of varying height, stretched in every direction.  Save of course, the trail of dust that followed the four approaching strangers from their impossibly outdated mount.

The cruel star's glare did not phase his dulled Hapan eyes, the product of generations of evolution in high-sunlight environments.  That genetic peculiarity, the only substantive physical difference that separated Visarion and his kind from their Human cousins, had often served as a handicap, particularly in the unnecessarily dim confines of the Sith Academy, and long before even that.  

But here, they were a strength, if a marginal one.  He made out the four figures as they closed the last hundred yards.  Weequay, and young.  Younger than even he and Tsubasa, he guessed.  This was Sriluur, he realized for the first time.  Visarion had never been here, but as a teenager he'd developed a nerd-esque fascination with galactic geography, and remembered clearly that the Weequay hailed from a sparse desert world in Hutt Space.  That added up.  And it meant getting the Vagabond back in working order and off to their respective lives would be difficult, but not impossible.  

Yet those were distant concerns.  Now, they had visitors.  

Yes, they were young.  He could not tell with any confidence by physical impression alone, but once they'd grown near enough to grasp the collection of presences with the Force, the erratic mixture of curiosity, fear, and uncertainty suggested youth and inexperience.  The fear was to their advantage.  Fear, alone, was often not terribly useful, but it was almost always a necessary ingredient for the desired outcome.  Here, it had created respect.  Not the tenuous sort of respect built on admiration, but the solid and visceral submission that was the natural response to superior, incomprehensible strength.

Almost all cultures, including primitive ones, had some understanding or tradition involving the Force.  With the Jedi and Sith dominating galactic affairs for millenia now, they tended to dominate any discussion of the subject.  But Visarion knew there were as many Force traditions spread around the stars as there were inhabitable planets.  He had no reason to suppose the Weequay were any different.

Sahira Sahira.  His grasp of the Hutt language was elementary, but he recognized that expression immediately.  "Yes.  They believe we are Sahira--witches."

From here, he and his Matukai counterpart had few options.  The boys, despite the linguistic barriers and primitive superstitions, seemed to genuinely mean no harm, and that was fortunate.  More importantly, there were four of them.  That indicated to Visarion that there was at least a chance of a settlement being somewhere in the vicinity.  

He listened intently to what the evident leader was saying to them, which he understood scarcely better than Tsubasa, whose perplexed face revealed a similar discomfort with the crass but pervasive tongue.  

"I don't see any other option than to extend our hand in friendship, at least for now."  He looked back at the four aliens, his expression fixed into as blank of a pazaak face he could manage.  "I imagine there's a settlement around here where we can find some help with this," he said gesturing loosely to the downed freighter behind them.  

Then he spoke to the tallest Weequay, the one who spoke for the group.  He repeated the word the boy had called down to them earlier from high atop the towering dune, now in the background of the crashsite parlay.

"Friends."    

[Rugs]

Witches. Tsubasa suppressed a laugh. Not at the absurdity of it all, though he did think it was absurd--he was hardly a witch from folklore, or at least, he didn’t match the image the term conjured in his own mind. No, he was instantly taken back to through his memories, to a grimy jail cell next to an oversized, sentient roach.

“Tsu-witch ugly lady!”

I wonder how Ruck is doing, he wondered, focus drifting from the here-and-now. Or the rest of the Jewel crew. He hoped they were well.

Right. The present. The Weequay that though they were witches. Visarion voiced his thoughts, and Tsubasa nodded in agreement. He saw no point in antagonizing these apparently-young men, and he couldn’t fault them for being drawn to the site of a ship crashing out of the sky.

Fortunate for them both that the young men had followed that natural curiosity. They’d be worse off than they already were, if not.

“That is reasonable,” he said. “And you need more extensive medical care and rest.” Under normal circumstances, Tsubasa could give Visarion some deeper treatment than the patchwork healing that’d gotten him to this point. But the Vagabond was no hospital ship, and — filled with acrid smoke and an apparently-unstable hyperdrive as it presently was — it was a last-ditch option.

More to the point, if the quartet of Weequay boys had a speeder, they might come from a place with enough basic supplies to get them safely off the ground and to a larger city, if not another world. Even a stopgap would do. They just needed something.

As Visarion spoke to the tall Weequay, Tsubasa followed his lead and spread his arms slightly, showing empty palms. No weapons, no intention of violence.

“Friends,” he repeated in Huttese, hoping like hell the boys were as friendly as initial appearances suggested.

---

The burning sun sat low in the orange sky when finally they arrived at the village. It had taken some work to explain to the curious youths that they needed help, and longer still to convince them to lead the pair of mysterious sky-witches to their home. After that came the journey itself, made more difficult by the fact that the speeder was clearly not designed to seat six people. They managed to cram in, with Tsubasa and Visarion seated atop the back with their legs hanging down into the cabin.

The end result of this arrangement, of course, was that they traveled slowly, to avoid knocking the Sith and Matukai out the back of the speeder — after a bit of fast, erratic driving that Tsubasa guessed was a sort of hazing, much to his own irritation.

The village was nestled in a large bowl — an ancient crater, perhaps. Though the settlement filled the crater floor, most of the buildings were spread along either side, which gained some protection from the searing sun at different times of the day.

A tall, black stone obelisk rose from the crater’s center. It was neatly cut and apparently well cared for. Its polished surface, gleaming in the evening light, was a sharp contrast to the hardiness so evident through the rest of the village.

“What is that, I wonder?” Tsubasa pointed to the monolith as Ifrit crawled from shoulder to shoulder to take in the views.

The speeder descended down a wide, curving pathway cut into the crater wall. They were approaching the village’s east side, now thrown into premature night as the sun dipped behind the rocky lip rising far above it. To Tsubasa’s best guess, the youth were taking them a clan chief, warlord or... something to that effect. It’d taken putting his head together with his Sith ally to figure out even that much.

Below, a single building stood out from the rest. It was large and wide, with a second floor that looked as if it’d been added some many years after the first. Vivid, colorful ribbons draped from the second-floor windows.

Tsubasa’s stomach rumbled. He knew nothing of Weequay cuisine, but he was getting hungry.

Still, no need to worry about that until they got situated.

[hugo]

Accurate or not, the suspicions of the indigenous quartet--that these visitors-by-chance were great shamans from some distant star--proved to be helpful in negotiating assistance.  What limited degree of mutual intelligibility that could be mustered between the two groups was not needed, thankfully, to establish that the pair of spacer-witches were in need of help.  Visarion would have wagered that queer designation provoked fear, or at least recognition of power.  Their attraction and subsequent deference to superior might, and not empathy or chance, would be the saving grace he and Tsubasa needed to survive the night, much less escape the arid backwater that was Sriluur.

Empathy, kindness, generosity.  Any would have brought the cadre of curious braves to their aid, but, he maintained, fear would outlast them all.  Dispositions and opinions were not unlike the dunes that stretched in every direction.  They could be built very high in a moment, the product of a strong gust carrying ten tons of desert sand.  But in a day, once the winds had changed and the sand buffeted elsewhere, the dune would be no more, diminished or altogether swept away.  A good impression, social graces (had the etiquette of their accidental destination been privy to the near-Humans), or raw charms could build good will, but like the rust-orange sand sea that surrounded them, good-will was wispy, uncertain.

Fear--or by another name with a less malevolent connotation, respect--however was like the Sun that beat down on the six.  It was a thing that one did not forget, and one could not escape.  Under that star's relentless heat, Visarion felt the exposed portions of his pale skin beginning to cook.  He could not say what the climate conditions were like on this planet in particular, but if the desert in which they found themselves performing a primal parlay was anything like those on Korriban and Iridonia, the searing gale and shadeless day would be replaced by chilling gales and frigid night no sooner than the sun, now so bright and formidable, laid down beyond the beige line of the horizon for its nightly respite. 

What followed the initial exchange was an initially terse, but progressively more amiable conversation that established their misfortune and allowed each party time to size the other up.  Visarion's limited command of Huttese was greater than that of his counterpart, so he took the unenviable position of the duo's mouth piece.  He was an able student, some said the ablest, and Visarion did not find alien languages to be a particularly challenging field of study.  That said, Huttese had never been a strong priority for the Hapan, who instead prioritized learning the tongue of his people as well as the ancient Sith language. 

So much of their communication, whether it was his severely bungled offer to pay for transport, subsequently learning that the only settlement in fuel range was their small village, or even simple pleasantries, relied heavily on body language and mutual understanding, rather than linguistic footwork.  

Despite the barriers to meaningful intercourse, Visarion caught early a glint behind the ebony eyes of the tallest Weequay.  "Eiysa Iqaal-id Samuur."  His name was Iqaal, and behind ebony eyes the Knight saw an active, capable mind.  Through the Force, which had been obscured somewhat by the two-layered fog of unconsciousness and sharp physical pain, Visarion sensed little but the five other sentients.  Only the faintest of ambiance, easily mistaken for the deceptive whispers of the desert or the faint apparition of a lusted-after mirage, filled the edges of his sensation.  Life was here, but it was faint, clinging to the shaded periphery.  Insects, microbes, and manifestations tinier still of the Force's creation made a trillion minuscule ripples on the otherwise undisturbed surface.  

Finally, convinced that the relatively small-framed near-Humans would not, in fact, turn them into Gizka, nor revealed themselves to be the objects of elaborate ruses by rival bands, Iqaal and his coterie of desert braves loosened.  They'd stood tightly before, a trio of them headed by Iqaal before he and Tsu and the forth perched atop the back end of the speeder, a dusty but by all appearances functional blaster carbine in his hand.  But now all four skulked around the crash site, their caution overcome by youthful curiosity.  It was almost uncomfortable for the reserved Visarion when they, once the threat of immediate violence had abated, looked both of them over closely, touching and eyeing freely their clothes, hair, and equipment.  To his right he shot an irritated, but accommodating look to Tsubasa, resisting the urge to jolt and repulse his observers with a raw burst of Force energy when one of them pawed daringly at his lightsaber hilt.  

But that wouldn't help them.  He sighed internally.  

---

  It had been the better part of an hour before the quartet had sated their curiosity and agreed to bring them back to their village.  There at least, Visarion reasoned, someone would speak Basic, or at the very least, they would be sheltered from the elements and the yet unseen dangers they obscured.  

Gameese was the driver, and for his part, had either ignored or never understood Tsubasa's urging that they take it easy on account of Visarion's sorry state.  The Hapan shifted and grimaced as he tried to get comfortable atop the speeder's back end, an impossible task not made easier by the rough terrain nor the boyish harassment that brought their new hosts no small amount of amusement.

The journey was not a short one, though how far they'd traveled he could not say.  Even as they zoomed over the rolling sand hills, every direction remained as featureless and void as before.  It seemed impossible when, after a round of chatter from the Weequay, Visarion noticed a thin shape take form across the horizon as they sped toward it.  Before long, he could see the faint outlines of structures, some of them watchtowers, arranged around the rim of what must have been a crater deposited by some ancient asteroid.  

Having seen conditions across the galaxy, Visarion was not surprised to see the village was relatively primitive and squalid.  Low, dark buildings clung to the shady sides of the depression, only a gleaming ebony obelisk, gingerly maintained even among the grit and grime, commanded the center.  The speeder slowed and one of the boys called something out to a watchmen, who chuckled with a long hunting rifle slung over his shoulder.  Children, accustomed to the excitement of a returning band, but not the appearance of visitors, streamed out of various huts and other structures, following the speeder as it crept through the "streets" at a respectful pace.  

"I don't know," he posited, wondering the same thing as Tsu about the strange, obviously important structure at the settlement's sun baked center.  "Hopefully not where they ritually sacrifice alien sorcerers."  It was the first thing like a joke Visarion had said in front of his collaborator.  

An older male came out of the tallest of the buildings, a marginally more impressive structure, and spoke briefly with Iqaal once they'd eased to a hovering stop, the ensemble of children and curious adults watching the strangers wordlessly.  Visarion noticed fear, excitement, and confusion among the wrinkled, hard faces of the assembled Weequay, but himself tried to remain outwardly cool despite the discomfort of being so closely scrutinized.

After a hushed, serious conversation with the older man, Iqaal indicated that they were invited inside, presumably, Visarion supposed, to speak with whoever was in charge here.  Or, if his earlier jest was not too far off the mark, be prepared for their eventual slaughter to whichever thirsty God demanded their blood.  Of course, even in a state such as his, a Sith Knight was not one to be lead to the slaughter quietly. 

Thankfully, he sensed the aroma of what the Weequay must have considered cuisine and nearly gagged when he and Tsubasa were lead side by side through a hanging bead curtain and into the structure.  Visarion was not a foodie.  He ate very little, and when he did, the Hapan chose to stick to a small group of staples.  Yet somehow, perhaps by the intervention of some deity of etiquette, he held his composure, and hoped that Tsubasa had the stomach and sensibilities to do the same.  Just how he would politely make a "happy plate" of whatever monstrosity was awaiting them deeper within seemed almost as vexing a problem as how he and Tsubasa would escape the desert world on which they had no intention of ever being.  One thing at a time, he had to tell himself as Iqaal and another of the boys shuffled in behind them.  

[Rugs]

“Visarion,” Tsubasa said with a playful look at his Sith friend, “if I didn’t know better, I’d almost think you just made a joke.” What passed for humor among the Sith anyway? Or even to Visarion in general? The brooding Hapan had, since that first encounter on the edge of that Defel city under Af’El’s crust, been some degree of dour. Yet here he has now, slyly slipping in a joke as they descended the crater wall to meet with whoever led this Wequay tribe.

“You’re alright,” Tsubasa added with a mirthful chuckle as he gave another look to the obsidian monument towering over the crater’s empty center. With luck, it wasn’t a sacrificial ground. The hard, sand-lined crater floor around it looked rather undisturbed, but Tsubasa supposed looks could be deceiving.

The Force was less so, and he could sense no malice from their young hosts — just the same eager curiosity that had gotten them this far.

Their speeder slowed to a halt in front of the big building with the colorful ribbons. Tsubasa remained on his makeshift seat while the leader of their group of enterprising rescuers spoke with an elder. While that unfolded, the Matukai took in what sights of there were to see of the village around them. The streets were more footpaths worn smooth into the unforgiving ground over long, hard years. The buildings, made of stone or sand-worn metal, were generally light in color to endure the heat.

An array of moisture vaporators lined the crater’s edge, halfway between their side of the village and its distant cousin. More stood on the lip, silent sentinels to keep watch over this community and its people.

The building before them was wide and in relatively good repair, compared to many of its neighbors. It had its own moisture vaporator, a few meters away from their speeders, and a trough of some sort with water near the door. The vivid ribbons strung across the top floor were woven with beautiful patterns, so intricate Tsubasa couldn’t replicate them if he tried. Behind one, he thought he saw the thick, spiked fronds of some sort of plant under what looked like a patio roof.

He’d just started wondering what sort of planets might be growing up on the second floor when Iqaal, the leader of the young group, motioned for Visarion and himself to go into the building. Tsubasa hopped smoothly from the back of the speeder and stretched, loosening muscles that had long since gotten stiff from sitting in one spot without much room to move.

With that done, he nodded to his Sith companion and moved ahead. His stomach growled again, though not from the pungent smell of whatever was cooking inside.

The building was dimly lit and cool. Shelves burdened with what Tsubasa could only assume were cultural artifacts and bits of artwork of significance to the tribe lined the entryway’s walls.

Iqaal ushered them up a set off curling stairs in the building’s back to the second level, where they were then taken to a wide room with large cushions, rather than chairs, around a communal gathering space in the middle of the floor.

A portly Wequay sat on a thick cushion in the center of those opposite the open space. A thin, elderly woman sat to his right, with beads and bits of desert glass woven into an elaborate headdress.

“Welcome,” the big Wequay said. Tsubasa was relieved to hear Basic, if heavily accented. “We are told your ship crashed in the desert. How fortunate that young Iqaal and his friends were nearby to see you. Come, visitors, sit. We have much to discuss. But first,” he clapped his meaty hands together, “our food is yours. You must be hungry after such a trip across the sands.”

A trio of Wequay emerged from a side room as the group took their seats. Tsubasa sat diagonally across from the big Wequay — the chieftain, perhaps — leaving the seat directly in front of him open for Visarion, should the Sith desire it.

Two of the Wequay bore large plates laden with enough food for the group. One plate was filled with fragrant vegetables and what Tsubasa guessed was some sort of rice. The other was lined with what appeared to be heavily spiced, cooked lizards. Tsubasa immediately recognized these as the source of that pungent odor from earlier.

He gave Visarion as subtle a look as was polite, and as the third Wequay set down empty plates for each of them, he took a modest helping of meat and sides. “Thank you for welcoming us,” he said with a polite bow of his head. “Your hospitality is greatly appreciated.”

“Of course,” the chieftain said. “We have to fatten you up, first, you see. Before the sacrifice at the Thal.” He motioned through the window, at the black monument looming over the crater’s center.

The chieftain waited until Tsubasa’s expression faltered, then burst into uproarious laughter. “A joke, friends, a joke,” he said, pointedly ignoring the woman’s eye rolls. “You are welcome here as our guests. Now let us eat.”

[hugo]

Visarion took his seat next to Tsubasa, directly across the portly and gregarious man he identified as the leader of the settlement.  Carefully filed pieces of obsidian and stone were arranged throughout his "hair," which was braided and fell low over his great torso.  A kind of incense, mildly unpleasant, burned in the corner, but the Hapan's sense of smell was more or less overwhelmed by the small pile of skewered reptiles that provoked Tsu's covert glance.  

He smiled, genuinely, at the joke, crude as it was.  The joke, to him, was really much more macabre than had been intended.  The weequay, clinging to their pathetic existence at the bottom of a hole in the sand, could make them a sacrifice,  a spiritual offering to their thirsty idol.  But how close they were to a sacrifice much more immediate, an unworldly transfer of energies, was what entertained the Sith.  He could almost see their forms, singed and stripped of their considerable sinew, strewn about the dust and dirt, sacrifices to a god that was much more terrible, his hunger as limitless as the rusty sandhills that, with Tsubasa, would be the only witnesses to that slaughter.  But rather than make his fantasy reality, Visarion's thin lips, cracked and dry from the blistering gale, stretched into a grin.  Perhaps they should eat and parley, instead.

"Your excellence will excuse my abstention--as pained as it is with the hour so late and stomachs so empty--from the fine meats your servants have prepared for us.  The ... gods of my tribe do not allow their shamans to consume flesh, though my companion suffers from no such unfortunate prohibition."  It was a small cruelty, to leave Tsubasa and his digestive tract alone with the spiced reptiles, but Visarion in truth was not hungry, and forced himself to take an appreciative helping of vegetables.  He was sure the gooey savor was adequately appetizing, but nowadays the waifish Sith hardly tasted food.  His bread was of a spiritual character, though he did manage to force down the majority of his serving as Tsubasa braved the lizard with his bare hands, mirroring their hosts.

The chief seemed not to hear him until he waved dismissively, accepting with some disappointment the refusal.  While working on the small pile of vegetables before him, Visarion noticed a cutting leer from across the table.  He felt seen, not by black eyes but by one who could truly see.  Seated next to the chieftain were two Weequay, a man and a woman.  The man was younger, and if the Weequay followed prevailing theories of phenotype, clearly a son of the chieftain in the center.  He was young, maybe older than the braves that they'd first encountered, but younger than either of the foreign sorcerers opposite him, and of a confident, substantial bearing, perhaps a picture of what his father had been less the decades and overindulgences in desert reptilian life.  

The other Weequay though, was who caught his attention, as it was her black eyes that cut through his robe and looked right at his soul.  She was an actual witch, he guessed, the faint essentials of Force sensitivity just perceptible behind and uncommonly protected aura.  How curious.  But her curiosity outmatched his, and from the unfriendly tension around her obsidian eyes, he guessed she'd seen the Darkness that hung so heavily over Him, which explained why her gaze fixed upon him rather than the brighter presence of Tsubasa.  

Conversation was sparse during meal time, a novelty of hunger Visarion found in all cultures, on all worlds, but the brave and his father shared a gregariousness and boldness and they asked many questions once the servants had returned to take away their platters and replace them with crude bowls of clear water.  He noticed how much care the Weequay paid to cleaning their hands.  He supposed that made sense, with grit and grime abounding, they sought purity in small things.

It was clear that Tsubasa, indelibly a warrior in form and in equipment, provoked the most interest from the Chieftain and his son, though apparently Iqaal or one of the others had informed them that Visarion carried a lightsaber, and naturally, they wished to see it.  He supposed that was natural.  Lightsabers, as blase as they'd become for the Jedi-turned-Sith, were a thing of mythos for most people in the galaxy.  It was crude, but he obliged.  "Careful."  He added in Huttese when he handed it over the now bare surface and to the younger Weequay.  It glinted silver in the faint lighting of their dining room, and all seemed altogether unimpressed, save Tsu, who'd seen its wicked handiwork.  The brave, Chyno, nearly jumped out of his cushion when Visarion showed him how to ignite the crimson blade, which cast the room in faint shadow.

They spoke like this for a long time, and it was night outside when the great chief finally yawned longly and the witch, Nyaa, spoke for the first time.  Visarion had gathered the woman did not care much for him, perhaps their primitive faith held superstitions about the Dark Side.  Many cultures knew it, and feared it.  Yet there was a kind of respect between the three force sensitives, if without words.  Nyaa saw what they were, and saw opportunity, salvation for her struggling people.

"Excellence, now that out visitors have been fed, the Gods demand I perform the cleansing rites."  The woman spoke like a subject, but her words landed like a sovereign.  The chieftain, his eyes heavy, seemed to understand this meant it was time to leave the adults to speak, the throne pushed aside and the real power behind it had their attention when the room cleared and it was only the three.  

"I do not know why They have brought you here, sahira sahira, but I do know that you need my help."  She spoke as if the braves outside, the women putting their babies to sleep as the cooling breeze stiffened cold, were hers to protect, as if the delicate embellishments that marked a Chief rested on her matted locks.   She stood slowly, turning her back to the men--the first to do so, he noticed.  This woman, old and weak, seemed to fear them the least.  Perhaps it was because she could see he and Tsubasa where the more physically impressive Weequay saw only obscurity, seeing only that the two men were not the same as them.  Obscurity bred fear.  

Visarion almost sympathized as noticed the considerable labor and discomfort that the woman's old legs brought as she withdrew a curtain that ran along the wall behind her, revealing a small, railed terrace that overlooked the low buildings that ringed the wind-swept crater, and motioned for the guests to join her.  

Outside, the air had indeed grown cold, and Visarion could see his breath and his hands were cold, still damp from the last round of hand-washing.  The old lady, leaned her insignificant weight against the unsure railing, crafted from thin scrub wood and mud, and withdrew a sort of pipe, from which she drew a long, aromatic pull of white smoke before offering the instrument to Visarion.  It was probably some mild psychedelic bearing a spiritual significance to the people of Sriluur.  Many sects and cultures employed substances to better touch the Force, and from his cursory studies of the subject, there was at least some merit to this.

Visarion took a judicious toke of the pipe, a fine thing of black glass fashioned something like an angular canine-creature, and offered the same to Tsubasa.  Nyaa looked for a moment over her people as they ended the long day and prepared for the next, and she seemed sad.  "My people are dying, sahira."

"The caravans that come from the towns across the highlands have not come for months.  Our moisture collectors, the only clean source of water for a thousand leagues, are failing for want of the parts and input chemicals that the caravans once brought, not to mention our artisans are starving without anyone to buy their glassworks."

Visarion listened closely, but his eyes were straining beyond the dim settlement and appreciating the now blue dunes as much as he could, the inhalation having burnt his mouth and throat but loosened his sensations.  As a result, it was easy to find the scene, something out of a Frontier holo, beautiful.  The Force, or at least his sensibilities to it, seemed more present than before, flowing lazily among the huts and dissipating as the life of the settlement faded abruptly into void. 

He looked thoughtfully at Tsu, as if to wonder, "so?" 


"Of course we sent braves to investigate the passes taken by the merchants.  After the first band never returned, and then a second, I had to step in, as that schutta would have sent every boy and man who could hold a rifle to their deaths.  Clearly, something is disrupting transit through the canyon passes, something fearsome enough to take a dozen fine braves from us.  I want you to go there, I will send you with a speeder and a couple of scouts, and clear whatever it is that's blocking off the caravans and bring back any survivors that you find.  In exchange, I will have one of our smiths do what he can to get your ship airborne enough to get the repairs it needs.  Then, sahira, I wish for you never to return to this place."

Well, that was all? Clear a dangerous canyon of Force-knew-what, that had dispatched with twelve trained warriors and cut off all commerce for months, in exchange for some parts?  Did they not take credit chips here?  The obvious answer laid in the anachronistically primitive structures that huddled under him below the crater's rim.  

Visarion didn't see any other options, really, besides forcing the Weequay to help at the point of a lightsaber.  He kept his silence though, allowing Tsubasa a moment to answer.  It was his ship after all, and he imagined the Epicanthix was no less painfully acquainted with the precariousness of their situation, so it seemed the two men were on the same page, if they appeared like night and day on the ad hoc terrace.

For his part, Visarion felt strangely obligated to help.  It was not altruism exactly, not sympathy, rather, regret.  It seemed so wasteful for a mere blockage in traffic to choke what unlikely life persisted here, a laboratory of strife, where only the strongest and quickest survived and prospered.  What more of a monument to Darkness could he ask for?  These people, for all their deficiencies in technology and wealth, were a hard one.  They reminded him of Iridonians to some extent, though they seemed to accept, rather than relish, the harshness of their arid home.  It would be a shame to lose a people who understood strength and nature, who rejected the illusion that was law and mercy.  At least, that was what he told himself.

[Rugs]

Tsubasa nearly shot Visarion a venomous glare when the Hapan declined their hosts’ offer of meat — while so graciously volunteering him to down the cooked lizards in his stead. Apparently their blossoming kinship bridged the gulf between the Light and Dark, but didn’t prevent the twinkish Sith Knight from throwing Tsubasa under the speeder bus. Regardless, there was little to do for it now. Beyond a silent promise to himself that he’d put Visarion through some similarly unpleasant task before they parted ways, Tsubasa endured the ordeal with as much aplomb as he could manage.

The lizards were at first as unpleasant as they seemed. The tribe heavily seasoned them with some spice that was entirely unfamiliar to Tsubassa’s tongue. It wasn’t terrible, in and of itself, with a musty, smoky heat. But the lizard was deceptively tough and leathery and tasted like nerf meat a few days past its prime.

Tsubasa was either too hungry to care overmuch or the stuff grew on him because by the time the meal was done, he’d gone through several of the creatures, with a few heapings of vegetables besides. The rotund chieftain seemed particularly pleased by this. Whatever Tsu and Visarion were, Tsubasa was clearly the warrior of the group — in their eyes, build alone was enough to confirm the difference between the two — and it impressed them to see that Tsubasa, though short, carried a warrior’s appetite.

With dinner conversation and lightsaber showcase done, the woman — the Force user who seemed to be the tribe’s soul, behind the chieftain’s vibrant heart — led them outdoors. Then burning sun had long since disappeared from the sky, and taken the day’s blistering heat with it from the thin atmosphere. Tsubasa felt a momentary discomfort at the shift — it should have been expected, in a desert, but the tribe kept things indoors quite comfortable — but adjusted quickly.

The woman produced a pipe and drew from it, before offering it to Visarion and explaining her tribes’ troubles. Tsubasa nodded gravely as he listened, his mood only lightened somewhat by the dull comfort of whatever burned within the old pipe. He felt... at ease. More at peace with himself, with the Force and with his circumstances than he had in a long time. Certainly since before landing on Af’El.

“You must bear a terrible burden,” he said, finally, to the woman. To oversee a people, was no small task. To watch them die, powerless to stop it? Tsubasa had never led a people, but knew well the feeling of hopelessness. He’d felt it only a few short days ago, as he tried and failed, again and again, to cure the illness, the terrible Plague on Af’El.

Af’El...

Tsubasa drew again from the pipe, eyes closed as his memories drifted to the subterranean city. Death. Destruction. A horde of Defel loosed to action, to die against the Sith bulwarks. All so he and Visarion could escape.

“We will help you,” he said simply as he reopened his green eyes. The Vagabond’s repairs were crucial, but in this, they’d not yet entered the Epicanthix’s mind. “We have sins to atone for. Both of us.” The look he gave Visarion carried weight, but not judgment. Tsubasa had been just as complicit. Whatever the Sith’s ill deeds before their chance meeting — and Tsubasa was sure they were many — he knew only of what they’d done, together, on Af’El. “If helping your people can, in some small way, serve as penance, we will do so.”

Tsubasa returned the pipe to the woman’s bony hands. The world seemed bluer now, both hazier and more in-focus. The woman looked at Tsubasa for a long, quiet moment, her gaze piercing and measuring. Her eyes seemed to glisten in the dark with some unspoken knowledge, some wisdom left untold. Then she turned her attention to Visarion.

“The Chieftan,” Tsubasa spoke up, “he spoke of the passes during our dinner, I believe. Through the black transparisteel canyon.” Tsubasa couldn’t imagine what such a thing must look like. A canyon whose walls were like glossy obsidian perhaps.

“My companion and myself need rest and time to recover from our injuries,” he went on. “But if you can tell us the way and as much as you know of what might await us beyond this settlement, we should be ready to depart in a day.” He looked to Visarion, his next question hovering in his throat. “Would you advise travel by day, or by night?”

Each would bring challenges. Visarion would likely fair poorly in the dark, but they both knew well the heat that bore down without mercy during the day.

[hugo]

Visarion emerged from fitful slumber suddenly, as if a cold desert gale had found its way through the village and to the relatively refined hovel where he and Tsubasa slept, or the desert sun, undeterred by the hide drapes and sturdy Weequay constructions, had shone on him and heralded morning.  But instead, it was the conclusion of a terrible dream that had come to him in the night.  Whether it had been incident to mortal psychology or a premonition from somewhere unseen, he could not tell.  He was nor seer; the Force rarely spoke to Visarion so clearly and so directly as some of his colleagues.  Yet all students of Its mysteries, from time to time, could receive faint incarnations of truth from the Force in times of peril or intense meditation.  

It had been a thing of the wilds. A beast.  Black and amorphous, howling and ravenous.  Visarion saw but could not tell whether he was within the dream or a mere observer.  The creature chased and lashed out at all perceptible creation, leaving a trail of sickly essence and discarded gore.  Then it came for him, and he awoke.

Their lodgings were richly adorned and moderately better than most of the huddled huts they'd observed.  Across him, Tsubasa slept, fitfully too it seemed.  The air was dry and cool, the worst of the night's chills having retreated in fear of the coming sun.  Visarion washed his face and underarms and dressed, in no particular rush as he ruminated over his cryptic visions.

The Srilurr night hides many dangers-connived and natural, had come the old woman's reply to Tsubasa.  They were to set out just before dawn, when the sun would hold at least some of night's mercy still, with Iqaal and another of the braves as their guides by speeder.  From the village, they would travel to the appointed canyon and investigate the disturbances he and Tsubasa had discussed with the shamaness the past night.

Visarion, clad as normal in his fraying, still sandy robe, strode out of their appointed hut and proceeded down the dry mud path toward the black obelisk which crowned the motley settlement.  He was nearly blind, the coming sun yet to peek above the basin of the earth, but found his way without hazard to the village center, encountering only the odd villager about their morning chores.  Soon, he was before the stone fixture, ebony and easily twice the height of any of settlement's structures.  Did such things have real power?  He breathed in his surroundings, linked as always with faint, mystical bonds.

The Force, he noted, was not a static thing.  Its energies were as susceptible to the manipulations of mortals as they were to its.  Not all superstitions or traditions yielded mystical fruit, but Visarion could not count these Weequay among them.  A ripple of significance, a faint cry next to the commanding history of Korriban and the dark shroud that covered that world, but extant nonetheless.  Before the Hapan Sith could think more about the monument, or his dreams, his attention was captured by Tsubasa, who seemed to have awaken.

"Tsubasa."  He said without looking away from the dark stone before him, finally turning to meet the fortuitous interloper had become his companion.  "Are you well?"  

[Rugs]

Tsubasa awoke with a start.

He was alone in the small but well-adorned room he’d shared with Viarion for the night. The Sith Knight’s presence still lingered, like a stench on the air, but the man himself was nowhere to be seen. Tsubasa groaned, rubbing his head. The room was yet dark; the earliest hints of twilight outside hadn’t yet pierced the decorative curtains draped over the windows.

For the first time since arriving on Af’El, Tsubasa felt something akin to rested. He wondered, briefly, if it had something to do with the pipe they’d passed around with the village leaders the prior night. He shook the thought off as he rose groggily to his feet. Cobwebs shrouded his mind, which had been jerked suddenly from fitful sleep to barely being awake.

His brow furrowed as he headed to the narrow refresher to disrobe and clean himself for the coming journey. Some nightmare plagued his sleep, though the dream’s details were already escaping his recollection. Death. Destruction. Fire from the sky, consuming all before it.

Af’El, Tsubasa told himself. It wouldn’t be the first nightmare from that cursed place. Force knew it wouldn’t be the last.

After cleaning himself, dressing, and taking a silent break to offer a solemn prayer for the souls of the Defel he’d failed, for those he and Visarion had ushered on to death, Tsubasa collected his belongings, let Ifrit perch on his shoulder, and set out to find his companion.

Finding Visarion turned out to be a simple affair. The Hapan left a subtle trail in the Force that guided Tsubasa toward the obsidian obelisk in the crater settlement’s center. He found Visarion before the monument and wondered what thoughts ran through the Sith’s mind. The Force was unusual here — not quite like anything Tsubasa had felt before.

“As well as I can be,” he said in answer to Visarion’s question. The earliest rays of twilight gave subtle color to the sky, but the night’s cold still held. Tsubasa’s breath misted as he spoke. “You’re up earlier than I expected. Are you feeling better?” Visarion had been roughed up in the landing. To the slender Hapan’s credit, he seemed hardier than Tsubasa would guess at a glance. Whether that was from some unseen physical conditioning, the Dark Side, or pure strength of will, he could not say for certain, even if he had his guesses.

“It makes you wonder doesn’t it?” Tsubasa asked, stepping toward the obelisk. He extended his arm, touched his fingers reverently to its surface. The stone was glossy-smooth and cold with the night’s chill. “What faith lies behind this?” If some part of his brain expected to feel something--a jolt of energy, or some upwelling of power--as he touched the obelisk, it was surely disappointed. The stone was stone, unmoved by his presence or touch.

And yet that feeling in the Force remained...

Footsteps on the rocky ground behind them drew Tsubasa’s attention away. Iqaal approached, with another walking beside him and a long rifle slung against his shoulder. Tsubasa sighed, pulling his hand away from the obelisk. “We’ve got a hard journey ahead.”

[hugo]

Their departure and the ensuing journey were not notable affairs.  The pair of humanoids were soon found by one of the braves, Iqqal.  He lead them to the same broken down landspeeder they'd ridden in on the prior night.  Visarion had packed lightly, bringing along a canteen and some dehydrated rations, his commlink-useless for now-and of course, his trusty silver lightsaber hilt, which joined the provisions on his belt.  They were accompanied by three Weequay total, whom he recognized as Iqqal and two of the braves they'd first encountered.  Their youth was interesting.  Certainly not uncommon in societies like this-so called savages-for boys to be men and girls women, or at least assume their roles.

But as they set out over the azure desert yet to wake, Visarion queried silently, are we so different? Indeed, Karn and any number of the other acolytes had been barely older than them, or maybe the same age, when they'd become acolytes.  And Acolytes were hardly subjected to less ardor than these warrior boys.  It did not disturb them, to think of the Sith as equivalent to primitives.  It was true.  For all the academic regalia and mystical splendour of his own Cult, Visarion recognized that savagery, even if Renata had replaced that of the self-serving with that of the pack, was elemental to their existence as an Order and as a faith.  The Jedi lived a life of self-deception, of ignoring that which they know they are.  That was not what he and his brethren did.  They sought to eliminate deception, to drop the guise of nobility and self-effacement in recognition of the great desire that pervaded all intelligent existence: dominion.  Power, inflation of the ego above all others, hardly goals to be cast aside and labelled with the disparate and flawed moral judgements of a time.  Truth pervaded all time, all judgement, and if anything was true, it was that all strove, in their own way, for strength, for utter dominance over all that exists.

He was in the clouds, philosophizing in this manner, for much of the two hour trek.  Suddenly, he turned to Tsubasa.  "Do you sense it?"  Neither needed the warning of the driver that they were nearing their destination.  A distinct aura crossed his senses as they neared.  It was cold, as if it were a hole in the barren wasteland-not hot and remote-but cold and entirely empty.  It was death.  Force users experienced different sensations like that in different ways, but Visarion had always sensed death the same, as if all the color of life had come out of a place. 

Before long, a ridge of black stone appeared on the horizon.  As they neared, it became clear they were headed for a narrow, craggy ravine that cut through the side, marked, he noticed once they were near, by an anemic stream, trickling clear water into a small patch of brush and thin trees.  They had arrived.  The disposition of their escorts, along with the cool sensations wading across the Force, were plenty indication that this was their destination.  

Visarion dismounted quickly, dull pain striking up to his pelvis when his foot hit the sand with a gentle thud.