Post by Talau the Ever-Lurking on May 4, 2009 21:42:09 GMT -5
((For Referance: it's the night after Yin and Yang and before the crash. The pack is beside Aunna on the ground and Ayer atop it --since he doesn't fit IN it any more--. They're in a little alcove hidden away from the street and Vex is out prowling around somewhere close by. VEX MAY HEAR ANYTHING HE WISHES FROM THESE THOUGHTS --side note for when he gets back--))
Darkness had consumed the world around them and it was time to get what little rest she could…unfortunately Aunna couldn’t sleep. It wasn’t because she wasn’t tired…she was…but it was rather the fact that she couldn’t stop thinking about the man who now kept watch, a silent sentinel on the edge of her view, mysterious and distant as the stars above them. Not but four months ago she had met him in some darkened cantina on Coruscant…the very planet they were on now. She found it odd how they had come right back around to the planet where they’d first met, and it seemed a lifetime had passed. Leaning back against the cool duracrete wall she closed sapphire eyes, sighing heavily at the thought. That night he’d been no more than a shadow amongst the shadows of the cantina’s patrons…she’d not seen him, not even noticed him, until she’d felt him watching her. He’d been civil enough, appearing randomly it had seemed, clad in a patched and faded cloak and tunic and masked by his rebreather, to help with a troublemaker who’d approached the table, then drifted away again with the promise that they would meet again. It had startled, disturbed, and irked the major that a man so dark had made such a promise…his taunting and condescending words about the lyrics she’d used to block her mind from him only serving to raise her ire further. And so she had put him from mind, willing herself to forget the man‘s promise as nothing more than a vague threat. Looking back on that night, she could hardly remember a time when she’d not had some part of her mind focused on the insufferable jedi. This wasn’t to say that all of those thoughts were POSITIVE thoughts. Far from it.
Pulling her knees up to her chest, she wrapped her arms around them and groaned slightly as her shin twinged. Yes, that was one time that her thoughts had most certainly been focused on the man who made good on his word. Selonia. She’d been sent there to continue in her tracking of dark jedi, and sure enough she’d found one…but not any of the ones she’d been sent to find. No, it had been him. To this day she didn’t know why he’d laughed, since according to her men’s reports he had and that had been what had drawn them to him in the first place, but apparently he’d found something extremely amusing. Between her men and his goading, she’d decided to go in and try to resolve things herself…mother hen that she was…at least until her men could get a chance to regroup. The warehouse he’d retreated to hadn’t been far, and even through her minor attachment to the force she’d found her way to him…as if she’d been drawn to him against all rational thought. She’d known, going in, that she didn’t stand much of a chance against him, but knowing that she had some small connection to the force Aunna had realized that she’d stood a better chance against him than any of her other men. So, in the dusk of the planet, she’d gone in alone…Aunna was far from alone, however. That darkened man was waiting within, and through the force he’d reached out to her, his thoughts and presence had chilled her to the bone then, the odd intimacy of the action as he’d tried to puzzle her out, if only a little bit, making her more than a little uncomfortable. This, too, had changed, and not just in her own mind it seemed. Over the months she had come to welcome his presence, for the most part, and found it reassuring, sometimes even soothing, when problems arose. The odd thing was, she had noticed a change in how his presence FELT, no longer was it the cold darkness that she had felt that day, at least not completely…something in it had changed as well. His presence, when he allowed it to brush against her, was warmer, more gentle and affectionate than she‘d ever thought possible from him…or anyone. She didn’t know what, exactly, had brought about this change in their thinking…feelings…but she guessed that it had started the day they had spoken on Manaan for the first time.
Manaan…a watery planet with only one floating city as its capital, where tensions ran high between the Sith and Republic militaries at all times because of the bases stationed there to assure the continued kolto shipments to their respective governments. She had spent more time on that planet than any other in the past five years, since Andrew had attacked her the first time, and it was on that watery planet that she had interacted with the man she now knew as Vex Praetor the most. He’d been civil, polite even, in their other interactions, but their first conversation….their first REAL conversation…had been there, in a dive bar frequented by many of the other Republic officers. He’d broken her leg back on Selonia when she’d fought him in that blasted warehouse and she’d been “promoted” to a nice, cushy, desk job minding the kolto for her and her platoon’s ‘work’ on the planet, killing two and capturing one dark jedi. Vex had not been among that count, in fact, it had been Vex who had done the work, her men simply keeping the three at bay outside while she and the leonine man had their little tiff inside. Aunna had been far from happy with the promotion, and Vex had guessed as much. Blast my hunger…it always seems to get me into trouble, doesn’t it? Perhaps I should consider giving up the horrible habit of eating. She mused as her mind ran over the day she’d first seen him in the bar, her thoughts laden with sarcasm. It had been her hunger that had driven the major to the very place where Vex waited patiently, as if he’d been expecting her. He’d almost said as much when he’d beckoned her over to sit with him in the booth he’d chosen. It had been an odd feeling of déjà vous that had prickled at the back of her mind that day, but she’d ignored it, not even letting it come to the front of her mind, as she’d sat and spoken to him. The major had been miffed, at best, to see him there…especially with her newly healed leg still paining her from time to time, and it had chosen that day to be one of those times. By then she had come to recognize him, of course, but when he’d first removed his mask she’d been fairly surprised to find that he hadn’t been half bad looking. Half bad looking, you’re simplifying it Aun…even then you thought he was rather handsome, and you’ve not changed your mind since. If anything, his looks have grown on you, idiot girl that I am…this thought brought out a chuckle, which was swiftly stifled as she buried her head in her arms that were still wrapped around her knees. The last thing she wanted to do was alert him to the fact that, by now, she wasn’t even TRYING to go to sleep. Rolling her eyes at herself, Aunna huffed slightly. Really now, she was acting like a child who was trying to keep the fact they were still awake hidden from their father, how absurd she was! Sighing, one blue eye glittered in the dim light as she rested her head atop her arms, her vision unfocusing as her mind’s eye took her to the past once more.
Yes, Vex had been handsome to her even then, but there had been more to him. He’d spoken his mind, tried to honestly understand her points of view, and though they had battered their wills against each other like two rams over territory, it hadn’t been him who had left in anger…it had been her. She had been the one to feel so strongly about their disagreement that she’d had to leave…but how else should she have felt? He had told her that he was a monster because of how he looked, because the Jedi Order had made him one, and that (basically) his life had no worth. That‘s what he doesn‘t understand…all life has worth to some degree. His life has just as much worth as mine…if only he would stop acting like the monster he thinks he is. Vex could be so much MORE than what he is now. She sighed and blinked as a shadow moved across the street in one of the darkened alleys. The Corellian woman wasn’t worried, however, she didn’t feel particularly threatened by the shadow, and what little threat she did feel was soothed away by the knowledge that Vex was on the prowl just outside of her line of sight…or anyone’s line of sight most likely…and so she allowed herself to return to her musings. He’s a decent person on the inside…no, he’s not all good, I’m not THAT deluded, but he isn’t all BAD either…and he’s certainly not as bad as he makes himself out to be. Ugh! I wish I knew how to help him understand what I see in him (and to have it stick in that stubborn head of his. I swear, he’s worse than me at times and that’s saying something). Either way, Aunna knew that even back then she saw his latent potential to be a good person once more, and she sighed heavily at the memory and brought her head up to rest atop her arms once more, blue eyes sparkling slightly in the darkness as she gazed out at the shadows around them. It had been another case of her seeing the potential no one else did.
Bringing herself back to her original line of thought, Aunna remembered just why she had started to see good in him, and not just the potential for it. She had left the table that Vex had beckoned her to feeling angry and confused, but as she'd neared the door she had felt something pull at her, telling her to stop. Seeing the sith officer pull a lightsaber from behind his back, she'd brought her spear out to stop him, to end the threat to the others in the bar as well as the man she'd just left. It was obvious, through appearance, that the sith had been the brother of one of those three dark jedi Vex had stopped on Selonia, so it was no surprise that he was seeking revenge on the dark jedi behind her. Upon seeing the Major, however, the man had swiftly changed targets, recognizing the woman as the one who had been hailed as the victor of that mission. It had been blared over the HNN that day since such things were uncommon for typical military men to accomplish and those dark force users had been the cause of no end of trouble across several planets. In retrospect, Aunna realized that the struggle was far shorter than she had expected it to be...obviously the sith officer hadn't been a force user, but had simply gained a saber somehow. Either way it went, her spear had found it's way through the man's chest and the saber had cut into her side badly, causing her to fall backward against a near by table.
The pain had been excruciating. A slow, white hot, burning of her skin that begged for relief but found none, and so simply contented itself with setting every nerve she had on fire with the same heat as it slowly cooked itself. Relief DID come, however, in the form of Vex. As she struggled against the mounting pain, he appeared in her view, lending his strength to hold her steady as one hand had wrapped itself behind her neck, the other cooling the burning injury at her side. She had only fuzzily remembered this afterward, as the pain had clouded her thought processes. He had entered her mind then, not that she could imagine it was difficult to do with her defenses down due to the circumstances, and he had dulled the pain she felt. His words, however, hadn't comforted her as he informed her of the pain that came with his healing. If she had thought that the pain of the saber injury had been bad, what came next was ten times worse. The sound of the "lightning" that had played between his hand and her side had been disturbing, yes, but what had been far worse was the combination of burning, stinging, and a painful sort of numbness that the healing had consisted of. The feeling of her skin mending back together had only been another thing to add to the list of uncomfortable sensations. As the pain and the sound of the lightning had ended, she only barely dared to breathe again, and she noticed, vaguely, that his hands had trembled as he stood there until he had been pulled away by the med-team. Bringing her head up once again and sighing heavily, she rested a hand on her side where the injury had occurred.
"If he hadn't been there for me I would be dead now. Four times I owe you my life, Vex."
Her words were little above a whisper, her thoughts voiced aloud since she figured it was relatively safe to say that the man was not within earshot, and that the little droid...last she had checked...was in its power save mode. It was true, four times he'd saved her life, five times he'd tried.
Three on Manaan and once here...Force help me five counting Andrew and his "pet"...and six attempts to save it counting Nar Shaddaa.
She moved the hand that had been resting along the light scar there at her right side to her face, covering her eyes and shaking her head. Why? Unbidden the words of the cathar came to her mind...”Why? Oh, that infernal question, how it has haunted me for so long…” She gasped slightly at the words that echoed through her mind. ”Put simply…no, there is truly no simple way to explain why you and I are here. Not adequately, but…I suppose enough for your needs, yes. You wish to know why? Whether you believe it or not, you may as well hear the truth of this, I suppose. In a word, love. There is...someone in this universe that I would willingly give anything for, and it is for them I am here. I will take no vindication in this victory, and it is but one of many down a path I have been walking for some time, but…the end of the road will be more than worth what it will cost. I will die in this quest of mine, of this I know, and it will be a price I will pay gladly when the time comes. Will that time come today?” Blue eyes widened slightly. It had to be more than coincidence....it HAD to be...
Darkness had consumed the world around them and it was time to get what little rest she could…unfortunately Aunna couldn’t sleep. It wasn’t because she wasn’t tired…she was…but it was rather the fact that she couldn’t stop thinking about the man who now kept watch, a silent sentinel on the edge of her view, mysterious and distant as the stars above them. Not but four months ago she had met him in some darkened cantina on Coruscant…the very planet they were on now. She found it odd how they had come right back around to the planet where they’d first met, and it seemed a lifetime had passed. Leaning back against the cool duracrete wall she closed sapphire eyes, sighing heavily at the thought. That night he’d been no more than a shadow amongst the shadows of the cantina’s patrons…she’d not seen him, not even noticed him, until she’d felt him watching her. He’d been civil enough, appearing randomly it had seemed, clad in a patched and faded cloak and tunic and masked by his rebreather, to help with a troublemaker who’d approached the table, then drifted away again with the promise that they would meet again. It had startled, disturbed, and irked the major that a man so dark had made such a promise…his taunting and condescending words about the lyrics she’d used to block her mind from him only serving to raise her ire further. And so she had put him from mind, willing herself to forget the man‘s promise as nothing more than a vague threat. Looking back on that night, she could hardly remember a time when she’d not had some part of her mind focused on the insufferable jedi. This wasn’t to say that all of those thoughts were POSITIVE thoughts. Far from it.
Pulling her knees up to her chest, she wrapped her arms around them and groaned slightly as her shin twinged. Yes, that was one time that her thoughts had most certainly been focused on the man who made good on his word. Selonia. She’d been sent there to continue in her tracking of dark jedi, and sure enough she’d found one…but not any of the ones she’d been sent to find. No, it had been him. To this day she didn’t know why he’d laughed, since according to her men’s reports he had and that had been what had drawn them to him in the first place, but apparently he’d found something extremely amusing. Between her men and his goading, she’d decided to go in and try to resolve things herself…mother hen that she was…at least until her men could get a chance to regroup. The warehouse he’d retreated to hadn’t been far, and even through her minor attachment to the force she’d found her way to him…as if she’d been drawn to him against all rational thought. She’d known, going in, that she didn’t stand much of a chance against him, but knowing that she had some small connection to the force Aunna had realized that she’d stood a better chance against him than any of her other men. So, in the dusk of the planet, she’d gone in alone…Aunna was far from alone, however. That darkened man was waiting within, and through the force he’d reached out to her, his thoughts and presence had chilled her to the bone then, the odd intimacy of the action as he’d tried to puzzle her out, if only a little bit, making her more than a little uncomfortable. This, too, had changed, and not just in her own mind it seemed. Over the months she had come to welcome his presence, for the most part, and found it reassuring, sometimes even soothing, when problems arose. The odd thing was, she had noticed a change in how his presence FELT, no longer was it the cold darkness that she had felt that day, at least not completely…something in it had changed as well. His presence, when he allowed it to brush against her, was warmer, more gentle and affectionate than she‘d ever thought possible from him…or anyone. She didn’t know what, exactly, had brought about this change in their thinking…feelings…but she guessed that it had started the day they had spoken on Manaan for the first time.
Manaan…a watery planet with only one floating city as its capital, where tensions ran high between the Sith and Republic militaries at all times because of the bases stationed there to assure the continued kolto shipments to their respective governments. She had spent more time on that planet than any other in the past five years, since Andrew had attacked her the first time, and it was on that watery planet that she had interacted with the man she now knew as Vex Praetor the most. He’d been civil, polite even, in their other interactions, but their first conversation….their first REAL conversation…had been there, in a dive bar frequented by many of the other Republic officers. He’d broken her leg back on Selonia when she’d fought him in that blasted warehouse and she’d been “promoted” to a nice, cushy, desk job minding the kolto for her and her platoon’s ‘work’ on the planet, killing two and capturing one dark jedi. Vex had not been among that count, in fact, it had been Vex who had done the work, her men simply keeping the three at bay outside while she and the leonine man had their little tiff inside. Aunna had been far from happy with the promotion, and Vex had guessed as much. Blast my hunger…it always seems to get me into trouble, doesn’t it? Perhaps I should consider giving up the horrible habit of eating. She mused as her mind ran over the day she’d first seen him in the bar, her thoughts laden with sarcasm. It had been her hunger that had driven the major to the very place where Vex waited patiently, as if he’d been expecting her. He’d almost said as much when he’d beckoned her over to sit with him in the booth he’d chosen. It had been an odd feeling of déjà vous that had prickled at the back of her mind that day, but she’d ignored it, not even letting it come to the front of her mind, as she’d sat and spoken to him. The major had been miffed, at best, to see him there…especially with her newly healed leg still paining her from time to time, and it had chosen that day to be one of those times. By then she had come to recognize him, of course, but when he’d first removed his mask she’d been fairly surprised to find that he hadn’t been half bad looking. Half bad looking, you’re simplifying it Aun…even then you thought he was rather handsome, and you’ve not changed your mind since. If anything, his looks have grown on you, idiot girl that I am…this thought brought out a chuckle, which was swiftly stifled as she buried her head in her arms that were still wrapped around her knees. The last thing she wanted to do was alert him to the fact that, by now, she wasn’t even TRYING to go to sleep. Rolling her eyes at herself, Aunna huffed slightly. Really now, she was acting like a child who was trying to keep the fact they were still awake hidden from their father, how absurd she was! Sighing, one blue eye glittered in the dim light as she rested her head atop her arms, her vision unfocusing as her mind’s eye took her to the past once more.
Yes, Vex had been handsome to her even then, but there had been more to him. He’d spoken his mind, tried to honestly understand her points of view, and though they had battered their wills against each other like two rams over territory, it hadn’t been him who had left in anger…it had been her. She had been the one to feel so strongly about their disagreement that she’d had to leave…but how else should she have felt? He had told her that he was a monster because of how he looked, because the Jedi Order had made him one, and that (basically) his life had no worth. That‘s what he doesn‘t understand…all life has worth to some degree. His life has just as much worth as mine…if only he would stop acting like the monster he thinks he is. Vex could be so much MORE than what he is now. She sighed and blinked as a shadow moved across the street in one of the darkened alleys. The Corellian woman wasn’t worried, however, she didn’t feel particularly threatened by the shadow, and what little threat she did feel was soothed away by the knowledge that Vex was on the prowl just outside of her line of sight…or anyone’s line of sight most likely…and so she allowed herself to return to her musings. He’s a decent person on the inside…no, he’s not all good, I’m not THAT deluded, but he isn’t all BAD either…and he’s certainly not as bad as he makes himself out to be. Ugh! I wish I knew how to help him understand what I see in him (and to have it stick in that stubborn head of his. I swear, he’s worse than me at times and that’s saying something). Either way, Aunna knew that even back then she saw his latent potential to be a good person once more, and she sighed heavily at the memory and brought her head up to rest atop her arms once more, blue eyes sparkling slightly in the darkness as she gazed out at the shadows around them. It had been another case of her seeing the potential no one else did.
Bringing herself back to her original line of thought, Aunna remembered just why she had started to see good in him, and not just the potential for it. She had left the table that Vex had beckoned her to feeling angry and confused, but as she'd neared the door she had felt something pull at her, telling her to stop. Seeing the sith officer pull a lightsaber from behind his back, she'd brought her spear out to stop him, to end the threat to the others in the bar as well as the man she'd just left. It was obvious, through appearance, that the sith had been the brother of one of those three dark jedi Vex had stopped on Selonia, so it was no surprise that he was seeking revenge on the dark jedi behind her. Upon seeing the Major, however, the man had swiftly changed targets, recognizing the woman as the one who had been hailed as the victor of that mission. It had been blared over the HNN that day since such things were uncommon for typical military men to accomplish and those dark force users had been the cause of no end of trouble across several planets. In retrospect, Aunna realized that the struggle was far shorter than she had expected it to be...obviously the sith officer hadn't been a force user, but had simply gained a saber somehow. Either way it went, her spear had found it's way through the man's chest and the saber had cut into her side badly, causing her to fall backward against a near by table.
The pain had been excruciating. A slow, white hot, burning of her skin that begged for relief but found none, and so simply contented itself with setting every nerve she had on fire with the same heat as it slowly cooked itself. Relief DID come, however, in the form of Vex. As she struggled against the mounting pain, he appeared in her view, lending his strength to hold her steady as one hand had wrapped itself behind her neck, the other cooling the burning injury at her side. She had only fuzzily remembered this afterward, as the pain had clouded her thought processes. He had entered her mind then, not that she could imagine it was difficult to do with her defenses down due to the circumstances, and he had dulled the pain she felt. His words, however, hadn't comforted her as he informed her of the pain that came with his healing. If she had thought that the pain of the saber injury had been bad, what came next was ten times worse. The sound of the "lightning" that had played between his hand and her side had been disturbing, yes, but what had been far worse was the combination of burning, stinging, and a painful sort of numbness that the healing had consisted of. The feeling of her skin mending back together had only been another thing to add to the list of uncomfortable sensations. As the pain and the sound of the lightning had ended, she only barely dared to breathe again, and she noticed, vaguely, that his hands had trembled as he stood there until he had been pulled away by the med-team. Bringing her head up once again and sighing heavily, she rested a hand on her side where the injury had occurred.
"If he hadn't been there for me I would be dead now. Four times I owe you my life, Vex."
Her words were little above a whisper, her thoughts voiced aloud since she figured it was relatively safe to say that the man was not within earshot, and that the little droid...last she had checked...was in its power save mode. It was true, four times he'd saved her life, five times he'd tried.
Three on Manaan and once here...Force help me five counting Andrew and his "pet"...and six attempts to save it counting Nar Shaddaa.
She moved the hand that had been resting along the light scar there at her right side to her face, covering her eyes and shaking her head. Why? Unbidden the words of the cathar came to her mind...”Why? Oh, that infernal question, how it has haunted me for so long…” She gasped slightly at the words that echoed through her mind. ”Put simply…no, there is truly no simple way to explain why you and I are here. Not adequately, but…I suppose enough for your needs, yes. You wish to know why? Whether you believe it or not, you may as well hear the truth of this, I suppose. In a word, love. There is...someone in this universe that I would willingly give anything for, and it is for them I am here. I will take no vindication in this victory, and it is but one of many down a path I have been walking for some time, but…the end of the road will be more than worth what it will cost. I will die in this quest of mine, of this I know, and it will be a price I will pay gladly when the time comes. Will that time come today?” Blue eyes widened slightly. It had to be more than coincidence....it HAD to be...
