Under: A Familiar Stranger
She tried not to sleep that night. Her heart had been beating intensely against her rib cage. The Force was rocking with a disturbance. She had felt something moving below her. She hadn't been sure what was going to happen. In what seemed like a moment later without warning, she was spiraling down a secret mountain passage way to an unknown area; hands were around her eyes, and around her ankles. She hadn't seen this coming.
She awoke to the illumination of a single dull hololight above her head. As she looked around the room for a clue as to her location, she couldn't shake the eerie feeling that someone was watching and had been watching her for an unkempt amount of time. A pair of glowing eyes continued to peer at her with a fierce intensity through the ever absent darkness. She shuddered at the thought of being the object of the deep adoration of a shadow dweller. Though was something sinister and strangely familiar about that gaze.
She swallowed dampening her dry throat. She would worry about the onlooker in a moment. She needed to know where she was, and how to escape. So she reached out into the Force, to give her a sense of location, but was not able to focus much less connect with the Force. Her persistent efforts were rewarded with frustration. It was like being in a box and trying to open welded metal box from the inside that was meant to be opened from the outside. She reached out to her echolocation, but found that she also couldn't establish a link. Ahsoka sighed, Guess I have to do this the old fashioned way.
She opened her eyes again, and felt that presence again. It was a familiar and conflicted presence. The grey silver eyes were focused on her every move, but there was a still silence. Ahsoka sat there in irked silence, trying to find a way to get around the Force barrier. That is, until a deep alluring masculine voice stirred her from her arduous scheming.
"Do you know why you can't reach The Force or echolocate, my friend?"
He was calling out from the shadows, his voice echoing from the corridors. He said it as if he had nothing to do with the problem on the table. He had everything to do with the current outcome of the pressing situation.
"What..have..you done to me?"
She licked her chapped lips, focusing on the darkness ahead of her, ignoring the dark presence pursing her.
"Done to you? " He paused dramatically," I've done nothing to you, sweetheart."
Ahsoka repeats the question slowly.
"Oh..I get it."
He seemed to have a revelation, "You've just been in a terrible accident, stolen by cover of night from the safety of a camp, and taken to an unknown underground bunker thousands of feet below the surface in one night. I know its lot to take in my love. I'm struggling myself actually." He paused again taking a deep breathe.
"I haven't seen you in so long and may I say you are a sight for sore eyes…" He chuckled lightly
Ahsoka analyzed his words, and her mind caught up. She knew this stranger, or at least he knew her. Was he just an old neighbor, an old admirer or...No her mind hurt to think about it.
" What..have you done to me?"
"Nothing much really. Nothing yet."
He gestured to the force restricting amulet on her collarbone. That is the reason why she couldn't use the Force. But, why couldn't she echolocate?
"We are too far away from the surface to echolocate."
Ahsoka grabbed his arm, and pulled him into the light, so most of his face was illuminated. Although the light was dim, she could still make out the most crucial of his features.
A handsome face…a chiseled jaw…groomed cheek bones…..red skin…gray metallic eyes…an akul tooth necklace ..His smile revealed two sharp canines…All those familiar features
It hurt her brain to think about it. But no it couldn't be. Her father had chased him into the Akul prowling grounds and saw him get gored, and disappear into the dense turu grass forest, his blood artificially painting the striped grass. How then could he have survived such an ordeal? This had to be a hallucination. A horrible dream.
He leaned down so that he was eye to eye with her. Then she saw the scarred left eye and the eye patch on his right eye, and the scar across his collar bone. The scars across his knuckles. The interloper smelt of fire, and musk. The only person she ever knew that smelt like that was Ruffian. It had to be him. But, more pressing, how did she get here?
Brief Recapitulation To This Point In Third Person
It happened on the third night.
The group of four had spent most of the first day and night scouting out the planet surface and exploring the rugged mountain peaks. Maps of the rugged terrain were made; the territory that was covered during the first night was recorded, and camp was set up at sundown. The second day was uneventful. It was just another day of scourging through the mountains, trying to find an exit out of them, trying to get a better perspective from a higher peak of the rugged terrain that lay outside. The night brought an encounter with the local native population, a peaceful group of humanoids who showed the group the perfect spot to find water and one of the many good vantage points, among the mountains that provided a gate way perspective to the outside world of Cidiria.
However problems began to arise on the early morning of the third day. It all started when Ahsoka, who was unable to find sleep, chose to take a walk along the mountain side by the camp. During her walk, she encountered a black clothed figure who appeared to be sabotaging some of the technical gear in the camp center. Ahsoka called after the figure, but was soon thrown into a chase with the saboteur. She pursued the suspect out to a cliff face on the outskirt of the camp. There was a scuffle and the offender was left hanging off the cliff. Ahsoka tried to help him up, but he preferred to fall to his doom. Shaken up, Ahsoka allowed Sergeant Dover, a roused on looking soldier, to lead her back to camp. The rest of the night was a sea of uncertainty and wariness. On the third morning, they moved camp and searched for clues as to where the suspect had come from, only to turn up nothing. But, on the early morning of the fourth morning, Ahsoka found herself underground with a familiar stranger.