Rasti hadn't planned on stealing a ship―it had just happened. It wasn't really a "ship," anyway―more like a small cargo tow, a two-room ship just big enough to drag large boxes of whatever to their freighter companions. One on another world would compare them to tugboats. It had been unguarded―after all, who would steal a ship? Not a fellow protoss. Even Rasti didn't know she was going to steal it until she had slipped inside and actually got a feel for the controls. It had been sheer luck and the fact that no one had ever done such a thing that she had gotten away.
Then again, Rasti really didn't know anything anymore. She didn't know who she was, really. She knew who she had been, but... that seemed like a whole lifetime ago, like she was looking at another person entirely.
She knew she had been a Templar-in-training. She had been brave, and zealous in her devotion to the Khala and the Conclave―a fitting beginning to one who would be a Zealot. She had been stubborn and quick to anger, but no more so than any other of the students in her class; those who had not yet mastered their infamous protoss battle-rage. Rasti had been one of the top of her class, just below only one other student, a male with whom she had a friendly rivalry.
That was a long time ago. Rasti remembered these things, but could not relate. They were there, in her own mind and thus the Khala, drifting for all to see. The Khala that others attempted to reach her over and over again. The female closed off her mind, turning away from those who begged for her to return. She couldn't do it.
She put her head in her hands. Between her past life and the flashes of horrible memory that served as a three-year-gap to the present, she was a very different person. She had to drop out of the Templar training. She had to bear the disgrace of being terrified by everything, and the disappointment (cleverly masked, but still there) of her family.
She remembered when the boy from her class (his name, his name, what was his name again?) stopping by to visit, his fierce face gentled in concern, and she had screamed in terror because he had slipped up behind her and touched her; the male had touched her without her consent and he had rocketed back as she fell to the floor and curled up in a fetal position.
He never visited again.
The humiliation was too great. Rasti wished she could just disappear. So Rasti had stolen a ship, and had disappeared into the great beyond before the fleet could scramble up a ship to head after her. And now she didn't know where she was, and the power was slowly dying, and the air was getting stale. Rasti's dark brown skin was mottled and looked as if she were covered with dust, a telltale sign of poor health.
She had stopped trying to pilot the ship a long time ago. Now she was adrift, and would die soon, and she didn't care.
He had called his ship West of Winter as a joke.
He was not terribly old by protoss standards, but he had seen more strange sights in his relatively few years than most full-grown Khalai protoss had in their entire lifetimes. It was the nature of his people to travel, and he had always had a tendency to walk a few steps farther out than his companions. In space, that translated to a relatively lonely existence, but such was the way of the Nerazim.
The joke had arisen over the course of several months, while he and a small team from his relatively modest tribe were exploring an alien world. It was habitable, but dreadfully cold. Still, there had been a sun, and they had drank deeply of its life-giving nourishment while they were there. Sometimes he would wander off in the direction of the setting sun, unconsciously following the brilliant flaming orb until it fell out of sight.
One of his companions had laughed and called to him. "Are you trying to follow it? Maybe it will lead us somewhere warmer than here."
He had smiled the way all protoss do, by tilting his head and narrowing his eyes. "Maybe. Perhaps it's warm where the sun goes to sleep every evening."
"Somewhere west of winter," one of the other team-members had chimed in.
Since that day, on their expeditions, the phrase "west of winter" had come to be synonymous with a place better than wherever they happened to be, their proverbial greener pastures. They had eventually gone their separate ways, pursuing their individual quest for knowledge or joining other bands of explorers, and as he was wont to do, he struck out on his own.
His ship was small, but serviceable, and the most ornery junk of junk he'd ever had the misfortune to serve upon. He was certain that no other protoss would ever learn all of the quirks necessary to pilot it without a two-hour lecture. So he'd given it an ironic name and had set off.
Truth be told, though the ship was old, prone to mechanical and electronic error, banged-up, and dingy, there really was nowhere else he'd rather be, so the name, in the end, suited it.
He was making his way to an field when the proximity alert chimed in the back of his head. There was a ship approaching. He blinked and accessed the scanner controls, recoiling in horror when he realized what sort of ship he'd stumbled upon.
It was Khalai. It had come from Aiur!
His first instinct was to make a stand and prepare to fight, but as he further scanned the ship to ready himself for battle, he soon saw the nature of its condition. The little tower was about to give out. It had been pushed nearly beyond its limits. He became further confused when he detected one weak life signature aboard the ship.
Well.
This was a toughie.
He hunched over in his seat and drummed his claws on his thigh. Hm. It could be a trap.
Those Aiur-born were relentlessly prejudiced, that much he knew, but prejudiced or not, he couldn't stand here and let one of them just die. Proper procedure would have dictated that he hail the vessel first, but he simply brought his ship in closer and prepared to board it. He had lived far away from "proper procedure" perhaps a little too long.
The shuddering jolt of West of Winter's docking clamps securing a hold on the shuttle were significant, and the squeal of the mechanism as it forced the cargo bay doors open would have pierced through nearly any stupor.
The mechanism was not exactly the same sort of technology as had been used to create the cargo vessel, but it was similar enough not to cause any trouble.
More than the vibration and the noise, though, the most palpable change in the little tugboat was the air. Cool, fresh air gushed into the tiny two-room vessel, preceding the arrival of the boarding ship's captain.
Inside, the female had ignored the chiming that signaled an approaching vessel. If the protoss had finally found her, there wasn't much she could do about it.
Part of her considered taking her own life to avoid further humiliation. That part died suddenly when the screeching noise of the doors stabbed through the air. Wait. Cargo bay doors didn't squeal. If the Templar had found her, they could simply order the doors open, and that would be it. But who else could be out here? Terrans?
The thought made her shudder. The aliens were new to this sector, but they were growing at a terrifying rate. What if...?
Dark Templar didn't even enter into the mix of her thoughts. They were so enigmatic, so few and far between, that the thought of one of them finding her was as possible to her mind as a fish teaching history―or, well, anything.
She found herself staring over her shoulder, wide-eyed, at the direction of the gushing air (gods, fresh air!) in tense preparation to what she would see.
It would have probably done Rasti good to be presented with a familiar face. Perhaps a tall, regal Templar stepping through the airlock, glittering with handsomely polished armor would have sufficed. What she got was Pazura.
He stepped cautiously onto the cargo deck, one arm half-raised. Bits of armor could be seen―the tell-tale bracer of a warp blade on his arm, a pair of impressive pauldrons―but mostly he was covered in lengths of cloth. The ragged ends trailed on the floor and dripped from his muscular, stooped frame, whispering as he cautiously took another step.
Half of his face was hidden by another long strip of cloth, as was the practice of some Nerazim tribes. His eyes were visible, and they burned a strange violet color in his face, the color of the edge of lightning. His crests were elongated, craggy, and ridged, and his nerve-cords had been neatly severed and secured with rather plain-looking clamps.
His skin was dark, rich gray. Needless to say, he was not necessarily a calming sight, with his intimidating features, his rugged frame, and the wraithlike covering of ragged cloth. He said nothing, halting when he saw Rasti. Instead he just stared at her, his posture defensive, wondering what the heck he was supposed to do next.
Rasti found herself disbelieving at first. Dark Templar. No, that couldn't be, her mind, her eyes were deceiving her. She closed them, opened them, and stared.
Then the fear hit.
It was not screaming fear. It was not fear that made her run and hide under something. It was fear that held her silent and frozen, half-twisted in the chair, her mind yelling at her to run. Fight. Do something.
The longer the Dark Templar stood there, the more terrified Rasti became. She began to shake, slightly at first, and then harder, and began to close in on herself, pulling her legs up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. Oh, gods. Oh, gods, it was a Dark Templar, he was going to take her and torture her and... and...
Pazura carefully watched her reaction, carefully lowered his arm, and then very, very carefully became very confused.
She was scared, and he supposed he could understand that. If a strange protoss barged its way into his ship, he would certainly not be happy to see them. The fact that she was alone, in this small ship, so far from home, only added to the mystery of her situation.
"I'm not here to hurt you," he said after a few long moments of tense, confused silence. "I… you were running out of air. I came to investigate." He stood a little straighter. Aiur-born or not, she was still protoss, and she clearly needed assistance. "I'm here to help."
Rasti's eyes only widened as he straightened, looming above her. Her body tensed so much she became a coiled spring, ready to bolt at any sudden movement. She said nothing for a long moment.
When words did form, they were sloppy and disjointed and jumbled, and barely made out to be "...Dark... Templar..."
"Pazura," he corrected. Maybe putting a name to the face would help. Probably, it wouldn't. The woman was obviously terrified, but it was the only thing he could think of to do. He didn't stop to think that she might be deeply disturbed. He just chalked up her reaction to the fact that she was Khalai, and he was Nerazim.
"My name," he went on, "is Pazura. Like I said, I was only worried." He hunched again, thoughtfully shifting his weight, but he didn't move any closer. He couldn't leave her here, and it didn't look as if she would willingly go anywhere. "What is your name?"
Rasti jumped slightly as he moved. Her thoughts swirled in confusion. Why was he asking? Why didn't he just take her name? She wasn't guarding her thoughts―the realization made her attempt to remember her training and close her mind, but she was just too frightened.
"Rasti," she heard herself say. Her body ached from the tenseness of the situation.
"All right," he said, and then, because he felt he should add something more, "nice to meet you, Rasti."
Pazura was not terribly good with people. He remained where he was, racking his brain for his next move. Assaulting her with a barrage of questions was probably not the right move, but it was the only thing he could think of to do. "Were you trying to get home? Are you lost? Are you sick?"
Seemingly realizing his mistake, he cut himself off and reached up under his cloth mask to scratch his cheek, a nervous gesture. "Your ship is not in the best of shape," he added.
The female was twitchy enough to jump again as he scratched himself. "Lost," she repeated, as if in a daze; she struggled to put together a sentence. "B-Both. All."
Not really a sentence. She looked away, then quickly back, both afraid to look at him and afraid to let him out of her sight.
Damn. She was trying to get home, then? That presented a pickle.
There was no way he could refuse to help her, not after seeing her like this, but escorting her back to Khalai-controlled territory was beyond risky.
If he was caught, he would be detained, questioned, and likely executed. He didn't know what to do about that.
But he could hazard a guess as to what he should do next. "You need water. Stay there." He turned and left her alone, disappearing back into his ship.
After a moment soft clattering noises could be discerned through the doorway. Once, there was a rather loud crash followed by a telepathic burst of frustration and mild pain, and a small sealed jar rolled onto the cargo floor. It had a slightly green tint to it, obviously cut from some manner of crystal, and was half-filled with white sand.
He reappeared, moving slowly and almost tripping over the jar. He picked it up in his free hand and took a cautious half-step forward. With his other hand, he held a simply, yet elegantly crafted vessel full of clean, clear water. He set it on the ground and backed away from it. "There."
He then turned his attention to the bottle of sand. Hmm. He'd been looking for that.
Rasti's eyes were diverted to the water immediately; she didn't move, however, until Pazura backed away. Only then did she shift over, her desire for water momentarily overcoming any fear, and she snatched the vessel, pulled it to her chest, and shoved both hands into it, head bowed in apparent relief. She said nothing for a while.
It was only after her body had greedily sucked up a third of the water when she whispered, "Dark Templar―they hurt people." It was tentatively firm, if there was such a thing; she was sure that that had been a part of her studies, but now he was helping her...
"And Khalai capture and kill Dark Templar," Pazura replied calmly, still turning the bottle over in his hands and watching the shifting of the fine sand. He looked up. "But you are not attempting to hurt me, and I wish you no harm. If I had wanted you dead, I could have left you. You would not have lasted long."
He stopped turning the bottle over and cocked his head. "I do not take pleasure in seeing other protoss suffer. No matter how misguided."
Rasti could have argued that they captured and killed them because they were traitors, but she neither had the energy nor thought it was a good idea at this point. She didn't really care whether she lived or died at the moment, but she surprised herself with the sudden need for protoss company. Even a Dark Templar, who was assuredly just playing with her; just giving her hope...
"Oh," she said instead, staring down at the water.
For a few long moments Pazura just stayed there. Nervously, he reached up to scratch his cheek again, once, and after a while he began to fidget. He was utterly helpless as to what to do with a clearly-traumatized, malnourished stranger. "So you… lost your way?" He finally asked. "You are trying to return home? Back to Aiur?"
Rasti twitched. "No. No, not Aiur. Anywhere but Aiur." Her hearts ached to be at the place of her birth again, amongst friends and family, but she didn't belong there anymore. "It's... it's not my home. Anymore."
His craggy brow furrowed. "Oh." A pause. "Kind of relieved to hear that." He paused again, and hastily added, "I mean, not that it is not your home anymore, that does not sound very―I mean it just would have been dangerous and―well, fuck," he finished eloquently.
It might have been amusing to see such a socially awkward creature resided under that intimidating exterior. Rasti was not in any mood to appreciate it. "If you would like, I could leave you… some things. Water. Give your ship a little boost. But, well, I could… you could come along, if you want."
He didn't like the thought of just leaving her. It would nag at his conscience. "Or take you somewhere you want to go."
Rasti jerked her head up again, wide-eyed. Go with him? That Dark Templar? The thought was as terrifying as being left here alone again.
"Where... where would I go?" she asked, desperate for some sort of reassurance.
"To be honest, half of the time I do not even know where I am going," he admitted, "I do not entirely… know where you could go. If you are on the run, perhaps one of our colonies could take you in. If you could keep this thing running…"
He looked up at the roof and the walls of the cargo hold. "Maybe you could travel. Like me."
Pazura looked back to her. "But I will venture a guess that the concept of individual freedom is not really big with you Aiur types, is it?"
Rasti blinked. Was that a joke? Some sort of jab at her people? Whatever it was, she wasn't in the mood to entertain it, and simply stared at him, a slight crease forming between her brows and her mind exuding confusion.
"I... what?"
He scratched at his cheek again a little sheepishly. He really, really wasn't good at this. "Sorry," he added.
For a moment he fell silent to collect his thoughts, hunching further down and narrowing his eyes in intense concentration. "I'm heading for an asteroid field. To explore it. Would you like to come with me? I'll power your ship from mine, and give you water. I also have a light you can use. It might not be much, but it'll keep you going."
The thought of being alone again frightened her almost as much as being with a Dark Templar. A large, intimidating male Dark Templar. The two fears warred in her mind, and she was silent for a good bit before simply giving a mental nod. To what she was nodding to, she didn't know, but... well... if she was going to die, then... what did it matter?
Pazura watched her for a moment before he acknowledged. "Well. Okay then. I'll… bring you the light."
He carefully stepped forward and disappeared into the doorway joining their ships. When he returned, he was bearing a small device.
It was housed in a dark green rock mottled with delicate black patterns, and a single clear, glowing crystal rested in the center. "We can live off the light of the stars, for the most part, but sometimes we go a while without finding anyplace suitable. So... this should be enough for you. I hope. Let me know if it isn't."
He set it on the ground next to where the water had been. As he stepped closer, Rasti noticed small details about his armor and clothing that she did not previously―the inlaid designs on his armor had a curious pearly sheen, and small seashells had been embroidered into some of the less-battered lengths of cloth. His entire garb had a decidedly nautical flair to it.
"If you need anything, just call for me. My ship's small. I'll probably hear you." He backed up. "Are you… going to be okay?"
Rasti stared down at the device, then back up at him.
"C-Can I ride with you?" she blurted suddenly, thighs tightening on the vessel of water. She fell quiet immediately, and ducked her head.
"Uh." He shifted uncertainly. "If you want to." The proposition made him obviously slightly nervous. He didn't fully trust her, even if she seemed helpless. He scratched his cheek anxiously. "I mean, I don't really have any place where you could… it's, uh, a little cluttered."
He bent down and picked up the light. "But sure, if you want. Follow me." He turned and began to lead the way back to his ship. His instincts screamed against turning his back on her, but he did anyway. He had to show at least a little amount of trust if he wanted any in return.
After some stumbling, Rasti followed. Her own mind was screaming at her to not follow such a fallen man, especially into his lair, but the desperation she had been feeling the entire time kept her going. Her legs were weak and shaky, but she made do.
It was darker in his ship, much darker. She froze in the doorway, casting her gaze back and forth; her nerve-cords were tense with fear. Darkness was one of the many, many things she was afraid of.
"It's dark," her mental whisper reached him tentatively.
"Yes," he replied. He looked over his shoulder and set the light down. "The ship's kind of… old. Give me a moment." He turned and vanished fluidly into the shadows, as was his birthright, and was gone for a few moments. Then a set of blue emergency lights flickered on the floor and the walls, died, flared again, and finally settled into a dim, steady blue glow.
It was less like walking into a ship and more like walking into the bastard child of a museum and a bazaar. There were shelves along all of the walls, most of them with a protective glimmer around them, likely to keep the hundreds of various knickknacks from flying everywhere. The shelves were littered with unusual-looking rocks, carved figurines, exotic shells, and myriad other objects which perched on the shelves or were scattered about the floor.
There were polished yellowed bones, obviously from some small animal, a case of carefully preserved lepidopteron insects, bushels of dried flowers and herbs, books, mysterious leather satchels, bundles of cloth, a few dusty-looking scrolls, and, in one corner, a large, toothy feline skull.
Things hung from the ceilings and the walls―scraps of cloth, some of it as old and tattered as Pazura's garb, and some of it carefully cleaned and preserved. There were strings of hollow gourds, inside which various objects had been stowed.
There were small lamps, most of them burnt out. There were more than a few gracefully-crafted wind chimes, most of them sharing the same nautical theme that was displayed on Pazura's clothing.
Strings of beads of all sorts―glass, bone, metal, coral, wood―hung on strings from the ceiling. A display on the far wall housed an impressive-looking battle staff. There were bottle-shaped vessels of water stowed away randomly in every nook and cranny. On one wall, there was an untidy pile of various objects that looked as if they all had fallen from a broken shelf above.
Through it all Pazura came trudging back somewhat sheepishly. "A little cluttered," he reiterated, which turned out to be the understatement of the century.
The blue lights seemed harsh to Rasti; she cringed from them and their bloodlike glow almost as much as she had cringed from the darkness. Her eyes were drawn to the ceiling―was that bone? How morbid!―and she considered bolting back to the comfortingly known interior of her own stolen vessel. But she had been alone there.
She remained in the hatchway, blue-white gemfire eyes darting around nervously. "Yes," she managed.
He watched her for a few moments longer. She really was terrified. "Well, you're going to need a place to stay. Second deck'll do." Pazura found it to be the second-most calming place on the ship, not counting his personal quarters. He moved through the clutter with the nimble ease of one used to living in such haphazard confines and opened a hatch in the floor.
A device somewhat like a ladder―but with only a single rung in the middle―was extended, and he used this as a foothold as he easily dropped himself to the floor. "I keep the plants down here," he mentally informed her from below. He then began to self-conscious clean the floor of the room, brushing away the detritus that had gathered there.
Once Rasti went to investigate, she found a room nearly the size of the one she was standing in. The four walls were dotted with plants. The racks designed to hold them were mostly bare, but the few plants that resided there were well-taken care of, and made the air tingle pleasantly against one's skin with their lush, curiously green aroma.
"Or would you rather stay up there?" He walked to the open hatch and peered up.
Rasti stared down at the hole. From this angle, it was even darker than the deck she was currently standing on. She scrambled to get a hold of her thoughts, and could only manage a miserable, "It's dark," before closing her eyes in embarrassment (and then quickly opening them, afraid to have them closed for long).
"The plants are night-bloomers," he explained. "But…" rather than finish his sentence, he turned and trotted off into the shadows. After a few moments, there was a flicker of brightness, and then a wan, green-yellow light filled the room below. It was still dim, but considerably brighter than before.
Pazura reappeared, squinting against the light. This would send two of his specimens into hibernation mode, but it wasn't as if he needed them for his survival. He kept them for other reasons. "Better?" His mental voice carried neither annoyance nor any patronizing tone.
Rasti let out another weak mental nod before forcing herself to move, putting one foot on the single rung and hopping down with a single forced, quick movement.
She looked up directly into the face of the Nerazim standing before her and couldn't help it: a blast of fear sent her scuttling backwards, behind the latter and against the wall.
Pazura was looking over his shoulder at the plants as she descended, and turned just in time to come face-to-face with her. He gave a startled jerk back a single step, his body tense and ready, as she scrambled away. He blinked after the thrill had passed, and then promptly felt very foolish for overreacting.
Nervously, he scratched his cheek. "Well. Is this… suitable? I can bring you bedding. And water." A pause. "And the light."
The woman let out a scrambled positive thought, and had she any form of lungs she would be hyperventilating. Her skin was terribly mottled. And now, she had begun to weep, an automatic response to the sudden fright. She fought against it. She wouldn't cry in front of the (sworn enemy?) Dark Templar!
"Yes," she said again, this time managing words.
Pazura's eyes widened. He still didn't trust this creature. For all he knew, she could be tagging his vessel for some kind of ambush. She was, after all, one of the Khalai. But she was a female, and she was crying, and it tugged at his hearts to see her so upset.
His first instinct was to comfort her, but obviously he frightened her. "Okay. I'll be right back." He moved carefully for the ladder and then swung easily up and over the rim. He was gone for a full fifteen minutes.
When he returned, he had taken his armor off, even the warp blade generator (this was meant to be a gesture of trust, but really, he didn't think he would need it to deal with her). He was still largely covered by scraps of cloth, and had donned a somewhat-battered robe. His face was still covered. Whether this was a sign of lingering mistrust or just habit was uncertain.
He had a bottle of water in one hand and a bedroll over his shoulder, and the light in the other. He trotted to the corner of the room opposite where Rasti was cowering and spread the bedroll, and then the small, but soft-looking sheet that had been rolled inside. He set the water down by the bed, and then the light by the water, creating a small sanctuary of brightness for her.
He looked over to her silently, and after a moment, he said, "I get nervous sometimes, too. Over… various things." He reached into one of the folds of his voluminous clothing and drew out a small leather bag. "Certain herbs, when crushed and mixed with water, can be soothing. This mixture helps me relax, but it doesn't make me sleepy. If you need help sleeping, I have one of those, too." He set it down, allowing her to make the decision of whether or not she wanted to take the mixture. "But, uh, only if you need it."
He knew that he likely wouldn't, if their positions were reversed, and he'd been picked up by a Khalai vessel. "Is there anything else I can do for you?" He scratched nervously at his cheek again.
She stared up at him, then down at the bag, then back up at him, afraid to look away. A part of her knew this was foolish; she should never have accepted this Fallen One's help... but gods, without him, she would be alone, and that was even more terrifying than being stuck on a ship with him.
"No," she said after a moment, then manners dictated that she say something more, and she mumbled, "Thank you."
He nodded. "Very well. I'll leave it in case you change your mind." And with that, he left her. He kept the hatch open, in case she wanted to leave the bay. He considered going to his room, but the question of what to do with her hung heavy on his mind. He had woken from his last sleep-cycle to a world he understood. He had a ship, a hunger for travel, and a destination.
But now?
Pazura didn't know what to do next, and that very fact dictated what he did next. He sighed and strode through the clutter of his ship to the main control panel on the bridge. It only took a single hand gesture and a few concentrated thoughts to change his course, so he was only there for a moment.
His actions, however, would change more than just the course of the ship.
He needed guidance, and he knew just where to turn for that. He would catch some sleep before they arrived, though―maybe this problem would be easier to tackle after a few hours' worth of sleep.
He retreated to his room, where he shed all of his various and sundry articles of ragged clothing. He paused before collapsing to bar the door. Vulnerable or not, he didn't trust her. Then he curled up and went to sleep.
Rasti thought she would not be able to sleep. On a strange ship, with a Dark Templar of all creatures, made her believe she wouldn't get sleep for days. But she was in a cuccoon of blankets, and in a comforting sphere of softly glowing light, and she was tired, so tired. She did end up sleeping, curled on her side with her back pressed warily to the wall.
