The Hag:
Celessare's blue-grey morning sky dawned in the wake of a violent thunderstorm. The sun had only just begun to dry out the saturated earth as the people of Syve Spaceport, more commonly called simply The Port, groaned awake, rolling reluctantly out of bed after a restless night of little sleep. Unease clung to The Port like the heavy early morning fog that rolled across the wet ground. Those with more superstitious minds whispered of magic and trouble. Even the sensible minds, those that had a firm belief in the sciences, could not help but glance nervously to the east, where the dark smudge of The Syve, the cursed forest for which The Port was initially named, lined the horizon. A few people muttered of sighting a streak of fire crash into The Syve. Some imagined that through rain-streaked Plexiglas windows and cloud darkened skies, that they had seen the battle that had taken place far above the highest Port rooftop. When the Imperials landed in their Port, demanding information, accommodations, subservience, they obediently scurried to do as they were bid, head bowed and no voices rising in protest of the invasion. But in the privacy of their homes and the closed circle of their community, whispered conversations spoken between close neighbors and trusted friends spoke of ill omen and black magic and fate. When the Imperials weren't looking there were glares, glances that said simply the Empire is not welcome here.
The Imperial excuse for the intrusion was short and created more questions than it answered. A traitor had been executed above Celessare.
That meant a traitor could be in The Syve, a dark heart to live with the dark magic.
When Imperial troops came down, lead by the Dark Lord himself, looking for survivors of a crashed escape pod, they were told of the fire that crashed in The Syve.
And nothing survived in The Syve or its borderlands.
Nothing except the Hag.
But they didn't tell the Imperials that.
~*~*~*~
The Hag woke before the sun came up, feeling both restless and weighted down. Her limbs were heavy and the grief of the Force battered at the shields around her heart, but the memory of what had happened that night drove her out of her bed and to a window. Her gaze immediately seeking The Syve. As her pale green eyes focused on the dark forest, not even half a kilometer beyond her front door, she felt a sudden and very strong sense of urgency.
Whatever had fallen into The Syve last night was calling to her.
'Hurry, hurry, hurry…'
She pulled her warm, waterproof cloak off a peg on the wall and, fastening it over her shoulders, hurried to the front door and stepped outside. She almost immediately wished that she owned a functioning pair of boots as her gnarled bare feet sunk several centimeters into the soft mud. She cursed under her breath and pulled her foot free. Shuffling towards The Syve as fast as her old bones would let her, leaving behind her the stone and mud house she had built a lifetime ago with her husband.
'Hurry, hurry, hurry…'
Just beyond her property was the abandoned farmhouse of a family that had braved the borderlands of The Syve and then disappeared, never to be heard from again. Fog rolled along the damp earth and lapped against the farmhouse's crumbling walls, slipping inside through the half open doorway. The Hag slowed as she passed the house, as she always did, and bent her head respectfully in its direction, there was a muffled thud as the rotting door slammed shut and the Hag shuddered and quickened her pace once more. The steady chant of 'hurry, hurry, hurry!' echoing in her ears, battering at the near impenetrable mental shields that she had built to protect her sanity.
The Hag gritted her teeth, hissing "Alright, I'm coming already, hold your blasted tauntauns."
She marched her way across the open fields of the borderlands with single-minded purpose, her bony, bare feet sinking into the soft earth with every step, weeds poked up between her toes and pricked at her ankles as she waded through the mists. The call pulling her forward in its iron grip. She crossed into The Syve without hesitation and her annoyance only grew the closer she came to the source of that morning's pains.
'Hurry, hurry, hurry…'
"This had better be an emergency." The Hag muttered to herself as she sloshed through the dense blue-green and brown vegetation of The Syve. As she neared what she knew to be the source of her mental discomfort, she cast a mental net out and began feeling for an exact location. After less than a minute, she found what she sought.
A tiny life.
And almost instantly after, the thin wail of a baby cut through the damp morning air, penetrating her brain as only a baby's cry can.
"Blast and damnation." She hissed. The Hag stopped walking for a moment, her eyes unfocused as she seemed to stare blankly into the distance. There, she had found it. The heart of the trouble.
For that is what this was, a load trouble, dumped on her doorstep.
The Hag sighed, her hard mask of grumpy annoyance disappearing to reveal knowing sadness, "Ah," she murmured to herself, "a child of fate." Without further comment, she continued on her way.
Her destination was a mess. The escape pod was half buried in the dirt, pounded into the unyielding forest floor. Blackened tree limbs were scattered everywhere around the mangled pod and the rains of last night's storm had not put out the fires quickly enough to keep the surrounding vegetation from being burned to the ground.
The Hag did not pause to wonder how anything could have survived the crash. She knew only that something, somebody had. The shrieking wail coming from inside the pod only confirmed what the Hag could already feel.
She carefully climbed up the mound of pushed up dirt around the pod, slipping only once. To her relief, the hatch of the pod had already twisted off.
She found the girl-child wrapped in the body of a dead man. Most of the man's safety webbing was ripped out of the pod's walls. From the awkward angles of his body, most of his bones were broken and his back was badly burned, a mangled, melted mess of clothing and skin. He had several pieces of jagged metal sticking out of him, his passing had not been an easy one. But the girl-child that he protected suffered only from a few bruises and scrapes that the Hag could see. The old woman felt no deeper pain from the girl-child.
Just extreme distress.
"Alright now, girlie, calm yourself. The Hag is here." The babe wailed louder. "Not a comforting thought for you I think, no, Girl-Child?" The Hag reached into the pod, almost losing her balance as she leaned in, "Ah, my poor old bones, you are going to be the end of me, Girl-Child, you will accomplish what an entire village of torch wielding idiots could not." She cackled at the thought, and the babe's wails faded a bit. Hag disentangled the girl-child from the man's mangled body and safety webbing, holding her close, the Hag half climbed, half slid away from the wrecked pod.
Facing the wreckage, the Hag held the crying girl-child up to her face, "here now, stop that noise, girl. Haven't you caused this old Hag enough headaches this morning?"
The child only cried harder.
The Hag frowned and lowered the girl. It had been a long time since she had comforted her own babes. Gently she rocked and spoke in soothing tones, turning away from the wreckage, needing to put as much space between the girl-child and the dead man as possible. She spoke to the child as she walked.
"What did your poor pretty mother call you, eh?" she cackled, "I'll not give you a name Girl-child. No. A name is a powerful thing, choosing it shall be your burden. A powerful gift I give you, eh, what say you to that, Girl-Child?" She smiled as she realized that the babe's cries had stopped and the Girl-Child had settled quietly in the Hag's bony arms. "A pity that man back there wasn't your father," she sighed, "but fate runs thick in your blood, doesn't it Girl-Child? Your dark father's death would do you little good." The Hag paused mid step, listening, she smiled again. The morning birdsong had returned, the unnatural air of earlier was fading as nature righted itself.
"I suppose I'll have to take care of you now, eh, Girl-Child? Pity I am not as young as I used to be." The Hag laughed then, a laugh that held little joy and much cynicism, "I am old, Girl-Child, and those golden eyes of yours spell trouble, that they do." The Hag looked down at the small body squirming in her arms, her spindly fingers curled tightly around the girl's fragile form, "I suppose I'm already attached to you, aren't I? No good abandoning you now, devious little girlie." She said, but not without some affection.
As they crossed the threshold of the Syve, the Hag laughed, this time with some real humor, "those pansies in the Port are right about one thing, Girl-Child. The Syve brings nothing but trouble."