In the Tale, a Story
Heroes are by definition extraordinary people. It is also said that heroes are ordinary people with extraordinary gifts, or ordinary people with gifts of doing extraordinary things, but there has always been a thousand ways and one to skin a gabal. Most of the time heroes are simply who the storyteller spends most time and thought upon, so we will leave it at that. You, O listener, may decide their species.
Let us instead busy ourselves with a little orientation. Our tale begins and ends with heroes, as all tales must, yet all heroes require a stage. Our first is carried upon a craft scarred by fire and ice, currently trudging the halls of hyperspace. The act opens on decks fallen far from ostentatious beginnings. And the clock chimes out yet another long interlude between the end of one saga and the start of another...
Parry. Slash. Block on the right, followed by sweep of the left foot. Back-flip with in-air twist. Then the fumble -- sixth time too many for one session. A steadying breath.
No matter that breath trembled in constricted lungs. No matter that air itself fractured with hurt, with dread. No matter that fatigue seethed deeper than mere limits of the body.
When one fails, all that remains is the option to try again.
Parry. Slash. Block...
"Enough!"
Renani, former Jedi, former Exile, current Scapegoat for crimes and charities of the Order (both), tripped over a foot intended for a hypothetical opponent. The rest of her described an unbecoming sprawl on the cargo deck.
A short guffaw greeted her efforts. "Exxx-cellent," was the assessment. "The enemy will never see that one coming."
Bidding reluctant farewell to her newest acquaintances -- scuffs and stains -- the erstwhile General pushed herself off ship plating. "What do you want, Mandalore?" came out in near-growl. Never one for reciting the Jedi Serenity Code, she had also never wished as much that it were otherwise. An idle moment wondered how unamused certain Jedi Masters might be by the rationale; after all, it was motive that defined improved conduct, was it not? But then, said Masters were now far removed from any ability of the sort.
A thought too morbid to approach funny, or so conscience claimed it should be.
Backlight sandwiched a silver-on-black figure between corridor and interior. For one missed heartbeat, the sizzle of light on metal overlaid short screams from the dying and longer screams from the bereft. Fresh blood grated every scab off inured senses. And each life that waned -- sides? What was a Side? -- did so only after shaving off that one precious sliver of soul.
A past life was close this night, and too many were the days where the Exile wondered if "Reni" existed outside of her friends' sunblossom-tinted convictions.
Like his kind had, once upon a grander scale ago, the one intruded. Each deliberately noisy step was punctuation to a statement. "Ship," addressed the voice that, more than anything else to the Exile's thinking, signed the Mandalore of Mandalore. "Standard luminosity."
And so it was.
The Exile found the symbolism ironic; the man bragged of starring in galaxy-wide nightmares, after all. Confusion tasked her to blink stupidly as he adopted the formal start of a duel.
"This fighting yourself wastes all our time, girl. A real opponent might improve your focus." His tone expressed no overwhelming confidence of that likelihood.
Reni's slack-armed stance disproved zero percent of that assumption. The situation was simply too bizarre to warrant the expected and, more importantly, sensible response. The former General was used to drop-ins, friendly matches inevitably progressing to instruction sessions, audience included. Mandalore's presence was all but given; the man was a kath hound for battle -- mock, real, in-between. If the Force knew what invisible sensors he had managed to rig (and she had checked), it kept it like it kept all its secrets -- impenetrably well.
It remained that the only warrior on-board who might be the General's match never challenged her. It remained that while the Jedi would dearly have welcomed the learning opportunity, she never expected him to.
Mandalore gave no quarter in which to ponder the oddity. As it was, Reni was barely in time to flinch at the breeze from an armored fist that would have doubled her over had it followed through.
"Next one won't be a feint," came the warning.
Shaking her head as if it would dislodge the plague of surreality, she relaxed muscles and let the flow of instinct take over. A last-ditch deflection of an uppercut was time enough to calculate that they were an even match hand-to-hand. The jar transmitted down her very bones.
Mandalore had the unsurprising advantage of having studied her style.
Not much edge was required to send the Exile to reacquaint with the floor. Rubbing a newly-bruised shoulder (the sundry other parts being less accessible in company), she summoned a bleary glance up at the winner of a foregone match.
"Sloppy." Voice and stance conveyed disappointment, as if it were mandated somewhere that she could do better.
The Exile sighed, drew legs, laid forehead on knees. Perhaps it only felt as if sluggishness and a pending migraine were in the process of detaching her head from her spine, for she rather wished they did. Another expel rid what little air was left in her lungs.
"This is not a good day, Mandalore."
"'Course it isn't. I'll just tell the Sith to come back tomorrow. Or would you prefer I do them the favor of gutting you, right here?"
"Perhaps you should do the galaxy that favor," was softly agreed.
Fingers clamped bruisingly around her triceps and hauled her upright. She met the helmeted face, but felt only a mild, belated affront.
"A leader with a death-wish, are you now?"
She lacked the energy to summon more than a token spark of anger, which the abyss swallowed without so much as an appreciative burp. A hollow sound that tried to be a laugh emitted from a throat not recognizably her own. "Better me than the galaxy, don't you think?"
"What nonsense did the crone and her cronies" -- he spat the nouns -- "jam into your head?"
Reni shook her head. "Only the truth. Of what I'd done. To Malachor V. To Katarr. To everything and every, everyone I touch, just by existing."
"And you believed them?" Scorn warred disbelief for prominence in Mandalore's voice. "It must be a miracle you survived the war. It sure is that you won it."
"Stop saying that! I didn't win the..." Even if his eyes were not visible to deal the accusation she deserved, her head felt too heavy to hold up. "I, what I did was worse, wasn't it? Can't run from the truth. Has a habit of catching up."
"I should kill you for being a sniveling fool, but you'd probably take it as a mercy."
"It would be, for us all." A distant, receding part expressed concern at such a promotion, but "I can't fix what I broke. Everything I do just compounds it."
"And you think passive surrender will make it all better?"
/#For the unworthy leader there remains the way of the blade.#/
A sharp flex of fingers transmitted Mandalore's response to that ritual phrase, taken from and delivered in the tongue of his people. The pain brought his hands to abrupt foreground, hands still in a grip that passersby could construe as intimate, hands that could snap her neck and then finish a blink.
She was not afraid.
For a long while the world narrowed to the hiss of harsh breaths behind that silver helm, a sound somehow indicative of more emotion than the Mandalorian ever seemed to exhibit. There passed time enough and more to consider that he might actually enact -- or allow her to follow through -- the double-edged rite. Reni could not quite pin down what she felt at the prospect. Dread? Hope?
Calm, perhaps: here, at last, one decision neither hers to make nor execute.
/#You will never speak that again! You will not cheat me of a life-claim!#/ "So hear me, girl, if you do something as idiotic as getting yourself terminated" -- the switch to Basic was perhaps more revealing than his vehemence of speech --
"Not even hiding in your Force will stop my following to kill you myself."
interlude
Another planetary day, complete with impotent sun on chill ground. Another long trek, on foot for the twin reasons that credits weighed in square meals, and that the only destination was the oblivion of motion.
With a clarity the Force sometimes bequeaths its servants, she was aware that She-Who-Walked was a mere wisp of a dream/vision, but it was a distinction that diminished with each desultory step.
Thus it became more and more her aching feet that eked out miles of lifeless soil, her eyes that watered from a glare without the benevolence of heat, her breath that congealed on a veil the cold conveniently excused her to wear.
Her startled trepidation when a metallic tang in still air signaled that such and such a blot near the horizon was not just another pimple of volcanic past and more of a...
The Traveler squinted, one hand raised to assist the deep cowl at warding off extraneous light. A body? In a place so far off the beaten track that even the locals had nothing more descriptive to offer than "barren" and "worthless"?
The petty part of her psyche voted for feet to remain in motion, for senses to ensconce in the safe little world consisting only of Self. But the Traveler's were eyes too familiar with the sight of bodies -- broken, bloodied, discarded like a petulant child's toys -- to permit the illusion of ignorance.
Or at least, not for long. Not quite by volition, she found her shadow darkening the charred and unnaturally twisted form of a...
...man. Fighter, if that armor is anything to go by. The carbine would cinch it, except that it seems to have exploded on him, yet that is no amateur merc's toy. His hands... -- the Traveler winced in sympathetic pain even as the business part of her produced a clinical catalogue -- Broken is an understatement. Legs too, by the looks of it. Not a pleasant death, if such exists.
/#Come. To. Gloat?#/
Eyes that had slipped shut for a moment of regret flew wide even as she crouched, hands outreached to hover above the too-still figure before consciousness censored the reflex as useless. Instead, she picked gingerly at the bits of shredded mesh and metal that obscured the extent of his injuries, trying to not inflict further damage, further pain. It was futile. Yet the man barely twitched, that last rasping sentence apparently having sapped what little remained of his body's overtaxed resources.
/#Rest, warrior. I seek no battle with you,#/ the Traveler murmured automatically.
Then the language of their exchange struck, and her hands froze -- a tongue almost as second nature as Basic, though for more perverted reasons.
Focus receded, overtaken by introspection. Anger? Disgust? Vindication? Surely reasonable responses, for hundreds of worlds of people even if not her specifically. Fear? Alarm? Suspicion? Not particularly warranted by the situation, but a normal enough reaction.
The Mandalorian's eyes remained stubbornly open, bloodshot pupils staring at her with the compounded weight of every last one of her sins.
The Traveler swallowed dust and guilt, forced her fingers to resume their painful mercy. If only the F-- but no, it was worse than pointless to dwell on that most lancing of betrayals.
Medpacs were a luxury she had long gone without, but a soldier should have... hands closed gratefully over the battered remains of a pouch, emerged triumphant after a minute of tentative probing. The dribbles of kolto returned some color to a face that might have been tan under shock-induced pallor, grime, and extensive blistering.
Her patient clenched his teeth obstinately around a groan. /#Y'r. Not. Her.#/
She shushed him, worried that even the clipped syllables of his people seemed exacted at great cost. /#I am a friend. Let me help.#/
His eyes narrowed, and she recalled belatedly that no Mandalorian would tend a fallen stranger beyond stripping them of weapons. It mattered not to the Traveler, who had not thought to pose as such, but a Mandalorian in his straits would probably prefer looting than assistance.
Vague hopes of having encountered one sensible Mandalorian were shattered soon enough.
"Kill me 'n be done w'th it," came the laborious but unmistakable command.
The Traveler shook her head a trifle exasperatedly, while tearing a strip from the hem of her robe plus trying to decide which wound needed the most immediate tending. /#This is not yet your time,#/ she said, concentration so complete that she missed the switch to Basic.
"Beat it! Don't want y'r 'help', chit."
She resisted the urge to glance incredulously around for the army at his back, and instead tightened another makeshift bandage (having given up on triage and settled for methodical progress). "You will die if I don't help you."
"Let death come, or 'help' it 'long."
Her head snapped up, something in his tone shatteringly resonant with the meaningless toil of her late life. Much later would hindsight pin it as the moment whereby the saving of this life became more personal than a creed of her previous profession, more personal than reparations she felt daily obligated to make.
/#So you seek the coward's way?#/ The challenge was issued almost before thought.
/#Your life is mine for that insult!#/ her patient almost bellowed, anger lending strength. "Now if you know anything of Mandalorian vows, girl, better leave me be or I will have your head."
He had not counted on steel being met with steel.
"Then live, that you might not disgrace your clan with a lie," the Traveler snapped, and proceeded to fashion a stretcher from stave and cloak.
--:----:-:-:-:-:-:----:--
It was not an easy recovery for patient or ersatz doctor, not that the latter had entertained illusions even at the less-than-rosy start. The Mandalorian's blaster arm could only be called mangled, the other a marginally less lurid adjective. A number of broken ribs made moving him both excruciating and hazardous. His left leg was broken in at least two places, his right hung from a shattered knee. The regenerative implant would have been welcome help -- had its components not been melted beyond repair. Even the Traveler's meager store of medical knowledge was up to diagnosing that there was much more damage than could be accounted for by an exploding rifle, point-blank range or no.
A vestigial part identified the likely cause, but her conscious mind ran fast and far from it. Thought was a luxury anyway, given that working to scrounge up feed and disproportionately expensive medication occupied sunup to sundown of each thirty-standard-hour day.
The backwater village she had managed to drag the both of them to had no use for her skills beyond being another warm body; her head might know the fortune of it being harvest, but her bones felt otherwise.
As hard as menial labor and inadequate food were on the Traveler, however, lack of "real" treatment was worse on her ungrateful patient. No charitable healer had popped conveniently out of the wormwood. The Mandalorian was in constant pain, even if he bit through his lips rather than utter it. But it was the pain in his soul that was the most insidious enemy, one that no amount of carefully rationed kolto could heal.
There were days when the Traveler was convinced that only her goading and his anger kept him going. There were days when she was too weary and nauseated from hunger to so much as wonder why she tried.
It would have been so easy... it would have been what he purportedly wanted more than anything.
But he hung on, and so did she.
And one day, when she had collapsed her too-thin frame against the adobe walls of the tiny (though at least clean) hovel the villagers had so "generously" allowed them to use, he asked her name.
The Traveler peered cautiously out from her getting-to-threadbare cowl -- the line between concealment and necessity long since blurred by a cold her body no longer wasted effort trembling against. The only positive concerning the weather had been that it kept the inevitable infection easier to contain, and offered marginal relief for her patient from the equally inevitable fevers that followed.
A now-coherent patient, one asking her name.
Her jaded mind wondered. He had been consistently content to address her by curses (apparently the Mandalorian language came equipped with an extensive arsenal, the bulk of which she was not sorry to claim flew over her head). The favored "girl" or "chit" actually approached charitable.
/#You are at least worthy enough to name before killing,#/ he said, broadcasting grudging concession.
She studied him critically from the shadows of her hood, though she knew it annoyed him no end that she "lacked the honor to show face". Brows and hair had recovered from thankfully mild (O wonders of relativity) burns, the latter in sufficient quantity that she'd had to take a knife to the uniform and surprisingly soft (an observation wisest kept to oneself) grey crop. He had berated her for "squeamish waste of kolto" on more cosmetic injuries, but an obdurate facet was determined to make his healing as complete as possible despite her inability to access... other means.
Without much use of either arm -- a fact that both regretted, and never more so than at mealtime -- he had little choice in the reduction of horrific burns to scars visible only to mistress or joygirl (or joyboy, she supposed). The clan tattoo was another matter, one the Traveler found herself mourning even if the Mandalorian refused to acknowledge it. Still, she knew better than to offer worthless platitudes. It would have been the height of hypocrisy, at any rate, to profess consolation when her own identity had been more irrevocably lost.
The rest, consisting of painstakingly, painfully set bones, only time or a full medical facility would heal. She was nowhere near confident that the impromptu treatments could allow him to regain full mobility, but a real surgeon should be able to compensate for the shoddy effort... assuming either of them got off this rock within their lifetimes.
The Traveler's ship-passage had been one of the first things to fall sacrifice to the harsh language of commerce.
A long sigh escaped as she drew to a close contemplation of the man whose body she had tended more of than was tolerable for either of their dignities. They were both anything but strangers to necessity, but for a person to see so much of another required either the familiarity of intimacy or the impartiality of professionalism. As it was, neither fit the credit-line.
Chronic hunger helped, in a twisted fashion, by robbing every other detail of the impact they would have had under more normal circumstances.
/#Aleen,#/ she decided at last. /#Call me Aleen, if there is a civil tongue in that block you call head.#/
"Now who's trading insults?" he scoffed. They both had, of course, been guilty of sniping at each other, if nothing else as safety valve against forced cohabitation. The Traveler could recall no time, place or person with which she had been similarly as verbally uninhibited -- one did not, after all, go about airing sarcastic commentaries in "polite" society. But, however crass he could (often deliberately) be, the Mandalorian enjoyed a good battle of wits and was a graceful loser, a gracious winner -- the ideal opponent. Tempers flared as frequently as energy or lack thereof allowed, but never festered. It was amazing how long a way that went to make sub-sub-standard living conditions almost palatable.
Then again, the Traveler changed her mind about "palatable" rather often. Such as when...
"'Alone'? Melodramatic, but fitting I suppose. Very well, 'Aleen'." Eyes the dark of a wounded wild animal, hating her for witnessing his weakness, hating himself for inability to escape. His words rang coldly off the walls that penned them. "It will cease to matter soon enough."
end interlude
All Fates, or so it seemed to the Exile, demanded that she meet them on foot. Destiny might allow others swoop bikes, corvettes, Basilisk war-droids, or -- for the very lucky few -- soft sheets on warm bed. For her it reserved long solitaries across landscapes lifted straight from a depressed/depraved artist's mind.
Always the good herd-beast, she marched to its tune, walking, walking, from the mists of one memory into the embrace of another present. It had never been her luxury to pretend that a lightsaber or two could ward off Fate's intentions.
Two shimmering ranks of Sith fell to their knees in perfect synchronicity with her unchallenged approach -- a fitting tribute for the sacrificial nerf.
The structure was marde upon malab, cold stone that remembered all, revealed none. A million eyes, dead, living, seen, unseen, were firaxa circling the conclusion of a saga, anticipating ripples that could never erased.
This was Malachor V. This was Trayus -- the Academy, the Heart. It stood, still, despite the wreckage of a world and more around it. It was a fitting endgame, one crafted by the Exile's own damnably-well-intentioned hands.
Those were the only kind to wreck true disasters.
This was Malachor V. Fifth in the line of a half-dozen satellites that even the Mandalorians in their battle frenzy knew to be wary of. Here, Kreia, the Betrayer who had written herself into the role, and what for? The education of a former Jedi more thoroughly broken than the planet itself?
Most Jedi would have Push-flung the double doors rather than soil their hands on the Sith-infused structure. Most Sith would have Push-flung the double doors for the pleasure of a dramatic entrance.
The Exile did not subscribe to either rationalization. Smooth surface glided like silk over hard-earned calluses, yielded with little protest. For an infinitesimal heartbeat she hesitated, lit by the sickly ambience of a dying planet, framed by the maw into an anathemic culture.
The moment passed. She strode into her future on a world that had forged her past even as she performed for it the same courtesy.
Behind her, the winds howled back each death-song that had ever been cast into its wake. Then the impact of stone on stone -- felt more than heard -- forever sealed the one portal.
And so turned a page.
interlude
Winter, which both had been dreading within what precious little salvage remained of privacies, brought with it an unanticipated boon. Neither saw it as such at first, since it cost the one, in the words of the other, "use of that damned fool arm".
At that point, resources both mental and physical were stretched so thin that, had the Traveler applied conscious thought to it, she would have hung her head but left well alone. Yet, some instincts prove to be rooted deeper than outer circumstance; for her, it was the need to protect. So was it that while a gaggle of villagers anxiously awaited this rope or that ladder to be fetched, the Traveler dove unthinkingly down the ravine to fetch a miniature of their own.
The wrenched shoulder -- which would have not been incurred at full health -- was price for plucking one rescuee from one crumbling ledge before panic (did they really think to coax it into climbing up on its own?) wrote an unhappy ending to the tale.
Fortunately, most sentients come programmed with protectiveness of offspring, and the parent (a hermaphrodite race) was suitably grateful. It helped that the child was out of commission for travel, and the "happy" conjunction dropped two ship-passages into the strangers' laps.
The cramped cargo-hold-turned-dormitory for too many unwashed bodies was no luxury liner, to be sure; yet there is some relief in being crowded by a crowd rather than a single other.
The Traveler found additional reason to be amused by the Mandalorian's intemperance. For it, the other passengers gave the downed warrior -- and herself by association -- wary berth.
She was not ungrateful.
end interlude
"Go," so advised the inaudible whisper. "Yet-t-t t-time... s-s-save 'r-r-rs-selves..."
The armor growled. Hard hands plucked one-point-eight-six meters of lean-muscled Jedi from the ground as if she was no more substantial than the bundle of rags swathing battered frame, then just as swiftly thrust said Jedi into another pair. The latter nearly fumbled the pass in sheer surprise.
"Waiting for roll-call, soldier?" Mandalore barked, already sweeping a Zersium rifle back to rightful place. "Fatalistic self-sacrificing gizkas..." he expanded upon the litany without such graces as sotto-voce.
The Iridonian Zabrak scowled, perturbed at having to handle his General in such a disrespectful manner, but decided that the better part of valor was to commence towards their ship.
Or, more realistically, last known location of the vessel.
As if sensing eminent escape of prey, the planet began hacking up death-throes more noxious than the present ochre, scarred-scars facade crumbling like juja cake under a child's fingers. Fortunately for one of them, Mandalore's helmet came equipped with toxin filters even if it made no attempt to window-dress the almost-as-overwhelming stench.
Tech-turned-Jedi can hold his breath, the Mandalorian dismissed, certain that the other would go above and beyond considering the bundle in his trust. He took lead, scope alert for potential if (so far) non-emergent foes. Bao-Dur did not contest the use of his armor-enhanced weight in testing the volatility of footholds.
It should have been a comical sight, one battle-clad Mandalorian dancing foot to foot as terrain morphed under powered boots, trailed by one Iridonian rendered two shades paler than nature intended by unflattering lighting and the awkwardness of juggling a tall if slim form.
Insert absence of canned laughter.
"Get your act together, you incompetent murglak," Mandalore snarled into his comlink. "Now is not the time to play hide-and-seek."
"Yeah?" a tinny reply defied, shot through with static that failed to conceal a good dose of panic begging to be unleashed. "I'd like to see you do better, you mindless hunk of plating!"
"If you spent more time on your console and less on insults a street-child could best, we might get off this rock alive!"
"You wanna trade insults? 'Cos I could tell you exac--"
"Atton," Bao-Dur's usually calm voice showed the strain of too many compacted hours. "We have the General. The planet is... unstable. We could really use a lift off right now."
"It's not like I took a Paza'ak break," the disembodied voice whined. A short silence followed, interspersed by words the tech was glad his General was not awake to witness. Of course, he would have been much happier to have her alert and the usual pinion of strength, but half a lifetime of war had taught him to appreciate the small mercies.
Especially when they were all there was.
"Is, is she alright?" the other side of the comlink inquired sans confidence, as if already convinced of the unfavorable answer.
"She won't be if you can't keep your mind on the task, pilot!"
Further barbs were fortunately precluded by the strain of engines overhead. An unpleasantly muggy, grit-filled (and that was the best of the cocktail), yet utterly welcomed breeze whipped around two upright figures and clawed at the robes of a third supine one. The ground on the other hand protested the Ebon Hawk's landing, if the hobble-drop from repulsors to landing struts deserved such a courtesy.
With a groan worthy of a dying Hutt, a large section of the "path", as distinguished by a slight dearth of miasma and armor-slicing boulders, bucked and sheared under unsteady feet. Bao-Dur could not help but stumble, frantic attempts failing to prevent his burden from being thrown aside. It impacted with a sickeningly soft crunch and weakly agonized gasp.
"General!" He was surprised to identify the voice bleeding anguish and horror as his own. Sensory visors painted an indelible, unwelcome detail of robes -- now crimson from more than design -- nestled within fumes encircling a sinking island.
The named shuddered slightly, though it may have been product of wishful imagination. Bao-Dur was however soon unpleasantly aware that he also had himself to worry about, as terra non-firma canted. Conscious thought resumed with himself nearing the clutches of a fissure, with all handholds as treacherous as the ground whence they came.
Peripherally, he grew cognizant of the fact that Mandalore shared his predicament -- or rather topped it, seeing that the other clung literally by fingertips above their soon-to-be-shared abyss. The General's position on the other side of the rising (just not in the right places) rock was probably the most tenable of the trio. She was unlikely to stay that way, but then, neither men had long to suffer from concern.
Shale gave way under Mandalore's hands, provoking an outraged cry. Bao-Dur found himself morbidly fascinated by the preview of his own looming fate, as the other drew an eerie, graceful arc of silver rainbowing down to where no light played.
The soldier who hated war was no stranger to pre-death moments. Unlike how holodrama-fodder preferred it, there was often no time for revelations, or regrets, or anything other than a small surprised I am dying!, if even that.
His eyes remained riveted upon the rapidly diminishing blob, once detested enemy, later reluctant comrade-in-arms.
His eyes remained riveted upon the impossible rise of the same blob, sailing through air to a tumble of flailing limbs in the shadow of a presiding Ebon Hawk.
Bao-Dur had all of five seconds to wonder if the Mandalorian had concealed a jet-pack somewhere amongst that inordinate amount of armor and weaponry, before finding himself similarly and briefly airborne, then rudely introduced to the ground. He scrabbled desperately to knees and feet, realizing that...
"General!" For the second time in a short long day his own voice was as alien as if emergent from another throat. He was quick enough only to glimpse the lifeless fall of an arm followed by the slump of a beyond-exhausted body. The bit of rock moaned ominously under the redistribution of weight.
"What are you doing, enjoying the show?" Harsh tones signaled the approach of fellow rescuer-turned-rescuee. "Well? Use that Force of yours for something more than empty blather and get her out of there!"
The fledgling Jedi felt all too acutely how he had depleted himself trying to heal his General earlier in their disastrous "escape". "You think I need your instruction for that, butcher? I would do anything, but I can't! My training has not..."
Mandalore growled and shoved roughly past. Bao-Dur vaguely acknowledged the silent approach of Visas Marr, presumably the only crewmember the deadlined patching of the Hawk could grudgingly spare. Atton spat something impatient down the comlink, Visas gasped quietly and extended a Force-probe. Had he been in a right mind, Bao-Dur could have warned her it would bring naught but grief.
The pressure of duty grew, knowing that he should already have gotten onboard, should already be salvaging what he could that they might yet escape the doom this planet gifted visitors with democratic abandon. He should not be playing helpless bystander to the fate of the one leader and person he respected above all others, and yet he was. For the umpteenth time he grappled the notion of crashing the stage, but cold logic dictated that the fog would win the battle before arm's reach.
A literally dead weight would do no more than add to his General's predicament.
The two Jedi were reduced to watching the man who had once lead armies against the very person he now apparently sought to save. Watching, as he made reckless leaps en route to a heap vanishing behind a chartreuse fog.
Some sort of Mandalorian honor thing, that obliged his saving of his savior? Whatever his (ig)noble motives, Bao-Dur felt a first smidgen of gratitude.
As dreaded/expected, Mandalore's landing catalyzed the demise of the ledge, by way of cracks visible even through distance and intervening gas. Bao-Dur's was not the only breath held as the silver form acquired an unceremoniously slung red sash, vaulting off to "safer" ground with painfully few seconds to spare. The rest of the laborious journey was an unsettling sequence of the same.
The Mandalorian brushed away their greetings like Dxun drizzle, stomping up the ramp amidst Atton's rude commentaries on dilly-dally sightseers. He neither paused nor spoke until one comatose burden was deposited onto one examination table, where Mical immediately flocked armed with medpacks and worry.
He could not have explained why, but Bao-Dur rather expected Mandalore to stay for the medic's prognosis. What the Mandalorian did, of course, was to stay true to character and leave with nary a second glance, for all the world acting as if he had just dumped a cylinder into the cargo hold.
"Damned ship of fools," Bao-Dur heard quite distinctly. No less mistakable was the anger, audible and felt, stronger, uglier than anything the padawan had ever sensed leak from the man with a mind like a Krayt dragon's den.
"And greatest of all the one who leads them."
The Iridonian shook his head. Perplexing as it was, he had more important things on his toolbox than to pander to one Mandalorian's misplaced emotions. Things like the General, about whom the Disciple had not been able to offer anything more reassuring than an un-reassuring "still alive". Things like seeing to whatever mess it was that Atton and Mical (which was worse -- a flyboy who thought ships ran themselves, or a scholar whose hands had never seen engine oil?) had made of his ship.
Things like ensuring that they might all yet enjoy hope of staying "still alive".
interlude
Flow. Movement, script giving way to dictates of the moment only to cycle back to form. Balance tension and relaxation, alertness and self-immersion. Feel the surrounding space, the Self within that space, the Others sharing it.
The Traveler had begun to train once more.
For a long time since her... loss, she had abhorred violence in all its incarnations. It had not been at all difficult -- the galaxy was full of those incapable of physical offense; what was yet another meek woman about her own way?
But for some reason it had felt right to revisit old ground, even if improvising paths proved more tedious than snow-shoveling Hoth. She had never before realized how thoroughly past skills relied on... something no longer hers to call.
As for the whys of her renewed ventures, perhaps some part had to do with one warrior now healing quite rapidly and apparently less against his will. Re-hoisting the banner on another's behalf, as had not seemed to matter when it concerned her mere self.
The Mandalorian stared with watchful eyes as she went about the slow, graceless business of rediscovering balance without aid of a teacher, reconstructing reflexes tuned to now-closed venues. He did not burst out laughing, as she had half-expected, though it would have been welcome relief from the hostile impatience that had achieved background status these many months. Perhaps there were small perks to be found in that his intolerance was palpable only through cast of face, tone of voice, rude jerks away from and scathing remarks concerning clumsy ministrations.
By whatever mysterious token, her omnipresent observer made no comments and certainly gave no advice. Of course, that might have something to do with the fact that he considered it a good day if he got through it without a single word to his self-styled savior.
Things were a little easier on this next anonymous planet -- meaning, slight reprieve from living hand-to-mouth. There were odd jobs the Traveler's computer hobby paid off rather handsomely on -- decrypting this, programming that, the occasional investigative treat. She patched up on mechanical skills under the watchful eye of a grudging benefactress, was rewarded by slivers from the wily woman's bag of tricks in return for willingness to work long, strange hours.
The Mandalorian turned out to have quite a gift for chemistry, and bartered his services for the occasional medpac or whatnot when she was "not looking". It was a mutual pretense that allowed him to regain a little pride, one the Traveler far from begrudged. His every other sentence (such as they were) no longer constituted a death-threat or variations thereof (quite impressive, actually, that he never quite seemed to repeat himself). By this and many indubitably colorful utterances during the removal of all but the casts on his legs, the Traveler understood that this strange interlude in her uncommon life was, too, drawing to a close.
She felt vaguely wistful. Not for the prospect freedom from a sullen, foul-tempered ingrate she had developed compartmentalization to an art for lest she surrender to insanity (or murder). For the stockholm familiarity enforced by cramped living arrangements. For a sense of purpose, if one that was pale shadow of that which had compassed most her life.
The Traveler had long since admitted that her motives lay mostly in the symbolism between the Mandalorian and herself -- difference being that only one of them could be healed.
"Verda."
Warrior. The Traveler called her patient that, to remind him of the life he seemed so intent on letting slip. He never offered his name; she never asked. She knew instinctively that he would not lie, and it went against ingrained honesty to demand of him something "Aleen" could not return.
"Time to get rid of those leg braces, you'll be happy to hear." She was not one given to overdone cheeriness, but indulged (too often) in a method guaranteed to irk the soon-to-no-longer-be invalid.
"Hmph."
"No no, no need for thanks," she waved airily. "A good deed is its own reward, as you so very well know."
"I'll make sure to recommend you to my next employer. For skills at torture."
She beamed, absurdly glad to hear him speak of the future as did one who would live it. "Thanks, but I cater only to pigheaded, suicidal Mandalorians."
He was quiet even during her amateur (though much-practiced) fiddling with straps and seals, and she wished belatedly to take back that last adjective.
"I am still honor-bound to take your life, girl."
The sudden words startled a jerk from the Traveler. Her patient winced, but remained eerily and disturbingly couth.
"Of course you are," she said cautiously, if with a healthy dose of sardonic humor. "And you'll do it someday, I'm sure. But not today."
The task was complete before response came. "No," said the warrior as she turned away (ceremony held less than little meaning by now), so softly she almost mistook the voice for another's. "Not today."
--:----:-:-:-:-:-:----:--
Dawn came, and with it time of leave. The Traveler took only bare essentials with her -- plus one of two hard-earned ship passes -- a small vibroblade, some spare change, computer spikes, slicer's deck. A change of clothes doubled as bedroll and padding for the otherwise knobby backpack.
She suspected eyes at her back even though the other remained immobile, breathing pattern unchanged. She might have lingered a second too long at the threshold. But, in the end, necessity had always dictated her lot in life, and she had known going in that this was to be no more than a brief waypoint.
She stepped forth onto grass and gravel, on behest of a coy destiny.
end interlude