Vhetin's Bastion, Kelita Forest
"Form one."
Thwack, thwack, thwack!
"Form two."
Thwack thwack, thwack!
"Form one."
Vhetin backpedaled frantically, trying to twist his sparring quarterstaff up to block the Handmaiden's ruthless advance. He managed to turn her staff away, but she just kept coming.
"Form five," she said calmly, then lashed out with a blinding series of attacks, all aimed at his head, arms, or legs. He managed to parry three of them, but the next connected painfully with his shin with a loud crack. He let out a grunt and hopped away, holding out his hand to signal her to hold off.
She didn't listen. She stepped forward and continued her assault: a blow to the ribs, neck, and knee, so fast he could barely see them. As he staggered away, overwhelmed by the flurry of blows, she hooked her staff beam around his uninjured ankle, pulled hard and sent him crashing onto his back. She followed up with a downward slash that hit him hard in the chest, making him double up in pain.
A bare foot pinned his wrist, trapping him against the forest floor. Her knee landed hard on his chest and she brought the beam of her staff up to press hard into the hollow at the base of his throat. Her ice-blue eyes were narrowed to little more than furious slits.
"Do you yield?"
"Holy osik, woman!" he gasped, clutching his chest. "What are you—"
"Do you yield?" she pressed, digging her weapon deeper into his throat.
"Yes!" he choked. "All right, all right."
In an instant she was off of him, stepping away and lowering her quarterstaff. He was left to lay on his back, fighting to catch his breath after her merciless assault. Every muscle in his body ached and he was already forming new bruises to compliment his old ones.
"Did… did I do something wrong?" he panted, rolling onto his stomach with a groan. "You seem a little more… energetic… than usual."
"You were late."
He sighed and fought to rise to his hands and knees. He held a hand to his ribs. "Yeah… I told you that."
"It is unacceptable."
"I was training with Jay and lost track of time!"
"So training with your partner takes precedence over training with me?"
"Don't do this, Handmaiden," he sighed, finally rising to his feet. "I've been training with you for months now. Never once have I been late. I slip up once and you decide to wipe the forest floor with me? How is that fair?"
She spun her staff up into a combat-ready stance. He quickly mirrored it as she growled, "An Echani's life is one of precision. Of meticulous attention to detail. And yet you cannot even keep your attention on the passage of time?"
Her lips tightened and she snapped, "Form three."
Thwack, thwack, thwack.
He grimaced as he parried all her blows. "I'll do better. If this is the way you're going to react –"
She thrust her staff forward and caught him in the solar plexus, making him double-over. "An Echani does not make promises of what she will do. She leads by action!"
She brought her staff beam up and caught him in the chin, sending him staggering away. His quarterstaff fell from his grasp as he clutched at his face.
"She leads by example!" the Handmaiden continued, hitting him with a spinning kick to the gut that doubled him over again.
She threw herself into a graceful pirouette, then slammed her quarterstaff down across the back of his neck. He collapsed to the forest floor again, letting out a groan. Her quarterstaff beam descended again, pressing into the nape of his neck.
"Mandalorians," she hissed, "may be a collection of lawless, thieving mercenaries, but I can assure you the Echani treat promises with more respect. Do you yield?"
He sighed and nodded. As soon as he did, she stepped back and allowed him to clamber to his feet again. He leaned heavily on his sparring staff, staring at her through narrowed eyes.
"I get the feeling… you're upset about more than just me being late."
She shook her head. "It is none of your concern."
He gestured to the bruises now scattered across his bare chest and shoulders. "I think it's kind of my concern. It's certainly not contributing to my training."
She seemed to debate with herself for a time. Then she sighed and lowered her staff. "Take a water break. Five minutes. We can… talk."
He nodded in relief, sheathing the twin quarterstaff beams. He followed her, limping slightly, as they moved back toward the tree stump they had used as a meeting place. Resting on top of the stump was a crate full of cooled ice water; a necessity for training sessions in the sweltering summer heat. The Handmaiden's pristine white robes and Vhetin's black-gray armor were also resting on the stump; they had removed them to prepare for sparing. Echani tradition dictated that trainees sparred in their underclothes. It was an odd tradition, but one that Vhetin had – with difficulty – long since gotten used to. The Handmaiden's training regimen quickly had him focusing on more important matters than personal embarrassment.
He cracked the lid on one water container and downed half of it in one go. The Handmaiden watched him in silence, only sipping at her own drink.
"So…" he finally said, sitting down on the edge of the stump. "What's wrong?"
She hesitated, then sat on the other side of the stump. "I received information this morning. A bulletin that was released over the Imperial HoloNet News."
"I didn't know you kept up with current events."
"I do when the news involves the Empire slaughtering my people."
He instantly fell still. "Something happened?"
She nodded, pursing her lips. "The Empire raided an Echani village on my homeworld two days ago. They claim the warriors there were harboring terrorists, smuggling weapons and materiel to oppose Imperial control. They sent stormtroopers to pacify the village. The local Echani, the Taori clan… did not react well in the face of such intrusion."
"Did you know this clan?"
"In passing," she said. "The Taori were well-respected for their prowess in battle. But their warriors did not look kindly upon the Imperials who shackled them."
"Imperials maintain a presence on Eshan?"
"Eshan was forcibly conscripted into the Empire at the conclusion of the Clone Wars," the Handmaiden explained. "Imperial rule is enforced by a series of outposts built in the ruins of ancient Echani fortresses across the planet. In the past, those fortresses were occupied by our warriors."
She looked over at him. "The plight of Eshan is not dissimilar to that of Mandalore; the Imperials wish to rule, and the people wish to remain independent. The Echani have the training and the will to repel them, but lack the weaponry and the numbers. As a result, my people are subjugated against their will. As the Taori were."
She stared at her bare feet and murmured, "It is not known who instigated conflict. It could have been the stormtroopers. It could have been the Echani. But my people do not wear heavy battle armor. In such large numbers, clustered tight together with no room to maneuver, they were no match for the Imperial soldiers and their guns."
She closed her eyes. "They were murdered. Butchered, from the highest Battlemaster to the lowliest Handmaiden. Two hundred staves cut down in a matter of minutes."
He stared at her. "I'm… I'm sorry."
"Why would you be?" she spat. "You did not know them. You have never seen Eshan."
"No," he admitted. "But I can understand how you feel. I wouldn't want a clan of Mandalorians to be killed by Imperials."
"No one would with to see the slaughter of their brethren. But the Taori… were headstrong. They should not have resisted."
"What, so they should have let the Imperials walk over them like a doormat?"
"Perhaps," the Handmaiden murmured. "Is it better to be subjugated and alive? Or defiant and dead?"
"I'd rather be defiant and sacrifice myself to stop something like that," Vhetin said. "I'd rather be the one to affect change. To inspire others to stand up to injustice. A living person can be discredited or locked up, but someone who is killed defending what they love becomes a symbol for other like-minded individuals. Perhaps, in standing up to the Imperials, the Taori did just that."
The Handmaiden shook her head. "Such beliefs bring no comfort to them."
"No," he said. "But they might bring comfort to you."
She didn't respond, staring off into the forest. Vhetin waited, listening to birds calling and leaves rustling in the breeze over their heads. He took another long swig of cool water, trying to ignore the throbbing of his new bruises.
"Why are you being so kind to me?"
"What?"
The Handmaiden cocked her head, looking more quizzical than angry. "Why do you treat me with such kindness? I have done nothing to earn your respect. I have not shown you kindness in return. Normally I would suspect you harbored romantic feelings toward me, but you have made no advances and have acknowledged that I show no attraction toward males. It must be something else."
She narrowed her eyes. "So why? Why treat me – an Echani, a rival to your own culture – with such respect?"
He pondered over this for a time, rubbing his chin. "I honestly don't know. I guess… we Mandalorians have a saying: Solus choruk nu draar gotal'ur te cerar."
"And what does that mean?"
"A single stone does not make the mountain. It means that while we may have opinions about something big, like the Echani, it's usually made up of lots of smaller, unique things. That's harder to hate."
He shrugged. "I don't like the Echani. I respect them, but I don't like them. In the past, I've found them to be arrogant and derisive, with a superiority complex that rivals the worst Mandalorian supremacist. You show reflections of that in your own actions, but you're also different. You're intelligent and passionate and driven. Those qualities I can respect. Therefore I can be kind to you, even if I don't show that same kindness to the Echani at large."
She stared at him, as if debating with herself whether he was lying. Then she bowed her head and said, "I… I am humbled by your words, Mandalorian. I would not have thought your people capable of such compassion."
"Yeah, well… try not to go spreading it around. I've got a reputation to maintain, you know."
She let out a very slight laugh, then rested back against the tree stump. "As much as it pains me to say it, we are more alike than either of us wish to think, Mandalorian."
"Oh? How so?"
"We are both raised from proud warrior traditions, striving to maintain our dignity and honor in a galaxy of degenerates and liars, yet we both believe our own upbringing to be superior to the other. However, despite our differences I believe that we both hope the other will prove worthy of our trust. I was willing to train you because I had hoped you would show me that Mandalorians are not the brutes that I have built them up to be. And you asked to be trained so that you could potentially find something of my culture worth following, something to guide you from this dark time in your life."
"Who says the times are dark?"
"Your façade of optimism does you no credit." She hesitated. "We have both led problematic lives, Mandalorian. You were subjected to torturous biological experimentation in which the Imperials attempted to rip from you all that made you unique. And I…"
She trailed off, pursing her lips. "I was similarly bereft of that which I loved. I wear my mark of shame to this day."
"I assume you're talking about the black marks on your armor," he said, nodding to the Echani's neatly folded battlesuit on the trunk next to her. The suit was made of soft white cloth, layered over with sections of hard black protective leather. She had explained on occasion before that the color black was a symbol of dishonor among her people. What she had done to deserve such dishonor, he had never asked. Now, however, he wanted to know more. "What happened?"
She shook her head. "I was young. Selfish. Afraid. There… there is not much else to tell."
"Regardless," he said. "I'd like to hear it."
She stared at the forest floor, unmoving, for a long time. Then she took a deep breath and began to speak.
"I was serving with the Royal Echani Army – or what remains of it after the Imperials took my planet by force. I was First Handmaiden to a highly respected Echani Battlemaster. It was a very prestigious position, even though I served only as a squire. I was proud."
She sighed. "We were deployed on Pols Four, a tundra planet not unlike Eshan. We were fighting a mercenary band that was encroaching on Echani space and hoping to set up criminal ties in the surrounding systems. They were… stronger than our Battlemasters had anticipated. During the battle, my master was cut down. She ordered me into the fray to take vengeance for her death, even though our unit was taking heavy casualties."
She trailed off again, and only began speaking when Vhetin spoke up. "What did you do?"
"I must admit… my faith in my people had been shaken. Not long before the battle, a separate conflict had taken the life of my lover, Jeneria Tanos. The Echani were driven back from the center of the fighting, and we… we were forced to leave Jeneria and many others behind. They did not survive."
"Oh. I'm sorry."
"On Pols Four," she continued, "I saw the same thing happening again. My master was mortally wounded, my fellow Handmaidens were dying all around me. And I… I panicked. I did not want to see a repeat of Jeneria's loss. I could not live with that kind of pain."
She sighed and clasped her hands tightly in her lap. "So I ran. As far and as fast as I could from that battle. I abandoned my master, abandoned my people, and openly brought dishonor upon myself and my family."
She shrugged, rubbing at the back of her neck. "I received reports later that the mercenary group wiped out my company of the Royal Army. My master, my friends and colleagues… all dead. I was listed among the dead, but it was not true. I had tried to escape the planet, but was captured by mercenary scouts. They… they did what they pleased with me. Then sold me into slavery."
"Shab…" he murmured. "That's awful."
She narrowed her eyes. "As I said, we both have seen the worst this galaxy has to offer us. But I believe that, with time, even these atrocities become only fading nightmares, soon forgotten."
He stared at the ground. "Nightmares can be bad enough."
She sipped at her water, all too eager to move on from her revelations of her past. "You speak of your troublesome dreams. They are growing worse?"
He nodded. Ever since returning to Mandalore, he'd struggled with psychometric relapses during the night; nightmares in which his abilities fed on his own memories, often making him relive the worst moments he could still remember, as well as those memories he had already "read" using his power. Psychometry was harmless enough when he was just observing the history of an object via touch, but powerfully negative memories could be painful or even fatal if trapped there long enough.
"The same dream?"
He nodded again. "When I was younger, I was in an accident. For some reason, the ship I was in had an equipment malfunction and crashed. I was almost killed. Rame and the others saved me."
"Hence the scars you bear upon your chest and back."
He nodded. He was nervous revealing this much about his history, but it was still vague enough that he felt he could speak about it. He'd learned his lesson about keeping secrets from his friends; Jay had almost shot him when she had learned he'd been keeping information from her for almost the entire first year they'd worked together. And the Handmaiden – though she didn't quite qualify as a friend yet – had a vested interest in his well-being; he couldn't effectively train if he was exhausted and on the verge of insanity.
"Every time I try to sleep," he said, "I always find myself back in that ship. The wind roaring around me, people screaming, metal tearing…"
He closed his eyes as a painful throb in his forehead met his words. He felt his fingertips begin to tingle, a sure sign that he was beginning to slip into a psychometric trance. He shook his head, as if he could simply shake painful pulsing away. When he looked over, he saw the Handmaiden staring at him with an unreadable expression.
"What? You have a thought?"
"I believe you return to this dream time and again for a reason," she said. "There is obviously something within you that you have yet to discover, some secret your subconscious is attempting to bring to light. I would suggest you not struggle against these dreams, but embrace them and attempt to uncover the message they are attempting to impart."
He shook his head. "Thanks, but no thanks. I just want to forget that accident ever happened. Whatever is going on inside my head, it's just caused by stress and chemicals. It'll pass. Eventually."
She smiled a little as she set aside her drink. "The Force works in mysterious ways, Mandalorian. You would be wise to heed its will."
He scoffed. "You believe in the Force now?"
She stood and led him back to the training area, scooping up her quarterstaff as she went. "Of course. Echani are taught to thrive on observation and interpretation. And it does not take a mastermind to see that Jedi powers were no parlor trick. They wielded true power. That power had to come from somewhere."
"Jedi powers are one thing," he said. "A mystical energy field that directs our actions and has a plan for every being in the universe is entirely different."
"You do not think it is possible?"
He sighed, staring at the ground as he followed her. "I… don't know."
"Well then," she said, "perhaps it is merely a matter of faith."
She then spun on him, extending her quarterstaff and pointing one end at his chest. His own weapon snapped up, ready to deflect an incoming blow.
"Form three," she said. "Now!"
Thwack, thwack, thwack.
Author's Note: *whew* It's good to see Vhetin and Les finally starting to get along, huh? While the Handmaiden won't have a very large role in this installment of the series, Vhetin will definitely be bringing some new tricks to the table because of training sessions like this. :D
As always, comments or reviews are always appreciated. Happy reading!