Origins: Cage to Cage

"The character of Oziaf has endured many incarnations over the centuries. Fashions in folklore have depicted a trickster-figure, a genius inventor, even the poet who secretly authored the works attributed to Lyechusas. He is most often shown as Xim's loyal confidant. There is a quaint charm in seeing the mighty Despot befriending a tiny T'iin T'iin, yet how likely was this pair? The Tion cluster has a long history of human chauvinism and the assignation of Oziaf as a T'iin T'iin (let alone any nonhuman) is dubious. Our only contemporary primary source is a brief mention by the Hutts, who called him 'Oziaf the Insignificant,' but of course the Hutts consider all bipeds insignificant. Likely, Oziaf was a court curiosity whose importance was exaggerated by later writers."

Sal Ransen, The Despotica Revisited: A Textual-Historiographic Analysis

Age of Ardustagg Year 612
500 LE

Two years inside the metal labyrinth (which, Oziaf had eventually learned, was a Hutt dromon of the Patarii host) and months of Gedor's instruction had left him thinking he was prepared for anything

He was wrong.

Pirates had taken over the dromon. They were a new breed of aliens he'd never seen before: bipeds like Weequay but with lighter builds and softer skin. Somehow they'd inter-dicted and boarded the dromon. They ransacked its corridors, shooting everyone who got in their way. But the Hutt ship's crew was not giving up easily. Halls became littered with bodies and choked by gunsmoke. The sound of cracking firearms was never far away.

Oziaf was in Krumkoo's shop when the pirates burst in, weapons blazing. Leaving the Toydarian to his fate, Oziaf dropped to all fours and scampered away. He fell back to his secret network of passages, many of them too small for the bipeds to creep through. When his initial panic ebbed a single, overriding need filled him: Find Gedor.

He had no idea where his teacher was, but this wasn't the first time the gnome-like creature (he never had named his species) played hide-and-seek. In fact it had been one of their first exercises: Oziaf had learned to feel Gedor's unique presence and chase it through the filthy under-levels, like he was following a scent.

He felt his teacher among the lower levels, but not even those filthy reaches were free of the raiders. When Oziaf crawled out of a vent he dropped amidst a pile of rages, only to discover they were warm and wet and not rags at all, but bullet-riddled bodies. He jumped away and surveyed his surroundings: no one in immediate sight, but they were close. So was Gedor.

He followed his teacher's presence, which was unfortunately close to the rattle of a gunfire. He crept low around a corner and saw two of the new aliens, both with shaggy long hair, exchanging rifle-fire with a pair of Evocii. Beyond the Evocii was Gedor. Oziaf tried to announce his presence. Gedor's response was a warning to stay back.

He kept low and watched with dismay. One Evoci's head snapped back, jutting blood, and he fell. The other tried to hold back the raiders but they were too much for him. A pirate attacked him on his flank and dropped him dead.

The raiders scoured the bodies, grunting to teach other in their savage tongue. They collected objects off the corpses then moved ahead, in Gedor's direction.

Oziaf scampered over to the dead Evocii and watched in mounting dread as the raiders searched the hall. They pulled aside piled crates and tore down curtains dangling from rusted pipes. They kicked an old Vodran huddling beneath his tattered blanket, and the indigent ran away in a panic, nearly trampling Oziaf as he did so. The raiders didn't bother to shoot at him.

One raider pulled aside the final curtain and found Gedor huddled inside a waist-high niche in the wall. Oziaf couldn't contain himself. He dashed toward the raiders and leaped onto one's back. The pirate writhed but Oziaf clung with sharp claws and sunk his incisors into the biped's shoulder. The pirate howled, grabbed the T'iin T'iin by the fur of his neck, and threw him hard into the wall.

The second raider hefted his rifle. The first grabbed his pistol. Lying helpless on the floor, Oziaf tried to turn his attackers away. He'd tweaked minds before, always in secure environments with minimal risk. This was different. He was too hurt, too panicked.

So Gedor came to his rescue again.

He felt his teacher reached out and touch the minds of the two violent pirates. He felt their murderous anger dim… then flare up bright.

The two raiders spun, aimed at each other, and fired.

Simultaneous gunshots thundered in the cramped chamber. Bullets shot at point-blank tore through flesh and splattered blood on opposite walls. The pirates, instantly dead, collided with each other, and dropped to the deck in a tangled mess, at the center of a spreading pool of scarlet.

Oziaf rolled off his back, reared to two feet, and saw Gedor standing in the niche. Panting he asked, "You couldn't just send them away?"

"Too rapacious they were. Lust for violence and spoils is all they know. Can you not feel it consuming the ship?"

"They're horrible," Oziaf shivered.

"Indeed." Gedor sighed; his long ears wilted. "Reach me you have, and grateful I am, but worry about me you should not. Yourself, your greatest concern is."

Oziaf didn't understand. "If we stay together we'll be safe, won't we? I know you'll have to protect me sometimes, but I'm getting better, aren't I?"

"When not throwing yourself in harm's way, yes. Much to learn have you, but far better attuned to the cosmos are you than brutes such as these."

Oziaf looked at the dead raiders, killed by each other's weapons. They had smooth faces, he thought; perhaps they were young. Perhaps they'd been friends, if brutes like these were capable of having friends.

"Pity them, do you?" asked Gedor.

Pity and hate, Oziaf thought. "They don't know what we do. They can't feel it. So instead they become… like this."

Violent. Cruel. Treasonous. It must have been easy for Gedor to make them turn on each other; it was simply what beings like these did.

"Beautiful is the power that binds life together, but know it they do not, so like animals they become. Worse, for animals have no pretension of grandeur." Gedor shook his head sorrowfully. "Foul creatures, yet dominate the universe they do."

Oziaf felt small and helpless. "Then… what use is our power? If all it does is help us stay alive a little longer… what's the point?"

"An answer I believe, there is, but your own must you discover."

"Discover where? How? Isn't there someplace where we can get away from them?"

"Told you I did, major beasts they are. But live among them we can, because we must. And equipped are we to do that. Special gifts have we. Special power, meant to be used."

"But used how?"

"That you must discover on your own. Therefore, part ways we must."

Oziaf stared in shock. "You're… going with them?"

Gedor shook his head. "My own path I will seek. Long my life has been and many stars have I already seen. Just beginning, your education is."

"But who will teach me?"

"Experience. Perhaps the greatest teacher of them all… better even than me," Gedor added with a smirk.

Oziaf wanted to protest but the sound of the barbarian's gurgling language turned his head. They were coming closer, perhaps drawn by the sound of gunfire. He turned back to the Gedor, only to find the niche empty.

Utterly empty. Gedor had disappeared.

He cast out with his power for his teacher but Gedor had erased his presence. He did this often in their hide-and-seek-games, but never in a situation so dire. Oziaf felt angry, betrayed, and helpless, like a child abandoned by his father.

Then survival instinct kicked in. He scampered away from the raider's bodies, then past the dead Evocii. He tried to get back to the vent, but a trio of ugly raiders stomped in his path. Oziaf froze; there was no place to run now that they'd seen him.

He called on his power because it was the only thing he could do. He calmed his fear, tamed his panic, and touched the approaching minds. He discovered that these raiders, at least, were not in a bloodthirsty rage. Rather they felt satisfied but also tired, like someone bloated with an extra-filing meal.

He sensed their attention fall onto him. They found the small, furry, four-legged creature sniffing the deck ahead of them to be… cute.

How disgusting. Yet Oziaf knew it was his only chance of survival. So, instead of running or vainly fighting, he continued to sniff around and let them approach. He turned his nose up at them, blinked his black eyes, twitched his whiskers, and tried to look as harmless as possible.

More: he reached into their lazy bloated minds and instilled a suggestion. He was a pet who'd gotten loose in the chaos, just a cute animal, the kind a relatively affable pirate might take back to his ship as booty.

They stared into his eyes. He stared into their souls.

He felt his suggestion take hold, and as faith in himself grew so did his power.

The pirates babbled to each other as he stood beneath them. Then one shrugged, bent over, picked Oziaf up by the waist, and held him under-arm. Another actually petted his fur.

The pirates chuckled. The one carrying him gargled happily. Then all three savages continued their stroll down the filthy death-filled corridor, one more spoil acquired.

As relief filled Oziaf, something else did too. It was faint, but he recognized it as a sending from Gedor: warm, affectionate, a little wry. Oziaf had never been graced by a father's approving smile, but he imagined this was what it felt like.