I Know Something About Pain You Don't

"Tahiri here. I'm a little bit busy right now so tell me what you need and I'll get back to you. Sorry about the delay. Stupid Jawa-forsaken primitive piece of tech . . ."

In creating this journal, the author has assumed the identity of a fictional person for use in the role-playing game fandomhigh, for the sole purpose of entertainment, without intending to obtain a benefit or to injure or defraud either the person who created the fictional person, or any reader of this content. The author does not purport to be the creator of the fictional person, or to be affiliated with the creator, or with any person or entity with an interest in the fictional person. The author does not claim to be the person who is being used as the graphical representation of that fictional person, nor intend to obtain a benefit or to injure or defraud that person by use of their image.

Tahiri didn't get a chance to visit Fandom as often as she liked. Some days, when life among the colonists on Zonama Sekot got too contentious, she wished she could just book a portal and head out for a few days, but her sense of duty was too strong for her to ever really give in to the impulse. Not today, though; the pull she felt in the Force was too strong to ignore. The second her express portal to Fandom let her out at the end of the causeway she felt a familiar -- despite having been absent from her life for six years -- presence in the Force burning with urgency, and every nerve ending in her body turned to ice when she realized: she knew exactly what had brought her here.

It was still second nature -- it wasn't fair that it was still second nature, but there it was, and she followed that Force presence, the one that resonated with hers in a way no one else's ever would, to the junkyard.
She watched silently for a moment as Anakin, tousled dark hair and purposeful movements all exactly as she remembered, finished getting Fiver seated in the astromech socket and going over his preflight check, then cleared her throat.

( 'Hi.' )

[OOC: NFI, OOC okay. Preplayed with, well, me; I've been wanting to do this for three years.

Warning: Post contains references to impending character death.]

Tahiri didn't get a chance to visit Fandom as often as she liked. Some days, when life among the colonists on Zonama Sekot got too contentious, she wished she could just book a portal and head out for a few days, but her sense of duty was too strong for her to ever really give in to the impulse. Not today, though; the pull she felt in the Force was too strong to ignore. The second her express portal to Fandom let her out at the end of the causeway she felt a familiar -- despite having been absent from her life for six years -- presence in the Force burning with urgency, and every nerve ending in her body turned to ice when she realized: she knew exactly what had brought her here.

It was still second nature -- it wasn't fair that it was still second nature, but there it was, and she followed that Force presence, the one that resonated with hers in a way no one else's ever would, to the junkyard.
She watched silently for a moment as Anakin, tousled dark hair and purposeful movements all exactly as she remembered, finished getting Fiver seated in the astromech socket and going over his preflight check, then cleared her throat.
"Hi."

There was no shortage of things to do to keep busy around here, so Tahiri tended not to notice the little insignificant personal things, like if her utility belt was fraying.

So it'd taken her until tonight, when she was staring down at the floor trying to find a screw she'd dropped, to notice that her pant legs seemed to be a couple of centimeters shorter than she'd remembered.

Had she grown again? Huh. She wouldn't complain, really.

[OOC: Totally solo_sword's fault. Establishy, mostly, but open for calls if you want.]

Really, Tahiri could have been annoyed that all her evacuation efforts had ended up being for nothing in the end, but she was too grateful to have everyone back to focus on that. (Maybe later, once she'd slept off the exhaustion, there'd be a little room for that.)

Not helping with the exhaustion was the sudden rush of sensing everyone through the Force again, where a week ago that sensation had been dwindling rapidly. That part she didn't mind, though; that just reinforced the sense that everything was right again -- plus she could draw on that to keep herself on her feet just a little while longer.

She got back to her little cliff dwelling after conferring with Sekot and some of the local village leaders, took a nice long bath to deal with the fact that she felt unpleasantly like the inside of a sandcrawler, then curled up on her bed with her datapad and comlink to check messages on both. Jaina's voicemail, now that she finally had a chance to listen to it, made her laugh -- and send a quick text message back to her and Ben.

I knew you'd fix this. Thanks.

Firekeeper and her other friends should get messages too, she thought, half-drifting out of consciousness, but even drawing on the Force she was too tired to manage more words than she just had. Maybe after a nap . . .

[OOC: Oh god finally I get a chance to get back online. Open for calls with the usual daytime SP disclaimer, and feel free to assume handwavey messages of back-ness by, like, Monday evening gametime.]

Tahiri found it unnerving to interact with Zonama Sekot at the best of times, and tended to keep that to a minimum; it was weird to talk to the manifestation of a living planet's consciousness. The past couple of days hadn't left her much choice, though; she'd been glued to the star maps on her datapad, watching as system after system blinked out of existence and telling the hyperdrive equipped planet where to go.

It was hard to stay one jump ahead when there wasn't a whole lot of galaxy left.

She was exhausted from trying to spearhead an evacuation effort that got a little harder every time someone who'd been helping faded out of existence, and just felt demoralizing now that she'd watched a void (not at all unlike the ones that the Yuuzhan Vong's coralskippers used, she couldn't help thinking) swirl up and swallow Tekli right in front of her. There were no suns in this tiny corner of space that was all that remained, and when she looked up into the night sky only a handful of stars twinkled faintly. Even those were disappearing faster than she could count the seconds.

Calmly, surprisingly so, Tahiri thumbed her comlink and set a message to record.

( Ben, Jaina, it's me. )

The stars were completely gone now; where Tahiri's consciousness had always buzzed with the awareness of life sensed through the Force there was only a vast echoing silence. The horizon, too, was dwindling as the swirling, inky mass rolled toward her. Tahiri had faced insurmountable odds before, but this time there was no Jaina to be her usual formidable self, no Ben to believe in her, no Anakin with whom she could seamlessly mesh her Force abilities and achieve the impossible.

Just her, and the oncoming blackness.

"Krel os'a hmi va ta!" The Yuuzhan Vong cry of defiance, followed by a guttural Tusken bark that translated to about the same thing.

It was meters away from her now, and rather than resort to any more words Tahiri unhooked her lightsaber from her belt, thumbed it on, and held it up in the very first high guard position she'd ever learned at the Academy. For the space of a breath it burned brilliantly, a golden beacon against the impenetrable dark. For the space of a breath she had time to think that at least she'd gone out as a Jedi.

Then, finally, as that thought made her smile, there wasn't even that any more.

[OOC: I'm really just a terrible person. NFB/NFI/OOC okay, posted this early in the day because solo_sword told me to. Go frown at her.]

As had become something of a habit over the past while, Tahiri waited until she had some down time to slip away into the forest and . . . check a few things from Earth on her datapad. It had become something of a nervous habit, but sort of like picking the scab off a --

That simile didn't work as well when you were half Yuuzhan Vong, but the sentiment stood.

She managed to connect to the Fandom alumni network, browsed to the Dancing With the Stars website, and . . .

Let's just say it was a good thing no one was within earshot. That reaction had not been terribly Jedi of her.

[OOC: . . . I had to. Shut up. I had to.]

Another long day of sorting out arguments and soothing flared tempers, playing translator, writing up reports and transmitting them back to the Council, and all the dozens of little yellow-tape things -- all of that was done, thankfully, and Tahiri finally had a chance to get some alone time.

It wasn't that she didn't enjoy the work; it was rewarding, if occasionally tedious, and out of all the post-war rebuilding efforts in the galaxy this was the one she was best suited to, so she wouldn't complain. It was just tiring in a way she wasn't used to.

She retreated into the jungle, toward a quiet spot near her cliff-built dwelling but sufficiently secluded from any passers-by who might have a reflexive bad reaction to technology (they were still working on the "abomination" thing, and it would be a long process), and pulled out her datapad to page through some of the HoloNet news.

From there, she patched into the Fandom alumni network, managed to pick up on some television broadcasts, and . . .

"Sithspit, is that Hope Solo dancing!?"

Not a surprise at all that ten minutes later she was patching her comlink through the network to use up her twelve votes for the week, right? It was sort of like supporting family! If you squinted, while hanging upside down in zero-G, and . . .

Oh, who was around to comment on it, anyway?

[OOC: I HAD TO, OKAY. I HAD TO. But open if you want, hee.]

She'd gotten the invitation, yes, and Tahiri would have loved to have gone to the alumni mixer, except that she had her hands full.

Not literally at the moment, though they had been earlier. Not figuratively at the moment, either; she thought she'd managed to soothe the ruffled feathers (so to speak) of the villagers involved in today's latest argument. There hadn't been bloodshed; she counted it as a win.

Also counting as a win was the chance to get away, find a quiet spot in the jungle, and just relax for a few minutes.

[OOC: And open for phone calls/emails should anyone wish to flail all traumatized-like.]

All her things were packed; her room had been restored to its original state, her X-Wing was prepped, and her blaster, gaderffii, and lightsaber cleared out of the weapons locker. Tahiri didn't own that much, and everything non-essential that she'd accumulated over the last three years had been shipped out ahead of her. The rest was stowed safely in her X-Wing in the junkyard, and her lightsaber clipped to her belt.

She wasn't one to leave without saying goodbye, though, and she'd made sure to send messages to let them know she was headed out, that she'd love to see them one more time before she left, and if not then she'd keep in touch and try to come back for a visit as soon as she could -- and, most importantly, that she cared about them all. That was something she'd never leave unsaid again.

But now all of the preparations were done and there were still a few hours to go before Tahiri absolutely had to leave, and she made her way out to the patch of beach where she'd spent so much time. (It was always the same, and yet different, as was the nature of sand, and there was something fitting about that. Tahiri supposed she could puzzle out the philosophy of it all on the trip home.) There would be beaches on Zonama Sekot, she was sure, but none of them held the memories, painful and happy and everything in between, of this one.

Walking a couple of feet out into the surf, she stood and let the waves wash over her feet, closed her eyes, and opened herself to the Force to really just feel Fandom one more time.

[OOC: *CLIIIIIIIIIIIIINGS to my girl forever wah* Tahiri's last post in Fandom, yes, and absolutely open if you want to stop by. I'll happily SP this as long as necessary, since I don't think I'm gonna be pinging too fast at work. Mostly because I don't want to have to explain why I'm all wibbly . . .]