The Preserve, Tuesday Late Afternoon

[weetuskenraider]

She had a lot to think about. She supposed she ought to be used to it by now, but it all just made everything in her head so much busier. Tahiri was tired of being tired, tired of losing chunks of her weeks because she'd been shoved to the back of her own mind by Riina, tired of her own mental stability being a rearguard battle of attrition.

There was no way she'd ever be the person she was before; she knew that now, and she'd accepted that, or been worn down enough to give in to it, if you wanted to look at it that way. The matter of accepting who she needed to become, though, was a snarl she'd yet to cut through. What Tahiri had learned from Tara did change things somewhat -- for all that the Yuuzhan Vong were fanatical and vicious, there was some innate decency somewhere. Beneath it all. She supposed she ought to have known that by now, having been raised by a race feared by most of Tatooine's populace, but . . .

Well. But what, she wasn't sure yet. So, avoiding the oddly persistent fruitcakes, she'd slipped away into the preserve as she did so often these days to find herself a quiet spot and meditate.

Or try to.

Firekeeper	Firekeeper, on the other hand, was less interested in meditation and more in finding a good spot to start a fire. Winter being settled in meant the rabbits she and Blind Seer had caught were fat in preparation for the lean season ahead. "Tahiri, hello," she said, announcing her presence out of habit even though Tahiri may well have sensed her approach. "You hungry?" she held up one of the rabbits.
Tahiri	Tahiri opened her mouth to politely decline, but a growl from her stomach cut off the lie before she could voice it. "Yeah, I guess I am. If you're willing to share, that is. Pull up a spot, there's plenty of ground."
Firekeeper	Firekeeper knew Tahiri well enough to guess that her friend hadn't eaten, which was indeed why she'd offered in the first place. "If there were just enough to fill my belly, I would not have offered you some," she shrugged. A statement that was probably rude by human standards, but not so for a wolf. She sat, arranging her gathered kindling and then pulling her fire-making tools from the pouch around her neck and set about starting a fire. Blind Seer, belly full and with no need for cooked meat, just flopped down on the ground beside them. "I not see too many out in woods during cold weather," she commented, in about the closest approximation to a casual tone as Firekeeper ever got.
Tahiri	"Most people aren't us," Tahiri intoned dryly, and scooted over to lean against Blind Seer; she knew better than to argue with the wolves when they were set on things like getting her to eat, and by her considerably mixed-up standards the statement hadn't been rude to begin with. She tilted her head slightly to the side and watched the process. "What's it like, being the wolf who can create fire?"
Firekeeper	"Wolves fear fire, and the destruction it bring. So mastery over it is power I wield. Yet, I am fangless, clawless, and have only two legs. So I am being seen as weak. Feared, yet weak. Is a strange combination," she gave a wry snort at that.
Tahiri	"It makes you different," Tahiri observed, with a pang of sympathy. "You have a power no other wolf does, and that's as much of a good thing as it is a bad one. And humans . . . they don't really understand that part of you either. They fear it too, at least at first. But they're learning at least, right?"
Firekeeper	"Most is," Firekeeper admitted with a small smile. "I would worry if humans put away this fear completely," she explained. "For they should always be remembering that wolves is no tame creatures. But is possible to have this knowledge, and be cautious, and still trust."
Tahiri	And the Yuuzhan Vong weren't a safe culture by any means. Tahiri nodded and scooted a bit closer. "It wouldn't be reasonable for everyone to be okay with it right away, would it? But you -- that's how you've always been. It's different for me."
Firekeeper	Firekeeper turned this over in her mind. She couldn't exactly compare the Tahiri now with the Tahiri from before the Yuuzhan Vong, since she hadn't known her then. "You change, and people distrust this change," she guessed, thinking of the way the maimalodalu had reacted to Truth. They'd pitied her, and cared for her, but in treating her as if she were less than whole, had prolonged her madness.
Tahiri	Tahiri nodded slowly. She hadn't missed out on how the prospect scared Ben so badly, but she wouldn't say so out loud to anyone else. "Can you blame them?" she asked, a touch of bitterness seeping into her voice. "Half of me is the race that's trying to wipe out our galaxy. Not because I want to be, but because they made me, and I don't have any choice but to be that now, and if I don't accept it I'm going to go insane."
Firekeeper	Firekeeper nodded. "I have seen one travel this path of madness," she said, the memory still evoking guilt, since it was her future Truth had been trying to divine that had driven her mad. "She let it overwhelm her, and was nearly lost."
Tahiri	Tahiri opened her mouth to respond, but laughed briefly; as much as she and Firekeeper had in common already, this revelation somehow didn't surprise her at all. Still, it was a sobering thought, so the laughter faded as quickly as it had cropped up. "Nearly?" She shifted her legs under her a bit and leaned in, curious and intent. "What happened to her?"
Firekeeper	"Truth is so named because she sees futures," Firekeeper explained. "She try to see mine, once, and in the trying saw too much. So, she retreat to madness to stop the seeing," Firekeeper explained as she turned one of the rabbits over the fire. "When we catch querinalo- plague, she say that Ahmyn, her people's goddess of fire, come to kill her in a fever-dream. Ahmyn say 'Are you not here before me because you wish to give yourself to the fire rather than face what it bring?' And it were true. Truth say she realize she had been dead in a fashion ever since she retreat to insanity. So she fight, and take the gift she were trying to forget, and make it hers again. When she wake, she were- changed. Neither mad, nor the Truth of before madness. I think you too must face this fire."
Tahiri	That . . . was a lot more at once than Tahiri was used to hearing Firekeeper say, and she leaned forward a little more, listening intently. "I think," she said -- and this was ironic, when she'd been the one who'd been capable of saying twice as much in half the breath years ago, that her own answer was so short -- "you're right. There isn't another way." She fell silent, tracing random patterns in the soil, then took a breath and asked, "Firekeeper, can I -- I need to know something, and I need to hear it from you."
Firekeeper	"Yes?" Firekeeper tilted her head quizzically at Tahiri.
Tahiri	"I don't know who I'm going to be when this is done." It was easier, somehow, to look up and meet Firekeeper's eyes when she said this. "I don't think it'll be anything bad -- I hope -- but does it worry you?" Firekeeper wasn't from her world, wasn't weighed down with knowledge of what another version of her had done or might become, or all the ingrained reactions that went along with that knowledge. Actually, Tahiri couldn't think of anyone she knew who had the kind of perspective Firekeeper did, and that was why the answer seemed so important.
Firekeeper	Firekeeper shrugged. "I say the same that I say to the others after the plague: you will be changed, yes, but who is not by life and what it does? You live and breathe. Nothing else matter." Blind Seer echoed the sentiment with a reassurance of his own, in the form of a tongue licking at Tahiri's cheek.
Tahiri	Tahiri turned to wrap an arm around Blind Seer's neck, a little embarrassed by the sudden impulse to bury her face in his fur. She wasn't sure if it was her friends' calm assurance or the sudden reminder -- as subtle and as effective as a turbolaser barrage -- that even with what she'd gone through she was hardly the only person in any world who'd experienced anything like it; all she knew was she felt like she'd just wrestled her X-Wing out of an uncontrolled spin and the G-forces weren't crushing her any more. She raised her head to look at Firekeeper again and murmured a few guttural phrases in Tusken and in Yuuzhan Vong, then reverted to Basic. "Thanks. I really needed to hear that from you."
Firekeeper	"Is truth," Firekeeper replied, the corner of her mouth turning up a bit at the pun. "And now what you need? Is to eat." She backed up this statement by holding one of the cooked rabbits in Tahiri's direction.
Tahiri	Tahiri blinked for a moment, caught off-guard, but she ducked her head, laughed, and accepted the rabbit with good grace. Nothing more was said on the subject, but then, maybe nothing more needed to be said.

[OOC: Preplayed with the always amazing kestrelswolf, who made a handful of pings so much more than I hoped they'd be and as such gets my everlasting love. NFI, subject of conversation NFB, and OOC totally okay.]