Dagobah, Monday Evening Fandom Time
Mar. 8th, 2010 12:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
weetuskenraiderThe last time Tahiri had been on Dagobah was seven years ago, and she'd hurt her foot badly in her stubborn refusal to wear shoes; this time, as she moved around her X-Wing, covering it with fallen branches, she heard the omnipresent mud (Dagobah was all over mud and thick with Force energy) under the soles of her boots. It wasn't that she liked wearing them any more now than she had then; it was just that she was old enough to know that sometimes they were necessary.
The last time she'd been on Dagobah, she'd come here with Anakin. A lot had changed in the meantime.
Making her way through the maze of cane and gnarltrees, picking a path over fallen logs and around patches of marshy ground, she reached out into the Force to let it guide her toward a certain cave -- the one Yoda had brought Luke to before she was born, and where Luke had in turn brought Anakin and her so Anakin could confront his fear that the weight of his name might drag him down to the dark side.
It was Tahiri's turn now -- or the turn of the person she'd become, who was not that little girl of seven years ago -- because the concern that the dark version of her from Anakin's vision, or the too-real one from Ben's world, might still come to be was diminished but still real. Especially now -- having Force lightning hurled at her by a Sith version of Leia had shaken Tahiri badly.
She felt bad about leaving her friends both in Fandom and here in the dark about the specifics of why she'd come here, but that was an explanation she couldn't just give in part. Then something crept into her awareness, bringing with it the sudden shock of realization: someone was following her. Peace Brigade? It was possible; she wasn't the Solo twins or anyone important, but she was a Jedi and as such worth turning over to Supreme Overlord Shimrra.
Someone must have given me up, told them where I was going -- no, that was the innate paranoia talking, the one every Yuuzhan Vong learned growing up as a survival mechanism, and the Jedi part of her knew better. She could hear her pursuers now; they were getting sloppy. Definitely not hunters, the way they were moving. She reached out in the Force to get a sense of them -- and didn't find them that way. But she did find them.
This wasn't the familiar tingle of danger sense down the back of her neck, or the usual clarity of beings sensed through the Force. This was different, a fuzzy sort of sensation, indistinct but undeniably there. Yuuzhan Vong presences, not sensed through the Force.
Now was a kriffing hell of a time for her to get the hang of that Vongsense technique Jacen had tried to teach her.
Tahiri scrambled up the trunk of one of the gnarltrees and tucked herself away between two close-set branches, glad for once that she was so small. Her Yuuzhan Vong warrior instincts were screaming for her to fight, not hide, and it took effort and her Jedi training to suppress them.
That was, after all, part of the reason she was here beyond contemplating what role she had to play in this whole war with her dual perspective. She hadn't mentioned this to Han and Leia, or to Ben, Jaina, or anyone in Fandom except Firekeeper. Depending on what she saw in the cave . . .
Well, if it didn't look good, she was crippling her X-Wing and never leaving this mudball.
Vongsense, she was learning, wasn't clear the way the Force was, and there could have been anywhere between four and eight beings tracking her. And really, really not skilled at their job, given the constant chatter.
There was a shadow moving across the ground, something huge. Tahiri glanced up, but all she could make out through the thick canopy of foliage was a dark blob. Well, that wasn't helpful; her hand drifted to her lightsaber hilt.
The trackers were close enough to hear now, and it wasn't as if she had any trouble understanding their language.
"Are you certain she came this way?"
"She did. See? The impression in the moss?"
Tahiri sighed. Stupid boots.
"She is Jeedai. Perhaps she left these signs to confuse us."
"Perhaps."
"But you think she is near?"
"Yes."
"And knows we are following her?"
"Yes."
"Then why not simply call out to her?"
Why? Hoping she'd answer the challenge? Tahiri scrambled as noiselessly as she could through the gnarltree's branches for a better vantage point, wondering if she could give them the slip and get back to her X-Wing. It wasn't looking very likely, but she could make out a vague outline of her trackers through the foliage now.
"At some point we must, I suppose," said one of the voices.
Another grunted in assent, adding, "Else she will think we wish her harm."
That . . . didn't make any sense. That wasn't Yuuzhan Vong behavior at all. Tahiri was trying to puzzle that out when the first voice called out: "Jeedai! I think you can hear us. We humbly request an audience."
Tricks, she decided -- paranoid thinking again, but she was dealing with other Yuuzhan Vong here and it wasn't safe to assume otherwise. It wasn't warrior-like behavior, but priests or shapers, especially if they were part of the deception sect, would resort to tactics like that. Shifting her weight carefully, she leaned out to get a better look and got a really good look . . . at a Shamed One. It was easy to tell; most of his exposed flesh was a mess of failed attempts at implants and scarring, like one giant festering wound.
The disgust she felt was instinctive, on both sides -- the human impulse to recoil at unsightliness, and the ingrained Yuuzhan Vong disdain of those who'd fallen out of favor with the gods. She barely had time to fight back the impulse to strike him down when something ripped through the foliage overhead, flooding the area with light, revealing that all of her pursuers were Shamed Ones, six of them, all panicking at the intrusion. No time to wonder about that now, not with Yuuzhan Vong warriors dropping from the tsik vai atmospheric flier that had shredded the treetops.
"Run!" shouted the tracker who'd spotted her, instead of giving her away. "We cannot win here!"
No, armed with nothing but short clubs they didn't have a chance in the nine Corellian hells, Tahiri realized, and sprang from her hiding place just in time to see one of the Shamed Ones fall dead, run through by a warrior's amphistaff. There were eight warriors in total, and she had to admit she enjoyed the look on the nearest one's face when she snarled a Yuuzhan Vong battle cry in response to his challenge.
Eight of them, one of her -- it wasn't long ago that she'd have thought these were terrible odds. But that was the old Tahiri, the reluctant one, not the new one who almost welcomed the frenzy of combat. She fell into the rhythm -- Ben was right, it was like a dance -- of slashes and sidesteps, parries, cuts, and diving rolls. Not thinking, just reacting, absorbing the pain of the cuts and bruises she took without noticing, drawing on her Jedi training to keep her calm before she succumbed to the thrill of the fight.
She didn't even know how long it was before she was back to back with the last surviving Shamed One, surrounded by the three remaining warriors.
And the warriors were backing away.
"I've heard of you, abomination," snarled the leader, who must have been four times her size with scars the size of small canyons carved into his cheeks. "The one-who-was-shaped. Is it true what they say? These pathetic maw luur excretions worship you?"
They'd heard of her? What, she had a reputation now? "I don't know anything about that," Tahiri answered in their own language. "But I know when I see a dishonorable fight. They were not only outnumbered, but poorly armed. How can you call yourselves warriors, to attack in such a way?"
"They are Shamed Ones," he snapped. "They are outside honor. They are worse than infidels; they are heretic traitors, not to be fought but to be exterminated."
Part of Tahiri wanted to agree; she gritted her teeth and shook her head.
The tracker spoke up now. "You fear us because we know the truth. You lap at Shimrra's feet, yet Shimrra is the true heretic. See how this Jeedai has laid you low. The gods favor her, not you."
"If the gods favor her, they do not favor you."
"They are delaying us while another tsik vai arrives," the Shamed One told Tahiri, who really just wished they would stop talking about her this way, but she knew the blood on his lips wasn't a good sign.
"Quiet, heretic," the massive warrior shouted, "and you may yet live to snivel a little longer. There are questions we would ask of you. Renounce your heresy. This Jeedai is a great prize. Help us win her, and perhaps the gods will forgive you and grant you an honorable death."
"No death is more honorable than dying by the side of a Jeedai!" the tracker answered. No, really, they could stop talking about her like this any time now. "Vua Rapuung proved that."
The warrior's face curled up in disdain. "That story is a heretic's lie. Vua Rapuung died in disgrace."
The Shamed One didn't answer in words; he just bolted toward the warrior fast enough to take him by surprise and even knock him over. Tahiri took advantage of the moment to cut down the other two before they could help, and turned to see the Shamed One running the warrior's own amphistaff through his chest.
She thought the moment of staring was uncomfortable, but she changed her mind when the Shamed One dropped to his knees in front of her and blurted out, "I prayed it was you!"
. . . what. She owed Arthur for that reaction, but it was the most appropriate one for all of the second before the treetops rustled and they had to run.
It was about an hour by the time they stopped, the Shamed One clutching his bleeding side in a far too familiar way that made Tahiri flinch.
"Let me see that," she said.
"I must speak to you first," he said instead.
She wished it would stop being familiar. "What are you doing here? Did you follow me?"
"No!" he insisted, coughing up blood. "No. We thieved a ship from an intendant and came here to find the world of prophecy. We saw you land -- is this the place, One-Who-Was-Shaped? Is this the world the Prophet saw?"
Prophecy? Prophet? One-Who-Was-Shaped? She had a title now? Tahiri shook her head, trying very hard not to freak out. "I'm sorry. I don't know what you mean. This is Dagobah. I came here for personal reasons."
"But it cannot be coincidence," protested the Shamed One. "It cannot."
She argued with him for a little while, but he refused to let her tend to his injury, insisting he knew he was already dead. This was not getting any less painful.
Finally, he said, "I am Hul Qat, once a hunter. Or I was, until the gods seemed to reject me. I was stripped of my title, my clan. I was Shamed. My implants festered and my scars opened like wounds. I gave up hope and waited for dishonorable death. But then I heard the word of the Prophet, and of the Jeedai Anakin . . ."
Tahiri flinched. "Anakin."
"Yes, and you, whom Mezhan Kwaad shaped. And Vua Rapuung who fought -- you were there, were you not?"
She had been there, but she'd been different then. "I was there." And she'd nearly killed Anakin, before she'd forced the merge of her two personalities.
"Then you know. You know our redemption belongs with you. And now the Prophet has seen a world, a world where there are no Shamed Ones because it will redeem us, where the true way can be --" He coughed up more blood and slumped forward; Tahiri thought he was gone, but he took a shuddering breath and continued. "My companions and I wanted to find the planet for our Prophet. One of us, Kuhqo, had been a shaper. He used a genetic slicer to get access to an executor's qahsa and steal its secrets. He found intelligence gathered about the Jeedai, and evidence that there was some connection between you and this world. Some of your greatest came here, yes? And now you. And so please, tell me. Have I found it?"
Oh, great. Somehow in a short span of time they'd become a myth of their own kind among the Shamed Ones. Hadn't they just been talking about this in Ghanima's class last week?
"Yes," Tahiri said, reaching out to take his hand. It was a lie, but she wasn't even sure what she was lying about. "Yes, you're right. You found it. Don't worry about anything now."
"You must help me," Hul Qat begged, and oh, Force, was he tearing up? That was uncomfortable. "I cannot take the news myself. The Prophet must know where this world is."
It wasn't a lie this time, when Tahiri said, "I'll do it." And this time, when he closed his eyes, she didn't need the Force to know he was gone.
She glanced to the side; they were right by the cave she'd come here to find, but now she was sure that hadn't been what she'd really come here for. It'd been all about making this promise, whatever the hell it was.
Tahiri turned and started back toward her X-Wing. Whatever this promise was, she couldn't stay here now; she'd figure it out on the way back.
[OOC: NFI/NFB for distance, kinda tl;dr, OOC okay. Adapted from The Final Prophecy by Greg Keyes, the only book in the NJO series where I really have to work to condense things.]
The last time she'd been on Dagobah, she'd come here with Anakin. A lot had changed in the meantime.
Making her way through the maze of cane and gnarltrees, picking a path over fallen logs and around patches of marshy ground, she reached out into the Force to let it guide her toward a certain cave -- the one Yoda had brought Luke to before she was born, and where Luke had in turn brought Anakin and her so Anakin could confront his fear that the weight of his name might drag him down to the dark side.
It was Tahiri's turn now -- or the turn of the person she'd become, who was not that little girl of seven years ago -- because the concern that the dark version of her from Anakin's vision, or the too-real one from Ben's world, might still come to be was diminished but still real. Especially now -- having Force lightning hurled at her by a Sith version of Leia had shaken Tahiri badly.
She felt bad about leaving her friends both in Fandom and here in the dark about the specifics of why she'd come here, but that was an explanation she couldn't just give in part. Then something crept into her awareness, bringing with it the sudden shock of realization: someone was following her. Peace Brigade? It was possible; she wasn't the Solo twins or anyone important, but she was a Jedi and as such worth turning over to Supreme Overlord Shimrra.
Someone must have given me up, told them where I was going -- no, that was the innate paranoia talking, the one every Yuuzhan Vong learned growing up as a survival mechanism, and the Jedi part of her knew better. She could hear her pursuers now; they were getting sloppy. Definitely not hunters, the way they were moving. She reached out in the Force to get a sense of them -- and didn't find them that way. But she did find them.
This wasn't the familiar tingle of danger sense down the back of her neck, or the usual clarity of beings sensed through the Force. This was different, a fuzzy sort of sensation, indistinct but undeniably there. Yuuzhan Vong presences, not sensed through the Force.
Now was a kriffing hell of a time for her to get the hang of that Vongsense technique Jacen had tried to teach her.
Tahiri scrambled up the trunk of one of the gnarltrees and tucked herself away between two close-set branches, glad for once that she was so small. Her Yuuzhan Vong warrior instincts were screaming for her to fight, not hide, and it took effort and her Jedi training to suppress them.
That was, after all, part of the reason she was here beyond contemplating what role she had to play in this whole war with her dual perspective. She hadn't mentioned this to Han and Leia, or to Ben, Jaina, or anyone in Fandom except Firekeeper. Depending on what she saw in the cave . . .
Well, if it didn't look good, she was crippling her X-Wing and never leaving this mudball.
Vongsense, she was learning, wasn't clear the way the Force was, and there could have been anywhere between four and eight beings tracking her. And really, really not skilled at their job, given the constant chatter.
There was a shadow moving across the ground, something huge. Tahiri glanced up, but all she could make out through the thick canopy of foliage was a dark blob. Well, that wasn't helpful; her hand drifted to her lightsaber hilt.
The trackers were close enough to hear now, and it wasn't as if she had any trouble understanding their language.
"Are you certain she came this way?"
"She did. See? The impression in the moss?"
Tahiri sighed. Stupid boots.
"She is Jeedai. Perhaps she left these signs to confuse us."
"Perhaps."
"But you think she is near?"
"Yes."
"And knows we are following her?"
"Yes."
"Then why not simply call out to her?"
Why? Hoping she'd answer the challenge? Tahiri scrambled as noiselessly as she could through the gnarltree's branches for a better vantage point, wondering if she could give them the slip and get back to her X-Wing. It wasn't looking very likely, but she could make out a vague outline of her trackers through the foliage now.
"At some point we must, I suppose," said one of the voices.
Another grunted in assent, adding, "Else she will think we wish her harm."
That . . . didn't make any sense. That wasn't Yuuzhan Vong behavior at all. Tahiri was trying to puzzle that out when the first voice called out: "Jeedai! I think you can hear us. We humbly request an audience."
Tricks, she decided -- paranoid thinking again, but she was dealing with other Yuuzhan Vong here and it wasn't safe to assume otherwise. It wasn't warrior-like behavior, but priests or shapers, especially if they were part of the deception sect, would resort to tactics like that. Shifting her weight carefully, she leaned out to get a better look and got a really good look . . . at a Shamed One. It was easy to tell; most of his exposed flesh was a mess of failed attempts at implants and scarring, like one giant festering wound.
The disgust she felt was instinctive, on both sides -- the human impulse to recoil at unsightliness, and the ingrained Yuuzhan Vong disdain of those who'd fallen out of favor with the gods. She barely had time to fight back the impulse to strike him down when something ripped through the foliage overhead, flooding the area with light, revealing that all of her pursuers were Shamed Ones, six of them, all panicking at the intrusion. No time to wonder about that now, not with Yuuzhan Vong warriors dropping from the tsik vai atmospheric flier that had shredded the treetops.
"Run!" shouted the tracker who'd spotted her, instead of giving her away. "We cannot win here!"
No, armed with nothing but short clubs they didn't have a chance in the nine Corellian hells, Tahiri realized, and sprang from her hiding place just in time to see one of the Shamed Ones fall dead, run through by a warrior's amphistaff. There were eight warriors in total, and she had to admit she enjoyed the look on the nearest one's face when she snarled a Yuuzhan Vong battle cry in response to his challenge.
Eight of them, one of her -- it wasn't long ago that she'd have thought these were terrible odds. But that was the old Tahiri, the reluctant one, not the new one who almost welcomed the frenzy of combat. She fell into the rhythm -- Ben was right, it was like a dance -- of slashes and sidesteps, parries, cuts, and diving rolls. Not thinking, just reacting, absorbing the pain of the cuts and bruises she took without noticing, drawing on her Jedi training to keep her calm before she succumbed to the thrill of the fight.
She didn't even know how long it was before she was back to back with the last surviving Shamed One, surrounded by the three remaining warriors.
And the warriors were backing away.
"I've heard of you, abomination," snarled the leader, who must have been four times her size with scars the size of small canyons carved into his cheeks. "The one-who-was-shaped. Is it true what they say? These pathetic maw luur excretions worship you?"
They'd heard of her? What, she had a reputation now? "I don't know anything about that," Tahiri answered in their own language. "But I know when I see a dishonorable fight. They were not only outnumbered, but poorly armed. How can you call yourselves warriors, to attack in such a way?"
"They are Shamed Ones," he snapped. "They are outside honor. They are worse than infidels; they are heretic traitors, not to be fought but to be exterminated."
Part of Tahiri wanted to agree; she gritted her teeth and shook her head.
The tracker spoke up now. "You fear us because we know the truth. You lap at Shimrra's feet, yet Shimrra is the true heretic. See how this Jeedai has laid you low. The gods favor her, not you."
"If the gods favor her, they do not favor you."
"They are delaying us while another tsik vai arrives," the Shamed One told Tahiri, who really just wished they would stop talking about her this way, but she knew the blood on his lips wasn't a good sign.
"Quiet, heretic," the massive warrior shouted, "and you may yet live to snivel a little longer. There are questions we would ask of you. Renounce your heresy. This Jeedai is a great prize. Help us win her, and perhaps the gods will forgive you and grant you an honorable death."
"No death is more honorable than dying by the side of a Jeedai!" the tracker answered. No, really, they could stop talking about her like this any time now. "Vua Rapuung proved that."
The warrior's face curled up in disdain. "That story is a heretic's lie. Vua Rapuung died in disgrace."
The Shamed One didn't answer in words; he just bolted toward the warrior fast enough to take him by surprise and even knock him over. Tahiri took advantage of the moment to cut down the other two before they could help, and turned to see the Shamed One running the warrior's own amphistaff through his chest.
She thought the moment of staring was uncomfortable, but she changed her mind when the Shamed One dropped to his knees in front of her and blurted out, "I prayed it was you!"
. . . what. She owed Arthur for that reaction, but it was the most appropriate one for all of the second before the treetops rustled and they had to run.
***
It was about an hour by the time they stopped, the Shamed One clutching his bleeding side in a far too familiar way that made Tahiri flinch.
"Let me see that," she said.
"I must speak to you first," he said instead.
She wished it would stop being familiar. "What are you doing here? Did you follow me?"
"No!" he insisted, coughing up blood. "No. We thieved a ship from an intendant and came here to find the world of prophecy. We saw you land -- is this the place, One-Who-Was-Shaped? Is this the world the Prophet saw?"
Prophecy? Prophet? One-Who-Was-Shaped? She had a title now? Tahiri shook her head, trying very hard not to freak out. "I'm sorry. I don't know what you mean. This is Dagobah. I came here for personal reasons."
"But it cannot be coincidence," protested the Shamed One. "It cannot."
She argued with him for a little while, but he refused to let her tend to his injury, insisting he knew he was already dead. This was not getting any less painful.
Finally, he said, "I am Hul Qat, once a hunter. Or I was, until the gods seemed to reject me. I was stripped of my title, my clan. I was Shamed. My implants festered and my scars opened like wounds. I gave up hope and waited for dishonorable death. But then I heard the word of the Prophet, and of the Jeedai Anakin . . ."
Tahiri flinched. "Anakin."
"Yes, and you, whom Mezhan Kwaad shaped. And Vua Rapuung who fought -- you were there, were you not?"
She had been there, but she'd been different then. "I was there." And she'd nearly killed Anakin, before she'd forced the merge of her two personalities.
"Then you know. You know our redemption belongs with you. And now the Prophet has seen a world, a world where there are no Shamed Ones because it will redeem us, where the true way can be --" He coughed up more blood and slumped forward; Tahiri thought he was gone, but he took a shuddering breath and continued. "My companions and I wanted to find the planet for our Prophet. One of us, Kuhqo, had been a shaper. He used a genetic slicer to get access to an executor's qahsa and steal its secrets. He found intelligence gathered about the Jeedai, and evidence that there was some connection between you and this world. Some of your greatest came here, yes? And now you. And so please, tell me. Have I found it?"
Oh, great. Somehow in a short span of time they'd become a myth of their own kind among the Shamed Ones. Hadn't they just been talking about this in Ghanima's class last week?
"Yes," Tahiri said, reaching out to take his hand. It was a lie, but she wasn't even sure what she was lying about. "Yes, you're right. You found it. Don't worry about anything now."
"You must help me," Hul Qat begged, and oh, Force, was he tearing up? That was uncomfortable. "I cannot take the news myself. The Prophet must know where this world is."
It wasn't a lie this time, when Tahiri said, "I'll do it." And this time, when he closed his eyes, she didn't need the Force to know he was gone.
She glanced to the side; they were right by the cave she'd come here to find, but now she was sure that hadn't been what she'd really come here for. It'd been all about making this promise, whatever the hell it was.
Tahiri turned and started back toward her X-Wing. Whatever this promise was, she couldn't stay here now; she'd figure it out on the way back.
[OOC: NFI/NFB for distance, kinda tl;dr, OOC okay. Adapted from The Final Prophecy by Greg Keyes, the only book in the NJO series where I really have to work to condense things.]
