Ask The Desert Queen

[Darth Arcanos]

She didn’t ask him, but he could tell she was dying to know. Azar kept his gaze trained forward as they sped through the desert, the speeder hovering and whizzing over the dunes. Azar tapped his fingers along the side of the speeder, the wind rushing through his locks. After a moment he finally exhaled.

“What were you told about what happened between your cousin and I?” Azar finally asked after a long moment of silence. If he was going to share any of this, he needed to get a read of her perspective first.

 

[Ilyan]

Ilyan could tell he was a bit uncomfortable and there was a long silence that lingered between them. Ilyan wasn't going to be the one to break that silence, so they rode along for a time before he finally asked his question.

It was Ilyan's turn to be silent as she weighed whether she should lie. The truth about what she had been told had started a blood war between the two groups, and cast him in anything but a flattering light. For a moment she considered trying to claim she knew nothing about it or that she'd heard no stories, but that would be an insult to him and his intelligence.

Ultimately, she settled on telling the truth... or most of the truth.

The two of you fell into young love and spent a great deal of time together... she paused, uncertain of verbalizing the next part and almost wincing internally at the fist she was subconsciously expecting to receive for it. ...and then you killed her. I've heard it was to cover your shame of being with a desert girl or because you saw loving as a weakness you couldn't risk, she said. She didn't know which one, although in Azar's mind he might think of his present situation as she said the last part. Separating himself from those he cared for because of fear of what might happen either to himself or to them. Fear of betrayal.

She said nothing further.

 

[Darth Arcanos]

Azar chuckled bitterly at her account of the story, “Sadly that’s not entirely too far from the truth,” He admitted. He gazed off into the dunes for a while, forming his thoughts and choosing his words, “We were teenagers,” Azar said, “And it is true that we did love one another. I denied it for years afterwards, but I’ve grown since then. I can recognize when I truly fell for someone before,” He said, his words trailing off into the desert winds.

“I killed her but also did not,” Azar said, his gaze flicking to his wife, “She was attacked by tu’kata and I was too cowardly to assist. There was an element of shame to it - I thought it was easier to run from it than to protect her. She had such impossible dreams..like the efforts to weave the royal families with the desert tribes..” Azar said with a sad smile, ironically seated next to his desert wife and fulfilling that very dream, “The breach was created because she was carrying my child at the time,” He admitted at last, “She had an overwhelming urge to protect that child and preserve that future dream. All of that was torn apart and it left an imprint,” Azar glanced down at his lap, “It has haunted me since, but I’m not going to let the guilt destroy me anymore,” He sighed, “I owe it to our people to be an unburdened King.”

Azar looked back at Ilyan, “I can understand if this only makes you detest me more than you already do,” He smiled bitterly, “I doubt you can wound me any more than those I love already have.”

 

[Ilyan]

Ilyan was silent as she listened, her hands clenching slightly as he spoke about her version being close to the truth. So he had killed Salini.

But as he began to recount the story, other things began to fall into place. It was not the story that she had thought she would hear. She tried to fit together pieces with what she had seen and what she had heard. She tried to slot it together with what Ashani had told her.

She tried to piece together what he had said about leaving a breach, and to grapple with the shocking revelation that Salini had been with child. No one in the family had known. Was any of this true? Was it true that he had left her to die? Was it true that he hadn't actually killed her?

She wasn't sure what to say to any of this, but even as she watched his say the words and felt the emotions in the Force, she sensed no lie. She sensed no deception and she sensed... guilt.

She nearly asked a million questions. Why did he leave her? But the answer was obvious enough. Was he still a coward? But that answer, too, was obvious enough. She already knew their marriage was just a consolation and a way to bring peace between the warring factions. What she didn't realize was that he had tried to do it long before the war had ever started. He had... had at least some measure of care for the deserts even from a young age. And another question bit into her mind.

And he had left that care to die to save himself. A mixture of emotions rose at that thought. On the one hand, she understood but on the other, she would have died for her honor. Would she die for her child? If and when he put a baby inside of her... what would she do?

She wasn't sure she had it in her for comforting words after the revelation, but neither did she have the cutting or biting condemnation he likely expected. She was, as ever, measured in her responses.

In the depths of her mind, she wondered if it would have mattered. She wondered to herself if he would have simply fallen to the tu'kata himself. What if.

I did detest you, she finally admitted after a long stretch of silence. When I rode out against your forces and watched my people die. When I found out that Salini had died at your hand, she said. Or so we thought, she added.

But I also have seen something that no one else does. I do not detest you, she said.

She was silent for several more moments before speaking again, a question that foolishly lingered in her mind. A question that didn't matter. A question that was childish to ask, and yet one she needed the answer to. For reasons she couldn't explain and would deny existed.

Did you marry the ghost of my cousin? Do you see her when you look at me? she asked. Although she was far different than her - technically - second cousin both in physicality and in many ways in personality, she still came to him bearing that Kurvast name. It was her tribe he had chosen to marry.

 

[Darth Arcanos]

Azar looked over curiously when she mentioned seeing something no one else had. He didn’t venture to ask, deciding that some things were perhaps better left unsaid. However, likely to her surprise, when she asked her question he actually started to chuckle. It was a genuine, humored laugh.

“Salini was a tower of muscles and sinew,” Azar said with an amused grin, “She loomed above me. She was stubborn as a bantha and had her head in the stars. We were both children and I do not hold onto the old love,” He explained, “The guilt of her death haunts me, but I do not see her in you,” Azar gazed at Ilyan for a long moment, “She was a girl. You are a woman. You are my wife.”

The speeder began to slow down as they arrived near the location Ilyan suggested. He could see old ruins ahead and an area that looked largely abandoned.

“Your hermit truly does live in the middle of nowhere..” Azar mused, “Is he.. All right in the head?” He asked, suddenly concerned. What if he was the type that talked to himself and was actually insane. As much as Azar liked Ilyan so far, he had his reservations about desert tribes and their strange customs and shamans.

 

[Ilyan]

Ilyan was surprised when he started to laugh. Yes, everything he said was true. She and Salini didn't look much alike, and she could still remember their younger days when Ashani had - on occasion - stuffed she and her younger sister in a feed trough and "locked" it just by sitting on it. Those were... days. Not sure she could say they were "happier" days, but they were days.

His words were definitive, and although a piece of her doubted some of them - she doubted pretty much everything people said to her these days - she accepted them as at least logical.

Yes, of course, she said quietly.

Their speeder came to a slow a short time later, and he asked her if the man was insane.

Um, well, he's different, she said, giving an unusually evasive response that he would immediately pick up on. In her defense, she had said he was the skittish type.

He's a bit paranoid, she said. We're not sure what of it is from the things he's seen and what is just from... paranoia, she said.

It'll be fine, she reassured. He's not the type to just attack people out of nowhere, she said, pretty sure that was true. She'd heard all kinds of weird stories about him, but none that had ever ended in actual violence.

But he knows things no one else does, she said, bringing them both back to why they were here. "Right in the head" or not, he was the only one that might bring them answers.

She moved over to the door and knocked her knuckles against it.

Ah yes, hello? Not often I receive visitors these days. Who comes calling? a voice shouted from inside before the door slid open a moment later. The man who appeared was dressed in old desert hermit robes although by some miracle, they managed to appear clean at least despite the many tatters. A contradiction perhaps and a hint of what was to come when dealing with him.

 

[Darth Arcanos]

Azar held off on the lofty titles as he studied the hermit. He had enough experience navigating situations where he needed something from someone to know when to hold back with the status waving.

“Azar,” He said, withholding any titles, “I have reasons to believe that a breach was created not too far from here,” Azar explained, getting right to the point, “I would like your assistance in closing it. What do you want for payment?”

No one worked for free. He only hoped the man asked for material payment instead of sending them on a fetch quest. Azar’s patience was already low from being out in the desert.

The shaman looked at him suspiciously, stoking his chin tendrils in thought before he snapped his fingers and turned to walk into his dwelling. Azar remained standing there perplexed, rage simmering beneath the surface. Ilyan would have to nudge him to walk inside before Azar realized the shaman meant for them to follow.

The home, if it could be called that, was a tiny thing with rows upon rows of tomes lining every bit of visible wall. Papers were strewn messily over most surfaces and the room smelled like sweat and grime. Azar gave Ilyan a look of deep skepticism but said nothing verbally.

 

[Ilyan]

Ilyan watched the man as he emerged from his hut. Although she knew of him, the two had never met before and something in her distrusted him. Perhaps it was that he was known not to follow many of the traditions or the desert or something else, but she said nothing, simply resting a hand casually on the hilt of a dagger.

He motioned - if you could call it that - for the two of them to step inside, and she silently stiffened, hoping Azar wasn't going to lose his patience. Wait, he had introduced himself as Azar hadn't he? She noted that a moment, saying nothing of it but pondering its deeper meaning in silence.

She moved inside, her eyes falling across the innumerable tomes in the room.

A breach, the man repeated the words as he began looking through his books, motioning absentmindedly behind him for them to sit down.

Ilyan did, sitting on one of the mats laid out on the floor.

A breach is no small thing. How did you create this breach? he asked, snatching one of the books off of the shelf and moving over to sit across from them. When he finished to Azar recount the tale, he reached up and stroked his tendrils again.

Hmm... he hummed, flipping through the pages. If Azar looked over to Ilyan she would just give a shrug. He was eccentric. It was known.

Many come to me seeking things: blessings, knowledge, power... he said. And then what would come next would likely shock Azar.

I extract many tolls, but the desert is my home, and mending it is a gift enough, he said.

Nevertheless, the ritual itself may extract a toll all its own. It is not easy and it will be one of great wear on your body and soul, he said.

Would you hear the rite?