Ask Drawing Attention

[Roman Kallo]

​

Roman rubbed two fingers in the red and orange paints, playing around as he drew parallel lines on the rock face. He had always enjoyed art, particularly painting of the earth and body. Getting creative made him feel truly free, able to forget everything else for a time.

The credits he had earned from the shipyard mission were the first he had seen in a long while. His new art materials were his gift to himself, a little treat he had waited weeks to explore. Not needed for a few days, he had slipped to the quiet world of Thila, hoping to find some seclusion in the high mountain peaks. The city and starport were down below, but he was unlikely to be bothered way up here.

He stood back and chewed his tongue, embracing the Force for inspiration as his casual attire flapped in the wind. Unburdened for the first time in weeks, Roman felt unusually attuned to the energies around him. He was going to paint something fucking great today, he could feel it.

Following an urge, Roman went for the black paint next, his eyes glazing over as he fell into the Force, hurriedly scrawling a jagged V marking on the rock canvass. His hands worked as if moved by unseen strings, sketching detail and markings at the Force’s direction. He moved like an animal.

Several minutes later, he fell back, a sweating, panting mess. His eyes refocused, in time to see he‘d done something far beyond art. Roman felt as much as saw its true nature and his entire body ached from what it had taken from him.

It was a rune.

He barely had time to process that fact, before the entire rock face high above began to crack and split.

@Tulos

 

[Sah'ra Ryun]

Thila was not a world Sah'ra would normally frequent. Temperate. Peaceful. At one time, Imperial. The citizens had embraced their new found sovereignty when the borders of the Empire receded but hints of it's influence remained. There was nothing here for her, yet here she was.

Whispers in the Force often guided the hand of those who commanded it, luring them to promises of power or an untimely demise. The future was always in motion, strings begging to be pulled and manipulated to the will of those with the desire to influence fate. While she could not discern what was to come from her travels, she knew something was here.

Sah'ra walked the paths of the mountain that overlooked one of the planet's major cities, the tips of her fingers dragging lightly across the rock face to her left. It was difficult to comprehend how her prosthetic looked, acted, felt like the hand she had lost. In near every sense it was as though she had lost nothing yet every time she looked upon it, she despised what it symbolized.

Silently she walked, contemplating that perhaps the Force had given her a false sign. She had been here for days, searching for what had drawn her, and had come up empty handed. She considered returning to Dromund Kaas and calling an end to this endeavour, returning to her studies, yet as she rounded the corner, she caught glimpse of a young man crouched over a rock... ”Painting?” she mused to herself.

Sah'ra paused, still far enough away that she would remain unseen whilst leaning on the cliff at her side. He was a curious thing, so far away from civilization, so absorbed in his art. A handsome thing, at that. Smirking, she continued to watch. It wasn't until the familiar whispers of the Force rang out to her that she began to question the truth of the man she had found.

As he fell to the ground, Sah'ra was gifted a glimpse of what would follow. The mountain above cracked and rumbled, small debris raining down around him. As he regained his composure, he would see the change. Larger and larger the rocks became, several feet wide as they cascaded down the mountain side in chaos and dust. Yet just as they were poised to make impact, they would stop.

Sah'ra stood in the open, hand stretched out and calm in demeanour. The boulders hovered above, casting their shadow over him. He would see her yet she said nothing, only staring in the young man's direction with an empty expression before her head tilted to the side.

”Move,”

Spoiler

Attire

@Alhon​

 

[Roman Kallo]

Roman had no idea how he had worked such power and no time to try to undo it. He scrabbled back, torn between a desire to flee and a fear about the rockslide that would ensue if he did. But how could he stop it?

He was still reaching for answers when several large chunks of rock peeled away from the cliff face above and fell straight towards him. Though they fell in slow motion, there was barely time to say his peace.

Yet, there was. When he was not crushed the second he expected, or the second after that, Roman opened a squinting eye. The huge rock boulders had stopped, literally in mid air. Roman's mouth hung open, several long moments passing before he became aware of the woman to his left.

Asking questions was not an option. Roman did as she bid and rolled away, out of the path of the rocks, leaping clear and onto a ledge that would put him slightly above her and the site where the debris would fall. The unconscious act of channeling the Force into his art, into making a rune, had drained him a lot, but he did what he could to rally himself. The newcomer might still be an enemy.

He shrugged off his sleeveless jacket, panting and sweating as he faced her down in just a tank top, half feeling like he was burning up. The woman was maybe ten years or more older than he, well put together and robed in black. She didn't look like a Jedi and had the manners of a Sith, but hell she had saved his life. Surely she could not be total bad news?

"Thanks lady" he shouted to her, trying to sound less whacked than he was. "I would have had it" he lied. "You wanna do some introductions already?".

@Tulos

 

[Sah'ra Ryun]

As the man she had saved rolled away from the rubble, Sah'ra released her grasp and allowed the boulders to fall to the ground with a loud thump, some rolling on and further down the cliff on which they were perched. While he was quick to thank her, she could sense his unease of who she was. Why she was here. Why she elected to save him rather than let him die.

”I'm sure you would have,” she teased calmly, clasping her wrist with her other hand at her waist whilst remaining quite still. She followed his movements carefully, smirking as the sleeveless jacket fell to the ground at his feet. ”So dramatic,” she mused silently. ”At least it's a better view than the rocks and trees,”

Averting her attention to where he had previously been kneeling with the hope of inspecting his work of art, her smile faded. She had sensed the Force billow around the man, flow through him like a sieve, and suspected him to be an undiscovered Force Sensitive. His familiar work suggested a different possibility.

”I suppose it would be appropriate,” she continued as she glared at the marking before turning her attention back to him. ”I am Sah'ra,” she continued, staring directly into his own eyes. ”- and I must admit to be far more curious in to what this means to you than to who you are,” she added, pointing a single finger at the symbol

@Alhon​

 

[Roman Kallo]

The woman who called herself Sah’ra did not believe Roman could have saved himself, he could tell. Well, he had learned she was smart as well as gifted then.

She seemed to study him for a moment nonetheless, Roman might even have said she was checking him out. But her attention soon shifted to his artwork on the rock boulder. He was hesitant to look at it again himself. It unnerved him that he could paint such a thing without meaning to.

“Well it‘s Roman, even if you don‘t need a name” he smirked, jumping down cautiously from his ledge. He skirted closer to the artwork and Sah’ra, reassured slightly by no apparent sign of danger. She asked what the symbol he had drawn meant to him, and Roman considered how much to own up to.

”It’s a rune“ he answered matter of factly, though in truth he was only guessing based on what had happened. “The V shape symbolises cutting into the rock, dividing it. The shapes around the outside mark pressure points and weaknesses”. It was all what he thought, but he presented his theories as if he knew them to be fact. He still hadn’t much of a clue who this bird was, and he was not about to admit to being an acolyte way out of his depth.

”What’s it to you?“ he asked, jutting his chin.

@Tulos

 

[Sah'ra Ryun]

”Roman,” she repeated, her lips curving back into a smile. True, she didn't precisely care for his name but it was practical to know it all the same.

Yet as he went on to explain his 'knowledge' on what he had just done, it soon became clear that the occurrence was either unintentional or he had been dabbling in techniques he knew dangerously little of. She hoped it was not the latter, a telltale sign of a fool if it were. This considered, he was at least wise enough to comprehend what he had made. First steps on unfamiliar paths were so rarely appropriately measured.

”Is that so?” Sah'ra mused aloud. Slowly she approached both Roman and the rune. His explanation of it's construction was, without a doubt, amusing.

”You could consider me a purveyor of ancient knowledge,” she answered his final question, a half truth. Her own library was vast well before the additions of Krayiss II supplemented her shelves. On this particular subject she had more than a few texts that illuminated the practicality of such runes.

”I've seen this symbol before, you see,” Sah'ra continued, side eyeing the man to her left. Her hand raised and hovered above the symbol, gently fuelling it with her own Force energy. ”From my experience, it's use is to briefly redirect the powers of the caster, creating pressure on an immediate area. A suppression snare, if you will, that can be utilized anywhere. Not just the side of the mountain,” As she demonstrated with far more measure than he had previously, Roman would feel the air around him grow heavy, an invisible weight applying to his neck and shoulders.

Sah'ra turned to face Roman fully, looking up to meet his eyes. ”Presuming the caster has the necessary abilities to correctly make use of such devices,” she concluded, calling an end to her influence of the rune and clasping her wrist once more. For a brief moment, she stared at the man, analyzing and debating on just who he truly was. Where his knowledge came from, if anywhere other than his own mind. ”If you're going to experiment, you should do so with more caution, Roman,”

@Alhon

 

[Roman Kallo]

Roman stood off to one side as Sah'ra studied his work, fiddling anxiously with a crude metal ring he had picked up from a market stall down at the starport. His attempts to warn the woman off were having no effect. In fact, she seemed only midly interested in his presence at all.

She had to be a senior Sith surely, powerful enough to fear no one even without knowing them. Her claim to have ancient knowledge was practically proof. The last being that had promised him such things was Master Azar, and he had proved more impressive than Roman could have imagined.

He was about to question her further, to explain he had made no conscious effort to exert pressure on the mountain, when he felt something grip him around his neck.

"Hey!" he bristled, flushing and trying to twist away from what she was doing. But her Force grip around him was already easing. Once again, Sah'ra pushed him towards fight or flight, but she herself was not doing either. She was just, looking at him. The silence was heavy in itself.

"I was not experimenting" he said finally, deciding he would rather confess to a lack of knowledge than look reckless. "I was painting" he shrugged. He was not sure what he had meant to paint, before he accidentally slipped into the Force, but it was definitely not a rune. "I've never drawn anything like this" he explained "I've heard little of runes and read even less. I was just painting, and thinking, feeling...and it happened ok?".

He risked a step back towards his handiwork, finding the detail all the more disconcerting the closer he got. "What can I do?" he asked, turning back to Sah'ra "for the knowledge of how to do it...." he affected her voice "...correctly?".

@Tulos