Zolan, Mid Rim Territory
Nothing interesting ever happened in the one-blink village of Farrowmore, at least not according to the locals. Isolated and tucked away from the rest of the galaxy, it wasn't even on the map, and that was just the way they liked it. The families that lived and farmed there had done so for generations, and neither they nor their children ever considered living anywhere else. No one moved away, and no one moved in. They were simple folk, content with simple pleasures. They tended to their farms, sent their children to the one room schoolhouse on the square, and never bothered to lock their doors. There was no crime here, not taking into account Runvos Vud, the town butcher that drank in excess every weekend and would inevitably pass out naked in someone's front yard. But he was harmless enough, the poor man, and missed his wife dearly.
The townsfolk of Farrowmore were a superstitious lot—the kind of people that kept a rabbit's foot in their overall pockets, just for good luck, and never opened their umbrellas indoors. They didn't trust outsiders, and they didn't like strangers poking their noses into the town's business, but to a traveler passing through, with a listening ear and no intention of sticking around, they could talk for hours. Rocking back and forth on the front porch of the mercantile, mouths brimming with chewing tobacco, they'd bend your ear until sundown.
There was no shortages of stories to tell, as there were rumors surrounding the woodlands outside of Farrowmore. Fables and folk tales, passed down from one generation to the next. The forest was haunted, and you never wandered past Hope Hill Cemetary after dark. Not if you knew what was good for you.
Disembodied footsteps that would follow you for hours, even through the thickets and over the river. Red, glowing eyes that would watch you from the shadows—always within view, but never within reach. Voices that whispered in your ear, that knew your deepest desires and your worst secrets. Worse than the whispers was the silence, when the forest would fall still, as silent as the grave. No birds would sing, no critters would dart behind the trees, and even the wind would die down. A cold, bony hand would settle on your shoulder, but the moment you turned around, there was nothing there. A woman crying, calling to you—leading you deeper into the forest, until you could no longer find your way out.
People disappeared, they said, like Runvos Vud's wife, never to be seen again. Gone, without a trace. And that wasn't all. There were more stories—of cryptids and witches and ghosts and an old, abandoned house lost to memory and time. Just the sort of folklore to frighten the overly cautious and pique the imagination of the young. Samara happened to find herself in the latter, tired of wandering the streets of the sleepy village day in and day out, of listening to stories that she never lived for herself.
Knight Rinnom, the Jedi she was traveling with, had no interest in leaving the city limits of Farrowmore. These were the ramblings of a bunch of superstitious villagers that had let their imaginations run wild, whose minds were no longer grounded in reality. They ought to stay here, until the local mechanic could get their ship up and running again. Then they could leave, never to return. Samara disagreed.
Sneaking out was easy. It was something she'd done many times before at the academy, when she was restless or missed her family and couldn't sleep. The Chalactan waited until she knew the Knight had fallen asleep in the next room over, until she could hear the steady rumble of his snores through the paper thin walls of the wayside inn they were staying in at the edge of town. Then she slipped out the clerestory window, with a backpack slung over her shoulder and a glowrod in hand. Rinnom wouldn't know she was gone until morning, and she would be back before daybreak. What was the worst that could happen? @Sreeya
