Ask Dathomir Inheritance

[Arla]

Per my new OP template, thread is death enabled​

Arla had asked Nakoa to come to Dathomir, which was an irregularity. The list of people that she had ever invited to meet her on Dathomir was slim, and these days, Arla was even less present on the planet.

In fact, she found herself wanting to leave again as quickly as she could. She needed... time. She loved her homeworld, but right now all she could think of was the losses she had taken. Even after her time on Ambria she still felt like she had a hole in her heart.

When Nakoa arrived, he would immediately notice something different about her. There were no underlying thoughts and her mind was like a black hole out of which nothing escaped. Her face was solid and stoic, and she now had a lightsaber hilt strapped to the back of her belt.

She simply stood and stared upward at one of the burial pods as he drew closer. She had told him that she wanted his help in recovering some things, and this... well, perhaps it was an odd place to meet, but then she was still a Nightsister at heart.

 

[Nakoa Singh]

Nakoa hadn't expected this invitation. Arla spoke only briefly about her home and her people. Recently, even less than that. Between them, these sorts of things either came up on their own somehow or not at all. In truth he'd wondered what the planet would be like, but knew enough they were insular and wouldn't have asked.

It was unexpected, in some ways, to be so beautiful. And so sad. As he walked through the shadow of the Forgotten Valley, he was struck by it. Echoes of death hung heavy in air painted crimson colors by the mists and setting sun. Echoes of war and those who never marched home. A senate session declared the intent and the holonet reported it in that vaguest of ways they did, but being here? It was different.

Here the spirits were everywhere, in everything. It would be deafening if not, perhaps, for how Arla had helped him. It and the new setting were somewhat overwhelming as it was. There was also the distinct sensation he was being watched as he strode through the trees, neither quickly nor taking his time, but he paid it little mind.

From between a copse of trees and fog he emerged, wearing some garment halfway between cloak and jacket over his more usual attire. A saber hilt hung from a belt hook at his left side in place of knives or hatchets. Something about him had changed. Something in the Force, perhaps, or the way his shoulders were less tense than before, how he stood. His boots carried him through the trees close to Arla's side as she stood, eyes lingering on her for a moment longer.

She still existed in the Force and echoes still came from her like all life. But it was all muted, muffled, like a sound coming through walls over a great distance. Entirely indiscernible. It was at once a relief, concerning, curious, and jarring. What happened to her? He'd never encountered someone living he didn't get some impression of.

But then, he didn't need his gifts to notice Arla's general mood. It wasn't in her stoic expression, but her stance, her pointed ears a little. She was discomfited. Amber-gold eyes turned steadily, following silver toward the cocoon-like thing hanging from the tree, one of many in the grove.

Nakoa didn't know exactly what it was, nor did he ask. He stood there next to her as he always did, a familiar presence over the last few years. Arla would speak when she was ready. She could take her time. Nakoa would wait.

@Phoenix

 

[Arla]

Even having come to terms with her grief, standing here at the burial pod was difficult for Arla. She sensed the approaching presence of Nakoa, and she knew that meant it was time to get underway. How long before she would come back here again? She was certain she would return, but how long?

She pushed her mind out of the question and back into the present as she glanced over at Nakoa. This would require explanation.

She clenched her jaw for a moment before speaking.

That is my mother's burial pod, she said, motioning up to the pod that was hanging in front and above them.

She is the one that the Empire came here for, she said, letting the implications of the statement sink in.

There are thing in the palace that I want to recover if they weren't destroyed. Among them is information I think she had about the First Light. A Crimson Dawn ship that Apex could use, she said.

 

[Nakoa Singh]

There was a long pause as Nakoa took in this new information. He stood rather still, eyes seemingly locked on the pod that hung from the tree before them like some macabre fruit. There was no reason to suspect a lie from the Nightsister, so he believed her. The Empire came very publicly for Renry. Arla was the daughter of Queen Renfry, former Empress of the Sith Empire. And she was dead.

Arla's mother was gone. Perhaps she wondered what his reaction to all this information might be, the knowledge she was heir to a Queen, an Empress. It wasn't exactly common knowledge. But for the first few seconds, there were just the echo of her words and the burial pod reflected in his eyes.

Eventually, he rose a hand and gently placed it on her shoulder as he looked back at her. "I'm sorry, Arla." His touch lingered with his gaze for a moment, eyebrows lowered inward and lips slightly downturned. Then it slipped away as Nakoa took a step forward and rose his hands before himself, left hand over right with palms facing inward. "Álezenáál labá," he spoke quietly, holding that pose for a couple of seconds.

Air gently exhaled from his nose as he returned to Arla's side and she explained the other reason they were there. His brows lowered slightly, although this time a sign of thought rather than sympathy or anger. "Then I'll help you," he said with a tone of a man stating the obvious. "What else are we looking for?"

@Phoenix

 

[Arla]

Arla knew that the revelation would probably be surprising, and she thought back to when she'd first told Vahl. How she had fan-girled so hard that Arla had even felt jealous. She missed Vahliri sometimes, and wondered at the risk of reaching out to her old friend again.

True to his form, Nakoa took it stoically, and she wouldn't expecting anything less from him. His hand against her shoulder was a welcome feeling of reassurance. He moved forward and said words, and although she didn't understand them, she didn't need to. She just stood in silence, gritting her teeth again and blinking back the tear that threatened to roll from her eye.

She stepped back and turned away to think of it no longer.

Thank you, she said, starting to head away and in the direction of the palace.

She shook the fog of emotion from her mind and began to pick up her pace. The palace had been hit by multiple bombing runs, and even being half-encased in a mountain, had suffered devastating damage. But Arla knew that her mother had a vault deep within. One where she kept many of her greatest secrets and tools.

There is a vault in the palace, and I want to know if it survived, she said. The runes placed to protect it were profoundly powerful. If anything survived, it would be that.

As they drew closer, Arla's gut clenched. She hadn't seen the palace yet, but now that she did it was... hard. The palace had been her home growing up, and seeing it shattered and in ruins was difficult for her to swallow.

And then there were the dead. Imperials littered the ground through the canyon, and Arla could tell that the Nightsisters had put up a vicious fight.

I wish they would have just stayed away, she thought to herself.

Be wary of traps. I suspect the entire path to the palace will be laden with them, she said.

 

[Nakoa Singh]

Nakoa turned to follow Arla after one last, silent look at the burial pod. Then they were off again through the fog and trees, passing many others like it. A broken mountain in the distance grew closer and, for a moment, Nakoa's strides slowed before resuming. He seemed to avoid the bodies piled everywhere in the beginning stages of decay. Through the field of the dead they stepped, each taking in the horror and desolation of war they traveled through in their own separate ways.

He could tell this was hard for Arla. How could it not be? A palace bombed, her people killed for political posturing. All to make a point. Nakoa exhaled through his nose, a mixed expression settling on his face somewhere between somberness and ire. Abruptly, he stopped walking.

Off a belt hook he pulled a pair of brown leather gloves which he slipped on before crouching down. A large stone from some sort of landslide had crushed an officer- army lieutenant, from the uniform markings. With the sort of care one usually approached a flame he delicately moved the rock with the Force and removed the dead woman's sidearm kit and code cylinder. Both were stashed on Nakoa's belt. The cylinder looked damaged, but perhaps something could be recovered.

Amber-golds looked around as he resumed walking. "Mindless," he muttered to himself, barely audible. He glanced over at Arla when she spoke. "Traps? What kind?" he asked her, turning back to the palace. "Cliffs also?" Nakoa wasn't averse to just... climbing, and searching top-down. He didn't ask anything more specific about the palace itself, although he was deeply curious.

It felt... poorly timed.

@Phoenix

 

[Arla]

Any kinds of traps. Pit traps, clamp traps, magick runes, whatever was on hand, she said. Honestly, she didn't know, but she knew the kinds of things she would have done, and she was trained by her fellow Nightsisters.

Probably not, she said, though she hadn't suggested the cliffs primarily because she wasn't certain she wanted to teleport them both up there. If he suggested it, though, then who was she to argue?

The upper doors were probably trapped as well, but the bombs will likely have triggered them. Hopefully there will be some routes inside that are still open, she said, though if there weren't, she knew a spell to temporarily turn back the damage.

She turned back to the dead that Nakoa was examining, and her face somehow grew even more serious. She felt a rage at the Empire sending their people here, but even as she looked at the dead, she couldn't disagree with Nakoa.

It is a waste, she said, pausing a moment before speaking again. I am going to kill the governor who called for this invasion, she stated. Her mother had asked her not to devote herself to revenge, and while she wouldn't dedicate her whole life to it, that woman needed to be punished. Perhaps even her whole planet. A slow, agonizing death perhaps. Or being locked eternally within her own nightmares by Sith sorcery. Arla had spent more time fantasizing about it than she'd like to admit.

 

[Nakoa Singh]

Gloved fingers idly tapped against the blaster now wedged into Nakoa's utility belt. The same hand rose after a moment, palm up. It was approaching night, and creatures- big and small- that existed in wild places had awoken. He held his hand there without explanation while continuing to speak, though Arla would feel that distinct way his presence in the Force flowed into the world around them as he stretched out his senses.

"I could carry us up," he suggested. There wasn't much elaboration on that idea, attributed to his concentration on... whatever he was doing. Dark eyebrows fell when Arla mentioned the governor, amber-gold gaze turning from the cloudy sky to look at her. A pause.

"Which one?" That Jade character was to blame for her impassioned speech about justice, possiblytrap of words for the Imperial delegate. But so was Karn, who'd announced a military operation. Thing was, Nakoa didn't distinguish between their titles very well and Arla hadn't spoken a name. Notably, though, he hadn't disagreed, just asked for clarity.

A fat, fuzzy moth fluttered through the fog and landed on his open palm. His fingers gently closed over it like a leather-clad cage. He whispered to it in an old language that rang of the Force before letting it go and watching it fly off toward the mountain.

@Phoenix

 

[Arla]

I can get up, she said neutrally. She didn't seem either offended by or eager to accept his offer of help, but that shouldn't probably have come as any surprise to him by this point in time.

The woman who brought it up, she said. It was a simple statement, and Arla didn't want to linger on it anymore.

I will meet you at the top, she said, letting her essence flow into the Shadow and riding the current up to the top. As she erupted in a flash of green, she could almost sense the presence of her mother here still. The echoes of the ritual were still present, and Arla paused only a moment until Nakoa joined her before heading onward.

She walked to the collapsed entrance, squeezing her way inside and past several tons of fallen stone before walking into what had once been the throne room. Now, it was leveled. Pieces of the ceiling had fallen inward, crushing the throne and laying waste to many of the passages that came off of the main throne room.

If I ever rule, I'm making a better designed palace, she thought to herself, though the idea of her ruling seemed to stray farther and farther away with each passing day.

Arla led their way down one of the side tunnels, a tilt to the hall that led them down, deeper into the mountain.

I don't know what - if anything - will still be salvageable, but I anticipate it shouldn't be destroyed. At least based on the rest of the temple, she said.

 

[Nakoa Singh]

Nakoa's smirked slightly after Arla'd gone up herself, disappearing in a rush of emerald flame. Amber-gold eyes tried to follow the path of magick, eyebrows raised, but failed. It was very Arla of Arla, all things considered. Perhaps a good sign. He looked up the mountain in a brief moment of consideration before he followed.

A slow inward breath focused his will and he jumped, flitting up the cliff mountain like gravity had at best a tenuous hold on him. It took a little longer, but he eventually hopped over the edge. Nakoa almost seemed to float for a moment before a smooth exhale dropped his boots on the stone. After a glance at Arla, the palace drew his immediate interest.

Ducking under entrance debris, he stood again at full height to look around the throne room. Destroyed, with the signature carbon scoring of proton bombs amongst the widespread structural collapse. The whole place was empty and echoed with death, anger, and desperation. The wielding of life's powers to defy death. His expression was a mix of several things, thoughtful.

"I'll be with you. This was your home," Nakoa stated; obviously, he'd help. But this time there was an undercurrent to his voice: anger. It wasn't the way he came to life in a fight or when handling something challenging. It was personal, genuine anger. Whatever he'd been weighing in his silence, Nakoa agreed that the governor would pay her debt in blood.

They moved along, exploring a cracked side tunnel. For Nakoa this was all new and interesting, if somber. He couldn't imagine how Arla was handling it. Literally; he couldn't feel even a hint, something he found strangely comforting. "If it can be recovered, we'll find it," he assured her while looking around.

"I-" he abruptly stopped speaking, mouth twitching irritably. "Scout's dead." Nakoa meant the moth. Wouldn't be the first time Arla's seen him use small animals for that purpose. A hand was held up and he removed a basic glow rod from his belt and lit it to examine the floor. "Footprints?" That was a question; Arla'd be better able to tell if any markings or dust disturbance was old or new.

@Phoenix

 

[Arla]

It gave a measure of reassurance to her that he was committed to being here with her. It was a difficult thing to look at her home in ruins, but she reminded herself that she still had her Clan's village or her ship or now the Galactica. She still had dreams of opening a Fathier farm somewhere and she now had a family to fall back on that she'd never really known about before.

She followed his gaze down to the footprints in the dirt, and a flicker of green flame hovered above her hand to better light the way for them.

I'm sure that Aunt Síle had my our Clan clear out most of the palace so it wasn't looted, she said. Although it had been precarious, Síle had managed to narrowly survive the bombing of the Imperials. Of those who had summoned the dead during the battle, several had been killed by the bombs and Síle had been badly wounded, but recovered. She gritted her teeth together again as she thought of Aunt Sheehan who had not been so fortunate.

Tears threatened to spring to her eyes again and she shoved them down and away, focusing again on the area ahead of them.

There will probably be traps, she said. True enough, the path forward took the better part of an hour for the two of them to pick through each runic and conventional trap before finally arriving at the vault door.

It was a passage that appeared to be a dead end save for the runic symbols etched into the surface of the stone.

Mellon, Arla spoke, and the door began to rumble away, opening up on unseen grooves to reveal the vault inside. Not unlike the location on Ambria, a mixture of tubes, ingredients, and more lined one of the walls.

Several books and items lined the other wall, and Arla was surprised to even see a head of some monstrous-looking species floating in a jar of liquid.

 

[Nakoa Singh]

A confirmatory noise was Nakoa's only acknowledgment of 'Aunt Sile' clearing things out. Amber-gold eyes glanced over to Arla in the green-lit dark as she tensed, but nothing was said. Nor did he comment on anything but the traps as they moved along, apparently focused on the task at hand. At points, he might appear distracted. But only for a moment's time before it passed and there he was, reliable and focused as ever.

Nakoa examined the 'dead end', spotting a fat, fuzzy moth still on the dusty stone ground. That explained things. He glanced again at Arla as she spoke to open the way. "Password is a fruit?" he asked, unable to hold back that question. It wasn't exactly what he'd expected. But then he got distracted by the room itself. A massive laboratory/archive, a vault of secrets and experimentation.

His gloved hand hovered briefly in front of the preserved alien head. "Interesting," he commented quietly. To himself, he wondered what Renfry had been like. What she would've been like if he'd ever met her. Just from looking around, taking in the collection of tubes, tools, and bookshelves? Nakoa thought he might've liked her.

He looked at Arla. "I'll start on inventory, then?" It wasn't said as he began silently and carefully writing down the vault's contents, but he felt Arla might like some time to explore her mother's vault now that she was gone.

@Phoenix

 

[Arla]

It is not a fruit in our language. The word is Dathomiri for "friend," she said, actually cracking a smile as she imagined him sitting there thinking that she had just spoken some fruity word. This was followed by the idea of him walking to dead ends in the palace and quietly whispering "cantelope."

Contrary to Nakoa's expectation, Arla seemed to take no time to look through the room, but immediately began loading items up into bags for transport out. Whatever this was to Arla, her mind seemed focused on the business.

We can inventory in hyperspace, she said. There was much to go through and little time.

---​

As it turned out, they made relatively good time. Once Arla had ensured there were no traps at the upper landing pad, they were able to load most everything of value from the vault before closing it back up. An assortment of ingredients and mundane items were left behind as well as the Swoke-Swoke head (because why would they take that and why did Mother even have it?), but there were only a few things that truly stood out to Arla.

As they loaded the items back onto the Explorer Arla found herself drawn to the crystal ball. She held it in her hand and held it up for Nakoa to see.

I foresee this being invaluable for our hunts, she said, leaving him to decide whether that pun was an intentional joke or a happy little accident.

@Mr. Teatime

 

[Nakoa Singh]

Nakoa blinked and committed Mellon to memory, a hand rubbing along his neck. Yeah, her answer made more sense. Then he got to work carefully packing things up. He still memorized the appearances of things, owing to who he was as a person. Lists for later.

Back on the Explorer, he swept a bit of red dust off some heavy tome before placing it back on a stack. His attention turned to the crystal ball Arla held up, drawn to its shining surface and swirling viridescent interior. Nakoa approached, examining the object with a soft chuckle at Arlas maybe-or-maybe-not a joke. He looked at her.

"May I?" he asked, holding out a hand. Whether or not she was willing to let him handle the orb, his next question was, "How's it used?" Ever curious, of course.

@Phoenix

 

[Arla]

She handed the orb over to Nakoa as he asked how to use it. It was an unusual tool, and one she had never actually used herself.

His question about technique caused her hesitation that was simply ingrained after many, many years of being a Nightsister, but he had proven himself time and again to be reliable and trustworthy.

You can draw portions of an ur-Spirit into it, using it to locate objects or people, she explained. In some instances, it can be used to assist in divination as well, but that is less reliable and a practice I am... skeptical of, she said. Divination was a technique of the Nightsisters, but it was one that she had heard many times did not end well for the practitioner.

Used to locate things like one First Light starship, she said, holding her hand back out once again to take it back.

She took it into the other room and began speaking in Dathomiri, waving her hands over it as she conjured up images through the orange mist. Hopefully images that the two of them would be able to put into something coherent enough to give them a location.

@Mr. Teatime

 

[Nakoa Singh]

The orb was held delicately in slender, leather-gloved fingers as if it was a newborn bird. Slowly he turned it over to gaze into the bright green mists, reflected like dancing shadows across amber-gold eyes. When Arla spoke those eyes left the object and found hers, listening close. "I see. Can envision a great many uses." He finished pondering the orb and passed it back over when prompted. Whether that was a joke or not was up to Arla to decide.

Nakoa followed her and watched the process. Now rather than mist reflected, a distant place was slowly formed within the glass.

Far and away, across the universe, a planet of sand and sirocco that blew over high-domed cities, diamonds in the desert. Passing by, to a hilly plain swept by constant rain over shapely rock formations. There in the rain perched a bird. Its voice, bright and joyful, carried through the storms. It took flight from the sand and glass, wingbeats rapid, ephemeral stars passing it by without a care. It flew ever further, to a place of natural stone and manmade metal. There it made a nest, one of black steel and fine silks, obsidian and food at the hearth. It flew away.

The nest lay empty. Even as the sky turned endlessly from horizon to horizon, as stars passed by, it was empty. Grew did the nest while the bird was gone. More metal, more silks, more strange and shiny trinkets vague to the eye. Gone was the smell of food. Gone was the joy in song.

And when the bird returned, that song was sonorous and somber. A dirge it sung, only once, in a nest without warmth. It flew away, and it did not again return.

The reflected vision ended, and it was quiet in the ship.

"Mandalore system?" Nakoa asked quietly and with little context.

@Phoenix

 

[Arla]

Unfortunately, the joke went directly over Arla's head, and she simply took it as face value, which really should have been no surprise to anyone who knew her.

Arla conjured the vision within the ball, letting the echoes of the place's presence in the Shadow bounce throughout its glass surface. Memories of death and haunted loss lingered in the air before vanishing back into the orange fog.

I am glad you recognized it, she said. It would have made things far more difficult and tedious otherwise, but it was not something that they had to worry about now.

You have been there before? she asked. She knew of the Mandalorians and what they had done. They had squabbled among themselves rather than bind together under a single leader to fight together. Was that the same with the Nightsisters? Was it her responsibility now to make them unified with her mother gone?

She moved back to the ship's controls and took a seat, keying in the sequence to take them on a hyperspace jump to the Mandalore sector.

@Mr. Teatime

 

[Nakoa Singh]

Amber-golds slipped slowly away from the seeing stone at the sound of Arla's voice, looking a little spaced out for a moment before snapping back in to answer. "No. Academic study for a dissertation. Seen pictures." The wrecked landscape, blasted by wars against Jedi, fellow Mandalorians, and the Empire was distinctively marked by glass domes where people preferred to live. Nakoa didn't recognize the more rainy landscape and would choose that over a damn desert.

"Another world burned by its people," he grumbled quietly, following Arla to the cockpit and sinking into the copilot's chair. He blinked. "Mandalore the planet, I mean. Don't know the rainy one." The Mandalore system had many worlds and moons in orbit of its star. He snapped his fingers twice, trying to remember. With Nakoa, though, if he didn't remember he probably never knew in the first place.

Shrugging, he stared at his copilot's console for a moment- the Very Little Gravitas used a modified, manual switch control board for the most part- before hitting some buttons to transfer power for lightspeed. His eyes glanced at Arla. Without a word, he pulled a snack bag from some belt pouch- bacon jerky, from the look of things- and offered it over.

"What kind of ship is 'First Light'?"

@Phoenix

 

[Arla]

I don't want to ever bring outsider's wars to my planet again, she said without any warning as he finished talking about the Mandalorians and their history. It was why she had made Apex: to shield the people she cared about from retribution. It was inevitable that the clans would war amongst themselves, but all of them cared for Dathomir still. War among themselves was... different.

The ship shuttered as it leapt to lightspeed, and he inquired about the ship they were pursuing. She didn't really know how to answer his question, so she settled on a straightforward answer.

It is a very large yacht. Huge, she said. It wasn't a warship, but the size of the yacht itself was an excellent option for a mobile base or meeting point.

 

[Nakoa Singh]

Nakoa munched away at his own morsels of bacon jerky, gaze lingering for a little while on Arla after her pronouncement before wandering away to find the stars. He didn't speak as the ship stretched forward in the flash of blue-white that painted itself over the black tapestry around them. Slender fingers tapped, three times rapid, on the chair arm.

Both hands folded in front of him, eyes straight ahead. "Where I am from, when there is a burden, we all lift together. We are taught independence, to learn. But, also to seek others when one is not enough. " Nakoa softly breathed in, then out. "Once, Draedans invaded us, and we drove them out with help from Mon Cala. The CIS invaded us with machines, and we threw them out with help from the Republic and their Jedi. Palpatine's Empire blockaded our world to starve us, and we traded with smugglers to survive."

The Wrean leaned back in his chair, still looking straight ahead. Rambling unusually, Nakoa took a moment to gather his next few words. "You won't bring war to your people, Arla. And if war comes again, because of you, they will not fight alone." He paused. Then, he leaned forward to stand from his seat, a hand squeezing Arla's shoulder.

"We lift together," Nakoa said, before making to walk toward the hold.

@Phoenix