On the Nature of Death

[The Storyteller]

Spoiler: Music IC

Big galaxy. Big planet. Big city. Big disc.
This place, that is, this kind of mini-city.
Not really, it’s more like a city’s district.
It has the makings of one, can live in it.

Some did, some folks who were poor or rich.
It catered to all, it said, this place high in the sky.
Above the city lights of Coruscant, buildings so big.
Beyond the Palace District, whatever such, O so high.

Words. Words burned. Twi’lek kid can’t fathom it, how he can’t think of them.
How they enter his head, slip between skin and bone, given he does not know.
He isn’t the most intelligent of Twi’leks, wouldn’t call himself a man, no, not yet.
He isn’t the brightest of bulbs, even some in the Jedi Order said, but is not alone.

There in this place, he feels naked, though he has clothes upon his body, garments.
Sports a jacket, suede of grey, with orange patches, like his complexion, this Twi’lek.
Black jeans, a bit baggy, and white sneakers, dirtied by playing frisbee with children.
He had his wits about his noggin, not many, least he knew that purity rested within.

He wasn’t much, wasn’t anything really, sitting there on a settee, sofa, call it a couch.
It reminded him how so many things were similar in this galaxy, like on the viewscreen.
Above a bar, playing silent television, muted for the music, violins, and a man’s listening.
A young man, he is, the Twi’lek, watching a man and woman kiss, spreading arms around.

In that movie, and beneath, at the bar in the lounge beside the restaurant, where life is calm.
Conversations are quiet, most folk preferring it, if not taken to silence, checking out datapads.
An old woman with a cat in her lap, he looks at her and she looks back, he looks away, moves on.
A mother, a father, and he had those too, somewhere, but they feel farther than a dusty old man.

Ah what am I even saying, hey? He thinks, still a boy, rubbing a cheek, hearing his own silent voice.
Thoughts in his head, he can never quiet them, always thinking of this or that, forward and back.
He thinks of the past, rolling liquid in a glass, like melted time, but it’s just wine, and maybe why.
Might be why his thoughts are blurry. He isn’t drunk, not quite, but drank enough to feel…alive…

You know better than to drink liquor on an empty stomach...feller. Is wine even considered a liquor?
It mattered less than the dead mattered in the grave. Jedi don’t contemplate it. Corrects this kid.
A kid, that’s all he is, and stupid. Ignorant of his own power, joined the Order because prompted.
Funny, how life works, because if it wasn’t for that Sith, Kayden Skyler, he may not have found it.

Hoowee, Sith are an ugly disease, hey. He agrees with himself, lifting glass to lips, taking in white wine.
It tasted sublime, and maybe it was Moscato, or maybe it was Kookamando, given the varieties.
He didn’t know, just asked the bartender for white wine, and made himself old enough to drink.
His age, that’s another thing that meant a hill of peas, for Tacovean Delminar…he is…asleep.

“They could at least include closed captions,” comes a voice from beside him, on the same setti.
Further to his left, at the end, with a single cushion in between, and it is red as red, like the rest.
“Yeah! Kissing in the rain but now I don’t know what they say!” Twi’lek said, there to that Human.
A woman, black of mane, dark skin, with her uncanny presence. Can’t put finger on it. “Hiya, friend.”

He blurted, suddenly thirsted, taking another sip.
Truthfully, it was to cover up how he was an idiot.
Clearing his throat, goes for the intro. “I’m Taco.”
Extends right hand. She looks back. “I’m Kam.”

 

[The Storyteller]

Spoiler: Music IC [Recurring]

Small universe. Small creatures. Small ship. Small person.
Everything was small to her given what a woman birthed.
When you carry it inside yourself, life was larger than life.
When born to birth, the galaxy burned before your eyes.

It did before hers, anyway, when she sleeps and when she dreams.
Am I sleeping even now? She asks herself, blinking at an ebony ceiling.
Am I dreaming now? She wonders, trapped within herself, blinking.
Life is meaningless anyhow, learned that long ago, as a baby sleeps.

Death was the only truth, the end of everything, though it made many weep.
I made so many cry. So many die. One corner of his lips turns upward just then.
She enjoyed it, relished it, like building a ceiling, there as she sits on that setti.
In a city, a world of one, on Coruscant, sitting on a cloud, whether she dreams.

Such bugs. How they’d run. How I did have fun... That woman, that Sith, is what she is.
She never denied it, never tried to hide it, not like him, not in silence, not in Silence.
Hers was open, having given in, embraced the naked condition of it all, just sailing.
Power, she’d admit, she craved it, chasing Hutt treasure for herself in her Wailing.

The cosmos, a fractured state of existence, blinded by the light and dark side both.
The universe called itself a place to live in, to exist within it, but it was a poor excuse.
This woman had learned long ago that the galaxy gave birth to monsters, so to her too.
The only way to thrive and survive was to embrace the darkness, pain and hate, to loathe.

So she moved, she danced, she glued her hands to the hilt of her lightsaber, as her hands burned.
The Force at her fingertips, crackling lightning, grinning if not cackling, like two lovers onscreen.
That man and woman beneath the ceiling, right there in that lounge on The Dreaming Cloud.
Nameless fools. Their tale would end with the last sentence of the movie. For everyone bleeds.

Just as she had, as her uterus had bled, as her womb had bled, though no tears were shed.
Not at the end, at the end of it all. When the ceiling falls… Like her eyelids. Darkness crawls.
Her eyes open, there in the span of a slow blink, slow motion, sitting on that setti, with glass.
Dressed in burgundy, maybe maroon, charcoal too, her dress, turning wine in her two hands.

A chair to her left, a Devaronian within it, on his datapad, while at her right sits a male Twi’lek.
She doesn’t look at him, eyes to the sky, for she gazes beyond viewscreen, staring into her life.
Morons. Kissing in the middle of the street. Hopefully they’d get run over and learn of their death.
They kiss, exchange secrets, but the lounge’s speakers drown the dialogue out, with violin abright.

“They could at least include closed captions,” she shakes her head, taking a sip of her red wine.
Merlot, maybe Scervenot, given the diversity in this galaxy. Speaking to herself, a voice at her right.
It’s that Twi’lek guy. “Yeah! Kissing in the rain but now I don’t know what they say!” Oh. Well then.
He sounded like an idiot anyway. Looked like one in her peripheral vision. Speaks again. “Hiya, friend.”

By the stars this blubbering buffoon better not be trying to chat me up. She takes another sip.
She is calm, so composed, like that caressing violin, despite her murder within her very bone.
She had maimed and murdered, Kamelle Skyler, and killed kids. Is this idiot a kid? “I’m Taco.”
He extends a hand. Hers on wine glass, other on belly, empty, she lifts it to the idiot. “I’m Kam.”

 

[The Storyteller]

Spoiler: Music IC [Recurring]

Taco​

Kam.
The name rang.
Like a bell’s clang.
Kam… Kam… Kam...

Taco recited that word in his noggin like a dead man recites poetry in his coffin.
Whatever the heck that meant, hey, as Taco’s thoughts begin to drift well away.
“Hiya, Kam,” the Twi’lek man smiles the Human woman’s way. “I’m...I’m Taco.”
He stares, he gulps, she stares, her eyes roll. Oh… Right. Heh, Already said so.

He had a bad habit of doing that, quackin’ like a duck or at least something of one, or something.
“Tell ya what, the wine is pretty great! Dunno know if ya like wine but you seem to with the glass.”
He pointed at the glass in her hand. Her wine was red while his was white. She just stared back.
“Haha.” Hand rubs the back of his head. He smiles. “Not like saying you’re a drunk or anything.”

Truth be told Taco wasn’t the best person to be talking to women, especially the pretty ones.
Last girlfriend he had was O’mad, a Corellian. “Half-Human, half-Mirialan and half-Zabrak.”
This other woman just keeps staring back with a look like ‘What the crap?’ Oh…oh man…
“Ha, soz, did I say that out loud? Just thinkin’ back, hey. So what brings ya to this place?”

She has his gaze, he has her gaze, eyes into eyes, but the way this chick just looked at him.
What’s she thinkin’? Do ya even wanna know, Taco? Nah, probz not. Her eyes were…distant.
He couldn’t put his finger on it, this stranger sitting beside him, in her dark red garment dress.
She was a hottie, no mistake, but with a face that made him feel uneasy. Like a look of...death.

Still, O’mad looked at him that way once after he failed to pay their tab at this one restaurant.
In Taco’s defense, he had left his wallet with his mom and only had three credit chits on him.
Dang, Mom was mad at me too, hey. Whaddya gonna do? So he sips his wine as she stares on.
Silent, like a snake in the grass waiting to strike, bite. She spreads her lips just then, grins.

@Die Shize

 

[The Storyteller]

Spoiler: Music IC [Recurring]

She listened quietly, like an ocean without waves, as this moron continued flapping his jaw.
Words came out, or the poor attempt at speech, rather. Taco. ‘Donut’ would be more fitting.
He pointed at her glass of wine, wasn’t calling her a drunk, then again his math was flawed.
Half-Human, half-Mirialan, half-Zabrak? Kriffing idiot. She gave nothing away of her thinking.

The Twi’lek finally made a pointed question from all his tongue-wagging to the woman by him.
Had I known I’d be sitting next to a fool I might have kicked the damn Devaronian out of the chair.
Donut met Kam’s eyes but appeared to think otherwise, visibly stiffening beneath her stare.
Could be an amusing distraction. Not in the way he wanted. The thought just made her grin.

“The same thing that brings you to this place, I imagine,” she answered his question.
He arced a brow at that, like the universe had just told him his face went with his name.
“As in…recreation?” Looks left, looks right. He tries to keep up. “The point of this place..?”
“Ohhhh ya don’t say, hey!” He tapped his glass in celebration. “It’s definitely the occasion!”

“Indeed. Though I’m pretty content to rest instead of play. You look more suited to the arcade.”
Donut scratched his lekku as if embarrassed at that truth. “Ha! I guess! Plenty of cool games.”
Kam offered the young man a shrug. Her eyes narrowed, sensing something other than dumb.
“The casino is more my thing, if I’m honest.” She took another sip. “So…want to have some fun?”

If an orange-skinned Twi’lek could blush, this one just did. “Hm? Hey? L-Like…on a date..?”
Kam rolled her eyes. “Not if the galaxy was burning. But suddenly I’m feeling adventurous.”
Maybe it was the wine, maybe it was the fool sitting beside her, but she did not want to wait.
“Let’s play a game. Two games. One in the casino, one in the arcade. If you’re up to it, that is.”

He tapped his glass again, this time to indicate wheels might actually be turning in his skull.
“What’s the catch?” Kam smiled back. “If you beat me in the casino, I’ll tell you a little secret.”
Donut rubbed his chin at that. “However, if I beat you in the arcade then you give me your soul.”
Silence. If color could drain from an orange face then his just did. “Ya…surely don’t…mean it..?”

@Die Shize

 

[The Storyteller]

Spoiler: Music IC [Recurring]

Taco​

At first, Taco could hardly believe it, given he was on edge by the ease of words in her breath.
Turned out she didn’t want to go out but play a game, two games, and Taco couldn’t believe it.
So…she wants my soul… He had a feeling all along of who this woman might be, like a cold death.
The Twi’lek gulped back wine and hoped he wouldn’t vomit it. It can't be...she's a…businesswoman…

And Taco was simply just the hapless victim of a saleswoman’s next sale to in turn bleed his pockets dry.
“Hey, wait, do ya work for a hologame developer or a publisher?” Held up a finger. “There’s a difference.”
“...Wha?” For a moment, they blinked at each other. Eyes into eyes. Then again, she might always just lie.
“Okay. Fine. If I win, you tell me a secret.” Maybe she’s an undercover agent? “If you win, it's my soul. Bet.”

“Okay then.” The woman, Kam, nodded, finished her wine, licked her lips.
“So, casino first or arcade first?” His head tilted. “I say we should flip for it.”
“Oh so kinda like a game of chance before a game of luck or skill then, huh?”
“...Yeah…” Her eyes went up and around. “Why not. We can roll with that, hon.”

Oh hey heyyyyy she just called me hon!
“So…wait…do you flip or do I flip, hey?”
“I’ll flip it. Heads, casino. Tails, arcade.”
“Okay. Use my coin. It gives me luck.”

Taco passed over his good old lucky charm, a coin belonging to his grandmother, Poak’aw.
It was dated something or other, the date was deteriorated, and it showed a smiling face.
“Uh…” Kam gave the coin her gaze. “Is that a…Wermal?” Its one giant eye just gazed on.
“From a long, long time ago in a—” -PING!- She didn’t wait for him to finish his phrase.

The coin flipped, a shiny pink ching-ching that went flippity-flip, and time kinda slowed.
Seemed to, to Taco, like the universe had just told him it had a secret stash of big tacos.
By the time it landed in a hand, Kam’s other hand covered it, and Taco thought of sauce.
Casino, and maybe I unlock her mystery. Arcade, she may yet eat me. Taco held onto hope.

A grin spread from corner to corner on her lips as she lifted her hand but stared at him.
Taco’s eyes went down. He wondered if so delicate a hand could choke him in its fist.
“IT’S HEADS.” Taco raised a fist. “The casino it is! Away we go! I’m already feelin’ it!”
Taco was not much of a gambler but if he lost at least Taco’s soul would still be his.

“So be it.” The woman didn’t even look down to confirm the coin, just flipped it back.
“May the best player win.” What did she mean by that? At the casino or the real game?
Game of luck, game of chance, game of destiny, whatever it was, her eyes kinda flashed.
An instant, glazing like chocolate icing. Suddenly Taco wished the coin had hit the arcade.

“Wait,” he delayed. “What if you win at the casino and if I win at the arcade?”
“Nothing,” she shrugged. “It’s all about who wins at the other person’s game.”
Tentacles and spectacles. That’s deep. “What if…we both win…or we both lose?”
She sighed. “Win: secret, soul. Lose: nothing, nothing. That said, time to move.”

“What if . . . ” She got up. He didn’t.
“ . . . I win, you lose, I lose, or...if...I win...”
He considered the ceiling. Red. Almost pink.
Blinked. Kam’s in the distance. “Wait for me!”

@Die Shize

 

[The Storyteller]

Spoiler: Music IC

Kamelle​

The casino, every gambler’s cup of tea, glass of whiskey, pairing well with any drink.
Any beverage, something to eat, a fistful of credits, cash out, or go bankrupt, go empty.
Fools, really, those who wasted away chasing dreams of chance to make all the money.
Yet, some did, winners amid losers, deft hands, luck and skill, for greed was very hungry.

Games. One hundred fifty days of games. Nights too. Do the math, hundred to a thousand.
Here or there, in this recreation station and beyond, someone was always rolling the dice.
Shuffling the cards, pulling the lever, pressing the button and hoping to win the mountain.
Hundreds of souls, thousands, trillions, sold to the fountain of the wager, frozen like ice.

Morons. Thought one woman while she walked along and across the floor of a grand casino.
Winner or loser, the denizens of gamblers within this den were rather out of tune with truth.
Draw the card, play the hand, deal the chips, steal the credits, blinded by the one so cloaked.
The house always won, they said, but fortune wasn’t the victor, the Force was, moving in tune.

“Fate. Chance.” The woman sucked air between her teeth, tasting hints of cinnamon, coconut.
“Married. Divorced.” She shrugged, and the man beside her shrugged at her shrug. “Eh, my bad.”
She glanced at his gormless features. “Kinda just thinking out loud.” About how you are an idiot.
He wasn’t alone. Yet, it didn’t take intelligence to experience the thrill of gambling one’s hand.

The casino was big, if ‘big’ was an understatement, utilizing an entire space solely dedicated.
It could almost pass for a structure of its own; that was the purpose of The Dreaming Cloud.
To escape everyday reality, whether in a restaurant, at the bar, hotel, casino, or the arcade.
Night, day, this was every sucker’s getaway, and by other suckers were they surrounded.

Kamelle Skyler walked around, taking it all in, with slot machines on the left, an old woman.
Clapping to the ceiling, her winning spitting out tickets, and on the right was a fortune wheel.
An announcer spoke louder than the music and chatter as to be heard; colors for coordinates.
Bingo, but Kamelle ambles on, past the roulette wheel, dice tumbling, past cards laid for a deal.

All around her, gamblers, observers; the cesspool of genders and species and characters to her.
Sipping champagne, chewing onion rings, watching and listening if not partaking in the games.
Greed. Glory. Sickening. She grit her teeth, resisting her better self, as Kamelle turned toward.
Facing her companion, spreading her lips, the casino was yet her thing. “What shall we play?”

Options, the pair had them, from pazaak to blackjack, sabacc to poker, among all the others.
No arcade, but a casino was full of games, and it didn’t take a Sith to play. She lived for this.
That thrill of letting the universe determine the outcome of dice escaping from her fingers.
Mingling and mixing with its servants, its slaves, in the greater game. I wonder who will win…

@Die Shize

 

[The Storyteller]

Spoiler: Music IC (Recurring)

Taco​

Entering the casino, at first it was all Taco could do to keep from breaking into a bit of a jig.
The music was absolutely truly groovy, but he wasn’t an idiot who dances all of a sudden.
He settled for bobbing his head, totally entranced by the amenities in this establishment.
All kinds of gambling devices, games ranging from roulette to poker to sommat sommat.

He didn’t recognize everything, was not much of a gambler as he was a gamer anyway.
He did yet wave at passers-by, one gentleman in a cowboy hat. “Hey hey, there you are!”
“Well, hi, do I know you?” He smiled wide. “Nope, but that’s where you are, you're there!”
Taco smiled back as the man just blinked at him. He passed a champagne glass and cigar.

Kam had said something about fate and chance and so it was Taco’s turn to blink at her.
“Where?” He looked around for games named Fate and Chance but he didn’t see either.
She moved onto ‘married’ and ‘divorced’ as he shrugged. “Are those like…poker terms?”
They moved on from that, walked and he thought he'd take her hand. Thought better.

The pair of man and woman weren’t really on a date so much as engaged in their game.
Stroking his lekku in consideration, Taco remembered its dangers. He recalled the stakes.
If I win in this casino, she tells me her secret. If she wins at the arcade then my soul is claimed.
He shuddered at it. It wasn’t really the way he wanted her to touch him. “What shall we play?”

“Well we could play pazaak,” he gestured yonder. “Or sabacc.” Further. “Blackjack or poker.”
“Right,” Kam nodded. Taco pondered. “Blackjack…sabacc…” Hummed. “Or pog racing…”
“Please pick something,” she sighed. “Before I change my mind and k— Oh, why…hello.”
He didn’t like the sound of her tone. “Hm’what? Hi?” She just stood there smiling, staring.

“See that?” A few tables nearby. Gamblers sitting at each one anywhere from two to five.
The setup was like poker only the tabletops were suspiciously empty. They just had cups.
“What’s that? A drinking game?” He felt Kamelle roll her eyes. “Upside down cups, bud...”
Right. Liquid would spill. Heh. Cups lifted. He saw what was beneath. “That is Liar’s Dice.”

@Die Shize

 

[The Storyteller]

Spoiler: Music IC

Kamelle

​

There comes a time in a woman’s life when she has to realize that something just isn’t working quite right. Maybe it’s her mind. Maybe it’s the time that she is living in as her past rewinds behind her eyes, life passes her by, and she’s thinking ‘Why why why?’

As the music shifts in this establishment with its environment of gambling it’s actually pretty interesting when it comes to wondering how things might have been if her brother was never in the picture. A monster, many called him, though fortunately the galaxy didn’t.

He was never infamous. Important thing to remember with Kayden Skyler is that he operated in the darkness. Kept his life out of the limelight. The public wasn’t much to him. He had a greater purpose in this universe. Or so he told his sister. She never really listened even when she heard him. He was a bit of an idiot.

Even when she spoke to him in his head as if she was dead.

Whatever those moments, she passed them on the path and moved past it.

“Liar’s Dice,” she told the idiot with gormless eyes. Reminded him more like. She had already explained the game twice and two times was too many times.

“So…” The orange Twi’lek guy sitting beside her just blinked at her. “...Five dice…put ‘em in a cup…shake ‘em up…upside down…I don’t like frowns…guess how many kinda dice are on the table…say it isn’t so or call it spot on or raise the stakes kinda like that game of poker…I like bubbles...Tom’s your brother's nuncle…and that’s how we play the game, hey?”

“Yes.”

“OKAY! I get it! I dig it!” Taco expressed with both arms raised. Taco. What a stupid, stupid name. He had the face of a burrito so Kamelle, whose name was so much better in so many ways, wouldn’t hold it against him.

Her own person, and the universe better remember it. She might have been the twin sister of Kayden Skyler but she was Kamelle Skyler. She would not be forgotten.

“We play.”

Dice tumble and rumble. Music plays ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ as an instrumental. Idiot Twi’lek kid needs a bit of mental help. Then again, as much as could be said about Kayden, the same could be said about Kamelle.

“Wait,” Taco proclaimed. Great.
“I feel like…spacetime changed.”
That’s right. Good time to grow a brain.
“Like some box of formatted text, hey?”

 

[The Storyteller]

Spoiler: Music IC (Recurring)

Taco

Okay! Time to play! This is gonna be a great game, hey! Except…oh wait…right…if I lose this game called Liar’s Dice then…what happens again?

Taco is lost in thought about it. He reminded himself what the hell was going on as he caught sight of an Ewok dancing in a thong onstage. Oh. Wait. That’s a sumo wrestler on the HV viewscreen thingamajiggy!

If Taco loses Kamelle’s game in this casino then she takes his soul.
If Kamelle loses Taco’s game in the arcade then she tells a secret.
Whatever happened, either way, give it to the guy, hey, he’s bold!
Brave. A bit brazen? Maybe. But he won’t run away! No! Not even!

“We play.”

“Wait,” Taco proclaimed. Heyy...
“I feel like…spacetime changed.”
Time infinite? Lip? Tulip? Oceanic gaze?
“Like some box of formatted text, hey?”

“...”
“...”
“...”
“??”

“Hiya guys! It’s me, Bone Katana! Mind if I play?”
“Oh I’m sorry but this game is private now fuc—”
“Oh sure sure, hey! Plenty of space I say! YAY!”
“GREAT. Name’s Bone Katana. Mind if— YUP!”

Taco and Bone shake hands as Kamelle looks between man and woman. Well, technically she’s a female Mandalorian in a helmet. Her outfit is black and purple and—

“Woaaahhh radical! Is that sigil of a Hippo?”
“Yeah! It’s my clan’s signet! I’m a Mandalorian! Bone Katana of Clan Hippo! HUZZAH!”

Her excitement was contagious. Taco and Bone raise hands for a high five. All right! This is gonna be a better night than I ever expected to get with this kinda mean lady to be honest maybe she wants to like eat me or sommat I dunno but she’s looking at me with some wicked eyes like I’m about to die—

“All right. Fine.” There’s a grin on Kamelle’s lips that makes Taco want to scratch this itch on his noggin. Then his lekku. Then his nose. Hopefully Bone doesn’t get as itchy as he does though! “You can play…on one condition…”

“..?”

“Ope?”

“If you win…” Oh no. “I tell you a secret…”
“Oh really!? Oh that sounds awesome!”
“Uhh Kam-Kam I thought we wanted—”
“If I win—” “Can I invite Uncle Steven?”

“No, no. Anyway. As I was saying. If I win, you give me your soul.”

“...”

“!!!”

“I’ll give it to you in my helmet! It’s a bowl! Let’s go!”
“Splendid. We play…FINALLY. Sorry. Ahem. Tumble.”
-Clicky-clacky-rickety-rackety- those fifteen dice go.
“Cups down. No cheating.” “Welcome to the jungle!”