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Road to Nowhere
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| Karth·DeQora | Date: Tuesday, 01 Sep 2015, 0:24 AM | Message # 1 |
 Officer
Group: Users
Messages: 54
Status: Offline
| Night had fallen, and the world was enveloped in darkness.
Imperial decree had stated that the citizenry were to be in their homes as early as sundown, and the lights of Phemiss dwindled as they distanced themselves from their blunder. Karth was thankful, at least, that the mistake had been made here rather than on Coruscant. New Plympto was of little interest to the Empire, the lack of sufficient resources and manpower would make their escape much easier. The wind buffeted his unkempt hair as the cramped speeder sped across the plains, his eyes cast downward as he rolled the small holocron in a gloved palm. It was such a little thing, a relic an old friend had left him, and he had buried it along with her.
Slowly, his gaze turned to the raven-haired ghost in the seat beside him. So far they had ridden in silence, neither of them willing to broach what was quite possibly the most difficult question they would ever have to ask each other. Karth opened his mouth to speak, to say anything, but no words came.
You have to ask her, the voice in his head demanded, as stern as the day it had died. Karth steeled himself, turning again to Daneira with a renewed purpose, the anger long gone from his eyes. Now they were hollow, dark as black holes.
"I don't understand," he finally said, in a voice that barely carried above the wind. "I checked, when the two-twelfth moved on. I checked the entire field. Your body was gone."
It wasn't a question, it was firm and declarative, as if to say 'this can't be possible.' But it was, it had to be. She was here, not two feet away from him, were he a braver man he could reach out and touch her. The thought occurred to him, however briefly, but he buried it as quickly as it had come. He wasn't sure what held him back, perhaps out of some fear that if he were to acknowledge her presence, she would vanish. He wanted, so desperately, for it to be real.
"I searched, for so long, D," Karth murmured, cradling his forehead in his hand as the memories came flooding back. "You were dead. I was so sure, I couldn't sense you, I couldn't... couldn't see you. You were dead. How can you be here, now?"
Karth De'Qora, Fugitive Jedi
"It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end." ~Ernest Hemingway
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| Daneira_Farris | Date: Tuesday, 01 Sep 2015, 9:24 PM | Message # 2 |
 Officer
Group: Users
Messages: 33
Status: Offline
| "Do you remember that long weekend we spent in our apartment on Ixltar?" Daneira started. "It was raining. It rained for days, and we barely left our bed. You told me that I occupied your thoughts all of the time, and that it made it difficult to concentrate in battle. I never told you that I had the same problem, and maybe I should have." She remembered the apartment fondly. It was sparse, and they had only what they needed; a place to sleep, a table and chairs, few dishes, and some meditation mats. The loft was home, none the less. She and Karth had spent some of their better days there. Dani had written it all down in the battered leather journal that was now laying on her lap.
She would continue. "The tank exploded." Daneira said. She could almost hear the explosions, smell the smoke, and feel the heat on her flesh all over again. "I jumped off and rolled out of the way just in time. Then I saw where you had been, or where I thought you had been, and Crass....our clones....they were firing bolt after bolt into a body on the ground." She paused, looking away for a moment as she did, and she tapped her fingertips against the soft, weathered cover of the journal.
"I could not sense you anymore, so I ran to try and get to you....I did not know that it was not you." Her hand went to her shoulder and she rubbed the place where her scar was, through her shirt. "I felt the first shot here. And when I turned around, there were five clones. I did the best I could, but more came, and they overwhelmed me. I was so intent on getting to you, I lost my concentration." Dani lifted the hem of her shirt and revealed an ugly scar from a blaster bolt through her abdomen. It had missed any major organs, but the wound had still been critical.
There was a smaller scar next to it. "I fought until I was backed up to the river, and went in, and stayed under until I was far enough from the field. Dom found me about 25 kilometers down river. He took me in, he took care of me until I was well." She told him with a sigh.
"Karth...I went back to find your body. Your lightsaber. Your robes. Anything...and there was nothing except burnt out equipment and scorched earth. I could barely walk, but I went back."
"...I have wished for years that I had died in your place."
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| Karth·DeQora | Date: Sunday, 06 Sep 2015, 1:27 AM | Message # 3 |
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Officer
Group: Users
Messages: 54
Status: Offline
| He did remember, all too well. It was a time where they were happier, even in wartime they at least had each other to fall back on. Karth fought back a smile at the memory, their home away from home. Where once he could vividly remember the etching on the walls, the smell of the aged curtains. Now, like everything else, it all turned to ash in his mind's eye. He sometimes wondered if he could ever get back there, again. To a place where the past no longer stalked him like a pervasive shadow. Maybe, with her alive, he could, one day.
Karth was silent as he listened to her recount what she remembered, how she spoke of not finding his body just like he could not find her own. The greatest tragedy of it all was that they had both looked for one another on the field, to no avail.
When she fell silent, having shown him the scar, he could sense the sadness threatening at the edges of her mind. He thought to spare her from speaking on it further, and instead he reached up to the collar of his jumpsuit and tugged the neckline downward, baring his collarbone for her to see the scar from the knife. It was faint, aged over twenty years and weathered, but clearly visible. A faint maroon gash running from his collarbone and down his pectoral.
"Crass stabbed me in the back," he started, softly. The speeder had slowed to make it through some rough terrain, and there was no longer a need to shout. "Not a moment after I saw your tank go up in flames. I didn't even have time to register what was happening. I felt a surge, danger at the edge of my senses, and then the knife going through my back and out, here.."
Karth De'Qora, Fugitive Jedi
"It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end." ~Ernest Hemingway
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| Daneira_Farris | Date: Sunday, 06 Sep 2015, 9:32 PM | Message # 4 |
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Officer
Group: Users
Messages: 33
Status: Offline
| Daneira stared at his scar, the faint crimson line that marred his flesh. She reached out to touch it, then withdrew her hand only mere inches before she reached the skin, as her gaze darted to find his. Only then did she touch the scar, tracing the mended flesh with just her index finger. Her touch was tender, as it always had been. "Karth, I am so sorry." She murmured after several long moments of stunned silence, the only noise was the growl of the speeder engine and the wind through the plains. "I am so sorry." It was not remotely her fault, but Dani wondered if it could have been prevented. Had they not been separated, would it have turned out differently? There was almost no sense in wondering, since it was so far in the past, but she could not help but think about it, even if it was only a little.
She removed her hand from his chest and wrapped her fingers around the journal again. Finally, after several more moments, she spoke to him again. "How did you get away?" Dani asked quietly. "And where did you go?" In twenty years, she had only left New Plympto a couple of times, but never far, and never for very long. It was a large galaxy, though, and he could have been anywhere while she stayed there and created a normal, or as normal as could be, life.
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| Karth·DeQora | Date: Friday, 11 Sep 2015, 0:46 AM | Message # 5 |
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Officer
Group: Users
Messages: 54
Status: Offline
| He fought against every natural impulse, his body demanding that he flinch away from her touch, but Karth willed himself to remain still. Daneira's fingertips were still as light on his skin now as they always had been. With just a touch he was whisked away yet again, lost in the echo of their bodies entwined, the war and the Jedi a distant trouble. They had been so naive, then.
"I slowed my heart rate," he answered quietly. "I got lucky, the blade missed major arteries by a hair, but I slowed my heart rate down enough that Crass thought I was dead after he stabbed me."
Her fingers slipped away from his skin, and he brought up a hand to trace where they had touched. The scar had never properly healed. "I managed to hide beneath some bodies. You remember how the front line was, we could have stacked the dead Clones up high enough to make a wall. When they were working on finishing off the Separatists, I managed to slip away."
Karth sighed, gazing wistfully out on the passing plains. "But they never had my body, so they've been hounding me for twenty years. And now they're going to double down since they no doubt know you're alive, now." It hadn't occurred to him that it might be taken as another criticism, that she had revealed herself so carelessly, but Karth's anger at that fact had subsided. The Force had willed them back together, for what he didn't know, but there had to be a reason they were where they are now. In a galaxy so impossibly large, with so many places to hide, the fact that they found each other again was nothing short of miraculous.
"As for where I've been," he continued. "It's... not worth drudging up. Not now, at least. I moved around a lot."
Karth De'Qora, Fugitive Jedi
"It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end." ~Ernest Hemingway
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| Daneira_Farris | Date: Friday, 11 Sep 2015, 9:56 PM | Message # 6 |
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Officer
Group: Users
Messages: 33
Status: Offline
| It occurred to her, as he spoke, that they could have had a life there. A life, together, right there on New Plympto, had she been a little more careful. It would not have mattered if it was an Imperial planet- they could have kept hidden, as she had, safely, for twenty years. They could have had a family, like they had talked about. The thought of it all made her tear up all over again, but she did not let the tears spill. Dani turned her head and looked out from her side of the speeder so that Karth would not see.
Daneira finally turned her gaze back to Karth for a moment. "Yes, no doubt they know. And two Jedi are twice as dangerous as one." She paused as she stuffed her emotions deep inside again. "And we have a history that is likely very well known So that makes me wonder if we would be better off splitting up again once we are off planet." That was not an option that she wanted, but their options were limited now because of her.
She rubbed her forehead lightly before she rested her arm on the door of the speeder. The wind whipped her dark locks loose around her face and shoulders as Xac continued to drive them from the plains and into the relative safety of the forest. Her ship, she thought, Xac could probably get her ship and Kima, which would be an option to get them off planet. The ship was registered under Dom's name, so it was likely they would not be stopped or questioned, or likely even noticed. Either way, it would be difficult for her to leave, but it would put everyone she knew in danger if she stayed.
"What do you think we should do?"
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