Post by Charlotte on Mar 23, 2019 22:09:09 GMT -5
(Solomon shakes off his Red-induced hangover and gets around to not-quite-introducing-himself to his hosts.)
Hours had passed, during them Solomon had slept, eaten, refreshed himself as much as possible, seen to the cut in his side as much as he could, and generally made the attempt to stay out from underfoot of Breis and his people. He quietly watched them when he could steal moments for it while working on his comm unit. Wedged between two glowrods with an array of tools he'd brought with, and electronic innards, it was slow going. There were no few moments of him stopping to shut his eyes for focus, or to shake out his right hand. He'd begun adopt doing the hard work with his left while keeping the strained movements of his right minimal and as in the dimness of The Red as he could. That took the longest, working on his comm, and by the time he was finished and satisfied an untold amount of time had passed. He was tired again, his head hurt again, but it was different from the brain splitting hemorrhage he had felt earlier. He was also in need of a stretch. So with tools cleaned up, and stashed safely back on board the speeder, he took to the open area of the niche the Tal Ruus had carved out for themselves.
Breis Teimar and his people were never far, but true to their word they left the travelers alone unless approached. For a while, they'd worked with Renda, re-splinting his broken leg once they'd checked the set of the bone. Their goal was to get him to a point where he could walk. Painfully, and with a deep limp, he did eventually walk with help. Breis, who knew who he was, needed to know they could get Renda to that point before he broke out the precious medkit with its limited supply of painkillers.
On that note, Renda was reluctant. His daughter was out there, he insisted--Dr Azair knew that was true; they'd encountered him!--and he didn't want his senses blunted.
He found someone to approach from Tal Ruus. It was a hesitant approach. He had watched a bit of Renda's struggle, and empathized a bit. It felt like both a lifetime ago that he was in a similar situation and like it wasn't long ago enough. "He'll be alright?" He asked in Mando'a, coming up from behind.
It was a woman, and she turned at the sound of his voice. Seeing who it was, hearing the language, her expression in her mask took on a particular cool. "Ask him yourself." ... and that was not a dismissal. More an offer. Or a challenge.
"Thanks," he replied quietly before moving to hedge past her and get closer to where Renda was at that moment. He didn't get -too- close, though. He watched still, quiet and cautious. Fully aware of himself now, and fully aware of them, he wasn't quite sure how to act. These were strangers -- Mandals to boot. And even though they might now have known, he knew. That wasn't making this moment of contact any easier. He stood just at the edge of where he was close enough to hear them speaking to Renda. He tried for concerned curiosity with his tone, but with the filter cutting his voice up who knew how it really sounded. Just then it seemed like a dumb question. Was he alright? The loss of his girl -- an injury -- not knowing where his child was -- no. Solomon couldn't imagine that he was alright at all. So instead of asking that, he asked "His leg -- your leg will mend?" Still, he spoke Mando'a.
By that time, Renda was seated on a small outcropping of rock at the edge of the cave, his broken leg out straight before him. If the cave looked like a bubble, then the small jut of rock looked like a droplet or the top of another bubble of molten rock. He looked up. Breis Teimar did, too, from where he crouched next to him.
Breis looked from Solomon up at Renda's face.
Renda eyed Solomon and eventually nodded. He was freshly dressed in one of the suits Jeryndi had brought. The filthy wrappings he'd worn earlier made a small, red-tinged dark heap nearby. "Bones mend," he replied, gesturing toward it and eyeing it again. "... if they have time." But he looked up at Solomon again and said, "My daughter is six. Small. Did you see anyone like that?"
"I'm sorry," he shook his hooded head faintly, "We haven't." That was hard enough to say to this man. He didn't dare try to elaborate on what conditions were beyond where they were now. While the atmosphere wasn't -as bad-, they hadn't come across a single living thing let alone a six year old girl. "How long has it been since you last saw her?"
Renda gazed at the ground. While he did not seize up with emotion, emotion was there like a subterranean sea. But he was thinking. Trying to think. Breis, also interested if Renda knew the answer to that, put a light hand on the man's arm. Renda finally shook his head and told Sol, "I don't even know. But she might have been with another man. I remember... I think... I saw others after I... came awake, I guess. The first time."
He glanced at Breis, the envirosuit crumpling with the motion. "I could have dreamed it."
He retained that physical distance of respect, letting Renda have his time to think. "Are there any details about the man, or these others you can tell me? Or of your daughter. If they're out there we might run into them."
"My dreams were strange...." Renda whispered while Solomon was still talking. He must have heard enough anyway because he said, "My daughter--Lim--she's this tall." He raised an arm, hand flat, to demonstrate a height he knew well, even though she was so small she couldn't have been that tall for long, and would no doubt have soon grown past it. "... yellow hair. Brown eyes." Renda's own eyes were brown where they weren't pink from irritation and red-rimmed. "Fast as a shooting star."
"We will keep an eye open for her." He said with a little nod, and a moment's pause, before he quietly and steadily asked, "Can you tell me about your dreams? What did you see?"
The man's brow slowly knitted and he squinted, trying to see something now distant from him. "I remember... I walked. In... this." He gestured disinterestedly. Most directly, the gesture was at Breis Teimar's head. But he obviously meant the Red. "It can't have been real, because...." He reached down to stroke the suit gingerly at the thigh of his bad leg. "Lim wasn't with me. But I kept passing people. People who slept. They floated in the air. And I remember thinking How are there so many? And I remember knowing... just knowing... where they all were, even though I couldn't see them."
"It might not have been a dream. When we found you, you were floating just as you describe. We didn't see anything like this, like you floating there, or the floating rocks, until we got here. It -might- stand to reason that the closer we get to the impact point the more we'll see people in that state. Maybe that's what you saw."
Renda's face pinched in confusion, but also in concentration. A second later he cursed. "It's like trying to grab a fish."
"I know," Solomon said after a brief pause. He didn't know -exactly- what Renda was dealing with, but having his own hazy memories of how he and his friends got to where they were right then did give him some sort of idea. "Is there anything we can do to help ease your mind?" That wasn't from just one traveler to another. It was from a man who knew how bad it felt to lose a child in the past, to one who was facing that in his present.
"Tell me your friend was wrong," Renda said after a moment, still frowning hard and sounding hollowed out. "Trander. He said as far as he knew, no one else is coming to help us. No one else knows we're even here."
"He told us," Breis added, "that the Force guided you all here. Implying, I suppose, that the Hapans didn't hear the same whisper."
"I wish I could." He breathed out, and continued, "There are no comm signals coming in or out of The Red. All communication is local, and lasts within just a short distance. When Ava and I set out, we were told there are no scans that have been able to penetrate the cloud. However, if we could find a clear spot, or one even thin enough to get a signal through -- it would be possible to contact them and not only give location, but also ask for help." He looked between the men he was talking to, "Both Jeryndi and Ava have been following The Force, I've been relying on them for that direction. And as far as I know, the Hapans are unaware of what those two are feeling."
"Trander also told us the cloud has an end. So we can send a wakek out, maybe." Thinking out loud, Breis' own thought there brought a frown to his face. "... if we could spare the doc. Which we can't right now."
Azair had perked up at the first mention of wakek, but sank back down a little, considering the problem.
"He's the only one who's been able to keep them docile enough to ride," Breis explained.
"... and we only have the two," Azair added. "Maybe we should try for a few more."
"You can only handle two at once," Breis pointed out quietly.
"Skirix is dying," Azair said just as lowly.
"Skirix," he repeated the name like it was half-remembered. "Is the name of one of the wakek?" He ventured, guessing now because he thought he remembered it from before, but wasn't sure. In that, Solomon had turned just enough to see Dr Azair.
"No," Azair breathed with some tight, pent up feeling, one of his large, clawed hands unfolding to press gently against his chest. "He's this. My friend. Who carries me." For a moment he was still, the hand to where the heart might be under the layers and the insectine exoskeleton. The moment was somber as a prayer. Then he raised the hand to the head, where the claws were light, and gingerly stroked part of one of the vines. "I," he explained, "am this."
Understanding was not slow to hit, nor was the somber nature of the moment. "I am sorry," he told Dr Azair, "I hadn't realized."
"This dust in the air," Azair explained, "is strange with Skirix. You see, when Skirix sleeps, I am awake. When I sleep, Skirix wakes. Yet he has not woken once since this began. I have tried the pods. The only effect they seem to have is that they make it easier for me to communicate and move about. They do nothing for him."
"Forgive my lack of knowledge," he began, his tone thoughtful as he remained at that respectable distance from Breis, Renda, and Azair, "And ignorance, but do you mind if I ask what kind of atmosphere Skirix is more accustomed to?"
Azair spread the big clawed hands. "Mandalore's suited him. Atmospheres like it do as well. His kind also have internal air sacs which line their exoskeletons, giving them some added resilience--usually--in places of toxicity or varying pressure. It seems to make no difference. I would have thought he would thrive better than a human in this--forgive me--but the opposite is true."
"Perhaps there is something in the dust, then, that affects him worse than humans." He offered wishing he had access to -some- sort of testing equipment, and if not him then some way to get samples to someone who did. And access to the holonet where information could be grasped easily enough if you had an idea of what you were looking for. In this case, Sol would have out effort into learning more about Skirix's kind, or finding explanations for the sort of mental and physical ailments they were running into. A part of him still screamed neurotoxin, but he just didn't know enough.
"I know you said that you can't spare the doctor to take the wakek's to the clear area, but what if you could." He ventured, "My friends -might- be able to communicate with the wakeks, they might be able to help if more are found. We'd have to talk to them, but it could be possible."
"Actually," Breis said, brightening, "Trander, the doc, and I had a conversation about that very possibility." He had no comment about Solomon's musings regarding Skirix; neither did Azair right then, with the topic moving on. Of course it was the dust. Or whatever the dust was now blowing around in. "Trander says he has a talent for 'empathic projection.' He and the doc are going to see if he can use it with one of our wakeks without getting eaten, after he's rested." Breis leveled a look at Jujanaj Azair and added with quiet caution: "So let's not get ahead of ourselves. Let's focus on seeing if we can get one more. 'A few more' comes later."
"Are they hard to wrangle?" He asked, wondering for a moment just how much information about themselves Jeryndi had shared with their hosts.
"They are carnivorous, strong, and not very intelligent," Azair told him after Breis gestured his way. "I do not wrangle them so much as influence them. It is... unpleasant. And very different from what Skirix and I do."
"When I first saw them used as mounts," Breis added when there seemed to be a lull, "I thought I could just kill the rider and take one." The look on his face turned comical and he shook his head emphatically.
He had two questions to ask, and looked from Breis to Azair before picking one, "How do you influence them, Dr Azair?
"If you dont mind me asking."
"Ah." With a single claw, the doctor reached up to carefully loosen a section of the vine that entwined the humanoid body he wore. Drawing it out just a little, just enough to show Solomon, he said, "I have some slack. I enwrap part of their heads when I need them. They let me get close now, but the first time I tried it I survived to succeed because Skirix is very strong and very fast."
There was a grimace half hidden by the hood of his suit as he thought about Jeryndi getting that close to one of these creatures. "So, you were in the party that was chasing that person we ran into out in The Red?"
"Our nameless thief, yes," Azair agreed.
"We were just telling Trander about him. --or her," Breis added, as if it was something that had come up before. "But I think he's male."
"What happened -- if you don't have a problem repeating yourself?" The need to sit was growing, but with distance still seeming prudent Sol lowered himself carefully right where he stood to sit in that spot, his right arm laying against his upper thigh, that hand resting to the space created between his legs due to the way he was sitting. There was no movement from the fingers of that hand, while his left was placed flat against the floor of the bubble-like rock formation they occupied.
Breis' gaze took in Solomon. Briefly, it lit on Sol's arm.
It was Azair who said, "He has stolen pods, and appears to want a wakek."
"What he thinks he's going to do if he actually gets one," Breis chuckled, "is a mystery that amuses us greatly."
The black-eyed face of Jujanaj Azair was more than mobile enough for an answering smirk. "He killed one of our lookouts, but I returned then with Narion and Tavv'ari and we surprised him."
"Oh yeah," Breis breathed. "Tavv took a beauty of a sniper rifle off him."
This was apparently news to Azair, whose expression opened up with realization. "So those shots were not the invaders."
"Maybe not," Breis shrugged. "I certainly hope not."
Breis' chuckle was answered by a small smile from Solomon. If the creatures were true to what he'd been told, stealing one and maintaining it would be a feat! "How many times has he come?"
They answered simultaneously:
"Unknown," said Azair.
"Who knows," said Breis. "He was plaguing Tal-Keb before we ever set out this way."
To this, Renda listened with interest, adding: "Even I know what prick you're talking about."
"How far away from Tal-Keb are we?" He was just then looking between the three he was talking with.
"Not far," Breis said. "Few hours, mounted. We've been wary of getting too far out. Even this is further than I'd like, but there's not much defensible between there and here." His eyes narrowed right then, and he said more lowly: "I don't mind answering your questions. I understand. And you've shown courage coming out here, if it's all as big as you say. But I'm going to be asking you questions, too. And you're the only one in your party who has not introduced himself."
He nodded in response, but then paused before speaking. His name he'd been putting off, having needed the time to figure out just what he'd tell them. What he said next, in rolling Mando'a was, "I don't mind questions, and I go by Sol. Forgive me for not introducing myself sooner, I had assumed my friends had done that while I was out of it."
Breis reached out to offer him a hand to clasp. "You assumed correctly," he said. "But I always wonder about a vod who doesn't lead with his name on his own when he can."
That hand. Solomon looked at it, and for several seconds there was no movement from him. It took a good bit for his right hand to lift heavily, and for his arm to extend enough for him to grasp Breis'. There wasn't much strength at all to it. "I wasn't sure what you'd make of having me in your camp." he said honestly, "For many vod in Keldabe, I have no name. I have no honor."
Azair blinked. First, he looked taken aback by the odd stillness. Then nonplussed at the slowness of Solomon's motion, contrasted against the steadiness with which Breis kept his hand extended without comment. Then... the words.
"That Solomon," Renda breathed, understanding what Azair did not.
"Thought so," Breis said with a nod, suspicion confirmed. Still, he clasped Sol's hand with strength but not malice and let him go. As he did so, he gestured at Sol's hand, his arm. "That happen in your fight with the thief?"
His head dipped just slightly at Renda's '-That- Solomon.' And for a moment he watched both Renda and Breis. That neither one of them had shifted with the recognition was answered with him pulling his hand back, using his left hand to situate his hand comfortably once again, "No, this happened during the war. A gift from Maltez Buffton's pet Sith."
Breis looked amused at the phrase. "I heard their arrangement described differently."
Chuckling, Sol responded with, "Poetic licence. What did you hear about them?"
Holding up two fingers, Breis turned his hand so that their positions reversed. "Only that it was the opposite way around. And that that was why Ker'dan was double-crossed."
"What you heard wasn't wrong," he admitted, a small motion of his left hand going toward Breis, "Not in the least."
"Shame," Breis said lowly. Then he drew in a deep breath and changed the subject. "How is your head?"
"Still hurts, but it’s not as bad as it was." He said, rolling with the change of subject gladly, "Whatever is in those pods went a long way to helping. Thank you for sparing them for me."
The man nodded, but with the subject change his tone went grimmer. "Hoarding them would be a crime. Whoever we were before this, we're all vod now for the duration, as long as we act like it."
"Is there no way to make more? Find more? --of whatever is in them?"
"Sure," Breis said. He held up his hand to make his fingers walk across the air. "Enemy comes. We kill enemy. We get more." His hand dropped. "Beyond that? Maybe someone's out there working on it--I sure hope so--but right now I'm here looking for anyone out here still alive. Trander wants to go search the wrecked ships near Tal-Keb. Maybe when we go, you can ask there."
"How many can you get off a single being at a time, or does it vary?" Within his hood, Sol's brow was pulled inward and down just slightly in thought.
"Varies," Breis said.
"I saw one bandolier of six, once," Azair offered.
That brought a quirk to his brow, and he looked Azair's way, "How many have you all seen since they arrived?"
"Pods, or enemies?"
"Enemies."
They looked at each other. Even Renda was included, but he shook his head.
Frowning, Breis said, "At Tal-Keb... Forty hit us, maybe. Most I've seen at once. And you know what that means."
"Where there is forty, there is likely forty thousand. -- would you mind if I take a look at the one you have here? We didn't encounter any on our way. I'm now finding that to be rather astonishing."
Breis laughed. "W--Er. No, that's not what I meant at all... but I suppose it's better to assume more than to assume fewer. And: not at all. We were about to show the Jedi Knight the way up. Come along."
Hours had passed, during them Solomon had slept, eaten, refreshed himself as much as possible, seen to the cut in his side as much as he could, and generally made the attempt to stay out from underfoot of Breis and his people. He quietly watched them when he could steal moments for it while working on his comm unit. Wedged between two glowrods with an array of tools he'd brought with, and electronic innards, it was slow going. There were no few moments of him stopping to shut his eyes for focus, or to shake out his right hand. He'd begun adopt doing the hard work with his left while keeping the strained movements of his right minimal and as in the dimness of The Red as he could. That took the longest, working on his comm, and by the time he was finished and satisfied an untold amount of time had passed. He was tired again, his head hurt again, but it was different from the brain splitting hemorrhage he had felt earlier. He was also in need of a stretch. So with tools cleaned up, and stashed safely back on board the speeder, he took to the open area of the niche the Tal Ruus had carved out for themselves.
Breis Teimar and his people were never far, but true to their word they left the travelers alone unless approached. For a while, they'd worked with Renda, re-splinting his broken leg once they'd checked the set of the bone. Their goal was to get him to a point where he could walk. Painfully, and with a deep limp, he did eventually walk with help. Breis, who knew who he was, needed to know they could get Renda to that point before he broke out the precious medkit with its limited supply of painkillers.
On that note, Renda was reluctant. His daughter was out there, he insisted--Dr Azair knew that was true; they'd encountered him!--and he didn't want his senses blunted.
He found someone to approach from Tal Ruus. It was a hesitant approach. He had watched a bit of Renda's struggle, and empathized a bit. It felt like both a lifetime ago that he was in a similar situation and like it wasn't long ago enough. "He'll be alright?" He asked in Mando'a, coming up from behind.
It was a woman, and she turned at the sound of his voice. Seeing who it was, hearing the language, her expression in her mask took on a particular cool. "Ask him yourself." ... and that was not a dismissal. More an offer. Or a challenge.
"Thanks," he replied quietly before moving to hedge past her and get closer to where Renda was at that moment. He didn't get -too- close, though. He watched still, quiet and cautious. Fully aware of himself now, and fully aware of them, he wasn't quite sure how to act. These were strangers -- Mandals to boot. And even though they might now have known, he knew. That wasn't making this moment of contact any easier. He stood just at the edge of where he was close enough to hear them speaking to Renda. He tried for concerned curiosity with his tone, but with the filter cutting his voice up who knew how it really sounded. Just then it seemed like a dumb question. Was he alright? The loss of his girl -- an injury -- not knowing where his child was -- no. Solomon couldn't imagine that he was alright at all. So instead of asking that, he asked "His leg -- your leg will mend?" Still, he spoke Mando'a.
By that time, Renda was seated on a small outcropping of rock at the edge of the cave, his broken leg out straight before him. If the cave looked like a bubble, then the small jut of rock looked like a droplet or the top of another bubble of molten rock. He looked up. Breis Teimar did, too, from where he crouched next to him.
Breis looked from Solomon up at Renda's face.
Renda eyed Solomon and eventually nodded. He was freshly dressed in one of the suits Jeryndi had brought. The filthy wrappings he'd worn earlier made a small, red-tinged dark heap nearby. "Bones mend," he replied, gesturing toward it and eyeing it again. "... if they have time." But he looked up at Solomon again and said, "My daughter is six. Small. Did you see anyone like that?"
"I'm sorry," he shook his hooded head faintly, "We haven't." That was hard enough to say to this man. He didn't dare try to elaborate on what conditions were beyond where they were now. While the atmosphere wasn't -as bad-, they hadn't come across a single living thing let alone a six year old girl. "How long has it been since you last saw her?"
Renda gazed at the ground. While he did not seize up with emotion, emotion was there like a subterranean sea. But he was thinking. Trying to think. Breis, also interested if Renda knew the answer to that, put a light hand on the man's arm. Renda finally shook his head and told Sol, "I don't even know. But she might have been with another man. I remember... I think... I saw others after I... came awake, I guess. The first time."
He glanced at Breis, the envirosuit crumpling with the motion. "I could have dreamed it."
He retained that physical distance of respect, letting Renda have his time to think. "Are there any details about the man, or these others you can tell me? Or of your daughter. If they're out there we might run into them."
"My dreams were strange...." Renda whispered while Solomon was still talking. He must have heard enough anyway because he said, "My daughter--Lim--she's this tall." He raised an arm, hand flat, to demonstrate a height he knew well, even though she was so small she couldn't have been that tall for long, and would no doubt have soon grown past it. "... yellow hair. Brown eyes." Renda's own eyes were brown where they weren't pink from irritation and red-rimmed. "Fast as a shooting star."
"We will keep an eye open for her." He said with a little nod, and a moment's pause, before he quietly and steadily asked, "Can you tell me about your dreams? What did you see?"
The man's brow slowly knitted and he squinted, trying to see something now distant from him. "I remember... I walked. In... this." He gestured disinterestedly. Most directly, the gesture was at Breis Teimar's head. But he obviously meant the Red. "It can't have been real, because...." He reached down to stroke the suit gingerly at the thigh of his bad leg. "Lim wasn't with me. But I kept passing people. People who slept. They floated in the air. And I remember thinking How are there so many? And I remember knowing... just knowing... where they all were, even though I couldn't see them."
"It might not have been a dream. When we found you, you were floating just as you describe. We didn't see anything like this, like you floating there, or the floating rocks, until we got here. It -might- stand to reason that the closer we get to the impact point the more we'll see people in that state. Maybe that's what you saw."
Renda's face pinched in confusion, but also in concentration. A second later he cursed. "It's like trying to grab a fish."
"I know," Solomon said after a brief pause. He didn't know -exactly- what Renda was dealing with, but having his own hazy memories of how he and his friends got to where they were right then did give him some sort of idea. "Is there anything we can do to help ease your mind?" That wasn't from just one traveler to another. It was from a man who knew how bad it felt to lose a child in the past, to one who was facing that in his present.
"Tell me your friend was wrong," Renda said after a moment, still frowning hard and sounding hollowed out. "Trander. He said as far as he knew, no one else is coming to help us. No one else knows we're even here."
"He told us," Breis added, "that the Force guided you all here. Implying, I suppose, that the Hapans didn't hear the same whisper."
"I wish I could." He breathed out, and continued, "There are no comm signals coming in or out of The Red. All communication is local, and lasts within just a short distance. When Ava and I set out, we were told there are no scans that have been able to penetrate the cloud. However, if we could find a clear spot, or one even thin enough to get a signal through -- it would be possible to contact them and not only give location, but also ask for help." He looked between the men he was talking to, "Both Jeryndi and Ava have been following The Force, I've been relying on them for that direction. And as far as I know, the Hapans are unaware of what those two are feeling."
"Trander also told us the cloud has an end. So we can send a wakek out, maybe." Thinking out loud, Breis' own thought there brought a frown to his face. "... if we could spare the doc. Which we can't right now."
Azair had perked up at the first mention of wakek, but sank back down a little, considering the problem.
"He's the only one who's been able to keep them docile enough to ride," Breis explained.
"... and we only have the two," Azair added. "Maybe we should try for a few more."
"You can only handle two at once," Breis pointed out quietly.
"Skirix is dying," Azair said just as lowly.
"Skirix," he repeated the name like it was half-remembered. "Is the name of one of the wakek?" He ventured, guessing now because he thought he remembered it from before, but wasn't sure. In that, Solomon had turned just enough to see Dr Azair.
"No," Azair breathed with some tight, pent up feeling, one of his large, clawed hands unfolding to press gently against his chest. "He's this. My friend. Who carries me." For a moment he was still, the hand to where the heart might be under the layers and the insectine exoskeleton. The moment was somber as a prayer. Then he raised the hand to the head, where the claws were light, and gingerly stroked part of one of the vines. "I," he explained, "am this."
Understanding was not slow to hit, nor was the somber nature of the moment. "I am sorry," he told Dr Azair, "I hadn't realized."
"This dust in the air," Azair explained, "is strange with Skirix. You see, when Skirix sleeps, I am awake. When I sleep, Skirix wakes. Yet he has not woken once since this began. I have tried the pods. The only effect they seem to have is that they make it easier for me to communicate and move about. They do nothing for him."
"Forgive my lack of knowledge," he began, his tone thoughtful as he remained at that respectable distance from Breis, Renda, and Azair, "And ignorance, but do you mind if I ask what kind of atmosphere Skirix is more accustomed to?"
Azair spread the big clawed hands. "Mandalore's suited him. Atmospheres like it do as well. His kind also have internal air sacs which line their exoskeletons, giving them some added resilience--usually--in places of toxicity or varying pressure. It seems to make no difference. I would have thought he would thrive better than a human in this--forgive me--but the opposite is true."
"Perhaps there is something in the dust, then, that affects him worse than humans." He offered wishing he had access to -some- sort of testing equipment, and if not him then some way to get samples to someone who did. And access to the holonet where information could be grasped easily enough if you had an idea of what you were looking for. In this case, Sol would have out effort into learning more about Skirix's kind, or finding explanations for the sort of mental and physical ailments they were running into. A part of him still screamed neurotoxin, but he just didn't know enough.
"I know you said that you can't spare the doctor to take the wakek's to the clear area, but what if you could." He ventured, "My friends -might- be able to communicate with the wakeks, they might be able to help if more are found. We'd have to talk to them, but it could be possible."
"Actually," Breis said, brightening, "Trander, the doc, and I had a conversation about that very possibility." He had no comment about Solomon's musings regarding Skirix; neither did Azair right then, with the topic moving on. Of course it was the dust. Or whatever the dust was now blowing around in. "Trander says he has a talent for 'empathic projection.' He and the doc are going to see if he can use it with one of our wakeks without getting eaten, after he's rested." Breis leveled a look at Jujanaj Azair and added with quiet caution: "So let's not get ahead of ourselves. Let's focus on seeing if we can get one more. 'A few more' comes later."
"Are they hard to wrangle?" He asked, wondering for a moment just how much information about themselves Jeryndi had shared with their hosts.
"They are carnivorous, strong, and not very intelligent," Azair told him after Breis gestured his way. "I do not wrangle them so much as influence them. It is... unpleasant. And very different from what Skirix and I do."
"When I first saw them used as mounts," Breis added when there seemed to be a lull, "I thought I could just kill the rider and take one." The look on his face turned comical and he shook his head emphatically.
He had two questions to ask, and looked from Breis to Azair before picking one, "How do you influence them, Dr Azair?
"If you dont mind me asking."
"Ah." With a single claw, the doctor reached up to carefully loosen a section of the vine that entwined the humanoid body he wore. Drawing it out just a little, just enough to show Solomon, he said, "I have some slack. I enwrap part of their heads when I need them. They let me get close now, but the first time I tried it I survived to succeed because Skirix is very strong and very fast."
There was a grimace half hidden by the hood of his suit as he thought about Jeryndi getting that close to one of these creatures. "So, you were in the party that was chasing that person we ran into out in The Red?"
"Our nameless thief, yes," Azair agreed.
"We were just telling Trander about him. --or her," Breis added, as if it was something that had come up before. "But I think he's male."
"What happened -- if you don't have a problem repeating yourself?" The need to sit was growing, but with distance still seeming prudent Sol lowered himself carefully right where he stood to sit in that spot, his right arm laying against his upper thigh, that hand resting to the space created between his legs due to the way he was sitting. There was no movement from the fingers of that hand, while his left was placed flat against the floor of the bubble-like rock formation they occupied.
Breis' gaze took in Solomon. Briefly, it lit on Sol's arm.
It was Azair who said, "He has stolen pods, and appears to want a wakek."
"What he thinks he's going to do if he actually gets one," Breis chuckled, "is a mystery that amuses us greatly."
The black-eyed face of Jujanaj Azair was more than mobile enough for an answering smirk. "He killed one of our lookouts, but I returned then with Narion and Tavv'ari and we surprised him."
"Oh yeah," Breis breathed. "Tavv took a beauty of a sniper rifle off him."
This was apparently news to Azair, whose expression opened up with realization. "So those shots were not the invaders."
"Maybe not," Breis shrugged. "I certainly hope not."
Breis' chuckle was answered by a small smile from Solomon. If the creatures were true to what he'd been told, stealing one and maintaining it would be a feat! "How many times has he come?"
They answered simultaneously:
"Unknown," said Azair.
"Who knows," said Breis. "He was plaguing Tal-Keb before we ever set out this way."
To this, Renda listened with interest, adding: "Even I know what prick you're talking about."
"How far away from Tal-Keb are we?" He was just then looking between the three he was talking with.
"Not far," Breis said. "Few hours, mounted. We've been wary of getting too far out. Even this is further than I'd like, but there's not much defensible between there and here." His eyes narrowed right then, and he said more lowly: "I don't mind answering your questions. I understand. And you've shown courage coming out here, if it's all as big as you say. But I'm going to be asking you questions, too. And you're the only one in your party who has not introduced himself."
He nodded in response, but then paused before speaking. His name he'd been putting off, having needed the time to figure out just what he'd tell them. What he said next, in rolling Mando'a was, "I don't mind questions, and I go by Sol. Forgive me for not introducing myself sooner, I had assumed my friends had done that while I was out of it."
Breis reached out to offer him a hand to clasp. "You assumed correctly," he said. "But I always wonder about a vod who doesn't lead with his name on his own when he can."
That hand. Solomon looked at it, and for several seconds there was no movement from him. It took a good bit for his right hand to lift heavily, and for his arm to extend enough for him to grasp Breis'. There wasn't much strength at all to it. "I wasn't sure what you'd make of having me in your camp." he said honestly, "For many vod in Keldabe, I have no name. I have no honor."
Azair blinked. First, he looked taken aback by the odd stillness. Then nonplussed at the slowness of Solomon's motion, contrasted against the steadiness with which Breis kept his hand extended without comment. Then... the words.
"That Solomon," Renda breathed, understanding what Azair did not.
"Thought so," Breis said with a nod, suspicion confirmed. Still, he clasped Sol's hand with strength but not malice and let him go. As he did so, he gestured at Sol's hand, his arm. "That happen in your fight with the thief?"
His head dipped just slightly at Renda's '-That- Solomon.' And for a moment he watched both Renda and Breis. That neither one of them had shifted with the recognition was answered with him pulling his hand back, using his left hand to situate his hand comfortably once again, "No, this happened during the war. A gift from Maltez Buffton's pet Sith."
Breis looked amused at the phrase. "I heard their arrangement described differently."
Chuckling, Sol responded with, "Poetic licence. What did you hear about them?"
Holding up two fingers, Breis turned his hand so that their positions reversed. "Only that it was the opposite way around. And that that was why Ker'dan was double-crossed."
"What you heard wasn't wrong," he admitted, a small motion of his left hand going toward Breis, "Not in the least."
"Shame," Breis said lowly. Then he drew in a deep breath and changed the subject. "How is your head?"
"Still hurts, but it’s not as bad as it was." He said, rolling with the change of subject gladly, "Whatever is in those pods went a long way to helping. Thank you for sparing them for me."
The man nodded, but with the subject change his tone went grimmer. "Hoarding them would be a crime. Whoever we were before this, we're all vod now for the duration, as long as we act like it."
"Is there no way to make more? Find more? --of whatever is in them?"
"Sure," Breis said. He held up his hand to make his fingers walk across the air. "Enemy comes. We kill enemy. We get more." His hand dropped. "Beyond that? Maybe someone's out there working on it--I sure hope so--but right now I'm here looking for anyone out here still alive. Trander wants to go search the wrecked ships near Tal-Keb. Maybe when we go, you can ask there."
"How many can you get off a single being at a time, or does it vary?" Within his hood, Sol's brow was pulled inward and down just slightly in thought.
"Varies," Breis said.
"I saw one bandolier of six, once," Azair offered.
That brought a quirk to his brow, and he looked Azair's way, "How many have you all seen since they arrived?"
"Pods, or enemies?"
"Enemies."
They looked at each other. Even Renda was included, but he shook his head.
Frowning, Breis said, "At Tal-Keb... Forty hit us, maybe. Most I've seen at once. And you know what that means."
"Where there is forty, there is likely forty thousand. -- would you mind if I take a look at the one you have here? We didn't encounter any on our way. I'm now finding that to be rather astonishing."
Breis laughed. "W--Er. No, that's not what I meant at all... but I suppose it's better to assume more than to assume fewer. And: not at all. We were about to show the Jedi Knight the way up. Come along."