Dark Matter: Episode 1

"Many fear we will being forgetful of our ways if we travel the dark sea. That gains not earned will weaken us."

Sheefa nodded respectfully.

"They are being..." Da'at paused, staring just past her own nose. "I am not knowing word."

"I think I understand," she said, intuiting that the word Da'at was searching for was foolish but hoping to avoid making her say such a thing out loud. "I'm happy to offer my services, as an ambassador or in whatever manner may be useful." She knew she was overstepping her authority somewhat, but Sheefa felt confident; her mission had been broad, to aid and protect the Republic's interests, and that meant she would be trusted to achieve it through whatever means she deemed appropriate. The threat itself was a complete unknown. "Will we be heading straight to the palace?"

"Pah-Lah?"

Sheefa frowned. The documents she'd been given were less than specific on the honorifics of royalty or their locales. "The, ehm... the King?"

Da'at nodded, finally grasping, as they passed into a small structure at the corner of the landing field.

"Will I be seeing him today?"

"We will being there soon."

Da'at gestured ahead, as they passed through the other side of the structure, to a wheeled vehicle with its engine idling softly. There were no other vehicles like it that Sheefa could see. Other E'lon ran on all fours, loping gracefully and quickly. Some had large bags strapped to their backs. The vehicle, meanwhile, seemed built for heavy or bulky loads; more than what one or two E'lon could manage by themselves. Sheefa peered at it curiously.

Sensing her pause, Da'at spoke again. "We do not thinking you can run as we do."

"And what if I could?" Sheefa asked, puffing out her chest a bit.

Da'at bared her teeth, an expression that seemed roughly analogous to a smile. "The Re-Pub-Lic is wise to be sending one who can run. This will being well seen." Da'at reached into her robes, swiftly cinching several hidden straps to pull the flowing fabric higher and tighter, and then crouched low. "You will follow?"

Sheefa nodded. The two guards set off first, scampering quickly on all fours with their weapons strapped across their backs, while Da'at followed along just behind. Their pace was faster than Sheefa could have managed alone at a full sprint, but with the Force to aid her it was no trouble. When the guards saw she could keep up as promised, they sped up. Sheefa laughed. The light of the nearby star felt almost as wonderful as the wind moving through her hair.

***

Sheefa stared in wonder as Da'at led her through a dense grove. What the trees around her lacked in height they made up for in thickness, so much so that nearly every tree she could see served as some sort of shelter for one purpose or another. She suspected that she had not seen several smaller villages earlier when entering the atmosphere but one vast one she simply had not recognized from a distance. In the back of her mind, she was entertaining the idea that she had defaulted to the idea that the E'lon were primitive. Simple. There was a lesson in humility, she thought, as she looked at the elegant organic nature of it all.

Da'at's lips pulled back again, smiling. "In your bay-sic, I yam believing the name translates as Gnarl."

Sheefa followed Da'at's eyes, and nodded reverently. "Quite appropriate."

Whether the Gnarl was many trees interconnecting and overlapping or one tree with a multitude of offshoots was beyond Sheefa's ability to detect. She could feel the Force radiating outward from the massive and complex plant, and knew it yet thrived. Trunks grown together so closely that it was difficult to tell where one ended and the next began. Even as she entered it, she could not say whether the hallways had been painstakingly carved or grown by some means she did not understand. The hallways flowed up and down, or left and right, as the wood allowed, without a single straight line she could see anywhere. The organic layout was both foreign and completely logical in its own way.

Guards were posted at irregular intervals through their walk, keeping an uneasy watch over their assigned posts. Sheefa noted their ill-fitting garb and filed that away for later. Although there was little foot traffic passing through the complicated network of passages in The Gnarl, the guards still paid less attention to her than other E'lon, whom they had passed out in the city, had. The discontent there had cast a pall over what might otherwise have been one of the defining moments of her life.

"Are you many?" Da'at asked abruptly as they walked.

"No," Sheefa replied. "I came alone."

Da'at ran her tongue over her teeth, with her nostrils flared. "In meetings previous, I yam speaking to... Hum-ans, and... Both-ans. Others. But you are being Mirial-ans."

"Yes," Sheefa said, placing her hand over her chest. "I am. I'm surprised you know that name. We are not numer... um... We are not many. No."

The white E'lon nodded, digesting the information. "There is being other. Already here." She gestured ahead, around a turn, and Sheefa craned her neck.

She could count all the Mirialan she'd ever met on one hand. There were two Padawan she knew of, both younger than her, and one Master. The last time she'd mentioned Master Pa'li, Master Toberin had gone silent and gray. Ashen. The Jedi had lost so many.

The large receiving hall had a significant number of E'lon present, with about half in small pockets spread around the near end of the room and the other half gathered together in a single large group at the far end. Occasionally, as they approached, Sheefa spotted a green hand rising up above the crowd, and her anticipation rose with each sighting. The hand twisted and turned, appearing here and there.

"Do you know who she is?" Sheefa asked.

"She is being your... ah-lie?"

"My... my ally?"

"Yes," Da'at said eagerly, but then her face fell. "Word was being..."

Sheefa bubbled as she approached the back of the gathered crowd. She stretched out through the Force, sensing, and gasped in shock. The crowd turned as one, parting before her. The other swayed and danced, smiling coyly, and finally locked eyes with Sheefa.

Bright orange eyes peered out from beneath a lowered brow, amid a mass of wavy hair so darkly purple that it was easy to mistake for black. A blood red aura surrounded her, peeling away and dissipating to the air; an aura Sheefa alone could perceive. Her ample curves were covered by a dress tailored to accentuate. A thick belt slung low over generous hips. Sheefa's voice caught in her throat as she tried to give warning, but the other continued to flow from one stance to the next. She watched the movements unfold before her, seconds becoming hours, as the other skipped and danced for the amusement of those gathered.

"Seeth," Da'at whispered proudly, abruptly. "That is being word."

In the space between one moment and the next, a long, metallic cylinder appeared in the other's hand. Panic set in, while Sheefa stood frozen with indecision, as the other ignited her magenta lightsaber mid-turn and struck a killing blow to a graying E'lon sitting in the middle of a long bench on the opposite side of the circle. The other turned and smiled triumphantly at Sheefa.

And then time resumed.

"No!" Sheefa shouted, as a half-dozen unarmed E'lon leapt forward.

The other struck out through the Force to bodily deflect the nearest attacker and spun, slicing neatly through two more in one blow as the first sailed screaming through an open window. Two deft swings brought down an equal number, leaving only one growling E'lon in a low stance just beyond the range of the other's glowing blade. The rest of the large group fled, yelping and shouting, while still more charged in from elsewhere in the Gnarl.

The other turned, grinning, as Sheefa finally drew her own blade. Bright blue flashed alongside her face with a soft snap-hiss.

"Stay back," she cried, advancing slowly on the other.

The other tossed her lightsaber from hand to hand, and lightning erupted from her empty fingertips. The last E'lon cowered and shrieked as electricity ripped through her body, and she collapsed to the floor with tendrils of smoke rising from blackened fur.

"Why don't we take this outside, Soriel?" the other purred.

Two E'lon approaching from behind Sheefa stopped to raise their staves, each bellowing with a loud crack. The other effortlessly deflected the hardened projectiles as she dove backwards out the same window she'd thrown the first E'lon mere seconds earlier. Sheefa, feeling the weights drop away from her, jumped out afterwards, and only once she was through the threshold did she realize how steeply the ground fell away behind the Gnarl.

Sheefa landed smoothly, despite the nearly forty meter drop, and took off at full speed. The other laughed ahead of her, throwing larger rocks and smaller tipped-over tree trunks as she darted and bounced through the forest. Sheefa's blade carved a path through what she could not avoid altogether, but found it difficult to make any kind of gains in the distance between them. The further they went the more dense the forest became, until she lost sight of the other completely.

"Hurry!" the other taunted, voice echoing from the left.

Sheefa came to a stop, sensing that something was off. She closed her eyes, reached out through the Force, and waited. Listening.

"You're disappointing me!"

Again from the left. Sheefa turned to her right and rushed through the low brush.

The other looked less pleased when Sheefa burst through the tree line just as she was heading up into her ship. She snarled as she punched a button to raise the ramp and disappeared into the matte black vessel.

Sheefa made it to the ramp before it closed, but the door was locked. Snap-hiss. Durasteel melted away in blobs and drips as she carved through the locking mechanism with her lightsaber, and she gave a satisfied nod when it snapped open. Although she had no familiarity with the layout of the ship once she was inside, a brief glance told her the cabin was to her left, and the engines to her right. Engines that were working steadily through their pre-flight windup.

Ten steps had her in the engine compartment. The other was nowhere to be seen, ostensibly seeing to the takeoff of her ship, and thus Sheefa continued unmolested. The Force was with her as her hand hovered over a warren of connectors and wire conduits. She didn't know what function they performed, but she put her trust in the Force. Yanking and destroying. Ten more steps had her back at the door.

"What did...where are you going?" the other shrieked over the comm, as Sheefa opened the ramp again. "What did you do?"

Sheefa leapt off the ramp just after takeoff, easily managing the five meter drop, and turned as the ship rose higher and higher. Seconds later, the other dove out as well just ahead of the first explosion; her arc through the air overwhelmed by the force of the ship's engines detonating.

The other hurtled gracelessly, end over end, until she impacted awkwardly into a tree and tumbled the last meter or so to the ground. The collision with the ground was hard, and she struggled to right herself. Sheefa smiled proudly as she strode over, igniting her lightsaber and holding the tip of it just under the other's chin. The other hissed, leaning away while wincing as blood raced down from her hairline.

They stared at each other from across a much greater span than the length of a lightsaber. Worlds apart.

It had all happened so fast. Between the moment their eyes locked and the moment Sheefa stood over her opponent in bitter triumph passed the blink of an eye. Things were in motion around them. The Force swirled. Events were beyond her control. Sheefa ran through scenarios in her head while orange eyes burned through her.

Mere heartbeats.

"Can you walk?"

The other looked back and forth, searching for the lightsaber that had been in her hand when she left the ship, and groaned when Sheefa waved it back and forth in her other hand with a smirk.

"Yes," the other slurred. Her lids were heavy.

"Get up."

Both of them turned, Sheefa more than the other, when another explosion touched off back the way they had come. It was difficult to gauge given the distance and the mass of trees between them, but it felt like it had come from in or around the Gnarl.

Her breathing was strained. A broken rib, Sheefa thought, if not worse.

The other chuckled, grinning through obvious pain, as she rolled onto her hands and knees. "You lose, Soriel." The grin gave way to a pained grimace as the weightless blade slid beneath her chin again, rising and forcing the other back and away.

"We shall see," Sheefa said. "Resolution can only be reached when all involved have had their say."

"Spare me," the other snarled, as she braced herself against the tree. "You saw the same things I did. The..." She pressed her palm to her forehead and paused for a breath. "The guards unaccustomed to their roles. Pressed into service. The unrest. I know you sensed it."

Sheefa clipped the other's lightsaber to her own belt and switched off her own blade, though she kept the hilt in hand. "I did."

"Conflict like this is foreign to them, and they will not..." The other squeezed her eyes shut with a groan, and then blinked rapidly, and exaggeratedly. "That's why you were surprised when the threat was..." She groaned in exertion. "... was me, and not one of their own. Your pseudo-pacifism will not help you now."

The Padawan reflected quietly on her momentary pause upon seeing the other for the first time, but said nothing as she placed her hand on the other's shoulder, to gently push her forward. The other whipped around, trying for her wrist, but Sheefa easily deflected the clumsy effort and struck with an elbow just below the temple. The other crashed to her knees again, eyes bulged, and tried to crawl away, but Sheefa shadowed her effortlessly.

"Do not," Sheefa warned, "try that again."

"My task is complete, Jedi," she spat. Another heavy explosion, louder than the first, from nearly the same direction. The other chuckled grimly. "The Emperor's will is done."

"Perhaps." Sheefa nodded. "Perhaps not. I would not be so eager to see this conflict escalate if I were you. The deaths of hundreds, maybe thousands, could be laid at your feet."

The other sneered over her shoulder. "Sith are masters of death. We do not fear it." She flinched, however, when the bright blue blade snapped into existence just beside her cheek.

"Go ahead then," Sheefa said. "Fall, and the blade will take your head cleanly." She moved the blade microscopically closer, singe-ing a few of the other's displaced purple hairs, and the other backed away. "I thought not."

"I will kill you," the other hissed through gritted teeth.

"Perhaps," Sheefa said, nodding. "Perhaps not. Now get up."

The other climbed to her feet again, wobbling, and stood with one hand held against the tree. Sheefa nudged her to get her started, and then they began to walk.

"Where are you taking me?" the other asked, after several minutes. Blood covered the right side of her face, and her left cheek was puffy from the blow. Her left eye was halfway to swollen shut.

"I was just wondering that myself," Sheefa mused, thoughtfully. "My first instinct was to turn you over to whatever local authorities would handle such things. Of course, they would not likely be equipped to handle a Sith, so I would stay on as your guard."

The blood in the other's teeth gave her smile a truly grim appearance. "I promise I won't try anything else, Soriel."

"Given what we're hearing, I think local authorities might already be tasked to capacity."

"The—" The other wheezed and tried to hide it by coughing. "The one I killed was the face of the pro-Republic faction. He and his followers thought I was part of a peace envoy from the Isolationists, and that I was there to help. To bridge gaps." She winced, laughing through the pain. "Others thought I was there with the Republic's blessing." Wailing, not heard with her ears but through the Force. Cries of loss and mourning. "Now they're all justified in their distrust of each other." Anguish.

"Your candidness will be counted in your favor," Sheefa said, as she steadied the other around the edge of a small pond. Sheefa turned around abruptly, trying to orient herself against the sunset, and gasped when she realized that the sky was alight because the sprawling city was burning. It was later than she realized. "I will be taking you back to the Jedi."

The other said nothing.

The more they walked, the more trouble the other had. Tripping over exposed roots, or losing her footing on mossy rocks. Sheefa curated a specific amount of space between them; close enough to aid when the other fell, but not so close as to leave herself vulnerable.

The more the other fell, the more irritable she became.

"No!" she grumbled, twitching her arm free from Sheefa's grasp, after falling for the third time in an hour. "I do not require your help."

"I would heal your wounds if I possessed any skill in that art, but my path has led me in a different direction."

The other laughed bitterly. "You would heal me? Me?"

"Without hesitation," Sheefa replied.

The other peered over her shoulder for a moment, and then limped on. "You are naive, Soriel."

"Why do you keep calling me that?"

The other stopped completely, and turned around. There was something weighing in the gaze she leveled at Sheefa. "How old were you when they took you?" When Sheefa did not answer immediately, she added, "The Jedi. How old?"

"I... don't know. Two?"

The slightest twitch at the corner of the Sith's eye. "And you have never traveled to Mirial?"

Again, Sheefa paused.

"Our homeworld."

"N-No," Sheefa said.

The other scrutinized her. "I've never made it home either, but there was an... enclave... of us where I grew up." Bitterness tinged the word. "They spoke our tongue. I remember some words. Soriel means little sister."

Sheefa compressed her lips and nodded, suppressing the urge to ask more. Her race, and the culture of her people, were on a short list of things she intended to study once the Council confirmed her status as a Jedi Knight. And once she was done wrapping herself around Toberin in the most rapturous and inappropriate manner imaginable.

The other quirked an eyebrow at her, and Sheefa gave her a gentle push to get her walking again.

"Would you prefer I call you something else?"

"My name is Sheefa."

"Very well, Soriel." The other chuckled to herself, and barely managed to avoid tripping over a broken branch. They continued in silence for a while, taking a circuitous route around the edge of the city. It pained Sheefa to not rush right back into the conflict, to not be in the center of it doing her best, but she knew she would be hard pressed to distinguish the two sides even under civil circumstances. Additionally, her status as an offworlder might only make things worse, and that was if she wasn't immediately mistaken for her prisoner by both sides.

Still, the guilt mounted. Despite the wide route they took, the sounds of sparse fighting were always within hearing. Every cry drove Sheefa to gnash her teeth, made all the more frustrating by the satisfied, near-constant snickering of the other.

"What is your name?" Sheefa asked.

"Lord Vaux'avh," the other replied, eyes slitted and lips curled.