Star Wars: Vode An (closed for Apollo Wilde and BewareTheDream)

[BewareTheDream]

There were only a few things that could render Raeth stupid. Saudaji was one of them. Because he was so enamored of her, she could do things that made his brain crash like a faulty computer. Whenever that happened, it was a pleasant sort of glitch.

In contrast, there was nothing pleasant, at all, about what was playing out before him on the goop-covered floor. His mind was bombarded by so much horror and confusion that he stopped thinking for a few moments - moments that stretched out into what felt like hours. Sitting on his butt, he scrambled backward, away from the naked, bald, whining doppelganger, the slime all over its skin glistening underneath the multitude of fluorescent lights high above. It was only after Saudaji stepped in front of him and began swearing in Mando'a that he regained his wits, but only partially.

"What the shit?!" Raeth asked no one in particular. Clumsily, he stood up. "What the shit? What the shit, what the shit!" Repeating those words, uselessly, he rushed back to the monitoring equipment connected to the now empty vat. While keeping an eye on the writhing other-Raeth - for he was afraid that the thing would crawl at him and attack at any moment - he punched up some data.

"What the shit." Thinking felt as difficult as trying to walk at the bottom of a pool. He stared at the information on the screen for minutes before he realized that it wasn't really helpful; it appeared to be nothing more than a record of the vat baby's vital stats, which went back years. It took him another minute to decide to save the data on a stick, anyway.

Moving almost like a zombie, Raeth went to another vat and opened it up. What came out was pretty much the same as the first - an other-Raeth plopped onto the floor, this one noticeably smaller and less developed. He didn't remove the breathing mask from that one, so it didn't awaken. Muttering to himself, Raeth opened up another vat, then another, then another, each time releasing an other-Raeth that remained asleep as long as its air source wasn't disrupted.

The last vat that Raeth opened yielded something that nearly made him shriek. The other doppelgangers looked like either adult or teenage Raeths. But this last one was like Circus Freak Raeth. It had two faces, the breathing mask covering only one. The unmasked face looked dead, and the figure didn't seem to be breathing. Its left shoulder grew into a hump, and both of its arms and legs ended in either three-fingered hands or three-toed feet. They looked more like claws than hands and feet. Staring at the thing in mute terror, Raeth grabbed two fistfuls of his hair and just stood there.

His face was twisted into an expression that Saudaji had never seen before. He felt as helpless and confused as the thing mewling on the other side of the chamber.

Raeth had never, ever imagined being in a situation like this before. Yet in that instant, he recognized that he was experiencing his worst nightmare.

 

[Apollo Wilde]

She'd ignored her gut instinct long enough. In a fluid movement, she knelt, retrieved her blaster, holstered it, and was on Raeth in a moment. Her hand clamped down on his shoulder - soft, but assertive.

“We need to go. Now.” Her voice, modulated through her helmet, was flat. The only thing that would betray how she actually felt was the trembling of her fingers on his shoulder. The longer she was here, the more she took in this horror, the less likely she knew that either one of them would leave. As the mewling Raeth still crawled about in the deep orange ooze at their feet, her eyes, unseen beneath the helmet, darted down to him. Her brows creased, and she closed her eyes, sucking in a deep, shuddering breath.

Raeth was falling apart. She couldn’t hold it together, either. This was too much. Entirely too much.

“Rae’ika, please,” and there was such an undercurrent of pleading in her voice, even though the modulation, it sounded like she was swallowing tears. She was. That, and a myriad of other emotions - fear, anger, confusion, all rolled and boiled in her stomach, threatening to override what little reason she had left.

If he didn’t respond, her hand on his shoulder became more insistent. She wouldn’t be above picking him up and carrying him out if the situation called for it. She took a step backwards, hoping desperately that he would listen to her voice, take that step back with her.

 

[BewareTheDream]

Raeth didn't respond right away to Saudaji's voice or touch. While her shaky fingers squeezed his shoulder, he stood there, his own fingers clutching at his hair, his gaze locked onto the dead, malformed Raeth-thing in front of him, and his ears taking in the whining from the first doppelganger. That incessant noise bore into his brain, threatening to pierce the weakened shield of his sanity.

Without any resistance, he took a step back when she pulled at him. Even if he tried to resist, a fully suited-up Saudaji would have no problem forcing him back if she wanted to.

"This can't be here. This can't be here. This can't be here." Raeth muttered those words, over and over, as Saudaji pulled him toward the door.

"No, this can't be here!" He twisted around to face her and to get out of her grip. From his long coat he removed a square-shaped device. The huntress would have immediately recognized it as a vape charge - a potent, baradium-based explosive that was often used for demolition, especially by Chiss commandos. He waggled the explosive in front of her face as though it were a toy.

"You understand, right? None of this can be here." Raeth's eyes were wild. If not for his helmet, Saudaji would have seen that.

Without waiting for her to acknowledge his question, Raeth hurried to the nearest wall. Using his datapad, he brought up the schematic of the facility, zoomed in on the bottom floor, and quickly identified the best spots to blow up in order to bring the entire floor crashing down upon itself. His sanity may have been buckling under the weight of all this horror, but his talents for math and destruction weren't compromised.

Unless Saudaji stopped him, Raeth would place vape charges all around the walls of the vat chamber, as well as throughout the rest of the floor. He had brought a lot of explosives with him, and every single one would be used.

This place hurt him, and now he was going to hurt it.

 

[Apollo Wilde]

She let him go.

And placidly watched as he set up the charges. Though she was less of a demolition person, she recognized the explosives from her time poking around in Raeth’s workshop. It was a testament to how well they worked together in that she too had briefly entertained the best way to destroy the facilities - though her reasons were quite different from his.

While he was busy setting them up, she purposefully strode over to the mewling Raeth-thing on the floor. In the orange slime, it - no, “he”, flailed blindly. There was no reaction to her footsteps, even as they grew audible as she stepped into the slime. She knelt beside him, her fingers trembling. She reached out - thought against it. Her hand stilled - save for the slight shaking of her fingers. Her chest heaved as she took in a deep breath, looking to steady herself. Then, she exhaled, and with it, reached out. Touched the creature on his side, ran her gauntleted hand down the smooth flank. His flesh was cool, goose pimpled in the air of the facility. But beneath that, he was warm - there was a pulse there. His flesh was flesh - surprising to her.

She pressed her fingertips harder into his skin, feeling for anything that might be a give away that this was not a human being, maybe some top of the line human replica droid. That would make sense, wouldn’t it? And it would, perhaps, be cheaper than actually growing humans - after all, droids could be programmed.

But there was nothing that she could feel that was alien. Blinking behind her helmet, she skimmed through the readings on the HUD. To it, the creature in front of her was indeed a human - and her stomach lurched harder. A hard wave of nausea slammed into her stomach, and she sucked in a shuddering breath, doing her best not to vomit. Beneath her helmet, she closed her eyes, tried to focus on the sound of her own breathing. The way that air felt, being drawn into her partially opened mouth. Held it. And held it still longer, until her chest began to feel like it would burst. Then, slowly, she let it out - and in a swift motion, replaced the breathing mask on the creature. As if cradled to a mother’s breast, the whining stopped, and the creature’s eyes fluttered closed again.

She stayed there, watching. Impassive.

Then, on an unseen cue, she picked up the limp body, and settled it back into the tank. Though she did not know how to re-fill it, she settled him in as best as he could. And stepped back, watching him through the impassive face of the mask. Without moving her head, she looked down to her hands. The armor still shone, under a coating of deep orange slime.

By the time Raeth was finished, she seemed to be frozen in place, staring at the slumbering form within the tank.

 

[BewareTheDream]

The contrast between Raeth's and Saudaji's behavior couldn't have been sharper. While he rushed from one structural vulnerability to the next, she stood in place, as still as a deactivated droid. While he planted enough explosives to destroy the entire floor, and perhaps even damage the whole facility, Saudaji showed compassion to one of the dozens of Raeth-things that would get wiped out in the blast.

In a way, it was emblematic of their partnership: they shared the same threats, yet their reactions to those threats were like sun and void.

Raeth talked to himself as he rigged the place to blow. Even after he had stuck the last of his vape charges to a wall, he continued to talk to himself.

"There's hundreds of tons of rock around us. All I gotta do is get that rock inside. Yeah. Between the rock and the flames, everything will get wiped out. Yeah, that's all that's needed: rock and flames. Rock and flames…

"Soon, this place won't be here. Soon, these things won't be here." Saudaji heard him muttering to himself over the comms.

When he got to her, he vaguely noticed that the whining had stopped and the crawler was no longer on the floor, even though he refused to look at the vat or the puddle of mud-colored goop.

"Right, we're set, love," he told her. "Let's get the fark out of here, ey?"

Finally, Raeth agreed to do what Saudaji had wanted to do since the vat chamber had been revealed. Unless Saudaji got a new idea in mind, they made their way to the lift, rode it all the way up to the top, and exited through the cave with the rows of turrets that Saudaji had destroyed. Raeth kept his mutterings in check, mostly.

Outside, the storm had just passed, but the winds still howled and dust still got hurled through the air. Walking through the wind was no longer difficult, though, nor was locating their heavy speeder. They got inside the tank-like vehicle, and without a word Raeth took the passenger seat. By the time Saudaji got the engines revved up, her partner had the remote detonator in his hand. He stared out the window as they drove away.

He set off the explosives when their speeder was a kilometer away from the cave entrance. Far below the surface, the vape charges detonated at once. The entire thirteenth floor of the facility got bathed in fire, load-bearing walls got vaporized in a matter of seconds, and the surrounding earth came crashing down. As Raeth intended, all the Raeth-things floating in their vats disappeared within the rock and flames.

Up above, the two assassins didn't see or hear any of this. Their equipment picked up the seismic disturbance behind them, which showed up as a series of blips on their HUDs. Other than that, what they saw was the wasteland ahead of them, and what they heard was the silence hanging between them.

 

[Apollo Wilde]

Saudaji had been through a lot, and seen a lot, during her time as a bounty hunter. That wasn’t counting all of the other experiences that had colored her life. Some things gave her doubts.

This, she knew, would give her nightmares.

Saudaji’s silence was not the type that was impassive. It was pure shock. Adrenaline alone, something animal, kept her moving. Allowed her to jump in the speeder and pilot it without so much as a second word to him. Once they were inside, she’d taken a moment to remove her helmet. The fact that she didn’t bother to shake out her lekku spoke volumes, as did the pale, sickly green, nearly gray, hue of her skin. Her fingers on the steering wheel trembled, though she kept them steady. When the ground shook beneath them, a mere shuddering of the dunes, her fingers tightened on the steering wheel.

Normally, she possessed an almost uncanny ability to discern what Raeth was feeling - maybe not quite what he was thinking, but what he was feeling. It was a willfulness on her part, before their confession, to largely ignore it, in favor of her poor attempt to keep her distance. To be suspect at the explosive nature of their relationship, struggling to bolster it with “evidence” that he disliked her as well. To do her best to ignore that instant attraction to his cunning and charm.

She’d registered that he was, like her, in shock.

No, worse than that, whispered what was left of her higher thinking facilities. But it was okay. She could deal with this, deal with him, once they were safe. Once they were away from this place. Once she felt like they could breathe, that’s when she could turn her attention to him. More than anything, she longed for a tall glass of something strong. Strong enough to make her forget.

In the hours that passed with them in the speeder, she spoke only one sentence to him: “We’re going to Mandalore.”

She didn’t expect her words to carry much weight to him. He was unfamiliar, after all, with why she’d left her home to begin with. Bounty hunting to help an impoverished family seemed like a pretty enough excuse, or perhaps searching for that erstwhile husband of hers. She gripped the steering wheel tighter. It was a risk. But it would be safe. For a while, at least. If she didn’t get involved with her family. Of course, whoever was behind this could have tracked them, would track them, to her home - but she wasn’t thinking that rationally. All she could think of was being safe, and the safest place that she still instantly though of was home.

Just the thought of it was enough to bring a crooked, broken smile to her face, tamped down by an equally broken and shaky laugh.

Imagine that - willingly wanting to return home.

 

[BewareTheDream]

"Okay, we're going to Mandalore," Raeth repeated without pausing to think. The monotone quality of his voice made it evident that he didn't really understand what she had said; he was only parroting her. If she looked at him, she would have seen him staring at the speeder's ceiling or at the dashboard displays. Either way, he stared at nothing.

The drive back to civilization felt like it dragged on for years. It wasn't the first time the two had shared a long, uncomfortable ride, but it was the first time since they chose to embrace their feelings for one another rather than fight against them. Raeth wasn't aware of this - he wasn't aware of much that night - but what they had just seen and the challenges they were about to face would be among the greatest tests of their relationship.

Raeth normally remembered everything, but he didn't remember Saudaji pulling into Breeka Dar Mun. He didn't remember where they left the heavy speeder, nor did he remember the walk back to the Patient Pylat. He didn't even remember flying the ship out of Ch'hodos and setting a course for Mandalore, but he must have, because when he snapped out of his stupor, he found himself in the pilot seat with hyperspace glowing outside.

Looking up, he was nearly blinded by the blue and white lights shining through the viewport. Usually, traveling through hyperspace was one of his favorite parts of the job. He loved to stare at the cosmic tunnels and imagine them reaching toward an infinite number of possibilities. But he was in no mood to marvel that night, so he flipped a switch that he rarely used and covered the viewport with a metal shield. The cockpit darkened substantially; it would have been completely dark if not for the multitude of blinking buttons and glowing displays along the counters and walls.

Leaning forward, Raeth had a look at one of those displays. His movements and his thoughts felt like they were underwater, but he struggled through the sluggishness to review the ship's course. He saw that he had programmed a complicated route that involved multiple jumps in seemingly random directions, and that the last few jumps would take them deep into Mandalorian Space. He guessed that Saudaji must have suggested the route to throw off anyone trying to track them, and then he must've punched it in like navigation droid.

Saudaji…Mandalore…Why were they going there, again?

Raeth glanced about but didn't see her in the cockpit, so he got up to search for her. He found her in another part of the ship. When he did, something vibrated in the pocket of his long, dust-covered coat, which he still hadn't bothered to remove. Reaching into his pocket, he found that the vibrating object was the silver holo-communicator they had gotten from Deegi, their contact on Breeka Dar Mun. He had forgotten about it.

In addition to vibrating, the communicator had a circular red light blinking on its surface. It reminded him of those buzzers that some old-fashioned restaurants gave to customers who are in for a long wait. Maybe Mr. Mystery was calling to let them know their table was ready.

At that thought, the tiniest of chuckles burst from his lips. That was good - even after seeing the horrors in the lab, Raeth could still make himself laugh.

Before answering, Raeth exchanged glances with Saudaji to make sure she was ready. He then set the communicator on the nearest surface and switched it on. He wasn't worried about the thing containing a tracker or a bomb, because he had already scanned it, double-checked the scan, and found nothing; that much he remembered. Besides, there was no sense in Mr. Mystery leading them to an underground lab full of Raeth-things just to blow them up.

Like a genie popping out of a bottle, a flickering, bluish figure appeared in the air between the two assassins. The holographic figure wore a mask, but there was no doubt in Raeth's mind that this was Mr. Mystery. Sure, it could have been another double, another ruse, but his gut told him this was the real deal.

The hologram turned his visor from Raeth to Saudaji, then back again before he spoke. "You saw everything, right?" When he spoke, there was no modulation; it was sounded like a real voice. "And I'm guessing you downloaded all the data you could find. If you didn't, I'd be disappointed."

Raeth detected only a hint of an accent that sounded like Corellian hick. He almost laughed in disbelief, because he didn't expect Mr. Mystery to sound like that. If anything, he half-expected to hear an upper-class Coruscanti accent, like his own.

"In that case, I didn't disappoint you," Raeth answered.

The hologram nodded and stared at Raeth. Judging. Assessing. "You're handling the discovery better than I expected."

"Yeah, well, I've trained myself to always expect the unexpected." Raeth wanted to think he sounded confident, but he felt like he was breaking on the inside. He guessed that Saudaji could tell; he hoped she didn't think less of him because of it.

"That's good. You should be prepared for this, then." Mr. Mystery placed his hands on either side of his helmet and lifted it off, slowly. His face was finally revealed, and it looked like Raeth's.

They weren't exactly alike. Raeth's face was boyishly handsome, whereas Mr. Mystery's was decorated by deep wrinkles on his cheeks, forehead, and around his eyes. Raeth's hair was messy, short, and brown, whereas Mr. Mystery's was slicked back, long enough to reach his collar, and streaked with white. Raeth often looked like he was a second away from laughing out loud, while Mr. Mystery looked like he rarely laughed at all.

Mr. Mystery looked like Raeth if he had lived through a lifetime of pain.

The strength left Raeth's body when he saw his own face staring at him. Stumbling backwards, his back hit a wall, and then he slid his butt down to the ground. He felt as though something was constricting his lungs, and he couldn't take his wide eyes off the hologram floating above him.

"Get a hold of yourself, boy," the man said with as much sympathy as a droid might muster. "You're making an ass of yourself. Get yourself together, and listen up. I've got a few more things to explain to you."

The worst day in Raeth's life kept getting more confusing, and Mr. Mystery wasn't even done talking yet.

 

[Apollo Wilde]

Like him, she was also lost in her own thoughts. The only thing that drove her forward was the deep desire, no, need, to get them to safety. She moved with the same silent efficiency as ever - moving as if dancing.

The ride was largely silent on the way back.

Silence between them, since their confession, was…rare. Largely because Raeth was a talker - a bottomless well of trivia and knowledge of nearly everything. Saudaji was more of a storyteller. Though their time together, she’d started to open up more, there were still subjects that she didn’t seem to discuss all that much. Some of it was the assumption that he already knew, others was because she hadn’t felt it was important.

The quiet between them now was one of shared disturbance. Her mind buzzed with so many thoughts that it just became white noise, and all she could focus on was moving forward. The only physical tell that she was concerned was the paleness of her cheeks, the tighten grip on whatever steering wheel that happened to be in her hands. Out of the speeder and traveling on their own, she moved faster than usual, with a breathlessness that was oddly seductive.

She automatically moved in front of him at every step, shielding him from whatever with her own body.

Once, just once - when they were in the ship, she reached for him. Her fingers twined through his, and she studied him with an unfathomable expression in her dark eyes. The knit of her brow suggested sorrow, confusion, and the quirk of her lips, something else entirely. But love bubbled beneath it all. It radiated from her, sealed with that caress of her hand. No matter what they’d just seen, he was her Raeth.

She squeezed his fingers lightly. Licked her lips, and they parted. Words caught. She swallowed, seemed to be looking past him for the answer. Whatever it was, it didn’t come. She lowered her head, let out a soft chuckle ringed with tears.

“Hey,” she choked out, her voice wavering from disuse. If she said too much, it would make things worse. If she said too little, it wouldn’t be enough. Her eyes fixed on him, pleading. And then, that shaky, stumbling smile, struggling to her lips. She suddenly pulled him close, pressing her forehead to his. Her breath warm against his lips, smelling of blood and iron and the deep damp sweetness that clung to her, her hand cupped the back of his head, the other snaking round his waist. She pulled him close, less than a lover and more like brothers in arms. Her grip was firm, the only unchanging thing in a world where the bottom had suddenly fallen out. Her forehead against his now was skirting the edge of painful, that firm press, trying to meld two minds into one.

“Ni kar'tayl gar darasuum.” A hoarse whisper from her, scraped raw and clean from the depths of her body.

____

She left him to his own devices.

It stung. Felt as if she were failing him, continuing to fail him. She hadn’t protected him before, she wasn’t protecting him now. For all of her hovering, for her bravado, she was painfully outclassed in a world that was much bigger and whirling out of her control. A nagging guilt curled round her stomach, guilt that she was dumb, that she wasn’t much more to him than a burden, occasional warm holes to chase loneliness away. She had to scold herself then - her love meant more than that. That, at least, she was sure of. As sure as it was etched across her chest, what she had done for love, what she would do again and again. Her life was braided into his, a braid of her own design. It couldn’t be undone that easily. At least not by her own hands. Times like this, it frightened her, more than the thought of dying, of being so much in the hands of another being. Of being so helpless in the face of his immense grief. Grief - that wasn’t the right word. Shock. Something between the two, something that she didn’t have the Basic or Mando’a to properly address.


Mando’a.

Home.

She leaned against one of the bulkheads of the ship. Home. She hadn’t been back, not since Mahoroba. She hadn’t directly spoken to anyone in her immediate family since then, either. The excuse was that her line of work, no, the initial search for Mahoroba, would make communication dangerous. She’d left everything for him, that mad search among the stars, looking for him, a child raging against an unfair world. How little she’d known then - but how much she’d grown since then.

But she would need to prepare. While he stared into hyperspace, before it closed in front of him, she crept to what would be her quarters. Standing in front of her own holoscreen, she took in a deep breath. And let it out, shaking. She would have time to break down to the horrors she’d seen in her dreams. Now, there was still work to be done. He wasn’t safe yet.

Saboten’s dull pink face flickered into being, no less lovely through the projection.

“Daj’ika!” Her husky voice was surprised.

“Bot’ika,” came Saudaji’s measured reply. And then, a lapse into the comfort of Mando’a. She spoke swiftly, the words flowing like music. It was different than what she spoke with Raeth - what he’d learned, and what she’d helped him with, was as much as could be described as “Standard” Mando’a, which didn’t account for variations between continents, tribes, families. Saboten replied, her voice a counterpoint to Saudaji’s careful intonation. Singing back and forth, words slipping forth, stories being told. Saboten’s amber eyes widened, narrowed, teared. Her hand slipped to her mouth, silence dancing between the two before she ventured a question. Saudaji answered, running a taper hand over the fall of her lekku. Closed her eyes, rubbed at a knot in her neck. Tension from piloting gathered there and tightened the muscle.

A closing of Saboten’s amber eyes, a small smile. An affirmative answer, and a sigh from Saudi. The holo screen flickered into nothing, drowning the room in silence.

When Saudaji swallowed, she realized, as if waking from a dream, that her throat was dry and sore. She’d talked for well over an hour, without so much as a break, the story breaking free from her in the middle, winding back and forth to the beginning, to the present, words spilling forth, unchecked. Potentially dangerous, but this was a world without clear boundaries anymore. Even the rules from home, the solid, staid traditions, the things that mattered, all of it blew away in the madness of her tale, in the panic that crept into her words before slinking off again, beaten back by a reassuring comment hissed from Saboten. No, Saboten would never go back, her past made it impossible, she couldn’t have shaken off the dirt of Mandalore from her heels quick enough, but she’d let the family know that Saudaji was coming back, that she needed her family, family above all, and there would be a place for her, a safe place. They missed her, Saboten had said, strange that the Zeltron was on better terms, but it wouldn’t matter, home was home, and Saudaji was still the precious child, the daughter that they longed for. There would be a place for her, and her loved one.

With this tucked deep within her, finally, footing under her again, she approached Raeth, slipping through shadows and light. Her face was passive, her eyes a little pink from her tears. But it would be okay. Somehow, somewhere, and maybe she was being so, so dumb, overly simplistic, but she still had him. He was still flesh and blood before her, her flesh and blood, her loved one, even through her own failures -

A hiccuping breath from her as he helmet was removed, and the dim realization that she wasn’t as startled as perhaps she should have been, but no, here it was, a timeworn and etched Raeth in front of her, a mirror to a distant future, a future, she’d resolved, right then and there, that she was determined to keep her Raeth from. She was silent as he spoke - and as Raeth backed away in horror, she moved. Forgetful of the hologram, she knelt beside him, and slipped her arms around his neck, pressing her lips to his cheek, reassuring him, not wanting to startle him, but just to remind him - she was there. She wasn’t going anywhere. And that she would be with him besides this.

However she felt towards the hologram would make no difference. She couldn’t strike at him from where she was. The fact that he was upsetting Raeth was enough to make her grit her teeth, but she had to be smarter. Smarter and better. So she was silent, her gaze stony, as she looked at the mystery man.

 

[BewareTheDream]

By simply showing his face, Mr. Mystery had destroyed Raeth's world, hurled him into space, and left him out there to float, helpless and frozen. Thankfully, Saudaji saved Raeth with her love. The arms around his neck pulled him away from the void and into her warmth. He clutched at one of her arms with the strength of desperation - he was afraid that if he or she let go, he'd float away into the cold again.

In contrast, Mr. Mystery reacted to Saudaji's show of affection with impassivity. For several moments, he stood so still that it looked like the hologram had locked up. But he hadn't frozen. Instead, he studied the two with so much intensity that he barely blinked.

"Snap out of it, boy," he said, finally breaking the silence. "You're embarrassing yourself."

It took some time, but Raeth regained enough control over himself to speak. He didn't stop clutching at Saudaji's forearm, though. "So…" Raeth gulped. "I'm a clone? I'm your clone?" The question was the quietest of whispers. It hurt him to think about the possibility, and saying it out loud hurt even more. It felt like someone twisted a vibroblade in his gut.

"Yeah," the old man confirmed. "You're one of several hundred attempts to clone me, but one of the few who was born healthy and functional. What you saw on Ch'hodos was one of multiple facilities, and each one houses vats like the ones you destroyed."

Wanting to scream, Raeth struggled to process the information that was bombarding him. He had never experienced a panic attack before, but he assumed that what he was feeling at that moment was one. Closing his eyes, he tried to focus on Saudaji's nearness. His fingers dug, harder, into her forearm, and he forced himself to breathe normal.

Raeth opened his eyes and gazed at his own face. "Why? Why you?"

The hologram had been holding his helmet under his arm. He turned around to set it down someplace that the holo-projector didn't pick up. To Raeth and Saudaji, it looked like the helmet disappeared. "Because I'm a Force Void," he said. "When I was a young man, the Sith captured me and tried to 'harvest' my ability. At first, they thought the Force Void condition could be plucked out of me like an organ, replicated, and implanted into others. After a lot of experimentation - painful experimentation that only ended when I escaped - they eventually came to the conclusion that this approach wouldn't work. So they reassigned their resources to their plan B: cloning."

The old man pulled up a seat, which appeared on the hologram. Raeth knew that the guy ('The guy'? That was him, wasn't it?) had a lot of explaining to do, so it made sense that he wanted to get comfortable.

"Cloning also proved to be complicated," the old man continued. "Maybe there's something about my genetics, or maybe it's something about being a Force Void that makes it exceedingly hard to clone me. They tried for decades. A majority of their clones died in their artificial wombs. Some were born wrong; I'm assuming you saw at least one example of that. But you? You were the first clone to be born with a working mind, as well as the abilities and inabilities of a Force Void.

"I guess congratulations are in order." There was no hint of humor in the old man's tone.

Raeth finally eased up on his grip of Saudaji's forearm, but he didn't let go. He still needed her to feel grounded. He needed her more than anything. "What do I call you? Dad?"

The old man guffawed. "Please don't. You can call me anything, except that." For a moment, he looked thoughtful. "How about you call me 'Prime'?"

It was Raeth's turn to guffaw. "How can you be sure you're not a clone, too?"

Prime smirked. Despite the various differences between his face and Raeth's, both of their smirks looked exactly the same. "Don't think I haven't considered the possibility that I'm not the original and that the Sith implanted fabricated memories into my head, like they did with you." Raeth flinched at that comment as though he had been slapped. "In the end, it doesn't really matter. I know who I am, and I know my purpose."

"Let me guess: you want our help with that purpose, huh? That's why you're filling me in on all this shit." Little by little, Raeth was sounding more like himself. He was still curled up on the floor and curled up against Saudaji, however.

"That's right. I want your help. The Sith have done us both wrong, kid, and for that I want to hurt them."

"How do you know I don't want to hurt you?" Somewhat awkwardly, Raeth got up on his feet and stared, defiantly, at the old man. "You put me inside of a shower rigged with explosives and threatened to blow me out into space! Not just me, but Saudaji, too! You're telling me all this shit in an attempt to recruit me to 'your purpose', but why should I give a fark about your purpose? Maybe I'd rather hunt you down like an acklay and put you down, instead."

Prime shook his head. His expression was that of a disappointed father's. "For starters, that would be stupid, and I know you're not stupid. If you're anything like me, then you're too smart for your own good.

"Furthermore, I know everything about you, because you're me with only a fraction of the experience. You can't hunt me down, kid, because I know all there is to know about you, but you can only begin to guess what it takes to be me."

Raeth and Prime stared at each other, both barely blinking. The younger man was angry. The older man was waiting.

 

[Apollo Wilde]

Settling behind him, she pulled him between her legs. Her arms lifted, setting him adrift for a breath. Then, as she was comfortable, her arms snaked back around his neck, his chest. Though she was still in her armor, she was so close that the illusion of warmth pouring from her body washed across his back. A hand moved up to card through his hair, her lips against his cheek, as a mother would comfort a hurt child. Though her hands, rough from years of hard living, they were gentle against him, reassuring. Hands that moved with a confidence and familiarity of love.

As ‘Prime’ spoke, Raeth could feel a low, hissed epithet in Mando’a. But she would say no more, turning her attention back to soothing her love. Though her attention seemed to be on Raeth, she was listening to what the older man was saying. Only a careful drifting of her eyes occasionally to the hologram would give her away, and it was clear that it was a deliberate gesture.

Raeth’s fingers dug into her arms, still covered by the long sleeved form fitting body suit she wore under her armor. Though she’d taken her helmet and gauntlets off, she was still “dressed,” unable to shake the feeling that she wasn’t, no, that they weren’t, entirely safe yet. There would be much to talk about, once this was over. But clone or not, it made no difference to her. What did it mean, really? That he was a genetic duplicate of the man in front of her, yes, but he wasn’t the same. Not by any means. He was his own, as if he was born naturally. What could she say or do to make him understand that?

But, if it came to it, could she kill another with the face of her love? She’d frozen in the…that place, felt fear snake through her. And, squeezing him gently, she tamped the thought down. She couldn’t afford to speculate on what ifs, on possibilities. She had to pull her attention to the here and now, and what her next move would be. And that was getting them to Mandalore - away from this man, away from the Sith, away from everything. Enough for them to get their thoughts straight.

Prime continued to speak - and latched onto a point that was all too valid. Prime was right - he WAS more intelligent, at least, more skilled, than Raeth was, at the moment. And perhaps, due to her own rash behavior, her own involvement wouldn’t give Raeth the edge that he would need. She would, could be there, to rescue him, but to keep him ahead? That was something different.

Her mouth tightened. Well. Let him try and follow them to Mandalore. He could - this Prime. And he could potentially kill them there, too. But by everything that held the galaxy together, he’d have one hell of a time doing it.

 

[BewareTheDream]

Prime broke the silence. "Think, carefully, for a minute about who your real enemy is. I wasn't the one who grew you inside of a vat. I wasn't the one who implanted fake memories into your head."

Raeth squeezed his eyes shut at the mention of implanted memories. That possibly had crossed his mind more than once ever since he saw the clones - shit, the other clones - but he managed to push that thought away into the darkest reaches of his mind. Now that his clone dad had said it out loud, he could no longer pretend it wasn't true.

How many of his memories were real? And if memories, if experiences defined a man, then how real was Raeth?

While Raeth drowned in an existential crisis, Prime continued talking. "You may as well open your eyes, boy, because none of this is going away just because you want it to."

It occurred to Raeth that Prime's speech patterns, like his accent, were different than his. While the younger man was literally a fast talker, the older man drawled. As he listened, Raeth thought of a lazy stroll down a country road on a warm, summer night, a thought that was so unexpected and ludicrous it would have made him laugh if he didn't feel so lost.

He opened his eyes and met Saudaji's gaze. For a moment, he didn't feel as lost.

"That energy of yours would be better directed at the Empire," Prime continued. "The price they're gonna pay for what they've done to you and me is a steep one. Although I don't need your help to make them pay, I sure would like it."

"Why? You're sad that you haven't been part of my life for the past twenty-nine years, and you want to make up for it with some father-son time? Instead of playing catch, we can topple the Empire, is that it, dad?"

Twenty-nine years old? In the back of Raeth's mind, he wondered how old he actually was.

"No need to be a smart-ass," Prime snapped. The older man paused and took a breath before continuing. "Look, I don't blame you for being hostile. All of this is fucked; I know it. But I'm trying to work with you, here. I'm telling you the truth, and I'm showing you who the real enemy is.

"Together, the three of us could do a lot of harm to them." This wasn't the first time that Prime looked at Saudaji, but it was the first time he had included her in the conversation.

"So here's the deal: I'll leave you two alone. You've got a lot to think about, and you don't need me around to distract you. If you decide not to together, then fine. We'll never have to speak again.

"However, if you make that choice, you'll also have to cut ties with the Sith. More than that, you two will have to disappear, completely. If you ghost, then you'll never have to see me again."

Raeth already knew why Prime had this caveat, but he wanted to hear him say it, anyway. "Or what? You'll come after us?"

"Yeah, I will," the old man answered.

Raeth nodded. "Because we're too much of a threat, right?"

Prime nodded. "You already know the answer to that."

Raeth glanced at Saudaji. "If we decide to help you, how do we contact you?" He planned to jettison the holo-projector once this nightmare conversation was over, so using to contact the old man wasn't an option.

"Simple. Travel to Alderaan. Go to Sanctuary Coast and listen to some poetry during the Brezwell Community Center's open mic night. Do that, and I'll find you within a week."

"Great. I love amateur poetry." Raeth was only half-kidding.

The older man shook his head. "Such a smart-ass." He turned to Saudaji. For an instant, it looked like he was about to say something more. But instead, he stared at her, then stared at Raeth without saying another word.

Unless Saudaji had more to say, Raeth would shut the holo-projector off and toss the damn thing out the airlock.

 

[Apollo Wilde]

The look exchanged between Prime and Saudaji was silent. It felt longer than what it really was - hardly a few seconds, if that. Still, there would be no change in her body language, no quickening of breath, to show that she’d even noticed. Her focus was still on Raeth, her mind turning over the words that Prime had said. Of course they would need time.

For her, she would need to keep moving forward. Get to Mandalore. Get somewhere safe. And then weigh their options. For her, this seemed much easier - she was contracted to the Sith, a bounty hunter. In theory, they could stop paying her, her contract could have an end, and so on. With it being the Sith, however, the likelihood of her just “walking away” was much less of an actual possibility. After meeting Raeth, letting go, allowing herself to feel, she hadn’t thought anything of legitimately leaving Raeth, save for her inevitable death.

Now, it would seem, she was truly in uncharted space.

Well.

Life, so far, hadn’t gone the way that it was planned for her. Not by the plans set by her biological mother, her adoptive mother, even by Saudaji’s own standards. For once, she didn’t have the faintest hint of a plan. Couldn’t fight her way out of this.

Her grip tightened on Raeth, soothingly. And she kissed the side of his head, exhaling playfully into his thick hair. As he moved to toss the holo projector, she closed her hand over his. “Don’t,” she whispered. “It might be a long shot, but you might be able to track this back. Find the source. Maybe.”

Her fingers slipped through his, easing his grip until the holo projector fell. Squeezing, she shifted from behind him to beside him. She was eye-level with him, her eyes, dark, liquid, understanding, locked onto his. She smiled - fleeting. Then, deciding, her smile returned, warm, full. She leaned forward, pressed her lips against his forehead. The skin was pale, clammy, slightly salty from the faint sheen of sweat there. Idly, she swiped her tongue across her lips, then, leaned in again and kissed him, a whisper soft, between the eyebrows. She would pull back again, her eyes hooded, her nose rubbing against his. Closing her eyes fully now, her lips hovered over his, certain, before pressing against them. She held it, keeping it chaste.

Letting the kiss end on its own, she smiled against his mouth. “Ni kar'tayl gar darasuum,” a soft song, reassuring. She moved back away from him, holding her hand out to keep him soothed. With quiet surety, she began to remove her armor, delicately setting each piece aside on the floor. It stacked up, a pile of faintly glimmering durasteel, until she was nearly “bare” in front of him, just in her body suit. Reaching behind her, she fiddled for a moment, then, the purr of a zipper, and she sighed, her eyes dropping closed again. As she opened them, she began to peel the suit off of her body. Beneath it, she wore nothing, and her jade breasts gently sprang free, her malachite nipples tightening into firm nubs in the cooler air of the ship.

She crept closer now, the forgotten holo projector knocked aside by her knee. It skidded into the pile of armor with a muted clank.

Perhaps there could have been something more soothing that she could have said, something to have reassured him. And perhaps there was still time, as she grasped the sides of his face, cradled them in her palms. But by the time her lips touched his again, she knew in her gut that the time for words had passed. He was real to her, the only Raeth she’d ever known. Prime, despite what her eyes told her, was a stranger, a stranger with a similar face, but not the man in front of her. And despite what memories he held before he met her, real or not, the memories that she had with him were real. And she was determined to make sure that he knew that.

A hand slipped away from his face to take one of his own. She tenderly placed it on her bare breast. She bumped her nose against his, her eyes questioning with a shyness that was new and endearing.

 

[BewareTheDream]

The call with Prime ended in awkward silence. Raeth grew sick of staring at the face that was his yet not his, so he slapped the top of the holo-communicator to shut it off. After the glowing image in the air flickered out of existence, he almost picked up the communicator to chuck it out of the airlock.

But that's when Saudaji distracted him with one good idea and one even better idea.

The device dropped from his hand while Saudaji peppered his face in kisses. Raeth's eyelids shut, and he sighed. Saudaji had become his strength, but she had started as his weakness, and even now he remained helpless against her affections. His strength as well as his stress drained from him when her lips touched his, but he had enough strength left to hug her.

Murmuring, gratefully, into Saudaji's mouth, Raeth relaxed. The communicator was forgotten. His worries were forgotten, too, at least for now. All that mattered was her and how good she made him feel. Good and whole.

“Ni kar'tayl gar darasuum,” he said, his eyes still closed. There was a trance-like quality to his expression and in his voice. As for the words, his pronunciation of Mando'a was getting better; at the very least, the way he said this one, essential phrase sounded nearly perfect. It was the phrase he used most often, after all.

Raeth opened his eyes so he could watch her strip. Although Saudaji was disassembling her armor, she may as well have been taking off lingerie. Raeth finally removed the long coat he had kept on since Ch'hodos. Underneath, he wore clothes that were thick to help protect against sandstorms. But despite how thick his pants were, they didn't hide how erect he already was for her.

Saudaji peeled her body suit off of her torso, then, which caused Raeth to grunt in appreciation. He had seen, touched, and tasted her breasts - as well as her whole body - on numerous, cherished occasions, but it still took his breath away whenever she stripped for him. Gulping, licking his lips, he stared at her jiggling swells and forgot that he had to get naked, too.

He didn't forget how to talk, though. "Gods, look at you…" he whispered while she removed the bodysuit, completely. His greedy eyes absorbed every bit of her, from her swaying lekku to her powerful legs, and from her heavy, green breasts to the flesh of deeper green between her thighs. He hoped she was already wet for him.

It was a good thing that Saudaji took his hand and placed it on her boob, because Raeth had forgotten how to move. But the feel of her warm, inviting flesh reminded his fingers how to work again. He gave her a loving squeeze or two before his tinkerer's fingers began to toy with her malachite tit. Taking it between his index finger and thumb, he rolled it, pinched it, pulled on it.

When Saudaji bumped his nose with hers and asked him a question with her eyes, the answer she saw in on his face was an emphatic ‘yes!’ He clutched her other breast, his hand touching it from below and lifting it up. Bending over, he dealt sucking kisses all over those curves.

Addled by his desire for her, he glanced up at her face and showed her a crooked, confused smile. Then he looked back at her boobs and stared at them as he fondled them. “Gods, look at you,” he repeated like a mantra.

Raeth desperately needed to feel good. He needed to relish her, too. So if Saudaji let him do so, he would spend the next several minutes touching and tasting her all over.

He buried his face between her breasts, which continued to be pampered by his gifted hands. He licked the valley between them, and he salivated over her curves. He covered one tit with his lips to suck on it, tickle it with his tongue, and pinch it with his lips. Her other nipple got covered, next; Raeth moistened her areola by sliding his tongue tip over it again and again.

Raeth grasped one of Saudaji by her hips and spun her around, slowly. Seeing her from a different angle, he marveled at the roundness and perkiness of her ass, as well as the muscles of her back. He enjoyed how her lekku swayed.

“Look at you!” he moaned once again. From behind her, he reached around to plant his palms against her belly. Pulling back, he got her back to press against his front. His phallus throbbed as it rubbed against her bare ass. If not for his pants, she would have felt it rubbing against her crack.

What Saudaji did feel was her lover’s cheek gently caress the side of one of her head tails as he guided his mouth to her neck. The taste of her sweat - which had dried upon her skin after several hours under a bodysuit and armor - turned him on even more, if that was possible. He laved her neck with his tongue and teased it with his lips.

Down the front of her body, he pressed his palms against her belly for a while before sliding them up to her breasts once more. He massaged them from underneath, enjoying their firmness and their weight.

All of this occurred within the Patient Pylat’s leisure room. Normally, it was used to watch shows or play games on the holo-projection table, or to lounge on the wide, cushioned sofas. Over the past few months, Raeth and Saudaji had used it to make love on many occasions. Now, the leisure room was once again filled with the sound of moans and grunts, as well as the early scents of sex.

It was the scent of Saudaji’s sex that caused him to reach down between her legs at that moment. His fingers slipped over her pubic hair and stroked it for a few moments, then they dipped down further. He caressed her outer lips, up and down. He pressed on them from either side to get her to blossom for him. When she did, he used the tip of his middle finger to touch her inside, and to begin teasing her clit by massaging its underside and tenderly flicking its tip.

As he fingered Saudaji’s cunt, Raeth continued to kiss, lick, and suck at her neck or her shoulder. His other hand eventually went to her jaw so he could turn her head and then capture her mouth for a deeper, hungrier kiss.

“Mrrmm…” That moan was filled with longing. He needed this, he needed her, so badly in order to forget what was happening, at least for a while.

Raeth didn’t know what he wanted more: to keep doing what he was doing, or to get naked so they could fuck. This was a conundrum he often had to deal with. For now, he kept kissing her from behind, playing with her pussy, and rubbing his covered cock against her rear. At this rate, he’d cum inside of his pants in a matter of moments if Saudaji didn’t do something about it.

 

[Apollo Wilde]

No matter how many times she heard those words, they always caused a thrill to snake through her. It was something she felt from the tips of her lekku all the way down through her toes, and knowing that it was real, that he was real, that this was the life she was living, made her feel like she’d been infinitely blessed by some particular benevolent creator. And the fact that his body responded to hers, even with the slightest touch, just…she had to close her eyes, shake her head, to try and clear it enough to focus on what was happening, so dream-like it felt.

When he spoke again, in Basic, the awe in his voice was enough to cause a faint blush to rise to her cheeks, nearly enough for her to want to clutch her discarded body suit to her body in a sudden bout of shyness. It was an incredible reaction for someone who typically treated her body in a very matter of fact manner. Only Raeth had this incredible ability to reduce her to little more than a fumbling child with each tender act. His hand, responding to the curve of her breast, was enough to bring her back. The first tug of her nipple was a bolt of electricity coursing through her body, pooling, flickering, between her legs.

His hand, then his face - she arched her back, lightly, into his questing mouth. The first stroke of his tongue against her nipple caused a sharp inhale of breath, a shuddering sigh, her fingers going to card through his thick hair. With each stroke of his tongue, he could feel a tremble building in her body, one that intensified at his continued touch. She was largely silent; her dark eyes fluttered shut, her brows knitting in quiet pleasure. At an insistent tug, the scrape of teeth across her nipple, she would sigh, a little roughness between the tenderness, just how she liked it, how she desired it from him - but it wasn’t about her, not now.

As he spun her around, she laughed - once, lightly, airily. Carefree. Leaning back into him, her hands ghosted over his, before lightly settling against them as he pressed into her stomach. Lacing her fingers through his, she tilted her head up, exposing her neck further to him. He could catch the shadow of her smile, still there, still light, even with her eyes closed. There was a slight tease from her, a light grinding of her rear against his erection. She’d have to do something about those pants here shortly.

Amazing, still, after all this time, that she could marvel at how well her breasts fit, overflowing, within his palms - his hands were the perfect cradle for them, spillage a sign of bounty, how she wanted to be for him, to fill his heart to overflowing, till he could want no more. Her body was molded to his, crafted, it felt, after all of their trysts, to be the perfect fit. His hands trailed lower, and her hands aided - guided him, though he knew the way. At the first inquisitive press of his fingers against her sex, she shivered, and oh, when he parted her, in that expert way that came from sheer adoration, his fingers would be greeted with a thick, warm slick - spilling over onto his fingers, as if she’d already cum. But not yet - though her body was swollen with need, ready to release with coaxing from him.

It was only when his finger slipped into her that she moaned aloud, and she lost the battle to keep herself up. She lurched forward, trembling into him, but pushing her hips back into his hand. She wanted, no, needed more - and, slowly, she untangled herself from him, bit by bit, slipping from his hands with reluctance. She had to bear it, just for a little while - and now, turning to face him, she took him in, the heated gaze of his face, his mussed hair, his erection straining against his pants. And did the first thing that came to mind - knelt. Now, eye level with his phallus, she reached up, and undid his pants - agonizingly slow. She wanted him to feel every moment, to burn it into his memory, to erase any doubt of who he was with her. Who he was to her. And, as she reached in, her fingers merely grazed the side of him, luxuriating in the fleeting feel of his warm skin. Warm - so warm. Always so warm…

She leaned forward, now, her hand deftly twisting inside of his pants to only bring the tip of his cock out. A breath against him, an exhale, then, the following touch of her lips, teasingly, against the rounded tip. Then, her tongue, caressing, lovingly, the slit at the tip of his cock, from the tip to the base, around the fluted edges of his head, tracing a long path she was well familiar with. As she followed the lines of his head with her lips and tongue, her hands pushed his pants further away from his cock, allowing the full length of him to spring free. Rounding his head again, she pulled her head back, his phallus slipping from her lips slowly.

For a moment, she kept her eyes on his cock. Should she take him all the way in? Or should she give into what her body was screaming for - to feel herself impaled on him, him entering her and joining them together as one. The latter won out.

Taking advantage of one of the couches, she slipped away from him, and, with practiced slowness, leaned over it, resting on her elbows, her feet firmly on the floor and her ass lifted to him. In the light of the room, he could clearly see the lips of her sex, glistening, swollen. As little further enticement, she reached back, parting herself for him. A deeper pink, flushed and ready, was exposed to him. Holding herself open, her pointer finger slipped down the trail of her slit, coming away shining wet. Readjusting herself, she moved her hand back to support herself, and looked at him over her shoulder, the roll of one of her lekku cascading over her shoulder, the other, still laying against her back.

 

[BewareTheDream]

There was a time not long ago when Raeth felt as though there was a void where his heart should be. He attempted to fill that void with hedonistic pursuits: sex, alcohol, food, everything except drugs. Immersing himself in his work was another attempt to fill that emptiness with something, anything that might make him feel some semblance of passion. The effectiveness of each of those things was limited; sooner or later that feeling of emptiness would always creep back no matter how busy or distracted he kept himself.

Then Saudaji entered his life. Thanks to her, Raeth finally learned what passion truly was. Now, instead of an inner void, he felt the beginnings of something grand. He didn't understand it, but he knew that it felt good - better than anything he'd ever known. And considering what he was presently going through, he needed to feel good so badly. Raeth needed Saudaji more desperately than he had before.

He was confused when Saudaji pulled away from his grip. One moment, she was reacting beautifully to his fingers on her clit or within her slit, and the next she was moving to get his touch off of her. He'd finally gotten her to moan, too - he loved how much she fought to maintain her control, only to lose it time and again. But apparently her lapse in control was only momentary.

Before he had a chance to ask what she was doing, the emerald temptress dropped to her knees.

"Hnngh!" Raeth nearly came in his pants when he realized that Saudaji was about to suck him off. She had the sweetest mouth in the entire galaxy, and soon he would feel it wrapped around his cock.

"Yesss!" he hissed. Standing on shaky legs, he felt her reach into his pants to find her prize. With just a grazing touch, she could tell how tumescent and, yes, how very warm he was because of her. He was ready to wiggle out of his pants, but instead of helping him take them off, she only tugged his cockhead out and trapped it between his waistband and his stomach. He felt her lips on his pole, next. Seconds after that, her tongue joined the game.

Raeth began to spurt inside Saudaji's mouth, grunting and curling his body forward as he did. He tried so hard not to cum too soon, but what Saudaji was doing to him felt far too good, and his resolve at that moment was far from its peak. More and more of his salty juice bathed her taste buds and hit the back of her throat. The more he tried to fight, the more control he lost, until he was gripping her upper arms and shooting his seed down her throat, full blast.

Head tipped back, Raeth choked out a scream toward the white ceiling lights. His outcries filled Saudaji's ears and bounced around the Pylat's rounded corridors. Thankfully, Saudaji had yanked all of his dick out from his pants by then, making it easier for her to drink of him.

He came so hard it made him woozy. While his jizzed down her throat, he clutched at the back of her head, his fingers beneath the base of her lekku. Somewhere in the back of his pleasure-rocked mind, he hoped that she wasn't disappointed in him for cumming so soon.

Raeth's orgasm eventually ceased, and Saudaji got up off of her knees. He stood there, swaying on his feet for several moments, needing time to drift back to reality. The sight of Saudaji bending over one of couches and presenting herself to him snapped him out his daze enough to get ready for more.

The Force be fucked, he sure loved it when she proved she needed him like he needed her.

Gulping, Raeth began to rush toward her and almost tripped in the process. It suddenly dawned on him that he still had too many clothes on. Hell, he still hadn't taken off the thick, long coat he had worn on Ch'hodos's wind-swept surface. Frantically, he shook the coat off his shoulders and let it drop to the metal floor. He fumbled with his boots to get them off, followed by his pants. Because he was in such a hurry to get inside of that snatch that Saudaji was holding open for him, he didn't take off his shirt and add it to the trail of clothes behind him.

Practically salivating, Raeth reached for her green ass while staring at her chiseled back and her lekku. Fuck, even her lekku turned him on. The sight of one dangling down and the other draped across her back made his already painfully-erect cock swell more.

The fat tip of his dick pressed against Saudaji's snatch from behind. That initial contact was more than enough to make Raeth's eyes roll up and a loud, drawn-out moan to roll past his hanging jaw. Both of his hands squeezed her ass cheeks, nice and hard, before they got repositioned them on her hips. Trembling with the after effects of her blowjob, as well as the anticipation of what was about to come, Raeth grasped the base of his pillar for a moment to better guide himself home.

Raeth's mind went blank when he pushed his cockhead inside of her. Her heat, her softness, her tightness enthralled him, as always. Acting on pure instinct, he reached up with one hand, then drove that hand down onto one of her ass cheeks. The crisp slap was a treat to his ears, like how the sight of her juicy flesh jiggling was a treat to his widened eyes.

The sting of that single spanking was still fresh when Raeth grabbed both of Saudaji's hips, held her tight, and began to plow her like a madman. He rammed every single inch of his pole into her, again and again and again. His balls slapped and smashed against her flesh from behind. And the delicious slickness of her snatch not only aided in their frenzied fornication, it helped to create the wicked, wet sounds that accompanied his many grunts, groans, and howls.

The Twi'lek's feet may have been firmly pressed to the floor when she first shook her cunt and rear at him, but now that Raeth was pounding her he lifted her heels off the floor multiple times. He sometimes knocked her toes off the floor, too, with how powerfully he was fucking her.

In no time at all, the heat generated between them became oppressive. Raeth felt all stick and hot underneath the wool shirt he had neglected to take off, so he had to tear his hands away from her oh so luscious ass or her grippable hips for a moment in order to rip the shirt off. Once it was gone, though, the heat remained.

Thanks to the increased training and exercise he had received under Saudaji's tutelage, Raeth had bulked up a little. He was still narrow at the waist and lean overall, but his chest, shoulders, arms, and legs had become noticeably more fit. And although he was nowhere near as strong as she was, he was much stronger than he had been only months before.

He was in the best shape of his life - physically, anyway. With that increased strength and endurance, Raeth endeavored to fuck Saudaji stupid. He wanted to get fucked stupid, too, so that the hellish events of the past few weeks could be forgotten.

If it all got incinerated in the blazing inferno of their love, that would be more than fine by him.

 

[Apollo Wilde]

His orgasm caught her by surprise - and she let out an adorable squeak, lunging forward to capture him.

Warm, salty, and ultimately, always, tasting of him, a flavor she didn’t have words for. Though she started to swallow the moment she felt his cock spasm, her mouth was filled to overflowing. It spilled from the corners of her mouth, trailing down the sides of her face to meet under her chin in large, opaque milky drops. His fingers under her lekku coaxed her forward, and she deep throated him eagerly, her throat flexing in her effort to swallow him all down.

As she got to her feet, she slowly let his still erect cock ease from her mouth. Shining trails of his cum and her saliva mixed together glistened around her full lips. A string of their mixed fluids connected them, briefly, before it was broken by her warm smile. It was a smile of excitement, of anticipation. Not a single bit of disappointment was on her face as she clambered onto the couch. He was coming back to her - bit by bit. And bit by bit, she’d keep drawing him back into her. This, right now, was real. Nothing else mattered.

The first press of his cock against her slick cunt lips, and her body stiffened. For that one, shining moment, she held her breath, unable to stop the giddy smile from rushing to her face. His fingers gripping onto her flesh, traveling, feeling her - and orienting himself with a firm slap. A yelp - but not of pain; merely of surprise. A bit of pain with her pleasure always heightened the experience for her, something she was just now beginning to explore in earnest with him. It felt like there were literally no limits to what Raeth could introduce her to, no, what they could learn together. Each time that their bodies met, it was a new opportunity.

She had enough time to inhale before it was forced out of her in a sharp cry - his hips snapping into hers. And then, he was fucking her relentlessly, so hard that her hands slipped down the side of the couch, unable to gain purchase anywhere. Normally so sure footed, she now was being rocked back and forth across the couch, the sliding of her hands against the fabric adding to the noise.

Finally, one fierce thrust sent her completely off her feet, slamming into the couch. Her face pressed against the couch cushion, her laughter was muffled. It became louder as she reached back, slapping his arms lightly, indicating that he needed to hold off for a minute. Wedging her face free from the couch, her laughter rang out now. Leaning forward, she, with great difficulty, pulled herself free from his cock. The slick sound of him leaving her body was covered by the sound of her sigh, and the humming of the couch as she changed positions. With a surprising amount of grace, she angled herself onto her back, pressing her back against the couch. Her legs were open to him now, and, carefully studying him, she took in how he was standing. Of course, she’d also take the time to admire him, biting down on her lower lip as her eyes drifted from the top of his head to settle on his erect cock.

“You’re beautiful,” she breathed, in awe. She was usually quite…reluctant with her compliments, allowing dirty talk in the heat of the moment to fill the gap. But usually she kept her thoughts about his attractiveness to herself. She figured that he already knew; what, with the way they met and had instantly “taken” to one another, to be polite about it. However, she’d always snuck looks at him (perhaps not as discreetly as she would have liked) when he was nude, or when they worked out. Though he had put on a bit of weight, through muscle mass, it didn’t change how she felt about him. He was hot from the first day she’d met him - and if anything, the time spent together had only made him all the more attractive to her, even when she least wanted to admit to it. But now, in this desperate time - she wanted him to know how she felt. “Beautiful,” she cooed, reaching forward to run her hands down his chest, across his stomach, then, to settle on his hips as she adjusted herself, scooting lower, “And mine.”

She wasn’t typically possessive - “typically” being the key word. From her large family and upbringing to just the nature of her work and seeking pleasure in the galaxy, being possessive was a surefire way to endure emotional agony. She went back and forth with Raeth - she wanted to allow him all the freedoms in the galaxy so he could continue to be him, to keep shining, to be wonderful - but she also knew that she had the desire to want to fold him up and keep him with her at all times, hers and hers alone, to admire, to treasure, to worship as she saw fit. Still, in the moment, as she leaned forward, pressing her cheek against his stomach now, she kissed the indent of his navel, his wet cock glistening in the corner of her sight. She’d let it slip now - and deal with the consequences later, whatever they might be.

Squeezing him, she let go, and leaned back again, playfully wiggling her ass against the couch as she got readjusted. With her legs splayed so wide, her cunt was a deep pink blossom against the milk jade of her thighs, the deeper green of her cunt lips. With a deft twist, she looped her left leg over his left shoulder, lining his cock up to slide between her plump cunt lips. All it would take is just a slight lean, and he’d enter her completely.

 

[BewareTheDream]

The frenzy that had overtaken Raeth was suddenly dispelled when Saudaji swatted him.

“Huh…? Humph...hmph...hmph….” Confused and feeling drunk - drunk from the lips that had drained him moments before, and the lower lips that gripped him now - he understood that she wanted him to stop, but he didn’t know why. He must have literally done her wrong, a thought that he felt was confirmed when she went through the painstaking process of separating her body from his. Raeth felt ashamed, which was something he almost never felt.

“Daji...hmph...hmph...Daj’ika.” Over the sound of his labored breathing, she could hear the apology in his voice. She could also feel it in his touch as he ran his fingertips and his nails up or down her spine. Raeth closed his eyes and told himself to calm down, which was always difficult to do when they were intimate.

When he opened his eyes, he saw her staring at him. The compliments she gave him and the awe in her voice and her touch told him that everything was fine. He sighed in relief, then sighed again in ecstasy when she touched him, held him. In her own way, she told him that everything was as it should be. He was as he should be. Raeth shivered in gratitude.

She called him beautiful, which fueled his ego. His ego had sustained plenty of damage recently, and that damage was beginning to get repaired by what Saudaji was doing for him now. She also called him hers.

“Yes, Daj’ika. I’m all yours.” These words were carried by a sigh. He loved it when Saudaji behaved possessively and showed him that she wasn’t going anywhere. Like a specter that haunted the catacombs beneath a castle, the fear of her leaving lingered in the dark recesses of his mind.

When she pressed her jade cheek against his pale belly, he cupped either side of her neck, holding her there. And when she planted a soft kiss to his navel, he shuddered and uttered a helpless moan. Saudaji would be able to feel him luxuriate in her adoration, as well as relax. His whole body relaxed, except for his cock, which twitched and glistened in her juice.

Raeth opened his eyes when he felt her shift. As she spread herself open for him, he gulped, and his cock twitched all the more. There was so much about Saudaji that intrigued him, and the transition of her colors was only one such thing. He gaped at the jade of her tasty thighs, the darker green of her labia, and the sudden burst of pink in her cunt. Through heavy-lidded eyes he saw her lift one of her legs onto his shoulder, but those eyes had to shut when he felt his cockhead touch her pussy lips once again. He had been shuddering this whole time, and that shuddering intensified thanks to the promise of her pussy.

His pelvis pushed forward, then up and up and up. In a single, decadent slide, he filled her with his cock once more.

“Ungh!” He dove into her cunt until he couldn’t go any further, until his sack got squashed against her bottom. His hands returned to the Twi’lek’s sides. He squeezed her, and he rolled the tips of his thumbs around and around her flesh. As he held onto her for dear life, he kept his pelvis pressed to hers. He kept his phallus deep within, swelling against her hot pink walls, feeling her every fold, her every contraction, and all her delicious heat. He basked in their union.

Forcing his eyes open, he stared at her face and began to rub his crotch against hers. Soon after that, he rolled back an inch, or two, or three, then pushed that length right back in. He watched her bountiful breasts jiggle or her abs flex throughout these slow, shallow, yet hungry thrusts. He kept his eyes on her face or her chest, even when he turned his head to kiss her ankle or to suck on the calf that rested on his shoulder.

Looking down, he salivated at the sight of his dick’s thick base opening her dark green pussy lips again and again. He couldn’t help but reach down, rest his palm against the inside of her thigh, and run his thumb over that side of her labia. Before long, he began to flick at her clit.

Raeth guided his gaze to Saudaji’s face. He paid close attention to the sounds she made, for not only were they music to his ears, they would also tell him what she wanted. Whether it was her sounds, the undulations of her body, or the way her cunt squeezed him, each of these things somehow told him what she wanted. And Raeth wanted nothing more than to please her. If she wanted a rough fucking or a continuation of this tender loving, he would listen.

“Oh, I love you!” he blurted out. So much heat was generated between them, it made him sweat. Some of the sweat from his chest drizzled onto Saudaji’s flesh, and the sweat from his forehead dripped into his eyes. He had to swipe it away, and once he did, that hand immediately went back to her body. His other hand remained on top the thigh, the knee, or the calf that was hooked over his shoulder.

“I love how good you feel...I love how tight you are...Ohhh!”

Raeth rambled as he made love to her on the couch. His rambling was eventually replaced by his throaty outcries. Because he felt energized by her, their loving could continue for some time. And when he inevitably came again - when he flooded her womb with the rush of white that had had leaked down the corners of her mouth earlier - he’d cum so hard it would make his head spin.

All of this happened right in front of a pile of her discarded armor. Atop that pile was the holo-communicator that was supposed to go out the airlock. Because the two of them were so lost in each other, they had no idea that the communicator’s camera was on. It had been recording them since Saudaji stripped naked.

 

[Apollo Wilde]

As he pushed into her slowly, letting her savor inch by inch, her eyes showed nearly white as they rolled back under her heavy lids, so great was the pleasure. Finally, when he was buried up to the hilt, their bodies melting into one, her eyelids sealed shut. Her brows knit together, furrowing between the center, and a long, breathy “Oh…” slipped through her plush lips. A pregnant pause, and, then, a sharp intake of breath as he kept himself buried deep within her, pushing so hard, yet so gentle, that she could feel the muscles in her lower body flex to accommodate him. She took the brief moment to lean up, straining, her lips grazing against his, her eyes still partially closed. Combined with the rhythm and the awkward position, she couldn’t quite land a kiss in - even her incredible flexibility wasn’t enough to keep her still. Her lips grazed his chin, his lower lip, the side of his jaw. And with each miss, her smile continued to grow, until it matured into laughter - quickly bubbling over into sharp, staccato moans as he picked up his pace, forcing her breath from her body with each eager thrust.

Her body followed the pace that he set - this was, after all, to be about him. When he moved fast, she moved fast - when he slowed, she slowed, tightening around him to slow him down when he eased out of her. A boat on the current of his sea, she kept her leg loosely draped over his shoulder, curving her agile body up into him, wrapping an arm around his neck, holding him to her, burying her face in the side of his neck, her lekku moving sensuously across her shoulders, her back.

His words, through the sweat-soaked moans and cries, resonated with her, and flooded her body with warmth. She was not in a position to speak now - it wasn’t truly the time - but she let him know with her touch, the kisses she would place across each available inch of skin that came within reach of her mouth, her fingers through his hair. She could feel it; with each stroke, he was coming back to her.

The rough thumb against her clit was pushing her closer to the edge. It was all there: the fluttering of her walls around his cock, the bite of her fingernails into his shoulders, the longer held breaths between each thrust, the further knitting of her brows, the way her hips blindly bumped back into his, desperately looking for that extra push, grind, to send her over. A hard thrust from him, and his voice lifted into a hoarse cry - and with it, one last flick against her, and she was convulsing around him, her scream mingling with his, braiding together. When at last, the world returned to normal, and her breathing settled out, she leaned forward, resting her head against his sweaty chest. His heartbeat was a rapid tattoo, muted against her ear. She made no move to remove him from her. If anything, she leaned more into him, her hands resting against his pectorals, the muscles in her stomach shifting to accommodate the awkward position, her leg still on his shoulder, his body draped over his.

“….You are mine,” she said, her voice rough around the edges, frayed from its heights. “You, and no one else.” It wasn’t as eloquent as it could have been. Perhaps this was as good as it got from her; Raeth was the one with the silver tongue, not her. But she hoped that the sentiment reached him nonetheless - that she loved him, regardless of what had just occurred. And that wouldn’t change. She held the closeness between them, their sweat mingling, and let the quiet slip in between them.

“So,” there was laughter in her voice. “Do you…think we could move? My hip flexor is starting to cramp up.” To illustrate her point, she playfully pointed and flexed the foot that was still over his shoulder.

 

[BewareTheDream]

Moans, screams, and laughter echoed through the halls of the Patient Pylat. It sounded like there was a party in the ship’s living room - a two-person party that celebrated Raeth’s return from the brink. During the festivities, he moaned almost constantly, screamed whenever the pleasure was too intense not to shout, and laughed when Saudaji laughed.

He loved every sound she made, but her laughter was especially treasured.

Dizziness washed over him after Saudaji’s hot, convulsing body squeezed the last drop from his shaft. She had drained him gloriously, as always. Wavering on his feet, Raeth shut his eyes to wait out the dizziness. Before it went away completely, however, he heard her talk about moving.

“Huh? Oh, sure.” He grasped her leg and eased it off his shoulder, indicating that they were done for now. However, the sight of her flexing leg muscles turned him on, as so many things about her did. His cock twitched within her, telling her that he’d be ready to go again in moments.

Unable to resist, he picked up Saudaji’s other leg so he could give it a taste. One of his hands was around her ankle, the other rested on her thigh, just past her knee, and his lips touched her calf. He delivered sucking kisses to her green flesh, admiring how firm it was. Like a sponge, his tongue soaked up her sweat as he dragged his mouth up and down the inside of her calf.

The slurping and kissing continued until the dizziness returned. “Oookay.” Raeth maneuvered her flexible leg out of the way, rolled sideways, and crashed beside her on the couch, yanking his veiny organ out from her in the process. A hot, juicy mess spilled onto the cushions beneath Saudaji’s tush - another job for the cleaning droids.

“Whew…” For a little while he just sat there, his eyes closed, his tight, damp chest rising and falling with each gasp. Once he recovered enough to see straight, he smiled. “I felt woozy for a sec, there. I was about to say ‘you made me swoon’, but I’m worried you’d find me less sexy if I did.”

The desire to touch her was ever-present. He reached for her legs again, this time so he could drape them over his lap. His fingertips and his fingernails ran up and down her skin for a little while before he began to give her a massage. Starting with her thighs, then moving to her calves, then finally to her feet, he massaged her overworked flesh, lazily and lovingly.

If Saudaji approved, Raeth would massage her feet for many minutes. His head would rest against the back of the couch and his eyes would remain closed much of that time, for he didn’t need to see to treat her legs and feet. His fingers did the seeing for him.

“Want to take this to the bedroom?” Turning his head, he opened his eyes and grinned at her. Yeah, he seemed more like himself again. Without really giving her a chance to answer, he hoisted himself off the couch, took one of her hands in his, and got her to her feet. Hand-in-hand and naked, the two padded down the corridor to their room, where the sexual healing could continue.

*****

From his mobile base on the other side of the galaxy, Prime watched the two lovers exit the living room. The holographic footage hovering in front of him was shot at an odd angle, because the holo-communicator inside the Patient Pylat had been dropped on its side. The camera in the device had a limited field of view, too, so he only saw what they did standing up, and he missed most of what happened on the couch.

That didn't really matter, though; he didn't need movie-quality camera work to know what his clone and the Twi'lek did to each other. Besides, the speakers worked just fine, so he heard everything.

A few minutes after they left the living room, one of his clone's droids lumbered into the camera's view. It had the bulky build of a battle droid, but it entered the room to clean it as though it were a house droid. Prime watched the droid attach a mop unit to one of its arms and begin to swab the metal floor. Prime practically guffawed; he suspected the house droid with the body of a battle droid was some sort of joke.

He shut off the hologram, which left the room he was in mostly in darkness. Staring at nothing in particular, he considered what he had just learned. The clone and his Twi'lek partner were obviously close. He had already suspected that was the case, but now he was certain. Their bond had proven useful before, in the space station, and it would undoubtedly be useful again in the future.

Prime got out of his chair. He had a lot more to think about. He always had so much to think about. But for now, he would go to his sleeping quarters and masturbate, something he hadn't done in - let's see - 5 months, 16 days, and 2 hours.

*****

Back on the Patient Pylat, Raeth and Saudaji continued their fun. They had messed up the living room (yet again), and now it was time to mess up their bedroom (yet again).

“Don’t worry about making me cum, yeah?” Raeth whispered as he climbed into bed first. “And don’t worry about cumming, either. Let’s just enjoy each other for a while.” The sheets were fresh, courtesy of Sebastian-v2, but that didn't stop him from yanking the blanket off, carelessly, before he lay down.

Gently, Raeth guided Saudaji into a 69. He got her thighs on either side of his head and her luscious kitty hovering right above his face. In front of her face, his veiny member pulsed, visibly.

If she approved of the idea, they would engage in mutual, oral stimulation for a nice, long while. The way they 69'ed was similar to the foot massage he gave her earlier - it was lazy, loving. For Raeth's part, he didn't try to make her cum right away. Unless she somehow indicated she was ready to climax, he took his sweet time kissing, slurping, and licking her.

He nibbled on the inside of both of her thighs before he used his lips to nibble, more gently, on her labia. Using his thumb pads to spread her open, he gazed deep into her secret pink, smiled, and breathed into her. Then he tongued her insides while also sucking on her surface.

Reaching around her lower body, he cupped both of her ass cheeks. Greedy fingers squeezed at her flesh, pulled them apart, or pushed them together as he continued to bury his face in her snatch and get his face covered by more and more of her cream.

Saudaji's clit was not ignored - he could never ignore it. But he kept contact to it light, fleeting. He used the tip of his tongue to massage its sides or to flick it for only a few seconds at a time. Sometimes he would lift her pelvis up a bit so he could suck on it, but those sucks would be brief. Most of his oral attention was focused on the juicy flesh around her pearl, as well as the succulent softness inside of her.

When he wasn't noisily feasting on her cunt, he craned his neck so he could tongue-tickle her anus.

If Saudaji allowed Raeth to have his way with her, then they 69'ed for such a long time. Eventually, though, he reached over to the nearest night stand to retrieve the gift he made for her. Once a vibroblade, he replaced the blade with a slender, smooth, metal cylinder, adjusted the motor in the hilt, and turned it into a vibrating dildo custom-made for her. He activated the vibrator, and with the greatest of care he inserted it into her pussy. He pushed it in and out of her, occasionally twisting, occasionally rotating, always vibrating. He watched her pussy react to the toy and remembered how that quivering flesh felt around his cock. When he just had to taste her again, he latched his lips around her clit and sucked on it, softly but consistently, while he kept fucking her with the vibrator.

The two partners in crime made love when their mouths grew sore and their tongue grew tired. They fucked until they were covered in a fresh coat of sweat and their nethers were once again coated in cream. They loved until they couldn't move.

Exhausted and happy, Raeth snuggled with her. Things had gone to shit recently, but he realized that as long as she was there with him, things were never really that bad. Smiling, he relaxed - truly relaxed - for the first time in a while. Then he fell asleep.

 

[Apollo Wilde]

Though she'd had many sexual partners, she'd had few true lovers - those who took their time with her, luxuriated in her body. With the wall between them finally breeched, her time spent with him took on the air of a grand adventure. Things she thought she knew about herself, he’d find some new, unexplored corner, and exploit it to its fullest. He took so much joy in her that it was overwhelming - at times, like this, with him nestled next to her in bed, she felt quite…undeserving.

It was a sinking feeling. Like it was all a dream, that she was still lurking in the shadows, still keeping things from him. Maybe, a little voice nagged, you feel this way because you are keeping something from him. On a purely need to know basis, rest assured, she tried to tell herself, but as the “night” went on, it continued to gnaw at her stomach, leaving great gulfs of guilt. Though her body was exhausted, the fervor of her mind kept her awake, an arm wrapped protectively around him. From time to time, she would crane her head to look at him - the thick, tousled hair, the rise and fall of his chest, the boyish set of his mouth as he slept. She’d told herself that no matter what it took, she would protect him, keep him safe, whole, and well. To that end, she’d done something close to that tonight. And she’d meant every moment of it. She couldn’t imagine the turmoil of seeing your face on another, on being outwitted like your life was absolutely nothing. Because of her own failure to understand, it became yet another thing to keep twisted down in her stomach, a bitterness that coated the back of her tongue and kept her awake.

She tried sinking further into the bed. Twining her limbs around his. Twisting so that her head rested on his chest, so the slow lull of his heartbeat could ease her fears.

Nothing worked.

So she untangled herself, as slowly and as gently as possible, left the bed. Padding on trained silent feet, she focused on the low lights lining the walkways of the ship, noticing how her shadow grew darker, longer, with her movement. The air within was chill, compared to the immense heat that the two of them shared, but her body quickly adjusted, the points of her nipples softening, the gooseflesh of her arms settling.

Her steps took her to the gym - and she paused. Looked into the darkened maw of the room, inhaled the stale sweat and faint chemical waft of disinfectant. Her fingers tightened on the doorframe as the feeling churned deeper into her stomach. Nearly nauseous, she closed her eyes, and sucked in a deep, cooling breath. It would be okay. It would be fine. She couldn’t just wake him up now and add to his grief. Would it even be grief - or was she being too hard on herself? Ever since she met him, the firm ground on which she was used to standing simply crumbled under her feet. At times, charging ahead, full speed without knowing any better with him was the most exhilarating thing she’d felt in her life. She couldn’t get enough of it. That smile, the way his eyes shone. His charm was infectious, and he knew it. But now? It was hard to be carefree.

Lowering her head, she turned away from the gym. Working out wouldn’t help her now.

Keeping her arms folded causally in front of her, she simply continued to wander through the familiar ship, letting her feet carry her aimlessly. It would have been a strangely nostalgic, if not lonely, sight - her eyes half-open, naked as the day she came into the world, lips pursed, as if on the edge of humming or singing bits of half-remembered songs.

Disinfectant. My perfume. My sweat. Raeth’s sweat. Half-dimmed lights. My shadow. My breathing. My heartbeat. My footsteps.

And over and over, reciting the things she could feel in the moment using her senses. It was an old grounding technique, something used to combat fear on the battlefield. But again, so were the loud chants, the war song, the dance. Just remembering them filled her mouth with the acrid taste of Mandalore’s dust, the metallic slip of blood, the salt of the sea.

How long had it been?

Five cycles - no, far longer than that. Things she hadn’t given any thought to, nestled beside what her supposed age was. So much that was tattered, far beyond what she could know for sure. Foggy memories of her green-skinned mother, her true mother, the woman who trained her to sing like a bird, the first raid, Saboten’s pink face, The Pleasure District - the word whispered in fright. That’s what they called it, before she knew it as Mandalore, a place she’d never heard of. And now, it was home - or supposed to be home. The fact was, in all of those cycles, here on this ship, with this strange bright-eyed man who’d first tricked her, who her body pulled her to like a magnet, was her home. She’d never felt more settled than when she was with him; a thought that caused as much joy as it did earth-shattering fear. But if life wasn’t going to work out the way she had thought it would, then, why not Mandalore? Why not give it a second chance? Let the past be the past. Surely, it couldn’t hurt her any more, could it?

Hyperspace stretched before her in long white lights, illuminating the vacuum of space in blue and white. Huh. The cock pit. She must’ve gone in a long loop of the entire ship, not realizing. No matter. She stepped forward, and grasped the back of Raeth’s pilot chair. The leather was supple under her fingers, buttery soft. A smile broke across her face. Leave it to him to have his expensive tastes to extend to even the smallest things of his ship. With her hand still on the back of his chair, she let her eyes drift across the cockpit. Memories swam through, splashing over what her eyes settled on. The first time he’d stripped her. The conversations, the arguments, the comfortable silences. All of it woven across her mind, things she slipped easily into, things she could not imagine her life without.

Was this what it meant to build a life with someone?

The thought both thrilled and terrified her. Had he taken her seriously about marriage? Had she been serious about it herself? It felt like the right thing to say, when things were so desperate and that fear, the cousin of what she felt now, but knew better how to deal with, that fear that’d sat on her stomach and worked its way into her nerves and screamed at her to have him stop, that they needed to flee, but paralyzed to do anything more, and then, that truth - broken across them like the waters of Kamino. Would he remember any of it now? What did he dream of now?

A faint beep, and she glanced down at the panels. That same broken smile found its way back to her face, riding on the back of near tears. Their play, her reassurance, their exploration of each other, had taken far longer than it felt. They were nearing Mandalore space, and in a few more hours, she would be “home.” The coordinates, passcodes, all had been entered in, in that earlier mad dash. They’d know she was coming. Back to the island, one in a ring of them, out in the warm seas of the southern hemisphere of Mandalore. She could almost smell the air, faintly rancid from the geothermal activity, tinting the air with the smell of rotten eggs that was forgotten as soon as it was noticed in the face of the sheer beauty of the island. The bubbling mud pits, the cauldrons of water that big hunts were boiled in. The scrubby flower bushes that clung stubbornly to the rock faces and spat out small pink flowers in defiance.

Back to Torua, her home, and the Warewa, her tribe.

But what would that mean any more - and how would he be accepted? What had Saboten told them, in the long games of holo messages that she played?

Her gaze lifted back out to the wildly undulating lines of hyperspace, she settled herself in Raeth’s chair, and let her thoughts drift.

______

When Raeth awakened to the sound of the ship alerting them that they were within Mandalore space, Saudaji was next to him, sleeping. His faint stirring was enough to jerk her awake. Despite the comfortable position she was in next to him, her waking was jarred, suggesting that she hadn’t slept as soundly as it may have looked. Her eyes, opening, were not their usual brightness, but blurred, rubbed over, from the lack of sleep, and she had the beginnings of dark circles beneath them. The cob-webbed nature of her face blurred her beauty, sharpened her scar. Rubbing her eyes with the backs of her hands, she gave him a smile, but it was shaky around the edges, poorly worn.

“They speak Basic,” was the first thing out of her mouth. It tumbled out, unsure and unsteady. “But you’ll get to practice your Mando’a,” she added, trying to be helpful. It was inappropriate, but the first thing that came to mind. It didn’t occur to her to mention the varying dialects of Mando’a, the nasal bluntness of her tribe as opposed to the refined song of the District’s, to the somewhat whiny dialect of the East. “We’re going to be landing in m-,” stopped, quieted. Took a deep breath. “We’re going to be landing in the village I grew up in. It’s an island - one of the largest in a chain of them out in the Southern sea,” she filled in, mindless facts bubbling out. She took it for granted that in his prior research that she may be repeating things that he already knew, that he could be humoring her now, but the words wouldn’t stop. “The area is Torua. Lots of volcanos, though none have erupted in the last few centuries. The whole place is a part of the geothermal North Island - where I was raised is has a Northern and Southern Island - divided by a strait. The closest place outside of this is the Yukaku island to the east.” Of course, the directions would mean little without a map. “To the west is Apia - it’s a chain of islands. The whole area is this weird sort of semi-circle made up of different islands and island chains. It takes a while to get to the mainlands.” She closed her eyes now, skipping through the pages of her memory. “Yukaku’s the only place with a real port - and closest, really, to where we'll be. Where we'll be landing isn’t really well traveled. Not open to the public,” she added, between a nervous laugh. That was a first - Saudaji typically had strong nerves. “The tribe doesn’t really interact with outsiders all that much. Not outside of the other islands. The area’s such a pain to get to that many don’t bother - unless they’re going strictly to Yukaku. That’s the Pleasure District.” The last sentences were disturbingly flat, jarringly so, in the midst of her torrent of words.

She wiped at her eyes again, quick swipes of the backs of her hands. “I can get us through. But it’s not going to be a nice landing strip. We’re probably going to be right in the middle of an overgrown thicket. Just so you know.”

 

[BewareTheDream]

A soft trill woke him up. Opening his eyes, Raeth recognized two things right away. The first was the sound, which was a notification from the touchscreen located on the nightstand. The second was the warm body lying against him. He couldn't stop himself from smiling just a little. Saudaji's easy breathing indicated that she hadn't woken up yet, and he didn't want to disturb her.

The problem was, the touchscreen was on the side of the bed upon which she lay, so he wouldn't be able to check it without moving. Deciding not to bother yet, Raeth waited for the piano-like trills to stop repeating. They would start up again in a few minutes; he'd read the notification then. In the meantime, he'd sit in the darkness, luxuriate in the feel of the naked woman sleeping and snuggling with him, and think.

Yeah. Think. Thinking often got Raeth into trouble. Now that he was awake, his mind revved up like an engine, and his thoughts picked up speed. The notification is likely the Patient Pylat telling them us that we're in Mandalore space. What are we going to do on Mandalore, anyway? Was the information I read about the planet and people up to date? I wonder if Saudaji brought us here so we can get married by her tribe's holy person. That'd be sweet. I've got to get her a ring. I doubt jewelry stores are going to be easy to find here, so I'll have to make her something. I've already scanned her ring size, so that'll be easy.

Raeth smiled wider.

His thoughts raced on and on like that until, inevitably, they returned to Prime. A single thought of his "dad" and the truth of his past wiped the smile from his face. Raeth didn't want to think about any of that. He just wanted to enjoy his time with Saudaji and pretend that everything is a-okay.

The trill played and the touchscreen flicked on again, dispelling both the silence and the darkness. Trying his best not to wake Saudaji up, he untangled his limbs from hers and sat up. Yep, it was as he suspected - they were in Mandalore space. One benefit of being in this part of the galaxy was that they were presumably far, far away from Prime. Having so many parsecs between him and his clone dad would make pretending everything was fine easier.

Raeth chuckled to himself, ruefully. He found out about Prime less than a day ago, and already he had daddy issues. He felt like a goddamn cliché.

At that moment, Raeth remembered that he hadn't jettisoned the holo-communicator out the airlock. Although his scans didn't reveal any tracking devices within it, he knew that he couldn't be too cautious when it came to Prime. He also realized that his muscles were sore, especially his arms, legs. Although his dick wasn't a muscle, it felt worn-out, too. The smile returned to his youthful face, as did the memories of all the fun stuff he and Saudaji did together last night. He really needed that.

I really want to lick her butthole right now, he thought to himself right as his green temptress woke up.

"Sorry, Dajika. I tried not to wake you." Like metal to a magnet, his lips were drawn to her skin. He placed a loving kiss to her forehead and nudged her nose with his.

Licking her butthole would have to wait. Something about her body language or her speech told him that she wasn't in the mood for a morning fuck. No, something seemed to weigh heavily on her mind. Nodding, he listened to begin her description of the region to which they were headed.

Raeth kissed her shoulder before sliding out of bed. Stretching and yawning, he walked over to his dresser to pick up one of the many datapads he had strewn about the Pylat. Their bedroom lit up a little more when the second screen winked on. While Saudaji spoke of Torua, the islands near them, and the places she grew up around, he punched up some maps. Everything that she said and the map images he scrolled through were all neatly stored within the vault of his memories.

He didn’t notice that her words tumbled out in a manner unlike her usual speech patterns. She actually sounded a bit like him. Perhaps that's why he didn't notice - it sounded natural to him. However, he did notice the flatness of her tone when she mentioned the Pleasure District. Glancing up at her, he guessed there must have been history between her and that place. Painful history.

In a distinctly un-Raeth-like move, he chose to suppress his curiosity and left that subject alone.

Saudaji mentioned the possibility of landing in a thicket. "That won't be a problem," he said, setting the datapad down. "The Pylat's landed in plenty of rough spots. She can take it." Naked and sore, he padded to the bathroom, but stopped at the open doorway to look her in the eye.

"I'm gonna take a hot shower. I'd love it if you joined me and let me lick your butthole." Grinning, he stepped into the bathroom, turned on the shower, and set it to 'warm mist' mode.

 

[Apollo Wilde]

Raeth’s kiss to her forehead was enough to pull her back into the here and now. Worn out, her eyes still burning, she couldn’t help but to smile. He was here. She was here - and in this current moment, there was no real reason to think of the past. Whatever would happen on Mandalore, the two of them would be there to face it together. And it couldn’t, or shouldn’t, rather, be thought of as all negative. In the conversations with Saboten, the Zeltron had made it more than clear that the family missed her, despite her having left. They missed her, they worried about her, they thought of her - and, most important in her tribe’s culture, they told their children about her.

“It’s alright,” she murmured, moving her lips to his. Her returning kiss was chaste and gentle, coming to terms with the night before. He’d find out eventually. That was the nature of life. “I didn’t sleep very well,” she admitted, sitting up beside him. “I probably won’t for a while.” She took in a breath, like she was going to complete her thought, then, with a creasing of her brows, she was silent again. It wouldn’t do for her to blurt everything out now. She couldn’t burden him with whatever history she had when Mandalore was meant to be a safe haven. So, as he pulled up the displays of the familiar chain of islands, she forced a smile to her face, and watched as he looked into them. “So, the other thing about Torua is that it stinks,” and this was said on the trail of a small laugh. “Smells like rotten eggs. Some places are worse than others, but honestly, you get used to it pretty quickly. Like I said, the whole area is geothermal, so there are great pits around the whole island of bubbling mud and water.” Thinking back on some of the thermal pools that her and Saboten spent many an hour either soaking in or exploring was enough to turn the smile on her face from forced to real. She was looking forward to seeing Raeth’s face as they landed. It’d be interesting - she’d never seen him react to natural beauty. In the many missions and planets they’d been on together, his focus was more on her than anything else. Remembering that was enough to bring a blush to her face. The man had been smitten with her for ages, it seemed, and why in the galaxy hadn’t she noticed that?

Well, either way - it would be…new. New for the both of them. As she thought on it as well, she realized that lately, she hadn’t been too focused on where they were as so much as being with him.

They both had it bad.

At his reassurance at the Pylat’s ability to land in a thicket, she could only snicker. Not that she doubted him, but if the landing spot was what she thought it was…well. Calling it a ‘thicket’ wouldn’t cover the half of it. The snicker turned into a full belly laugh as he admitted what he wanted to do in the shower.

“Well, when you put it in such poetic terms,” and she slid from the covers. Maybe it would do her some good.

_______

Under the warm mist of the shower, she couldn’t focus on anything else but Raeth. True to his word, he did indeed “lick her butthole” - in long, luxurious strokes that had her quivering against the walls of the refresher, fingers struggling to gain purchase against the smooth walls. Unlike the night before where her attentions were focused solely on him, this “morning,” she let him focus on her. Under his warm touch, she nearly dissolved. Her body was pliant and responsive to him, the caress of his fingers, his lips on her, her lekku, her navel.

By the time they left, she was on shaky legs.

________

Entering the atmosphere of Mandalore, this far south, was smooth sailing. The air currents were gentle, maybe even welcoming.

By this time, Saudaji was dressed. In an odd sense of “formality,” she was in her old armor that she’d first met Raeth in, sans the helmet, which sat neatly on her lap. She sat next to him in the cock pit, though as they lowered into the planet, she stood up. Though she was still tense, there was an air of a youngling about her as she leaned forward, taking in the scene.

As the Pylat slipped through the clouds, a brilliant blue sky greeted them, so blue that it seemed to turn purple at the edges of the planet. Beneath them, a wide expanse of ocean glittered, cerulean at the deepest, fading into warm turquoise as it clustered around deeply verdant collections of islands. True to what Saudaji said, they were a semi-circle of green gems jutting from the depths of the ocean, the “mainland” a large brown and white land mass that frayed into green at the edges. The mainland, as she referred to it, was massive - dwarfing the islands far to the south of it, and taking up a great portion of the side of the planet. Her coordinates had taken them “close” enough to the mainland for them to take a look at it, and while it was in front of them, she held her breath.

Their luck held.

There was no indication that the mainland had detected them, and as they drew steadily nearer the islands, she let out a long sigh, muttering a soft prayer in Mando’a. As Raeth looked to her curiously, she gave him a grave look, then looked back out the ocean.

“Mainland is bad business.” Was all she said. Then, she pointed to the two islands that were looming closer, she pointed to the northernmost island. “That’s Te Ika - the north island. Torua’s there, and that’s the Rekohu strait,” she pointed towards a ribbon of ocean sliding through the northern land mass and the southern. “The south island is Te Unamu.” To the east, she pointed to a crescent shaped island that was rapidly fading from view. “That’s Yukaku.”

Not like Raeth needed the lesson, but it was fun to engage with him. And, to her, it was surprising, in a sense, that she still remembered so much. It felt like it had been far longer, a lifetime ago, that she had been “home.” And all of the names, the places, sprang to her tongue like it had been yesterday. Even within the ship, she felt that she could feel the warm ocean breezes, smell the deep green of the jungles and forests that made up her home.

Te Unamu grew larger, then faded into the corner of their vision as they closed in on Te Ika. As they lowered in closer, how much of the area was jungle was becoming starkly clear. Occasionally broken up by purple ridges of mountains and the occasional mountain top pools, the island was a dense jungle: all tree tops, ferns, and creeping vines. But it was towards one of the ancient volcano husks that the Pylat was guided to, Saudaji checking the projection and looking towards the island as the ship continued to move forward. Smaller from up high, as they descended, the husk ballooned in shape and size, becoming a looming bowl over the lowlands. Unlike other planets, there was no landing platform, no helpful lights to guide the way. It was only with her “insider knowledge” that they would have been able to find this place, and not just that, a volcanic husk that was stable enough to handle the heat and weight of an incoming ship without triggering a mass eruption. It would be clear that despite the verdant beauty of the island that it was a dangerous place to travel to.

Leaves, vines, and brilliantly colored flying creatures swarmed before the screen, each parting to allow the ship to land. As the Pylant put its gear down, Saudaji seemed to be a bit more at ease. She backed away from the control panels and the screen, holstering her helmet under her arm with ease. “I’m going to be out first to introduce us,” she said, reassuringly. Leaning over, she gave Raeth a brief kiss on the lips. She wanted to reassure him that she wasn’t abandoning him to the ship or leading them into danger. “They know we’re coming, but it’s been years,” she added. Her apprehension about who would greet them, she kept from him.

In theory, it should be fine.

In theory.

It should be fine.

The Pylat, in spite of its size, made a quiet landing. Settling neatly into this green bowl of the planet, it was a few moments later that chimes went off, indicating that they’d landed safely. No sooner than the alarms were quiet than Saudaji was heading towards the docking bay. Standing in front of the closed ship door, she closed her eyes. Took in a deep breath, and put on her helmet, her old knife at her belt side.

As the door opened, slowly, there would be a lone figure in Mandalorian armor standing before them. It was a deep bronze armor, flecked with green. The armor was well worn and just this side of battered. Though it was old, it was well-taken care of, and gleamed in the midday sun. The figure was taller than Saudaji, and stockier - and impossible to tell if it was male or female. From the battered shoulder pauldrons, a jaunty emerald half-cape swung from the figure’s shoulders, buffeted by the breeze of the landing ship and the hiss of the door opening.

Saudaji took a few steps forward, then smiled under her helmet as she heard Raeth’s footsteps approaching. Of course he’d be curious. That was fine with her - as long as he let her do the speaking. She had enough faith in him to trust that he would.

“Kia ora,” barked the Mandalorian in bronze. Then, as if sensing Raeth, the figure added, “Su cuy’gar!”

“Kia ora,” corrected Saudaji, and, in some unheard recognition, she removed her helmet. The other figure in bronze made no movement. Then it started to stride forward. Its gait was smooth, confident. Every inch the seasoned warrior - as if the staff strapped to its back and well worn blaster at its side didn’t give it away. A few feet away from the landing platform, the figure took off their helmet.

It was a woman.

Her face was a warm brown, and her eyes startling hazel in the midst of her face, beneath thick brows. Her hair was a frothing mass of black curls, streaked with gray around her temples. Faint laugh lines creased the corner of her eyes - those, and a light roundness to her chin and jawline were the only clues that she was older than Saudaji.

“Well, about time you came home,” the woman said. Her Basic was clear and easy to understand, even through the nasal Mandalorian accent, which was much thicker than Saudaji's. However, her particular cadence, the way she savored her words, shared a commonality with Saudaji's own accent. Her voice itself was a clear contralto, confident and full of good humor, like the world was some sarcastic joke. “And you even brought company,” and she gestured at Raeth. “Yeah, you, there,” she added. “I’m Moerangi. Welcome to Mandalore. We'll save the traditional smack in the mouth till you get settled.”

 

[BewareTheDream]

In the past, Raeth didn’t find long showers to be that enjoyable. He preferred to get them over with as quickly and efficiently as possible, which was why he built a shower that could blast him with water from multiple angles, like the kind used in decontamination chambers. All he had to do was soap up from head to toe and then press a button to receive a full-body spray. Bing, bang, boom - no reason to linger.

That opinion changed when he and Saudaji began to use much of their free time making love. With her, showers became luxurious, time-consuming affairs. Instead of cranking the water pressure up, he now preferred to keep it at one of the lower settings. That way, the two of them could be surrounded by a warm, gentle mist as they thoroughly explored each other’s bodies.

Raeth really took his time with her that morning, so much so that his fingers and toes got all wrinkly before even an ounce of soap was used. Every inch of her heavenly form was treated to his kisses, licks, and nibbles, and his touch cascaded down her green skin like so many droplets of water.

As for what he did to her butthole - yeah, that was something they both enjoyed, immensely.

Their latest shower became yet another “Saudaji memory” that Raeth hoarded within his mind along with so many other treasured experiences. The vault was already full, and yet there would always be room for more.

With the taste of her still lingering on his tongue, and a silly, little smile on his face, he got dressed.

“I should be armed to the teeth, right?” Raeth asked her shortly after they stepped out of the shower, both of them clean despite all the time spent doing dirty things. “Or would it be more appropriate to keep weapons to a minimum? Should I go for a more casual look, instead?”

Raeth tapped a button on a wall, which caused the doors of his wardrobe to whisper open. It took him only a moment or two to find what he was looking for - a short-sleeved, button-up shirt covered by palm tree designs. The shirt itself was mostly bright yellow, except for the green of palm fronds and layers of red near the hem. The garment depicted a tropical sunrise, and it did so in such a gaudy way.

Raeth really liked that shirt. Holding it up by the shoulders, he waggled it in front of her.

“What’s the verdict? Yay or nay?”

Raeth was acting silly, of course, and he did so for her benefit. Saudaji was stressed out about returning to Mandalore - that much was as obvious as a blaster burn. However, Raeth did a very un-Raeth-like thing and forced himself not to pry. Whatever her reasons were for being so anxious, she would tell him when she was ready, or she wouldn’t say a thing. In spite of his curiosity, he told himself that he was fine with her silence.

What wasn’t fine was seeing her so tense, which was why he attempted to lighten the mood. If he couldn’t brighten her disposition, the least he could do was brighten up his attire.

Unless Saudaji warned him that wearing the shirt would be offensive, it became part of his outfit. He kept the shirt unbuttoned, which revealed a crisp, white t-shirt underneath. Over both shirts he wore a light, blue jacket, partly to make the tropical sunrise shirt a little less obvious, and partly because the jacket had a number of pockets in which Raeth stored some gadgets, plus one, maybe two tiny bombs. (“There aren’t many problems an explosion can’t fix”, he once told her.)

For weaponry, the two visible weapons he wore were a heavy blaster strapped to his thigh, gunslinger style, and a wide-bladed knife he wore on his left hip in case he needed to skin an animal or something. This would be his first time on the surface of Mandalore, and he figured something would need to be skinned, sooner or later. Reading tutorials on how to skin common animals was part of his preparation for this visit.

During the landing process, Raeth kept quiet in order to listen to whatever Saudaji had to say about the home she had avoided for a long time. While the Patient Pylat swooped down toward the island, he absorbed her words while simultaneously absorbing the verdant sights beyond the viewport.

“The last time we were on a planet this heavily forested was on Tzan,” he commented, casually. He left out the bit about their vehicle getting sabotaged, their crash landing, their firefight with Republic soldiers, and their harrowing escape.

Hopefully, our time here will be less life-threatening, Raeth thought to himself. And, hopefully, I’ll get a chance to repay Dad for destroying the RV, sooner rather than later.

One kiss from Saudaji was all it took for Raeth to forget about Prime. He had that silly, little smile on his face again when he followed her to the ramp, but he made it disappear before he stepped outside.

Raeth’s skin began to itch almost immediately after leaving the comfort and familiarity of the Patient Pylat. His relationship with the outdoors was defined by conflicting senses. He loved looking at nature. Here, he marveled at the multiple shades of green he found within only a few meters of the Pylat, he tried to catch another glimpse of the ocean through the trees, and he watched the flock of almost reptilian flying creatures fly overhead until they disappeared past the jungle canopy.

However, all of his other sense were telling him, “Nope!” His skin felt irritated. He almost flinched when he heard what sounded like a giant bug buzz around his head; it was only his desire not to embarass himself in front of Saudaji’s people that kept him still long enough for the bug to go away. Although it was humid, his mouth tasted dry.

Oh, and the smell! It was like a mix of sulfur and manure. Raeth did his best not to make a face, but he wasn’t sure if he succeeded or not.

The Mandalorian who met them exchanged words with Saudaji. He recognized most of those words, but he knew the dialogue would become much more complex after they got past the greeting.

Raeth watched Saudaji out of the corner of his eye. She didn’t respond to the other warrior woman right away, which he interpreted as her go-ahead to say something.

“I am honored to be welcomed to your home,” Raeth said in Mando’a. Even though he had rehearsed some common phrases with Saudaji, his words were still heavy with his Core Worlds accent. That bothered him. He had no problem, whatsoever, learning many of the languages and imitating many of the accents heard throughout the galaxy, yet he struggled to maneuver his tongue around full sentences in Mando’a. Thankfully, the stranger basically invited them to speak in Basic from now on.

“Hi there, Moerangi. I’m Raeth.” Formality was dropped now that they were speaking in Basic. “I’m prepared to get my mouth smacked by your whole village, if it comes to that.”

 

[Apollo Wilde]

Moerangi’s bright eyes traveled the length of Raeth’s body, from the top of his head down to his booted feet. The set of her full mouth quirked slightly to the side – a half-smile that Saudaji had worn a few times herself when she found something amusing, but either didn’t want to encourage the behavior or was hiding a smart remark. Even though their species were different, the family resemblance was there.

“Got yourself a clever one,” Moerangi finally said, settling her helmet firmly under her left arm. “Well, come on then.” Without a second word, Moerangi turned away from them and started down a nearly hidden path. Saudaji, her helmet poised under her right arm in an uncanny mirror of the older woman, looked over at Raeth. She looked as if she was going to say something again, but decided against it. And then,

“Let’s go,” with an odd sense of resignation from Saudaji, caught between fear as if she was going to be scolded, and excitement.

__________

“Tense” wouldn’t be the right word to describe the air between the trio. There was something that needed to be said, yes, but it wasn’t heavy with animosity or sorrow. If anything, it was waiting for the right moment. And traipsing through the thick greenery wasn’t quite the time. The path was little-used, but with Moerangi leading Saudaji and Raeth, it was easily traveled as if it was the permacrete of Coruscant. Moerangi was quiet, breaking the silence with the occasional, “Watch that there, yeah,” or “That stone’s loose.” But like the “tense” feeling, there wasn’t anything hostile in it.

Mandalorian culture, from the outside, did little to suggest warm, happy family reunions and heart to hearts, and beyond that, Moerangi seemed less of a talker and more of a doer. It was a strong contrast to how strongly Saudaji was bound by ties of family, blood or adopted. There was a shuffling skip to her step that hinted at barely contained energy – as if one word would send her, like a rocket, over to Moerangi and enveloping the woman in a massive hug. Whatever it was, Saudaji kept it under control, her face still stuck between that giddy joy and fear of eventual chastisement. The feeling, whatever it was, was apparently mutual.

Occasionally, Moerangi look over her shoulder, through her thick tangle of curls, to Saudaji or Raeth. She didn’t seem to care much if he caught her looking; she was clearly trying to size up the fellow that Saudaji had brought home. For that matter, when hers and Saudaji’s eyes met, the latter would beam – a childish, bright expression that seemed to fluster the older woman.

Maybe emotion wasn’t Moerangi’s strong point.

Not wanting to break the quiet (and to savor the sounds of being home – really and truly home,) Saudaji was also quiet. With as observant as Raeth was, it would come as no surprise to him that in just watching the women, it became very clear who was the more proficient warrior: Saudaji. For all of Moerangi’s quiet, she wasn’t able to entirely silence her footsteps or the occasional clank of her armor. Saudaji, on contrast, moved without the slightest sound, unnoticed against the wild caws of the lizard birds in the thickets, and eerie when forest gave way to the occasional clearing. And instead of her usual focus, Saudaji was looking around and gaping, as slack jawed as a tourist in the middle of a pleasure district.

Everything she was seeing was brand new to her all over again – from the acrid smell of the ground (though, by this time, it was hardly noticeable), or to occasionally reach out to run her fingers across a deeply curled fern frond, she was visibly bonding with where they were, more than he’d ever seen her before. More than once, she lagged behind, simply to kneel into the rich loam and dig her fingers into it. Rubbing it between her fingers, she would smile, then stand again, to keep them moving forward. The earth was nearly pitch black, serving a striking contrast to the green around them, so green that it was electric, that it seemed to glow. The air was alive with the hum of insects, some with large and beautifully colored wings that were easily the size of Saudaji’s fist, or, occasionally, a lizard bird would screech above them, taking off in a hail of jewel colored feathers.

As they walked, the soft earth gave way to pitted pale stone. The greenery shrank up the stone walls, replaced by hardy little brown bushes that defiantly spat out soft pink blossoms, in which lazy humming insects moved. Under the jewel blue sky, a few puffs of white cloud dragged by, and clouds of steam billowed from the ground.

“Don’t fall off the ledge,” Moerangi called back to Raeth. “Or chuck things in the pools. Splash back’ll melt your face off.”

Before he could ask about the ledge or the pools, their footsteps took them into a long, narrow land bridge. On either side were carved wooden hand rails that, from the looks of them, were rarely used and had stood there for decades. Odd pale yellow-green crystals clustered around the footing of each stake, similar to snow. Beneath them, pools of super heated water bubbled, unnaturally blue and clear, releasing huge steam clouds of sulfuric air.

“Probably don’t wanna lean over either,” Saudaji added. “If you breath in the steam, it’ll cook your lungs.” Not like it’d be too appetizing to do that. Each fresh belch of the pool beneath them released more of the rotten egg smell. Despite her earlier warning, Saudaji couldn’t help but to lean over just a tad bit further – setting her helmet down at her feet as she inched over the railing. She held her breath as she leaned over. She was close enough for the steam to do little more than ghost across her face – but too much further, and she not only risked catching a face full of it, but tumbling over the railing as well. Still, there was something practiced in how she did it, the surety in her hands on the railing, that suggested that she’d done this many times in the past.

The stone valley was long and curved, and offered no protection from the sun overhead. Luckily, the weather was mild, with a cool breeze that passed through. There was no marker to the trail – with the exception of the stone bridge’s sad railings, there was no evidence that people lived or traveled through, Moerangi and Saudaji navigated, walking without so much as looking around. And still, there was no conversation – Saudaji still looking about like it was all new to her. Catching sight of a large pool off to their left, full of viscous bubbling black mud, she suddenly laughed. It was surrounded by smaller bubbling pools, the mud fading from black to gray.

“Not much longer, right?” she asked Moerangi, checking her memory, reassuring Raeth.

And, wonders of wonders, the stoic woman looked at Saudaji – and smiled. The expression was as if someone had held a light to the woman’s face. It was arresting in its beauty, and Saudaji just smiled back, her expression as childish and charming as ever.

A few miles later, the stone valley sloped downhill, and gave way to a burst of green. This jungle wasn’t as dense as the one surrounding the “landing strip,” and seemed to be trapped between more stone plains. Gaps in the trees revealed more bubbling pools, these of a vivid blue-green color, and almost inviting. The steam wafting from these was much less violent, though the water still rolled with bubbles. But fresh water was here, too, in the form of a narrow little stream that had no problem meandering through the rock, spilling into a deep pool, then, slipping from the pool, to cut a strong, deep groove into the stone, and snake directly in their path. Around the bend of this stream turned river, they could see the thatched roofs, made of tightly bound dried fronds. Continuing forward, the forest path broke into stone again, a well-maintained little wooden bridge carried the trio to the other side. Steam rose lazily from all around the village. At either end of the bridge on the side of the village stood two great wooden pillars, intricately carved with the faces of animals and suggestions of humans. Beyond the posts, people mulled about – human, some near humans, some clearly alien. The adults, unlike Moerangi, weren’t dressed in the infamous Mandalorian armor. The human and near human men were, largely, bare chested, sporting intricate tattoos across their arms and shoulders. Women wore neatly tied sarongs, colored tan with the occasional burst of color, purloined from the lizard birds or from flowers.

All were armed.

Some had blasters, others, staffs or pikes. It wasn’t threatening as so much as just another part of their garb, like earrings or a carefully chosen belt. Even the children that occasionally ran past had weapons.

“…It hasn’t changed at all,” Saudaji breathed, taking in the village in front of her. It was a motely little place, the homes made of dried wood and ferns, woven together into neatly thatched walls and roofs. Each home bore a carved talisman, carefully posted beside their open doors. That was strange –“huts” with “doors,” but it was clear just from looking around that the village was open; people wandered in and out of individual homes like each separate place was an extension of their own hut.

“Eh, well. We got a new pool in the back,” Moerangi said, walking past the pair. “You know your way around-”


“KIA ORA JIJI!”

The sound followed the impact, trailing behind the immense speed of the man that grabbed Saudaji into his arms. He crushed her armor-clad form so close to him that it seemed that the thin durasteel of the plating would crack under his enormous biceps. Picking her up, he tossed her into the air, catching her as she came back down like she was a toddler. He rubbed his cheek, his chin, eagerly against the Twi’lek’s face and her lekku, her laughter muffled by his face. Finally, he would set her down, and his shining dark eyes fell on Raeth. Before Raeth could react, the mountain of a man growled "Ori'vod!", and gathered Raeth into his arms. Deep within the man’s embrace, there would be no getting free; his arms were solid. Thankfully, he did not subject Raeth to the same eager face-rubbing. Turning Raeth loose with a clap on his shoulder so hard that it nearly knocked him over, the man laughed deep, the sound bubbling from his stomach. Now, standing a few inches away from the pair, it was possible to take a good look at him.

“Massive” wouldn’t begin to cover him.

He dwarfed Saudaji, and stood a good half-foot taller than Raeth. He was all muscle – broad shoulders that gave way to a deceptively narrow waist, before billowing back out into solid thighs and calves. He wasn’t in armor, but a comfortable wrap of brown and red cloth that fell to mid-calf, folded intricately about his waist and patterned in black. Woven loops, studded with bits of obsidian and shells were wound through the knotted cloth. Across his broad chest and arching into his shoulders were black lines, geometrical tattoos that split into waves, trailing behind their sight of vision. Under his chin were spiraled black lines that licked up across the plane of his cheekbones and the bridge of his nose. His teeth were startlingly white against the warm tan of his skin, his eyes dark with merriment under thick black brows. His hair blossomed behind him in voluminous black curls, salt-lightened into brown. An errant silver hair was mixed in among the black, so faint as to be a trick of the light.

“Welcome home, Rae’ika,” he boomed. It would be hard to bristle at the man’s use of the intimate nickname; he said it with such good cheer and humor. Indeed, the way he looked at Raeth was nearly as fondly as he looked at Saudaji. “Thank you for taking care of my Daij’ika, or my precious, precious JiJi,” he cooed, scooping Saudaji up like a kitten and rubbing his cheek affectionately against hers again. Saudaji, clearly used to this particular treatment from this man, seemed to go limp in his grasp, her arms looped round one of his as she snuggled into his chest. She was a milk jade splotch against the great expanse of his dark chest, the grooves of her armor leaving long lines behind on his skin.

“Pretty sure she took care of him,” stated Moerangi, dryly, as she padded from behind the man to stand at his side.

The man shot her a look, then looked back at Saudaji and Raeth. Then, with a shrug of his giant shoulders that sent ripples through his hair, he clicked his tongue.

“They take care of each other. Yeah?” His gaze was fixed on the pair, and for a moment, had Raeth been sensitive to the Force, he might have caught something, a tremble, fingertips across water. As it was, there was still something that reached through to him, something imparted by those dark jolly eyes that suggested nothing but a deep acceptance and understanding. Moerangi cocked an eyebrow at him, then snorted. But there was no smart comment to follow.

Saudaji didn’t see the need to fill the gap. “Rae’ika, this is-“

A hacking, crowing sound from the man. “I’m an idiot! Te Kohe,” he said, sweeping Raeth into another massive hug. "Call me Ko'ika!"

“We didn’t want to overwhelm you with everyone from the start,” Moerangi’s voice was closer now, as she wedged an armored arm between Raeth’s body and Te’s forearm, popping the smaller man free with a long practiced twist. Te Kohe hissed in mock pain, rubbing at his arm. “Must you gotta be so rough?” he sniffed.

“Don’t think the outlander would take to a whole village of people doing that to him.” Moerangi gave Raeth a knowing and dryly comforting look. It was rapidly becoming clear that perhaps the women in the family were a bit more…mature than the men.

“He’s a strong one!” Te Kohe landed a large palm between Raeth’s shoulder blades – gently, this time. “He’ll be fine.”

“Give him some time,” Saudaji gently spoke, moving to hang affectionately off of Te Kohe's arm. With a doting grin, he looked at her, flexed, and lifted her from the ground using the power of his arm alone.

“Still got it!” Saudaji giggled, letting go to drop the few inches back down to the ground.

“It’d be a sad day indeed that I couldn’t toss around my Jiji. Have you guys eaten? Ship rations don’t count.”

“Food later; house now,” sighed Moerangi, lightly thumping Te Kohe on his shoulder (even though she had to practically jump to do it). “They were headed towards their quarters. Since you apparently have nothing better to do, why don't you show them? It's been some time, yeah?"

“I can’t,” Te Kohe said, looking sheepish. “I saw the ship and left in the middle of the Tribunal.” It was clear from his expression that he would have much rather spent his time with Saudaji and Raeth.

“Di'kut," Moerangi let out as a long suffering sigh. "You," Moerangi barked at Te Kohe, "Get back to the Tribunal. You two," and she turned to face Saudaji and Raeth, a general speaking to her new recruits, “Get settled.” Less a suggestion, more a command. “Join us at the Meeting House at dusk. We’ll get caught up then.”

 

[BewareTheDream]

"Yeah, more clever than most," Raeth said to Moerangi with his most friendly smile. "Present company excluded."

Unlike Saudaji, who could barely contain her excitement, Raeth felt anxious for different reasons. Mostly, he hated the outdoors. Scents that were familiar to the Twi'lek were alien to him. The sounds of birds, insects, and other wildlife lurking within the jungle may have evoked a sense of nostalgia for her, but all they did for him was make him uncomfortable. Even though his cargo pants were loose and his jacket light, he felt stifled, and even had a little trouble breathing. And even though he had a compact, cylindrical cold stick tucked in his boxer briefs, right underneath his testicles - something that normally helped him feel cool in the heat - he was still drenched in sweat after only a few minutes of following Moerangi.

Things could be a lot worse, he reminded himself. At least my balls are comfy.

For much of the hike, Raeth remained quiet and focused on his attempt to not look too out of his element. He never wanted to embarrass himself - who does? But he was loathe to embarrass himself in front of Saudaji and her family. So he tried to put on a stoic face, and he kept his mouth shut. The latter was easier than the former, for his dislike of the jungle made him clench his jaw. It wasn't until his jaw felt sore that he realized he was doing it.

Raeth glanced at Saudaji, because even the briefest glance to her beautiful, green face usually made him feel better. That was when he noticed the almost child-like expression she wore. Something obvious occurred to him, then - how momentous this homecoming must have been for her. He wondered what it felt like to actually miss home. The thought made him scoff, imperceptibly, because his memories of home weren't real - they were cooked up on a computer and somehow injected into his brain.

Raeth briefly entertained the notion that the computer used to develop his childhood memories was his real childhood home. There'd be no easy way to book a vacation there.

Their guide said something about being careful around a ledge. Raeth glanced at the pool of steaming water, but before he paid closer attention to that, his eyes were drawn to the insects hovering above the flowered shrubs growing out of the nearby rocks. Stepping closer, he peered at the insects through his sunglasses, which could serve as a telescope with a press of a button. He zoomed in on the insects rather than bending down, because he didn't want to get too close to them.

One type of bug caught his attention because of how pretty they were. They looked like tiny centipedes with three sets of gossamer wings spaced evenly along their segmented bodies. Their carapaces were a shade of pink that matched the flowers over which they hovered.

The insects were recorded by the camera in his aviators, just like everything else he looked at. He'd study the recording later; perhaps the physiology of these flying centipedes could be used to come up with a new spy drone design.

Moerangi warned him about the death pool and steam coming out of it. Turning to her, he saw Saudaji was already on the land bridge.

"Melt my face off, huh?" He was always on the market for things that could melt faces. He made a mental note to contact Sebastian-v2 and order it to collect a few gallons of the stuff for later use.

Raeth stepped close to Saudaji, who was engaged in what appeared to be a ritual from her youth. He stared at her, silent and fascinated. After she was done, he asked her, "Do you have any pictures of yourself as a teenager? I'd offer to show you some of my baby pictures, but you know that's impossible."

Raeth felt a little more relaxed from the land bridge on. Resisting the urge to hold Saudaji's hand while they hiked through her homeland, he walked close to her without appearing too clingy. And he ignored the occasional stare from Moerangi; he guessed she was sizing him up.

By the time they saw the bridge that lead to the steam-shrouded village, Raeth was feeling much better than he did when they first stepped off the Pylat. The cold stick was finally doing its job, and he was sweating less. And although he was more than a little anxious about how his meeting with the rest of Saudaji's family would go, he figured he had it covered. If he could start getting used to the jungle during a single, long hike, he could handle anything.

It'll be fine, he thought as the three of them crossed the bridge. I'll be fine. I just have to get my face smacked some, don't take anything personally, and remember what I learned from Saudaji and the holotapes. I got this.

Soon after he told himself that, a screaming behemoth rushed them. Before he realized what was happening, Saudaji got tossed into the air and got face-rubbed. Next, Raeth found himself enveloped by arms that felt more like elastisteel cables, the kind used on city bridges.

"Urrk?!" Raeth thought he heard his bones crack; he hoped it was just his imagination. For a second or two, he considered using the electric shock defense system woven into his jacket to get himself out of the monster man's grip, but, thankfully, he was released before it could come to that. His feet dropped to the ground and he gasped for air.

People were saying things around him, but he was having difficulty hearing them over the sound of his gasping and the blood rushing through his ears. Next thing he knew, a plate-sized palm slapped him between his shoulders, which caused him to lurch forward but didn't make him fall. If not for the many weeks of intensive training with Saudaji, he would have been bowled over by that friendly smack.

Once he collected his sense, he realized that there was a lot of sibling familiarity between Saudaji and the man-monster, Te Kohe. He felt a pang of jealously as he watched them play, but he did his best to hide it.

"Yeah, I'm a strong one, all right," Raeth said after Te Kohe clapped him on the back again. "I may not have as solid a bone structure as this lot, but I drink my fair share of milk."

Raeth was more than happy to 'get settled'. He followed Saudaji or the directions that Moerangi gave to someplace less slap-happy.