Shadows of Bankor

There was a small hut built from composite materials at the edge of the forest. In fact, the overgrowth and the shade of trees made it difficult to locate for a casual observer during the day. At night, like now, its windows were gleaming with fiery aura and a billow of smoke rolled up into the night sky from its side-chimney.

Many things about how it was furnished on the inside were equally rustic and anachronistic. Wood dominated over steel and plastic, animal furs served as carpets and covers. The odour of tannin berries admixed with the scent of a gamut of herbs being dried upon the mantelpiece and with the smell of smoked venison.

The fire made the small place warm. Daunt moved around in his loose pants alone, his armour on the rack and his shirt cast away. A sheen of fresh sweat lacquered his sculpted muscles, emphasised with mesmerising tattoos drawn down from his face all across his arms and torso. He was kneeling by the fire, slowly turning the barbecue.

It never took her long to get from the clinic to his hut. Their hut, in a way. Ever since that first terrible nightmare after they met, she had just made herself home there.

As soon as she slipped inside, her shoes were removed, stockings as well. Barefeet against the floor, the first fur rug. Her eyes closed as she felt the ground beneath her toes, curled into tiny fists. In her slender hands, a small box, that slightly radiated darkness. A reminder of the price paid for protection.

"Daunt." She called out, barely over a whisper. "I have something for you. That I couldn't give you in the streets of Rygor." She stepped into the hut, closer to the fire. Standing behind the Zabrak, the Nightbrother. A kind smile upon her face. A hand extended, holding the box.

He wouldn't turn toward her until the moment she spoke, giving her the intimacy of reintroduction to the abode they had been sharing until her departure. Still, his hearing registered the soft creaking of the floor planks as she approached barefoot, interspersed with silence when they moved through furs. For all the intensity of smells permeating the small room, her entrance had altered them ever so slightly in a way he thought he could sense, or he just let himself believe that he could. She had her scent, he knew, and he had missed it.

Finally, he turned, and sighed with relief, seeing her... probably well. "You mean beyond the gift of your safe return, and that of promise of restful sleep? I feel I am being pampered." He chuckled nasally, making a slight puff from held-up air. "But then, since I am already quite bound to your will, I may well accept a token of it. What is it, Juri?" He glanced into the box, and felt something at the back of his head. "It has... an aura."

"Something to keep you safe. A sibling to my own." She whispered, indicating to the amulet she wore around her neck, worn high. She had made slight changes to the one for him. She opened the box, presenting it.

More masculine in cut, the iridescent green a simple triangle, the perfect shape. It was bound in leather, and setting the box down, she affixed it to his neck. "No fire or wrath of nature will harm you, and should you find yourself without air, you need not worry." She never let her voice rise above a whisper. It slightly glowed in wicked energy when he wore it.

"Perhaps the aura is the terror of the day, but even with that... you will be safe."

He bent his neck so she could affix it more easily, bringing his face to hers, cheek to cheek. "Of all people, you and I are used to living alongside terrors." He used the opportunity to take in her scent, inaudibly, just by opening nostrils wider. His heart skipped a bit when the triangle was laid on his chest. He thought he could feel vibrations from it that produced some resonance through him. "It sounds very potent, even though I have never developed a good understanding of the magnitude of your power."

"You have it, too." She whispered, touching his cheek, a gentle caress. "But I don't have power, Daunt. Only understanding. A desire to learn more, to keep my knowledge alive. To preserve a tradition within the darkness that consumes the galaxy."

She had a natural scent, herbaceous without being overpowering, a forest just after the rain. She didn't draw away from the closness of the Zabrak.

"Terrors that can be held away by hope and understanding."

"Don't begin on it. I have no aptitude of that kind. Just for the blade." He sighed and pulled away, suddenly unnerved a little. Still, his hand clenched on the new amulet, kept feeling it, trying to check if it was a medium to anything more. "My hopes are small, and my understanding is none. What really makes the terrors recede is your presence."

"Daunt..." she spoke softly, watching as he backed away. It always seemed that whenever she delved into deeper mysteries, he tried to stay away. "While your skills are different than mine, they come from the same place." Stepping closer again, her hand reached for his.

"I'm glad I help. You help me, too. I just know that with these amulets, the nightmares of Defoliators are lessened. To not have fire kiss our skin."

"We come from the same place." He agreed, accepting literal meaning where she had likely proposed a metaphor. "This is what connects us." He added, being cruelly, unnecessarily reductive. But he didn't know how to escape the question of 'why' otherwise.

He looked at her, a shade of self-loathing in his gaze. "You dream them because you've suffered terrible things. I dream mine probably because I've done terrible things." He nevertheless accepted her hand. He couldn't deny it.

"Terrible things can be recovered from. Atonement, redemption. It is all possible." Fingers traced along the larger Zabrak's palm, feeling the callouses, the lines in his hand. She didn't say anything, just focused on that touch.

"And you may have had no say. As much a victim as a perpetrator. To cloud, to take hold, of somone's mind is a power some have possessed."

"This is likely all I am, a tool of a greater will." He sighed. "Whatever you say, I cannot wash blood from my hands." He closed his fingers around her palm in a gentle squeeze. "I just have to settle with the fact it's there." The hand she was touching had been steeped in Gungan blood just yesterday. He assumed she could feel it, somehow. "It's going good. Except when I sleep."

"I refuse to believe that, Daunt." He assumed incorrectly. Her senses simply weren't that refined, even if that dull presence of others she could always feel. "You have choice. You live. You breathe. You..." tenderly she brought his hand up, kissing the back of it, "... feel. Others may have tried to simply make you a blunt instrument. But that is not all you are. I know I have said it many times before."

She looked up to his face, her nose wrinkled pleasantlu as she smiled. "Whatever you have roasting over the fire smells wonderful."

He was grateful for the change of subject. That argument wouldn't be resolved tonight, as it hadn't been on many nights before. Still, his features eased, as did the muscles on his hand, which stroked her cheek before being pulled away.

"I hunted down a theta-deer two days ago. It's been cured and seasoned, and now it's time to roast it. Let me check if it's already how you like it." He stepped toward the skewer and rolled it to prick the downside with a long metal bolt. "I think it needs maybe quarter more."

"Wonderful." She seemed pleased as she spoke. Turning, she pulled the medkit off her shoulder, setting it where she always left it. And then, the heavy hairpin from her foxtail. It fell away, below her shoulders. A flourish as she let fingers through the long locks, and the wicked pin was set atop her kit.

She then walked to the chiller, and removed a pitcher of water. Two glasses, and poured. "You will be careful, knowing just what has arrived, will you?"

He had missed her rituals, so now he observed them keenly, from an angle, while he was taking good care of the meat coming to readiness.

"You'd first need to explain why I should, beyond what I usually do."

"The presence of an Inquisitor is a bad omen. Where they are, that means there are more eyes focused. Bankor now is in the gaze of the Empire." She solemnly responded, bringing the glass of water to the Nightbrother.

"They hunt. They are the ones tasked with rooting out those that stand against Imperial law. To see one this morning coming through with the refugees. It was chilling."

"...I think this might be the moment I've been waiting for." He finally admitted. "The nexus that may unleash the true purpose of my stay on this world. So it'll be hard for you to convince me I should cower before this Inquisitor." He mused. "Besides, aren't they after Jedi first and foremost? I couldn't be mistaken for one."

"I'm not saying to cower." Juri's words were spoken matter-of-factly. "Just be careful. While I know you have skill with the blade, an artist, do not be reckless." She stood before him, watching the Zabrak with half lidded eyes. "And the Jedi may all be gone. They will hunt others. Otherwise why would they be here..." her tone dropped, quieter.

"I don't have the gift to see into portents to divine what may pass. So I can't even guess."

"And can you promise me the same? Not to be reckless? Not to put yourself on the line for causes which are just tangentially yours?" He was challenging her with his gaze. "I'll stay away if you do."

"I can promise I won't put myself in harms way of an Inquisitor." She smiled, then sighed. "Causes won't matter. Eventually they will come for all who are different, who don't match their ideals, their... system. First it was the Jedi. Do you think they would let a Witch escape for long?"

"I don't know, Juri." He said honestly. "One story is that of establishing order. The other story is that of opposing oppression. Both are told with certainty I can't share." He touched her cheek. "One thing I choose to believe in is protecting you. That's my calling from birth, this is who you and I are. But the method shall be my choice."

"You're not a bodyguard, Daunt." Her hand came up to his hand, tenderly keeping it against her cheek. Stepping closer, she closed her eyes. "Though you always do make me feel safe."

"I am a Nightbrother. Incomplete, but still." He took a deeper breath as her cool touch electrified him. "I want you to be safe, not just feel it."

She laughed quietly. "There isn't much difference between the two. But I understand what you mean." Those bright purple eyes vibrantly sparkling in the light of the fireplace.

"It is why I come here. Why I always will."

"Only as long as it remains what it is for us now. If we have to move, we'll move. A place can be rebuilt, a person cannot be brought back." He moved his forehead toward her and held it for a moment, as if sharing unspoken thoughts with her. "...Let's check on our dinner."