Shadows of Bankor

Morning light was just beginning to reach into the deeper hollows between the wooded hills when Sinnya emerged from the trees, tugging a sledge loaded with her kill--a fair-sized quillypine whose colorful spines would fetch a nice price from certain art supply dealers she knew, once they were devenomed.

She paused in a clearing at the peak of a hill to shade her eyes with her hand and squint at the smoke rising several hills over. There was a Mando--err, Mandalorian camp that way, people said, though she'd never gone looking herself. You heard weird things about Mandos sometimes, and anyway they clearly preferred to be left to their own devices--otherwise they wouldn't live way out here, right?

D5 EM--Survival for fluff hunting, boosts for gear and wilds: 2eP+1eA+2eB+2eD 3 successes, 1 advantage

Speaking of Mandos. She might have been fair close to the settlement, as one of them sat on a stump a decent distance away, their hand resting on the hilt of a sword of some kind at their side. A black helmet concealed most things about them, and bulky armor hid the rest. The figure studied her for a few moments before nodding in greeting.

"Oh, uh. Hi." Sinnya had noticed the armored figure from a safe distance but figured on not bothering black-helmet-person unless they wanted to be bothered. In truth, she hadn't expected they would want. Still, she gamely tugged her laden sledge closer with an awkward-friendly wave. "Pretty morning, huh? You, um, live around here?"

If the skinny Twi'lek was a bit less timid than some locals might have been in this situation, perhaps it was just because she seemed to be an experienced outdoorswoman in her element, capable of escaping from trouble if need be. Or maybe it was her sixth sense that let her know this intimidating person likely didn't mean her any harm...

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D5 EM--fluff basic Sense: 2eF 1 Light Side, 1 Dark Side

"Morning. Here-ish," she agreed. She didn't really have much ability to tell things deliberately, but it was obvious enough that this wasn't the sort of person she was keeping an eye out for... and someone who seemed pretty familiar with the outdoors. "I don't suppose you've seen anything unusual yet today."

"Today? Here? No." A curiously bitter expression crossed the young Twi'lek's face as she actually appeared to think it over. "The woods are quiet. It's a good morning to be out of town." She tilted her head a little to one side as it occurred to her to mention, "A friend did tell me he saw acklay sign out here a few weeks ago. Ever since then I keep an eye out. I haven't seen anything myself, though."

"That's good. I don't expect it to stay quiet all day," she replied, shaking her head. "I'd find another part of the woods to be in for a bit."

"An acklay, hmm. I'll keep that in mind. Thank you."

"You think something's going to get noisy?" Shading her eyes again, Sinnya scanned the wooded hills. They looked peaceful enough. "Usually people move out here to get away from commotion. Or trouble."

"That's the ideal. Sometimes trouble comes looking, unfortunately," she explained. "Yeah, I think things are going to get noisy. I'm keeping an eye out for now."

“You could just get out of the way of trouble,” Sinnya suggested. “It’s what I’d do.” She dropped her sledge rope and brushed her palms on her pants before offering a hand to the armored person. “I’m Sinnya, by the way.”

Her hands were a bit dusty but otherwise clean; she must have managed to wash them after dealing with the quillypine carcass.

"Hard to move the number of people trouble's coming for," she said with a shake of her helmet. "It was my choice that brought it, anyway. I have to take responsibility for it."

"Sacha Ordo. Pleased to meet you."

“Oh. Uh... what kind of trouble are you expecting?”

Visions of some kind of ritualized Mandalorian clan feud danced through Sinnya’s head—wasn’t that a plot line on that holo show Warrior’s Heart at some point?—but she also thought of the Aznuri exiles in Rygor, and that made her lekku droop and her expression darken.

Without thinking, she lifted a hand to her chest to touch one of the tribal necklaces there. “I hope it’s not very bad trouble.”

"I decided we wouldn't work for a certain group," she replied. Her glove gripped her sword hilt harder, the only open show of emotion. "They didn't take it well."

Her eyes lit on the tribal necklace. "... So, it's the kind of trouble messing with them usually brings."

“Tssch.” Sinnya hissed unhappily through sharp incisors, her fingers tightening around the carved snake ornament and her gaze becoming distant. “They have so many soldiers. Endless soldiers. What do they need you for?”

"To hunt their enemies," she replied with a shrug. "Resistance and Jedi. But like you said, they have many soldiers. They don't need us unless they're getting desperate. Or the woman made a fake offer with the expectation of a no. She did seem... focused."

"They take any excuse to wipe out people who don't fit into their big machine, steal any secrets that don't belong to them." Sinnya was still half-distant, a far cry from the young woman who'd come over the hill in such good spirits a few minutes earlier. She wrapped her arms around herself. "Workers, tribespeople... they have balls, though, pulling the same move on Mandos."

"That's the impression I got," she agreed darkly. "It's bold, but not surprising. We're strong, and we were never going to fit their paradigm. Whether we agreed or disagreed, we would be a threat."

She looked toward the sky. "It will be all the more reason for them to try and destroy us eventually, I suspect."

"Are you going to fight them? Alone?" Sinnya actually sounded concerned for this mysterious armored swordswoman. It was weird to think of Mandos as underdogs, but these were weird times. She crouched down on her heels beside Sacha's stump, thinking. "Head-on, even for you people... they don't just have that Star Destroyer and all the troopers and TIEs, you know. They have the sky devils too--the Sith."

"Not by myself... But we're going to take them head on." She replied. "What are Sith?"

"Something I used to think was just an old story." Sinnya looked quite comfortable crouching with heels down, as if she could stay that way for a long time. "My Ma came from the Aznuri, so I heard all the stories when I was little. The Sith were devils who came out of the sky long, long ago, before the People were the People, and left a terrible curse on the heart of the forest. With their wickedness they poisoned the soil, and the air, and life itself." The cadence of her voice had changed, and Sacha might get the sense that these phrases came out of some deep oral tradition.

"Then they left, nobody knows why. The cursed land bred sickness and monsters until the Jedi came, who were the ancient enemies of the Sith, and helped the forest tribe heal the land. That was when the People began."

She shrugged. "You can see why I thought they were more of a... metaphor thing, not somebody you could run into. But they are real, and they work with the troopers, or maybe command them. I couldn't believe it at first when the elder said so... then I met one. It's true. They are the Sith from the stories." She shivered slightly, although the air wasn't remotely cold even for a Twi'lek. "They call themselves 'inquisitors, but that doesn't fool the Aznuri."

"I see... Inquisitor. Yeah, that's what this woman was," she replied, nodding a little. "Ancient enemies of the Jedi, hmm? I know there was one other than us in our own histories."

"Other than us... Oh." Sinnya took a moment to parse that. "Do Mandos--uh, Mandalorians and Jedi have a thing too, then? Didn't know that, but... the other Sky Devils the Jedi helped us battle in the before time were supposed to be Mandalorian, so I guess it makes sense. Uh, no offense."

"No reason for me to take offense," she replied with a shrug. "We've fought everyone in the galaxy twice at one time or another. It is what it is."

"Mandalorians and Jedi have fought since... probably close to the beginning of both. Of course, we've also had leaders who were trained by them, so it's back and forth."

"That sounds more like neighboring tribes than the Jedi and Sith do," Sinnya observed--quickly enough that one might guess she was a bit relieved not to have offended the armed and armored Mando and only too happy to move the conversation on. "Sometimes raiding, sometimes allies, depending on the weather. Or on whoever is in charge."

She dipped her head. "I think that's a good description of it. It's a couple of groups of people that are large enough and have been around long enough that they're just bound to be shoved into each other often."

"Not the Sith, though." Sinnya pressed a palm into the dirt and leaf litter of the ground beneath her. "They're poison."

She glanced up and sideways at Sacha. "There are a lot of other people who want them off this planet, them and their bootlicking Empire friends. In case you didn't know."