canadianjedimama posted:Does Victor still love Nikki?
YodaKenobi posted:There was an intruder. No matter how much she cut herself off from the Force, she couldn't stop the prickles of impending danger from needling her spine or the icy ball of fear that formed between her shoulder blades. There was someone out there, and she couldn't think of any innocent reason for that.
YodaKenobi posted:Jaina Solo rolled out of bed and crouched, palming shapes in the darkness until she felt the leg of the trousers she'd tossed on the floor a few hours earlier next to a sleeveless undershirt made stiff by sweat and dried swamp water. She quickly dressed, pulling the shirt over her head and buttoned the waist of her pants, only to reach for the utility belt draped across the small table in her hut— there was a moment there where she expected to feel the weight of her lightsaber dangling from the synthleather loop, but it wasn't there, of course.
YodaKenobi posted:Making sure her blaster was, Jaina cinched her belt around her waist and fastened its buckle before creeping towards the door. Her hut was small, not much larger than the one that existed there decades earlier, and it took the lithe woman only a few strides to reach the door after ducking the low-arching passages. She palmed the toggle control for the door and crawled through the narrow passage into the fog-blanketed mud outside the home she'd built here two years ago. The stench of Dagobah's sweltering bogs mingled in the cold night air, and Jaina could tell from the musty aroma and faint hint of electricity in the shadows that it was going to rain. She unclipped a glowrod from her belt to help light her way and snapped the device on, casting a beam of golden light through the roving mists.
YodaKenobi posted:There was no sign of him.
YodaKenobi posted:Starting forward, she tried to think of who it would be. If it was anyone with good intentions— Uncle Luke or her parents— they would have just knocked. This person had come to kill her.
YodaKenobi posted:Jaina's boots squashed against the sucking mud of the marshlands as she passed the bubbling swamps and serpentine branches of Dagobah's gray trees. She paused when a vine snake dropped down and glided across the ground, as if being stalked by a predator.
YodaKenobi posted:Instinctively she reached for her lightsaber and again felt silly. She'd dismantled the weapon when she left the Jedi Order and came to Dagobah to live in solitude. In order to defeat Darth Caedus— to kill her twin brother, Jacen Solo— Jaina had chosen to become something other than a Jedi. When it was over, there was no going back for her, and she was wise enough to know that if she continued, she would only be following her brother's path. She could feel that he had made a similar choice once, deciding that the Jedi way just wasn't enough, and that the ends justified the means to secure galactic peace...
YodaKenobi posted:There would never be peace for her, she knew, but she needed to be alone. It didn't matter where, Dagobah was simply the first planet that came to mind. She left everything behind.
YodaKenobi posted:Jaina pulled her blaster from its holster and started forward into the murky grove ahead, her legs drowning in fog.
YodaKenobi posted:To her surprise, she came to the dark mouth of a cave covered by tangles of coiled vines and gnarled tree roots— something about it sent a chill up her spine, and she knew that her intruder was waiting for her inside. Suddenly she felt afraid in a way she never thought she would again.
YodaKenobi posted:Taking a deep breath, Jaina pushed her apprehension away and wrapped herself in the battle-calm that she'd worn through too many wars, the armor of the Sword of the Jedi, and she crept inside, dropping into the darkness. She hit the soft ground and her glowrod seemed to dim, as if it couldn't peel the shadows from the cave walls of stone, mud, and frayed roots. It defied logic, but Jaina could feel from the energy radiating from this place that logic just didn't matter here.
YodaKenobi posted:She continued ahead slowly, as creatures she could not make out crawled and slithered across her boots with far more legs than anything should have. Eventually, she came to a dark shape in the center of the cave which the light of her glowrod would not illuminate. She dropped her shoulder and raised her blaster, pointing it squarely at the wraith.
YodaKenobi posted:"You," she said. "Who are you?" There was no answer. For a moment she wondered if there was anything there at all, but she was beginning to see the outline of a man.
YodaKenobi posted:"Turn around," she ordered. "Slowly." Again, there was no response, and the shape did not move. But before she could repeat herself more forcefully, the glowrod was ripped from her grasp and sent sailing through the cavern, bouncing off the cave floor. She squeezed the trigger of her blaster only to see the stranger whip around in a fan of dark robes and catch the flare of red brilliance in the palm of his hand. Jaina's blaster was similarly wrenched from her grip and pinned against the cave wall before she could even think to fire another salvo, and suddenly, she found she could no longer move. In a single bound, her attacker reached her and placed his gloved hand over her mouth— that was when his dark form was revealed. His body was twisted, so mangled by scorches he'd become slanted, and he moved with a limp, as if one leg was hanging on by mere fibers somewhere in the flood of his cloak. He had just one arm, the other having been cleaved off at the bicep, and his abdomen and chest still glowed amber in the darkness where he'd been stabbed with a lightsaber. Jaina's eyes widened when they traveled up the man's body and found a face more familiar to her than her own. Jacen. His visage was a nightmarish maze of bruises and puncture wounds, the way she had left him when he died on the Anakin Solo, and his eyes were a frightening yellow wreathed in scarlet, like some feral animal. She wanted to scream, but his hand tightened around her mouth. Finally, he opened up his bloodied mouth and spoke, his eyes burning into hers. "You have to save him, Jaina."
YodaKenobi posted:Jaina woke with a start to find her sheets pushed down and tangled around her sweat-slickened legs. She tried to catch her breath, her eyes frantically darting around the inside of her darkened hut to find she was as alone as when she'd gone to sleep. There was nothing there, save the growl of Dagobah's rain drumming against the swamp and mud outside.
YodaKenobi posted:She activated one of the wall crystals
YodaKenobi posted:and made her way to the basin of bath water she had balanced in front of the fireplace. Dunking her hands in the water, she splashed some on her face and ran her hands through her hair, trying to wash away the horror of her nightmare. Looking up, she caught sight of something in the mirror hanging on the wall beside her. Her heart seemed frozen in her chest, but somehow her legs moved, and she peered closely into her own reflection. Jaina's face was pale and dripping, but it was her neck that drew her attention. She tilted her head to see it clearly, and found the horrifying red stains blistered across her neck that she thought had vanished when she killed Darth Caedus two years ago. But as she looked closely, she could see that they were not a random spatter of her brother's blood. She pulled her skin tighter to see clearly and gasped. Burned into Jaina's skin were two words. "Save him."
