Saga - OT All Our Yesterdays / Drama, Post-Rebels/ First Sentence Challenge

Someone didn’t want me to be found; though I couldn’t have said why, I had a feeling it was me.

Interesting. I like the way you worded the sentence as well as it's implications.



My pack was drenched. My clothes were soaked. Not an auspicious way to start a new life

No, I suppose he's not the coolest cucumber in the salad.



“What happened?”

“I fell in the pond!”

Genius alert.



“My name is Lando Calrissian; I’m a smuggler.”

LOL! Oh, and I'm sure he looks just like Jabba the Hutt. Next, he'll be Vader and His Dancing Bunnies!



Chapter 2



a flash of recognition fluttered through my mind and then was gone.

Must be very frustrating to keep getting glimpses and then having them vanish.



I’m counting on you came a whisper across the Galaxy

Intriguing. So long as the next words weren't... to deliver my package on time.



Finally, the droid attached several dozen small sensors to my head with a goopy paste,

And now it's... electro-shock time, unknown Human male! Lol!



even if someone was looking for me, they’d never find me

That, in and of itself, might not be a bad thing. You never know who's looking for you.



Chapter 3


above the image of a buxom, scantily-clad green-skinned Twi’lek

Huh... Methinks I've been there before.



It butted its head against my shoulder and rubbed against me affectionately.

It doesn't know if it wants to fight him, or... do something a lot more interesting.



a bowl of some odd gray paste, which was presumably also food but looked as if it could be used to patch starship hulls.

It's nutritious AND helps bond metal at the molecular level. Mmm-mmm, good.



but then again, the tooka was talking to me, so maybe I had.

Good point.



Whereupon Pouncer decided that my pillow also looked nice and curled up behind my head to “share” it.

Ah, such a cute kitty.



Ok, read through the first 3 chapters. Getting late. So far, I'm enjoying this a lot. Looking forward to the last 2 chapters (I'm assuming this is a completed story, or is there more to come?) and finding out who this fellow is and what he needs to do.

Really good thus far; very descriptive.

 

“It’s not like I’ve got a lot of other options,” he sighed at last.

Always a ringing endorsement



“Try not to scare this one off.”

Do or do not; there is no try.



“Even Gero behaves himself around her.”

So apparently he was behaving himself.



“Is a square-headed idiot who thinks he’s Giaca’s gift to females,”

And those are his good points, lol



We were echoes of each other.

Very nice line.



Great action scene. Nothing quotable, as it all melded together so well.



She looked up at him as if she felt he was not quite the brightest pup in the litter.

Not Gero! He's a genius. He's... well, I guess she's right.



Pouncer grumbled that my tossing and turning was keeping him awake.

Lol, of course it's all about the kitty!


Great story so far. I am in suspense over who this person could be. And will Akaela finally come see him?

 

First of all, thank you so much for picking up on this story! It’s been rather neglected and your wonderful comments were just the nudge I needed to get back to it! I’m glad you’re enjoying it so far. There are indeed some interesting implications to the idea that it was Dev himself who sabotaged his homing beacon. Who or what doesn’t he want to find him...?

Falling into a quadduck pond with no idea how you got there will do that to you.

Again, Dev’s not exactly having the best day, so he’s not at his sharpest. Once he gets his bearings, he’ll do better.

Fortunately, he’s quite a bit smaller than Jabba Vader and his Dancing Bunnies sounds like a great premise for crack!fic, though...

Oh, yes...not even having time to properly recognize them is definitely frustrating for him.

No, he’s not counting on her to deliver a package...it’s something even more important than that.

It does sound like it could be used for that, doesn’t it? This is how an EEG brain wave scan is done in real life, so I thought a low budget, backrocket outpost would go low tech (for the GFFA) like this.

True that! Sort of a mixed blessing if you hope to find out who you are, though.

I think this sign hangs over a lot of cantinas in the GFFA! @Findswoman described her a Twi’lek St. Pauli’s beer girl, and I think that pretty well sums it up.

Aww, he’s just being friendly! Head-butting is actually a feline gesture of affection (they’re “marking” you with the scent glands in their foreheads and cheeks, essentially saying you belong to them)

This culinary delight is based on the Hawaiian dish, poi. Not quite able to bond metal on a molecular level, though it frequently gets compared to wallpaper paste.

Yep, cats talking to you might be one indication something’s not quite right__

Isn’t he, though?

Again, thank you so much for the great comments and I’m so glad you’re enjoying it. There is more to come. I got rather sidetracked by plot bunnies and my DDC, but I hope I can get back on track with it now.

Indeed! Dev’s got more going for him than he seems at first. He may not be as bulked up as Gero or Kiume, but he’s no slouch, either (and he really has “moved his share of cargo” )

Ha! Gero will do his best, I’m sure, but Dev doesn’t scare easily.

Sad, isn’t it?

Yep, you said it! The downside is, he’s also a bulked-up bully, lazy and has an exaggerated sense of his own abilities.

Thank you!

Again, thanks. Action scenes can be a bit tough for me to right, so I appreciate knowing that this one came together well.

Aww... poor Gero. Too bad he’s also the ugly, mean pup in the litter as well.

Of course it is, and the sooner those silly Humans (and Twi’leks) realize that, the happier everyone will be, especially the kitty

Thank you so much! More clues to the first question and the answer to the second are in the next chapter.

...And the wolves may be just what Dev needs, too! He’s found a kindred spirit in the young male, someone who shares his feelings of loneliness and confusion; there’s a connection between the two of them. He may also have found another kindred spirit in Akaela, who shares his ability to communicate with animals. As you note, she’s no fool—a bit different, perhaps, but not a fool, and even without the cub filling her in, she’d have been able to tell which of the men had compassion for her wolves. The wolves in Dev’s dream, different as they are from Akaela’s fenwolves, are a clue for him, if only he knew it!

Dev and the young male are very much alike, in all the ways you mentioned, and if Dev has the ability to sense and understand the wolf’s emotions, the wolf cub can also sense his feelings...and that is momentous! (And the color of his eyes are significant Good catch!) Dev has had compassion for all the creatures he’s encountered in his job at the spaceport, but that reciprocal sharing of emotions is a turning point for him. And the answer to the spoilered part is yes, and it is a clue to some of the latent abilities he has...

San from Princess Mononoke was one of the influences for Akaela, as was Princess Kida from Disney’s Atlantis:The Lost Empire (particularly in the drawing of Akaela). Both of them had the wildness to them that I pictured in her. Unlike San, though, Akaela wasn’t raised by wolves, though she’s spent a good deal of her life in their company (more on her backstory in the coming chapters). That, and the fact that her wolves are sort of semi-domesticated, means she’s still able to see Humans (at least some of them) as good or at least neutral.

Yes, they are a pretty big clue—as is that white wolf

Spoiler

if you’ve seen a similar creature before, you probably have a good idea of Dev’s identity

The larger wolf—you may be onto something about the color of his eyes—may make further appearances in Dev’s dreams... Thank so much; I shall do my best. And thank you for your support and encouragement on this story

Don’t feel bad; she was one of the first people I pitched this plot bunny to, so she had a bit of an advantage when it came to being able to see the clues sprinkled in the story.

He remembers pretty much everything, except the details about himself; it does seem like someone or something has chosen which bits of his memories got blanked out...

That’s interesting; I haven’t watched a lot of Dr. Who, so I wasn’t aware that “karabast” had been used in an episode. I only know it as Zeb’s expletive of choice in Rebels...

Thank you! It’s been a lot of fun fleshing out the bare bones provided for the planet Giaca in the Unknown Regions RPG sourcebook The planet is described as a sparsely populated frontier outpost, so I felt like it would draw a diverse bunch of explorers, scientists, and rugged individualists (not to mention smugglers and criminals!) who didn’t really fit in in a normal environment. There aren’t any natives for the planet, but the vendors are locals, in that they live in Station 3Z3.

@Findswoman noted that St. Giles is the patron saint for multiple physical and mental ailments—apparently the Force guided me to the name, because I wasn’t aware of that when I chose it.

Thanks so much, and a very belated thank you for taking the Read and Review Challenge on this one. I appreciate having your comments!

Yes,yes it does!

 

Thank you to @WarmNyota_SweetAyesha and @Findswoman for beta-reading

Chapter 6

Wolves prowled through my dreams.

Every night for the next week, I rode with them over those tantalizingly familiar grasslands, followed them through narrow passageways lit by faint, weirdly rippling rainbow lights, and fought nameless, faceless adversaries alongside them. It was strange: the dreams where I heard the voices always felt like they were happening now, like I was listening in on whatever moment of their lives I happened to catch, but these wolf dreams felt more like something from the past—my first memories of my old life. So what was so important about wolves? Why did I remember them and not any of the voices’ owners, the people cared about me, the ones I cared for? Was there some sort of connection between the wolves in my dreams and the frightened, lonely cub in Akaela’s pack?

Akaela’s fenwolves weren’t the same kind as the wolves in my dreams; hers seemed—well, not tamer, exactly, but less wild somehow, more solid and less otherworldly. Yet something about them, especially the young male, had sparked something within me. His feelings had echoed within me, like his emotions were mine and mine were his, and that was something I’d never experienced with any of the other creatures I’d encountered, not even Pouncer, my self-appointed new best friend. With the young wolf it had almost seemed like there was a connection between us, a kind of bond. And I didn’t understand that, either. How could I feel so certain that a creature I’d only known for a few minutes had some sort of place in my life? Because I knew, somewhere deep inside that he did. I had too many questions, and I chased the answers like...a wolf on the trail of its quarry.

The trails led me around and around, but they all seemed to come back to the same point: Akaela, the girl who seemed to share my mysterious ability to talk to animals. If anyone could help me find the answers to my questions it was her. I kept an eye out for her as I walked to and from the spaceport, hoping to catch a glimpse of her in the marketplace. And at night when I cleaned tables at the cantina, I watched for her over my shoulder, hoping maybe she’d decide come in for tea. When she didn’t show up, I did the only other thing I could do—I kept my ears open as I worked, listening to the patrons gossiping about Giaca’s newest arrival.

Station 3Z3 was an isolated outpost. We didn’t get a lot of news from the outside Galaxy, and sometimes the most exciting thing that would happen here for weeks was a dust-up the marketplace over the poor quality of gorgs at Fala’s stand or drunken scuffle between a couple of spacers flirting with the same girl. When little things like that could be the topic of conversation for days, the arrival of a young woman with four wolves in tow was guaranteed to set tongues wagging, vocaubulators buzzing and mandibles clacking.

The facts about her quickly made the rounds—Akaela Ranulf, lately of Shor, pack-master of a group of fenwolves she’d inherited from her grandfather. She was young to have her own wolf-pack, but despite her inexperience, ShoraCo had hired her to survey and map the forest to aid in their colonization effort and to serve as a courier to residents in the outlying area. Much to the dismay of the Station’s busybodies, Akaela chose not to share her entire life’s story with them; it seemed that she preferred the company of her wolves to even the rough approximation of polite society found at the station. Some people said she seemed awkward in company and a little odd; others thought she was blunt, unsociable or downright rude.

The gossips didn’t let the lack of details about her stop them from talking, though. Instead of settling down in a ShoraCo prefab the way decent beings should, Akaela had moved into an old forester’s cabin half a kilometer from town, whose previous resident had been killed by brintaks, the monstrous beasts that were the worst of Giaca’s venomous wildlife. Some people figured that, like him, Akaela was just an eccentric loner who wanted to live close to nature (“may that work out better for her than it had for him,” they said, making whatever superstitious warding gesture their species used), but a larger faction argued there had to be a dark reason for her antisocial nature. Weren’t there any number of smugglers and criminals hiding in the jungle? All the dire speculation and nuna-clucking only made me sympathize more with Akaela for wanting to be by herself. I’d adapted to Giaca little by little over the past six months, but I still felt like a misfit, even among the outsiders and outcasts, the fringers and frontiersmen who lived here.

I guess I could have tracked Akaela down. I could have asked Nanda or Jaq where her cabin was. At least one of them would have known, but I knew what would happen if I did. Jaq would grin and Nanda would smile; she would start picking curtains for a nice little prefab on the upper columns for us, while he evaluated Akaela’s… relative merits. And I just didn’t need that. I still didn’t know myself and I didn’t know who I might have left behind. One of the female voices from my dreams might have belonged to a girlfriend, a fiancée—maybe even a wife, though my meager possessions didn’t seem include anything that could be a wedding token. Until I knew for sure, though, I couldn’t let myself think of anyone that way, no matter how interesting she might be. No, right now, I had to focus, as that voice from long-ago had told me; I had to concentrate on finding answers to my questions.

So I watched and waited and worked, listening to the gossip and thinking of wolves, and the Zhellday after I’d met Akaela, I caught a glimpse of flame-jewel red hair from the corner of my eye as I was bussing tables at the cantina. Akaela stood in the doorway, her eyes bright and round, an expression of almost childlike wonder on her face as she surveyed all the trinkets and treasures displayed on Jaq’s walls. An artless smile curved her lips when she spotted me. “Dev Morgan!” she exclaimed weaving between the crowded tables, as nimbly as Pouncer winding his way between the bottles on the shelf above the bar. “I need to talk to you about the cub!”

I set down the tray of mugs and tankards on the table I’d just cleared, slid into the booth—actually the acceleration couch from an old Corellian freighter, liberally mended with spacer’s tape—and gestured for Akaela to join me. “Is he okay? Gero didn’t hurt him, did he?” I asked. My hands clenched at my side, remembering the way he’d yanked at the frightened wolf’s harness. If Gero had injured him, I’d...what? Gero wasn’t that much taller than me, but he had a good 40 kilos on me and had never shown any reluctance to use that weight to his advantage. I found myself reaching for something at my right hip, the something that should have been there but wasn’t, not for the first time since I’d run up against Gero and his bantha-headed bullying.

“He’s fine,” Akaela assured me as she sat down across from me. “But he wanted me to find you.”

“He did?” I was surprised by Akaela’s matter-of-fact statement. Even though I’d had the sense she’d been listening to him that day at the spaceport, somehow I hadn’t considered that he could communicate with her that specifically. Pouncer was the only creature I’d come across who had ever spoken back to me, and his idea of “conversation” was demanding that I feed him, give him my pillow, and scratch him behind his ears. But the cub had asked Akaela about me. He wanted to find me. I felt unreasonably pleased at this confirmation he was different, that the sense of connection I’d felt with him hadn’t been all in my head.

“Yes.” Akaela paused and leaned back in her seat, frowning as if something wasn’t quite right. She cocked her head to the side, her nose crinkling, and regarded me exactly the way the wolf she’d called Lyka had inspected me on the tarmac. “You’re not laughing.”

“Should I be?” It hadn’t seemed like a joke, but perhaps Shoraks had an odd sense of humor? Gero had certainly never shown any evidence of one.

The dilapidated acceleration couch creaked as Akaela shifted in place. She traced a ring of condensation left by one of the ale tankards I’d cleared away with her finger. “Well, most people do when I say the wolves talk to me,” she said, with a plaintive sigh. “At first, they think I’m making things up, cute stories about talking animals like you tell younglings at bedtime. And then when I tell them I’m not, they think I’m crazy…” She looked up at me, a tiny glimmer of hope in her copper eyes. “But you believe me.”

It was strange, but for a moment it was as if I could sense her emotions as if she was one of the forlorn creatures waiting at the spaceport—aching isolation, an old pain that had dulled around the edges but still had the power to wound. I wondered how long she’d felt that way, cut off from everyone, a gulf of mistrust and misunderstanding between them. I thought about how careful I’d been not to tell anyone I knew how animals felt, how I’d even doubted my own sanity at times because of it. And it hit me that in some ways she was as lonely as the wolf cub...as lonely as I was. I met her eyes, trying to build a bridge across that emptiness. “Yeah, well, I….can do it, too. Talk to animals, that is.” It felt strange and a little uncomfortable to confess my ability after I’d spent six months hiding it, but I pressed on. Not like Akaela was going to tell me I was a barvy nutter, not when she said she’d been sent here by a wolf cub. I ran a hand through my hair, too long now to stay neatly smoothed back, and pushed the errant strands away from my face. “Okay, well, Jaq’s tooka, Pouncer, is the only one that really talks to me, but I can understand most creatures—how they feel, what they need…”

“I knew it!” The glimmer in Akaela’s eyes sparked and kindled into a glow. She clapped her hands together like a youngling, a brilliant smile lighting her face. “I knew you had to be, when the cub kept asking about you! You’re a beast-warden, too!”

“A beast-warden?” The term niggled at the back of my consciousness. Had I heard it somewhere before? Maybe, or at least something like it. The image of spotted cats in tall grass flashed through my mind, so vividly that it took me a moment to realize Akaela was speaking.

“Yes, you know, someone who can, hmm…” She stopped, her features twisting into a look of puzzled concentration, like she was trying to describe something for which no words existed...and maybe they didn’t. I’d said Pouncer “talked” to me, but he didn’t really and I couldn’t really hear what he “said”. Sensed or felt or understood might be closer to it—or just as far from it, depending on how you looked at things. “I guess you’d say connect with animals,” Akaela said finally. “Someone who can understand them, like you said. Do they call them something different where you’re from?”

Where I was from. Wherever that was. It seemed like everyone on Giaca had their pet theory on that; I was pretty sure the betting pools were still in place. Sometimes it felt like I was the only one who didn’t have an opinion on the matter—but of course Akaela didn’t know any of that since she’d just arrived here. Well, while I was making awkward confessions, I might as well get this one out of the way. “I don’t know. I don’t know where I come from. I crashed on Giaca in an escape pod, and somehow…” I shrugged, spreading my hands, a gesture proclaiming ignorance—or maybe defeat. “I guess I hit my head or something, because I don’t remember anything before that.”

“Oh.” She tilted her head again, considering me, her gaze frank but not unsympathetic. “That must be very hard for you.”

That was one way to put it, and really, what else could anyone say besides the usual well-intentioned, but singularly useless, “I’m sorry”. I’d never found any good way to respond to that: “it’s okay”? No, it really wasn’t. “Not your fault? Pretty sure they realized that. “Don’t be.” Well, that worked, in a way, because I didn’t want pity. It occurred to me that Akaela was the first being who hadn’t offered some variation on “sorry”. Her simple acknowledgement might have seemed kind of blunt, but it was a relief not to have to deal with platitudes. “Yeah. Yeah, it is,” I answered and decided to take her directness as an opportunity to be honest with her, too. “Actually, that’s kind of why I was hoping to talk to you. I was hoping maybe if you could tell me something about this...this beast-warden ability I have, it might tell me something about myself. Who I am. Where I’m from. Why I remember wolves…”

“Yes, of course!” Akaela exclaimed without a heartbeat’s hesitation. Like Nanda when I’d crashed into the pond, she was willing to help without a second thought. How was I always so lucky to find exactly the people I needed—even the creatures I needed, if you counted Pouncer and the wolf cub—just when I needed them? I had the craziest feeling that some strange force—fate or destiny or whatever you wanted to call it—was guiding me towards them.

“And maybe… you can help me, too?” Despite the gleam of hope in her eyes, Akaela was suddenly hesitant, with the air of someone who’s learned from long experience that she’ll be dismissed and probably laughed at...though it wasn’t like I would do that to her when she’d so readily offered to help me. “Well, not me, really,” she clarified, as if that would change my decision. “The cub…”

“Yeah!” I didn’t need to think about it, either. That was what decent beings did, after all—helped each other whenever they could, and it was important to keep doing that even if I was stuck in the back of beyond not knowing who I really was. Even if I couldn’t say for sure it was part of who I had been, it was definitely who I wanted to be.

Gratitude warmed Akaela’s smile. “Do you know much about fenwolves?” When I shook my head, she continued. “Back on Shor, fenwolves are riding beasts, pack animals—kind of like eopies or gualamas only with teeth and claws. But sometimes a wolf gets loose and runs wild; sometimes even a pair of them… The ranchers and farmers don’t like it when that happens; they say the wolves attack their livestock and since wild fenwolves are pests, they think ‘why not have some sport exterminating them?’

“I found out some of the farmers were planning a hunt. I knew where the den was; I thought I could warn the pair, but I got there too late. They’d opened the den with an excavator, and killed the fenwolves with blasters, pikes, whatever they had…it was…ugly...” Akaela’s voice trailed off. She shook her head, eyes closed as if she could still see the horror and carnage she’d found in that ruined den. “The fenwolves had four half-grown cubs, but only one was still alive when I arrived. He had two broken legs and broken ribs…and he was only alive because his dying mother had fallen on top of him, hiding him. I gave her my word as a beast-warden that her son would would run through the forests again.”

She swiped at eyes with the back of her hand, and reflexively I offered her the bar towel I’d been using to wipe down tables—possibly not the best thing to wipe one’s tears with, but she took it with a small hiccupy laugh, twisting it in her hands as she continued. “I did the best I could for him; I mended his broken bones, healed the blaster burns. He can run again, but he’s afraid to; his heart is still trapped. When he saw you the other day...it was like he was really alive for the first time since I found him. He can’t stop asking about you. He says you’re like him—lost and broken.”

“Yeah…” My voice was little more than a husky whisper. Broken. I knew the wolf cub wasn’t talking about his fractured bones. Those had healed, but the deeper scars remained—the fear, the uncertainty, the feeling that everything was wrong and might never be right—all the things we’d shared in that moment of connection. “That’s me.”

Akaela leaned towards me, reaching across the table; I nearly took her hands before I reminded myself to focus. “He could use a friend,” she said. “Someone who really understands him. Maybe you both could. Maybe then you wouldn’t be lost anymore, and maybe you could start to fix what’s broken.”

It sounded so easy, though I knew it wouldn’t be. Nothing ever was, but I had to try, no matter how painful it might be for me and the cub to mend all our broken places. “Look, I’ve got tomorrow off. Maybe we could get together—you, me and the cub?”

“He’ll be so happy to hear that! I need to get back to my pack now, but I’ll meet you here tomorrow at noon.” Akaela rose, smiling and laid a hand on my shoulder. “You’re a very kind person, Dev Morgan. Thank you.”

 

Wonderful! Akaela really does understand Dev's ability and gives it a name. And he can help her cub in a tangible way, and himself, more than likely, in the process.

Bravo on building Dev's and Akaela's connection/burgeoning friendship in such a believable way!

 

Looking for this?

Yes. Yes you have heard it before.

 

Wolves prowled through my dreams.

Every night for the next week, I rode with them over those tantalizingly familiar grasslands, followed them through narrow passageways lit by faint, weirdly rippling rainbow lights, and fought nameless, faceless adversaries alongside them.

Awesome opening. Reminds me of something H.P. Lovecraft might have cooked up.


Pouncer, my self-appointed new best friend.

Yes, a good kitty will never let you forget that you're hers forever and ever.


When she didn’t show up, I did the only other thing I could do—I kept my ears open as I worked,

You should have asked your patron, Nanda to get a hold of Akaela for you. Everyone seems to obey her.


it seemed that she preferred the company of her wolves to even the rough approximation of polite society found at the station.

Sounds like she's got the right idea. [loner_face]


All the dire speculation and nuna-clucking only made me sympathize more with Akaela for wanting to be by herself.

And there's the reason why she has the right idea.


but I still felt like a misfit

I still enjoy The Misfits. (punk band from the 70s)


liberally mended with spacer’s tape

Ah, spacer's tape, that mend-all necessity. Hyperdrive on the fritz? Life support down? Slap a little spacer's tape on it and viola! Good as new! Spacer's tape, wherever fine goods are sold.


“But you believe me.”

Of course, Your Hotness. I believe whatever you say.


Do they call them something different where you’re from?

Well, see, there's this thing...


How was I always so lucky to find exactly the people I needed

I sure wouldn't know.


that some strange force

Or 'Force'?


She swiped at eyes with the back of her hand

Aw, poor animals. Poor Akaela, too for having to see that.


You’re a very kind person, Dev Morgan. Thank you.

Heh, heh, that's still up for debate.


Glad this is continuing. Very good.

 

Finished Chapter 2 and so far do I like what I read.

That's a good paragraph, I like how it illustrates how lost he is.

That feels very little for an escape pod of that size, there is not even a little stow to heat water and fry food in - also, only one blaster? Was it not a pod for more than one person?

That's a good paragraph.

How do green taste?

Why do you capitalise the first letter in human? Also, if you do it should it not it then be "Near-Human" instead of "near-Human"?

-----------------------------

Like the concept, and you give a good description. Are the basalt pillars supposed to be natural or originally artificial?

Also: when will we see a Fanon thread post on your fanon regarding Station 3Z3?

So, they are teenagers then

making a circle motion with your hand and then making a fist in the circle?

That's true To bad you don't know what they

Have you decided on why they are considered near-human? Asking since the Wook' dont mention anything beside being "more muscular than baseline Humans" and that feel like that kind of thing that makes me uncomfortable thinking that SW would classify real life pygmies as near-human.

I know that the Jedi Civil War part is established in the UR book but I just need to get it out of me that whoever wrote that part don't really understand how much time that is. It's a stupidly long time that did not need to be mentioned when describing them and the planet, it would be like mentioning something about people from todays Sweden visiting some place during the bronze age when describing the Swedish community there.

 

Isn't that often the way it goes--that in helping others we help ourselves? Akaela understands to some point what it's like to be an outsider and has compassion for both Dev and the cub. They aren't the only ones could benefit from having a friend. As happy as Akaela may be in the company of her wolves, she could use some Human companionship as well, especially now that she's found someone who shares her unique abilities.

Or possibly this

Yes. Yes you have heard it before.[/QUOTE]Now if only Dev could remember where he'd heard it....

Thanks! Dev's dreams/memories do have a sort of other-worldly feeling to them (or at least another world than one he's currently on...)

So true...whether you want to be theirs or not.

Oh, but then Nanda would think Dev liked her or something...

Yes to all of this. Akaela's been in this kind of situation before and finds the wolves have better manners than most people

There needs to be a punk rocker emoji here...

Wherever blue milk is sold... (How is spacer's tape like the Force? It has a dark side, it has a light side and it binds the Galaxy together.

[quote}“But you believe me.”

Of course, Your Hotness. I believe whatever you say. [/quote] So I take it you like my drawing of her?

Yeah, it's kind of hard to say when you don't know where thatis.

Could be... A clue to our hero's identity?

Living with wolves, I don't think Akaela is squeamish about blood or killing when it's necessary for survival, but seeing the senseless slaughter of animals she regards as friends is way too much for her. That kind of cruelty is part of the reason she left Shor to come to Giaca

I guess we'll see...

Thank you, and thanks for the responses that gave me the kick in the pants to get back to this story, even if it's continuing sloooooowly.

Oh yes, wolves have played a role in Dev's former life. And you're spot on with your conjectures: meeting Akaela's wolves, and especially the cub, bring those memories to the fore, and they in turn will lead to some important things for Dev.. Akaela is a bit like a wild animal herself; she's seen a side of her fellow Humans/near-Humans that makes her if not distrustful, then extremely reticent with new people. Her first meeting with Dev, though, showed her that he had a respect for other creatures. Between that and the cub's insistence that she find him, Akaela's willing to reach out to him. And as much of a relief as it is to Dev to find someone who understands this strange ability he has, I think it's also a relief to Akaela to find that she's not alone anymore. There's a possibility of a meaningful friendship for all of them here.

I originally wrote Akaela's story about the cub as a drabble and expanded on it here. She has an almost familial relationship with her wolves (more about that to come) so she couldn't have left the cub to die any more than she could have left a child in that situation. And you're absolutely right that seeing the senseless cruelty that was inflicted on the wolves is a large part of what led her to leave her planet for a more solitary life in the wild.

Yes, all those things you mention are important pieces of who Dev is and was (and will be?) and I know that you know who he is! It's going to take some time for all those pieces to fit for him, but the friendships he's building on Giaca will help him in that process.

Thanks! And thanks for checking this story out, I appreciate it!

Thank you. It's got to be profoundly unsettling for him to miss something and not even know what it is.

I think those who designed the escape pod probably counted on the fact that they'd be able to find the pod easily from it's homing beacon, though the stove would be a good addition (but one that I sadly didn't think of when I was contemplating what would be in the pack ) As far as it being too little for one pod, I confess that this is one of those places where what I had in my mind's eye didn't quite make it to the page-- I envisioned there being a pack under each seat in the pod, but Dev only takes one.

Again, thanks (There's also a pretty big clue to his identity there )

Okay...have you ever had the pleasure of getting a mouthful of pond or lake water? The microscopic algae can give it quite a distinctive taste and the water can be literally green depending on how much algae is in it. The best comparison I can come up with is that it tastes like the chlorophyll smell of grass clippings, leaves or other plant material.

Capitaliizing Human seems to be standard convention in SW literature, I'm guessing to make it equivalent to Bothan, Twi'lek, Sullustan, etc., which are all capitalized. As far as near-Human, I've seen it both ways--@Findswoman , dear editor, do you having any feelings on which way would be more correct?

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The Unknown Regions Sourcebook has the basalt columns as natural, the result of volcanic activity. I picture them as a huge version of the "stepping stones" in Giant's Causeway in Ireland (which were also made of basalt). And fanon on Station 3Z3? Well, I don't have a whole lot of it yet, but I can jot down what I do have.

Yeah, pretty much. It's probably one of those cultural things that no one quite remembers how it started but they all do now.

Something like that

That's true To bad you don't know what they

This is one of those areas where SW is frustratingly random, because everything from Lorrdians who are genetically identical to baseline Humans but have "unique culture and abilities" to Zelosians who are actually sentient plants are considered near-Human. I need to do some more research, but I'm thinking that there is something about the Shoraks' metabolism and/or circulatory system that causes them to produce a higher percentage of muscle versus baseline. I'm open to suggestions, but this seemed to be a good place to start.

[/quote] Yes, I agree with you completely on this! I found myself wondering why it had taken the Shorak several thousand years to colonize this planet without any apparent success and what could possibly be on the planet that was worth the continued effort I suppose I'm not absolutely bound to use everything in the book and could edit it so they were trying to colonize it since before the Clone Wars or something more reasonable.

 

Thanks to @Findswoman for beta-reading
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Chapter 7

The large gray wolf was waiting for me in my dreams that night.

He sat on a low, rocky outcropping, gazing out across the grasslands of my familiar but still unknown homeworld, and turned as I approached him. I’d only seen him from a distance before and sensed him watching from the edges of my wolf dreams, but now I could see that he wasn’t completely gray. There was a white pattern on his face, a sort of three-pronged blaze on his forehead—a symbol I felt I should recognize. He stood when I reached the outcropping, stepping down from the stone platform and looked over his shoulder at me. *Come.*

I faltered, not only because a giant wolf had just spoken to me, but because I knew that voice deep in my heart. “Hey, wait!” I called after the wolf, who hadn’t waited to see if I would follow but was trotting off through the tall grass at a pace that would have left most speeder bikes in the dust.

*Come,* he repeated without glancing back.

I ran after him as fast as I could make myself go, but somehow, even though the wolf was as tall as the stone cairns that dotted these plains, he was quickly lost from view. I stopped and stood there, panting, wondering what I was supposed to do now.

There was a noise from near my feet—a feline grumble of complaint like Pouncer made when he felt I was being unreasonable not to share my dinner with him.

A cat was glaring up at me from the grass, a wild feline, somewhat bigger than a tooka. Its tawny golden coat, the same color as the prairie grass, was dappled with dark brown spots; its dark legs had a pattern of scaling and seemed almost bird-like. The cat was clearly unhappy with me, though I had no idea why, and was braced as if it might spring at any second. I stepped back uncertainly.

Though I could have sworn I was alone except for my new feline acquaintance, there was a rustle in the tall grass behind me. I turned, thinking that the gray wolf had returned, but instead there was a man there— a tall Human with dark brown hair pulled back in a short queue and a neat goatee. He wore an olive drab shirt and gray pants, with forest green armor that covered his right shoulder and arm. There was some sort of white insignia on his pauldron that I couldn’t quite make out.

I knew him.

And I knew this place, the cat, this moment. I’d been here before.

The man looked squarely at me, his green eyes catching mine. “Step outside of yourself,” he said, gesturing toward the cat. “Make a connection with another being.”

Somehow I knew that what he was talking about was the kind of connection I had with Pouncer, the kind I’d experienced with the wolf cub, the kind Akaela had with her wolves. The problem was, I didn’t know how to make those connections. They’d always just sort of happened, unasked for. Step outside yourself wasn’t very helpful advice. What did that even mean? How could anyone be outside themselves? I regarded the spotted cat that was crouched in front of me, uncertain whether even if I had the faintest idea what I was doing that I’d want to make a connection with this was a particular being. The snarling feline definitely did not look like it wanted to connect with me.

As if it had heard my thoughts and agreed with them, the cat sprang at my face with a yowl. I don’t know how I could feel it’s needle-sharp claws in a dream, but I did. I threw up my arms with a yell and managed to fend off the whirling ball of fur and razors the cat had become.

The man behind me chuckled. “You don't seem to be getting this.”

His amusement did nothing for my stinging face or wounded pride. “I get that this furball's trying to kill me,” I snapped. On second thought, maybe I did want to make a connection with the cat—with my foot. No, I told myself, it wasn’t really the cat’s fault; it was just reacting the way any animal that felt threatened would. That didn’t make me any less frustrated, though. I didn’t understand how to do whatever it was the man wanted me to do to connect with the cat. What if when I met the wolf cub again in the morning, I couldn’t find the connection I’d had with him? A five-kilo cat defending itself from a perceived threat was one thing; a wolf that stood nearly as tall as me was another.

If that was what the gray wolf brought me here to learn, it wasn’t working. And If he’d brought me to this memory to help me remember my past, well, that wasn’t working either. It was like being given a single piece of a puzzle, one I had no idea what it was supposed to look like when it was complete. I sighed, really wishing there was something on this empty plain I could kick. “I just don't see the point of this!”

“The point is that you're not alone. You're connected to every living thing in the universe. But to discover that, you have to let your guard down. You have to be willing to attach to others.”

After that, the memory faded into nothingness as gray as the enormous wolf who’d brought me there. But the man’s words stayed with me the rest of the morning.

You’re not alone.

Wasn’t I? I was here on Giaca with no memory of my family, my home or even myself. It was hard to get more isolated than that.

But I wasn’t really alone. There was Nanda, my mother avian still watching out for me even after I’d gotten more or less settled; Jaq, my roommate, whose initial brusqueness had deepened into a kind of bluff camaraderie; Kiume, whose companionship made work go a little easier; even Pouncer, though he seemed to view me mostly as a source of table scraps and ear rubs. So, no, not really alone…

You’re connected to every living thing in the universe.

How was that possible? How could I be connected to every kabomani, saber cat, rock otter, jeweled peeper, and brintak here on Giaca? Every being living in Station 3Z3, in the smugglers’ camps hidden in the jungle or the Peroenian settlement on the other side of the planet? Every insect and microbe and plant on every planet from here to the Core? It was staggering to the point of incomprehensibility. Yet the idea resonated and something deep inside me said, “yes!” That was why I could sense the emotions and needs of the creatures I handled at the spaceport. That was how I could understand Pouncer and how I’d connected with the wolf cub in his moment of fear and frustration.

And if I was connected to every living thing, that meant I was still connected to my family even if I couldn’t remember them and even if I didn’t know where they were. Maybe if I learned more about the connections that bound us all together, I could strengthen those faint ties enough so that I could do more than just hear their voices across the stars. Maybe if the connections were strong enough, I could track them to their source. Maybe they could lead me home.

But to discover that, you have to let your guard down.

That wasn’t fair, I thought. I had friends: Nanda, Jaq, Kiume. But when I considered it, I realized that I only interacted with them as far as their lives intersected with mine. I knew vaguely where Nanda lived, but I’d never visited her house. I didn’t even know that much about Kiume. I’d told myself it was because he liked his privacy, but really I’d been holding myself apart from him and everyone else. They weren’t my family; this wasn’t my home and I didn’t intend to stay here one day longer than I had to.

If I was going to help the cub, though, I couldn’t hold myself back and I couldn’t hold him at arm’s length. I had to let my guard down and be willing to feel the emotions we shared, to accept the connection between us and let it grow. And if I was going to learn more about building those connections, whether it was with the wolf cub or my absent family, I was going to need someone to guide me the way the man in my memory had once upon a time. Which meant I had to trust Akaela and not hold back from her either.

You have to be willing to attach to others.

The problem wasn’t that I thought I couldn’t trust her. I liked her. She was compassionate and cared deeply for her lupine companions. She’d been so moved by the wolf cub’s plight that she’d taken it upon herself to heal him in body and soul. She was brave, courageous enough to stand up to Gero when he’d been mistreating the cub. She was open and enthusiastic, and her unconventional directness felt more guileless than rude or unsociable. Some small connection had already formed between us since we shared the ability to speak with animals. It would be easy to let that grow into something more than mere acquaintanceship.

And that was the problem. Because you didn’t build those kinds of relationships when you weren’t planning on sticking around. Giaca wasn’t home. I had a real one, somewhere, and I was going back there. If I had friends here, if I let myself become too comfortable, wouldn’t that be like giving up on my home and the people who were waiting for me there? Wouldn’t it be like saying they didn’t matter to me any more? Maybe I hardly remembered them, but I had no intention of letting them go or replacing them.

It was a paradox: in order to strengthen my connections to the family I only heard in my dreams, I had to let go and build new connections. I had to be willing to open myself up, for the cub’s sake and my own.

After all, wolves weren’t meant to live by themselves, and neither were people.
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Spoiler: Notes (Contains possible spoilers!)

The man in green’s dialogue and Dev’s responses to him come from the Rebels S1 episode “Empire Day”

 

Great dream or vivid memory with super advice that I'm glad Dev remembered and reflected upon.

Because you didn’t build those kinds of relationships when you weren’t planning on sticking around. Giaca wasn’t home. I had a real one, somewhere, and I was going back there. If I had friends here, if I let myself become too comfortable, wouldn’t that be like giving up on my home and the people who were waiting for me there? Wouldn’t it be like saying they didn’t matter to me any more? Maybe I hardly remembered them, but I had no intention of letting them go or replacing them.

It was a paradox: in order to strengthen my connections to the family I only heard in my dreams, I had to let go and build new connections. I had to be willing to open myself up, for the cub’s sake and my own.

Excellently written and a frustrating paradox indeed!
Once Dev gets his memories back, if he does, he'll be able to make a conscious choice to allow the Giacans a proper place in his life and friendship, but the uncertainty is what's making everything harder.

 

At Chapter 6 and still liking what I'm reading.

Something I was thinking of is that Station 3Z3 is described as rather highly defended (relatively speaking) in the Unknown Regions book and you have made no mentions of this, is there a reason for this or is it just Dev Morgan who don't think about those kind of stuff?

interesting that he already makes a difference between the spacers and shoraks, and that he don't identify the shoraks as spacers.

"Yes, smugglers after all look like normal people, therefor he looks like a smuggler."

I see a promising carrier as crash test dummy or crazy tooka lady.

That's because you're a coward, unlike Gero who's a MAN!

According to the Unknown Regions book so do the shorak tattoo striped patterns down their arms, any reason to why Akaela don't have any a tattoo? Or is it just a mistake of the picture?

A good beginning.

Also, I think I know what Dev Morgan was before he lost his memory: a wolfbrother

You could ask around you know. Or walk around, you don't need to stay in the same areas day after day.

Not any more, not since the jungle ate them.

If they have attacked the livestock there is no other choose than to take them out, once they have learned to do that they will do it again, and again, and again until they have killed all livestock or are stooped. It's not sport, its defending your livelihood.

Interesting that such large creature use an underground den.

So, only the size of a fullgrown terran wolf then, or are we talking larger?

"That they just left all that meat uneaten I mean, not the killing, that was nothing special. Also, they were really stupid to use blasters and pikes, that really damage the skin, they should have used stun blasters and than slit their throats, now those furs are to damaged too be of any real use. What they did was just a waste, an ugly waste."

 

Still liking it

This made me think of this:

"Not the face! Not the face!"

You know Dev, I might had believed you if you had shown any inclination of actually trying to find out where you where in the Galaxy, what kinds of ways there were to get of Giaca, asking around if anybody know of your style of clothing, etcetera.

 

for future inspiration, here is what a typical Calixis Survival Kit had in the Dark Heresy RPG: "two blade razors, an igniter, a Helite flexible wire saw, 14 multi-shape fishing hooks, five press weight lures, 25 metres of heavy fishing line, 1 very large hook, 10-metres brass snare wire, 1 highpowered pocket illuminator, one calibrated button compass with a Calixis Sector world specific guide page, four doses of stimm, six Alozith tabs (Alozith is a strong general-purpose antibiotic), 20 Ionis water purifying tablets, two flexi bags, one metre adhesive tape, three metres long Spinlin cord, half a metre of reinforced ceramite-woven tape, three metres of cotton sewing thread, three sewing needles of various sizes, one surgical needle, eight safety fasteners of various sizes, a metre square piece of foil, one narrow-quill with Watersure ink, two sheets of rolled Sure-Write paper, a mirror-finished plasteel case to hold the kit’s contents and serve as an impromptu signalling device."

That's a good idea.

A classic reason in SF for why a group of people are more muscular is that their homeworld has a higher gravity, maybe the Shorak's homeworld is a G 1.3-or-more planet. But that would not explain why they count as near-humans (if it is not so that the person who classified them as near-human was a racist that classified anybody who did not look like her idea of how humans should look as near-humans).

I say go with that. But if you keep that they made a colonisation attempt generation ago (it don't need to be 4000 years ago, just some hundred years) could you have that the decedents of the original colonists now live in the jungles as tribal natives. Most likely poison using, possibly highly territorial.

 

Just got caught up on this one this week and I love it so much! (Have to admit, I've been avoiding canon-ish post-Rebels stuff because LALALA DENIAL, but this is so. Worth. It.) I read this by listening to it on a text-to-speech app, so if my comment skips around in time that may have something to do with it.

Ezra's loneliness and loss without the Ghost crew is heartbreaking -- even though he can't remember it, he still knows something is missing. I'm really enjoying the cast of new characters; even though they're no substitute for his beloved Space Family, his "Team Dev Morgan" are wonderful and true friends in their own right. Nanda with her strength and compassion, Jaq, who is reluctant to take in another stray but ultimately shows his good heart, Akaela the beastwarden and her fenwolves. (The fenwolves! They are such good wolfies. Who's a good fenwolf? They are! But very regal and lupine as well.) I really enjoy how each of Ezra's new allies have a little bit of the crew in them, just enough that it's maybe a little familiar, but they're not the same. Even though that just makes things more difficult for Ezra, in some ways. Akaela really is reminiscent of Sabine even though she's also very much her own character (and even more like Ezra in some ways), and it really throws "Dev" off -- understandably!

And of course, who could forget Pouncer?

He really sounds exactly like I'd expect my cats to sound if they could talk, and it's just so much fun. Quintessential feline!

And Ezra's dreams, those are just so beautiful and so sad at the same time. At least he knows that there's someone, somewhere who remembers who he was and who he belongs with -- but he can't remember who. I can really see how that would make him struggle to make new connections. It can take a lot of courage to do that even without an amnesia thing hanging overhead, and I was really moved by the fact that dream-Kanan helped give him the key to start breaking through his caution so that he can help the wolf cub... and hopefully find himself again in the process.

I'm really anticipating seeing more of the beastwarden stuff (animal communication is just SO COOL and it's something I really like in Rebels) and hopefully that "Dev" will be able to make friends with Akaela. She seems quite isolated in this very small community where everyone wants to know everybody's business. (The conversation where she tells him about the beastwarden thing was one of my favorite scenes so far, and I really like how they're both kind of finding a common ground there.)