Aldor's Eye - Part I

Chapter IV - The Deal

They'd been walking for at least an hour now, and Din had forgotten and remembered the purpose of this trek at least a dozen times since they started down the track to the N1. He remained mostly silent, still deep in thought and uneasy, trying to process his conversation with Aldor through the Maze.

When Vane popped into his head, Din thought it was simply out of association. The vile kind of scughole pirate he knew of who fit the description. But the image he'd seen was set exactly where they had been standing, and he saw it all from above, watching blaster bolts fired back at snarling pirates with a glowing purple blade. A clear-as-crystal image from Aldor's memory. He didn't know anymore if she had given it or he had taken it.

It was merely an experiment when he willed his own memory of Vane into her mind. He didn't expect in a thousand cycles to be successful, but she'd seen all of it. The battle between the pirates and the Covert back when he was still proud to be Mandalorian. The wreckage of the Corsair ship. Din knew in the pit of his soul that she'd seen it. Because he just... knew.

Neither he nor Karga managed to get their hands on Vane, but Aldor did. Despite being outnumbered... and dainty... and ridiculously beautiful.

Fierce.

That was the word. Silk wrapped 'round zillo hide. In every visible way, she was genteel as a noblewoman. Soft-spoken and eloquent. Tender and yielding. Stubbornly kind. Yet in the face of any obstacle, whether it be a scughole pirate like Vane or the laces of her boots, she attacked with all her fire. Fire Din felt seething inside her now. Buried deep inside the zillo hide nucleus, but always burning. Always driving her. So well controlled that when it was unleashed, this fierceness displayed itself in something like elegance. Din imagined those pirates thinking they'd never seen anything more beautiful at the same time she cut them down. It was gratifying to think of it. By virtue of this alone, Din's heart had already decided she was the right teacher for his son. This incredible woman who feared nothing. Who could convert spare parts into heating coils and learn seven forms of light saber combat. Who could make, grow, or hunt everything she needed to survive... comfortably. This woman...

...who could fight off six of Gorian Shard's pirates on her own.

He couldn't help himself. The barbs that constantly punctured his brain with suggestions that he leave and forget her had dulled considerably in less than a rotation. A fact in itself he told himself to be wary of. But he couldn't help it. Every time he looked at her, he felt a pull. That something he'd sensed last night. In looking for it so intently while she slept across the room, Din feared he inadvertently lashed them together with it. It wouldn't let go, and continued to pull them closer. He couldn't tell where it came from and couldn't begin to figure out why. He only knew he couldn't stop watching her. Couldn't stop considering her. She was such an anomaly compared every other being he'd ever met, he couldn't help it. And now he was completely enamored of this fierceness. He began to see it in every aspect of her. From the way she walked to the tone of her voice. The lightening in her clear, crystal blue eyes. He felt it rolling off her in gorgeous waves. He wanted to absorb it. Let it spark over his skin and settle into his blood.

Din knew he was drifting to a dangerous place, and to get himself back on track, he finally asked a question that had been in the back of his mind since this morning, when she mentioned the others she was stranded with. "When you landed here. You weren't the only Jedi, were you?"

"No," Aldor answered. "There were four of us. An elderly master named Ha'saan died about a year after we came. He was an Iridonian Zabrak, and the weather didn't agree with him. We tried everything when he got sick, but he finally made us stop trying, and just... became one with the Force. The other two were Padawans like me, close to my age. They left with the Prospector and I haven't heard anything of them since. I sense they are still alive. Hopefully in peace."