deercountry | Beware the Sound of Drums [Locked]

Entry tags:

Beware the Sound of Drums [Locked]

Who: Luke, Maul, Airy, and Ezra
What: Board game shenanigans, Luke accidentally making it worse by being good at surviving.
When: Some nebulous time during the event.
Where: Starting in the jungle and going on from there.
Warnings: All event warnings apply; more to be added as the thread continues.

The drumming was impossible to ignore.

Luke tried, probably harder than he usually would over something that was clearly calling out to him like this. Trench was making him steadily more paranoid about unusual things nudging at him, but when the Force started to nudge him toward what was causing the sound, he couldn't ignore it anymore. There was urgency in that nudge, the sense that his help was needed, and he was not the kind of person to pass over something like that.

And yes, maybe a sense of excitement over a new adventure was hard to resist as well, though he would never admit it out loud.

He hadn't expected the end of that nudging would lead to a board game resting innocently out in the middle of no where. It wasn't something he ever played with as a child; even hologames were hard to come by for the farmers of Tatooine, yet despite that he found himself opening the wooden box that served as the board, carelessly picking up one if the pieces. He flinched when he pricked himself, but it didn't bother him -- this was fine, all he needed was to roll the dice...

Sense and warning flared in his mind at once as the Force screamed in his head that this was wrong this was wrong this is a trap, but the dice were already cast, and he found himself being tugged, pulled along like he was just a game piece himself -- pulled and pushed and shoved and stretched, until all of a sudden he found himself crashing through dense jungle foliage, managing to tuck in on himself and roll the rest of the way to solid ground.

He let out a breath once he finally stopped, feeling the gross, sticky heat engulfing him and the wetness of fresh morning greenery. It took him a moment to pull himself together and get back to his feet, aware of the board game near his feet, but not exactly in the mood to pick it up yet. The greenery he was surrounded by caught his attention more, and he shifted his feet as he turned, feeling more like he was stuck in the middle of Yavin, far from where the Rebellion base had been, yet his surroundings were alien enough to him to know that was not where he was.

"Oh... kriff," he muttered to himself, before raising his hands to cup them around his mouth. "Is anyone there? Hello?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Maul was not happy. Granted, he wasn't happy 95% of the time but this was different. He hadn't been looking forward to getting sucked up into whatever nonsense group therapy session Trench wanted to put them through this month, and now that he was in the jungle, he definitely wasn't looking forward to surviving this terrain. This place looked like it had fifty different ways it could kill a person. But Maul was determined to survive them all.

When he heard a familiar voice calling out, he made his way over towards where he heard it coming from. He pushed through the vegetation, big leaves being shoved to the side before snapping back into place after he had gone through them, stepping on the rotting vegetation and damp soil that made up the forest floor. When he finally got through and saw Luke there, he stood there and looked at the young Jedi for a moment. "It appears we're playing this game together," he finally said in his soft voice.

"I'm here," Ezra calls back, as he moves through underbrush. "Heading your way, Luke."

And he'd been doing such a good job being selective about what sort of Trench nonsense to get caught up, too, he thinks to himself, a little sourly. But if he has to do...whatever this is, with Luke, maybe it won't be so bad.

Then he spots Maul, and what remains of his cheerful demeanor slides off his face. "Oh. Great," he adds, flatly.

The drums. She'd heard them the first time. And again this afternoon. Why had she listened to them? Or maybe she hadn't listened to them? A warning or a siren's call? At the moment, it didn't matter all that much.

But Ariadne had never felt so disgruntled to find herself in a tree.

Groaning softly, she caught the branch with both of her hands, leaning forward until her forehead touched the bark. She took a few deep breaths, feeling the warmth of the jungle, the scent of chlorophyll. It was heady and rich. A reminder of her childhood, of the rain forest where she slept wrapped up in the aroma.

She'd had the same stab of sentiment the last time. Before all the horrors started unfolding. And now she was back. Again.

After allowing herself exactly thirty seconds for regret, she sat back up, just in time to hear voices in the distance. Gods! That was Maul and Ezra.

And Luke.

At once, she got up, leaping from one branch to the next. And the next and the next. Hurrying through the canopy, following the sound--and scents--of them.

Luke looked up when Maul came thumping through the brush, part of him wondering how his prosthetics were going to hold up in a place like this, but probably one of the few people from his galaxy genuinely happy to see the grumpy Zabrak. A smile was creeping up on his face, and he was about to say something, when he heard Ezra's voice close by. His head whipped in his direction instead, happy to see him as well... only to find himself stopped short by the sudden... well, not quite animosity, but there was definitely a sour feeling in the air around them. He looked back and forth between the two of them, curiosity creeping onto his face.

"Do... you two know eac--"

And that time he cut himself off as a familiar presence suddenly smacked the back of his mind with a proverbial mallet. Luke immediately turned around, his eyes scanning back and forth before finally going up. He couldn't quite see her, not from this far down on the ground and with the canopy so far above them, but he knew she was there, and he ended up cupping his hands around his mouth, shouting up as loudly as he could:

"Airy!"

Maul glanced at Ezra with definite contempt in his eyes. Getting dragged on a jungle adventure with one Jedi who'd had a piecemeal education was going to be hard enough and now there was two. He also knew Ezra had wanted space after the debacle with Anakin but it looked like this place wanted the two of them to talk about their problems instead.

Just before Luke called out to her, Maul felt Ariadne's unmistakable presence in the Force. She always had such a light feeling, her life force not bright like the sun but flowing like the wind. Maul looked upwards, trying to spot her in the thick forest canopy.

Maul shook his head, folding his arms as he looked at the company around him. "Lovely. Two barely-qualified Jedi, a forest spirit, and myself. We'll be lucky to all make it out of here in one piece." Well, if they needed a cynic for this game, Maul filled out that position in spades.

"....two Jedi and someone used to forests is probably high on the list of who you should want on your team for this, I'd think," Ezra replies, genuinely baffled.

"For prescience and being able to talk to the wildlife, if nothing else."

"I heard that!" Ariadne said, about five seconds before she dropped into view, on a low branch hanging over the three of them. She landed on all fours, looking a bit like a feral cat, her hair loose, leaves caught in it. There were a few scratches and cuts along her arms. And one on her cheek that had only just been treated.

From her last venture.

To the same jungle.

The same one. Because there was no question. It smelled exactly the same. Except for the fact that this time, Maul, Ezra, and Luke (who smelled the best of the three) were there.

"And I'm not a forest spirit." Which, she supposed, was the least of her concerns, judging from the way Maul and Ezra were looking at each other.

Maul's griping was just a dim note in the back of Luke's mind at the moment. He looked straight up at Airy as she came into view, looking more like a wild animal than her current, human appearance. It made his heart flip a little in his chest, and though he fought against it, he couldn't help the little lopsided smile that came to his face.

"We're still glad you're here, Airy," he said, despite the unease and annoyance drifting back and forth behind him. He was reaching up toward her in the next moment, as if inviting her to fall into his arms.

Maul's eyes flicked over towards Ezra and his tone was like ice with how cold it sounded. "I prefer dealing with these Pthumerian-run group projects with people I can actually trust and respect." He had neither with Ezra and doesn't see that growing better anytime soon, especially after the boy had told him he wanted nothing to do with Maul at the present.

He glanced over at Ariadne and Luke....and he was watching the two of them very carefully as they interacted with one another. There was nothing on his face which gave away what he was thinking, given there was just that general look of fury upon it, but his mind was definitely noting the way Skywalker was looking at the woman. "I suppose having that with two out of three in this group will have to do."

Ezra isn't oblivious to the emotions from both Ariadne and Luke lighting up the Force. But it's not really his business, either. He just makes a mental note before he turns to face Maul fully.

"Wait. I want to make sure I understand you. I'm not worthy of your respect and trust – because I told you I was upset with you and set a boundary?" He tries to sound calm while he asks, but it's hard to keep an incredulous note out of his voice.

If she was honest with herself--something Ariadne used to be much better at, admittedly--she wanted nothing more than to drop down, hug Luke, and blink away this whole situation. A part of her had genuinely enjoyed being back in the jungle. The first time. It was home. But Trench, being Trench, had managed to ebb away at most of her enthusiasm by the end.

She'd survived once. She would survive again, of course. It was in her nature.

But Ezra and Maul were apparently going to be a problem.

So instead of coming down, she gave Luke a subtle tilt of her head. One that told him to get closer to the branch. Or, more realistically, to move out of the way. Because she had a pretty good shot at Ezra and Maul. And a couple of fairly large seed pods in her pocket. If they continued to behave like snarly males...

Well. She'd give them a chance, before she did anything.

"Now isn't the time to fight," she warned them softly.

Luke let out a faint noise at her reaction, not sure why she was, essentially, trying to shoo him away. It hit him after a moment, and his attention diverted from her and back to the slowly smoldering antagonism coming from behind him. A sigh escaped from him, and he ended up turning around, folding his arms over his chest and giving the other two a disappointed look.

"She's right, you two," he chided them both, before focusing on Maul. "It's not wrong for someone to set a boundary with someone they can't trust, especially if they haven't shared your same experiences here, Maul."

He would never deny that Maul had made some strides here -- had to have, if the reactions from others was any indication -- but someone new coming in wouldn't know scope of that, not to mention be able to accept that if they had been at odds back home. Maul had to understand that, right?

"And besides," he added with a huff, "don't sell me short. I've survived in worse conditions."

Maul looked from Airy to Luke and back again. Everyone was against him right now but at least he had enough sense not to vocalize it. "This isn't fighting. This is a civil conversation. You'll all know precisely when you end up in a fight with me," Maul growled out softly. Sometimes, Maul was inclined to behave around others and play nice. Right now, he was in a far much more ornery room.

"And as for you--" He turned his attention back towards Ezra. "--Trust and respect with me are not freely given. They are earned. Unlike those two, you have done nothing yet to warrant that." There were fury and contempt in equal measures laced through Maul's tone.

Ezra's pretty sure Maul is mentally rewriting history there, given the open invitation Ezra had had to visit Maul's house but-

He just shrugs expansively, and says flatly, "Ok."

Then he looks between Ariadne and Luke. "So what do we know about what this whole thing is? There's usually a pattern to this stuff, right?"

Edited 2022-03-27 03:19 (UTC)

She had the seed pods in her palm. And found herself seriously debating whether or not to throw them at Maul and Ezra's heads. But actual violence would only lead to more limbs being hacked off. She didn't need violence. She needed them to get in line.
"It's the game," she said, taking her hand out of her pocket. "We have to find the board and roll the dice and play the game. That's the only way out of here. Which means we have to work together."

Which was going to be difficult, if these two kept being...these two.

"Together," she said, her mind reeling as she came up with a little plan. Aunt Lysia taught her a lot of things. How to be small and disappear. How to make herself look like no threat at all. And how to follow through when she needed to. "Do you two understand? I am so sick of this, you two, with your violence and your threats and your cutting off people's arms. Neither of you gets it, do you? There isn't enough love in the universe as it is, and you're both just helping to kill off what's left."

This was a risk. A serious gamble. Ezra didn't know her well enough to know she posed a threat. Maul might, though he wouldn't take it seriously.

Right now, she just needed a seed of doubt in both of them. Doubt sometimes snapped people to attention better than anything else.

"So shape up," she said, with all of the ferocity of a kitten trying very hard to be a tiger, "because if you don't show each other a little peace, love, and understanding, I am going to kill you both."

And then, she did the most intricate part of her plan. She immediately undercut her own threat. She made a quick, slashing gesture, wobbled, widening her eyes as she very intentionally made it look like she'd just lost her balance. And she fell off the branch.

Luke wasn’t entirely sure what Airy was doing, just that he could sense the faint air of deception in her attempts to sound more like a kitten than a cat. If he was completely honest, he even wasn’t certain on all she was capable of, outside of what she outright told him since they met. Part of him didn’t doubt she would kill someone if they weren’t pulling their weight or endangering the rest of them.

What was clear was that she was falling all of a sudden, and he immediately shifted his footing, reaching out and catching her in his arms with very little effort.

“You okay?” he asked, though there was a faintly quizzical expression on his face, as if he were asking what in the galaxy was she up to.

Ezra honestly has very little idea what Ariandne is even on about. He hasn't made threats to Maul? He certainly hasn't cut anyone's limbs off....ok, tentacles from the beast from the oceean the previous month, but that was to save himself and others from immediate deadly danger.

Being lectured in this exact context made his skin crawl a little. He has too much bad history with the version of Maul in his won time, and this one went and proved he was willing to violate people in very similar ways.

But he hasn't really told her about any of that, so he just swallows it down. He can explain later
when they're not in this much danger.

In fact, he just keeps his mouth shut entirely, watching to make sure she is, in fact, ok.

Maul being Maul, he was the only one who didn't seem concerned with Airy's fall at all. She had two other people there concerned about her well-being, she certainly didn't need him being a third. His face remained impassive against her scolding and he just seemed to be just detaching himself from the whole situation, letting himself just slip into that mindset of a cold-hearted killer instead of having to deal with anything around him. He'd work with the others if he had to but that didn't mean he was going to be at all happy about it.

Maul glanced around at the jungle. "I don't doubt this place is meant to make us work together. The Pthumerians do so love their group-project exercises to build friendships and things like that which I could do without." He sounded woefully unimpressed, though he would give them points for using a new setting that they never had before in their monthly games.

Ariadne had sort of been hoping Luke would catch her, not that she didn't know how to take a fall. Unfortunately, the Pthumerians, being the Pthumerians, immediately made her regret pretty much every single choice she'd made. Because in her desperation to put an end to the snarling, she sort of forgot about the fact that her blood was rebelling against her right now. And that even the slightest touch from another Sleeper sent a spike of pain through her. She was like one big bruise.

Sucking in air between her teeth, she gave Luke a small, grateful nod. Then promptly planted her feet on the ground, determined to prove her readiness to go forward. Even if all she wanted to do was curl up beside him and take a very, very long nap.

Anyway, Maul's attention was off Ezra, so that was good. It was what she wanted, anyway. "The sooner we find the board, the sooner we can get going," she said. "We find the board, we roll the dice, we deal with consequences. This is not going to be easy, but the four of us are all trained. We can do it if we work together."

Luke sensed the flair of pain the moment he touched Airy, and didn’t even question it when she wanted out of his arms immediately. He gave her another concerned look, but didn’t question it for now. They could talk later if they got a moment in private without the other two in earshot; for now making it through this was more important.

He paused a moment, looking around, particularly focusing on the ground around them.

“I remember holding onto it before I felt like I was being pulled in,” he said. “It might be near where I landed; we’ll have to look around here.”

Ezra watches Airy, brow furrowed in concern, but nods at Luke's suggestion.

"Sounds like a good place to start. And then we'll take what comes, like Airy said, together."

Maul turned to the direction Luke had come from and started marching off in that direction. He didn't look pleased at all with having to play another of the Pthumerians' games. "Then let us get going. The sooner we start, the sooner we can leave, and I can go back to despising half of the Sleepers in this wretched town from the comfort of my own home."

Such a cheery sort, wasn't he?

Ariadne had to hide a weary smile. "He says that," she muttered, her voice low so only Luke and Ezra would hear. "But in reality, it's more like one-quarter of the Sleepers." Probably fewer. Maul and Savage were snarly, but they had quite a few friends, between the two of them.

She gathered her hair over her left shoulder, making quick work to divide it into sections and begin braiding it. Her body was completely spent, but if she as going to do this again, she was going to give everything she had. "Let's follow."

Let Maul lead. It would make him feel important. Anyway, Ariadne was pretty sure she could smell the leather of the board in that direction.

Luke gave Airy an amused look at that comment, because he definitely knew that the Zabrak brothers were more just prickly until they got to know people. As long as you were nice to them, they eventually calmed down enough to be more like upset kittens than feral loth cats.

He glanced toward Maul stomping off, before turning his attention back to her.

“Are you going to be okay?” he asked. He knew she was very capable in a lot of ways that he didn’t completely understand yet, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t be worried about her.

Ezra moves quickly for a few steps, to keep Maul more easily in sight, and lets Ariadne and Luke bring up the rear of their little group.

"Yeah. Are you hurt? We can take some time to see what we can do about that, before we push much further ahead. I can heal people. A little."

Maul couldn't hear precisely what the three were muttering behind him but he didn't care. What did matter is that the three were slow. "Are we all done having a chat back there? If you three want to dawdle, I'll go ahead and bring the board back when I find it." Maul's childhood had been taught learning that only the strong survived. Even here and learning about different kinds of strength, he couldn't help but still fall back on old lessons learned in a harsh, brutal manner long ago.

Besides, this jungle reminded him far too much of some of the places that Sidious would dump him off in as a child with little more instructions than simply to survive until he came back. Mau always did, of course, usually a little scrawnier and more beat up then when he'd started out as. But it wasn't easy being a child who wasn't even ten years old yet and forced to be on his own. Old memories like that were never far from the surface and Maul could never predict what kind of reaction he was going to have once they reached his consciousness.

"We're coming!" Ariadne called after Maul in a bright, perhaps slightly too cheerful voice.

But she dropped her tone to a murmur for the other two. "There's something wrong with my blood," she said. "It's been happening all month. Every time I touch someone, it hurts."

And Maul, she supposed, didn't need to know. It wasn't like the affliction was going to stop Ariadne from doing what needed to be done. If someone was falling, she would do everything in her power to catch them. That was just her way.

Still. From everything she'd learned about Maul and Savage, the last thing she needed to do was make her weakness apparent. She had a good sense of how those viewed as weak were treated on Dathomir.

"Come on," she said, resisting the urge to take Luke's hand. She nodded after Maul. "We'd better stay close together. Before he gets hurt."

The concern on Luke’s face was clear at that revelation — their own blood could turn against them now? It was bad enough they had messed with his powers, but to know that it could cause pain, too… He wanted to reach out to Ari, to pull her close and comfort her, but he held himself back, knowing that it would have the opposite effect right now. Instead, he gave her a concerned look, silently promising her a big hug as soon as it was safe to do so.

He glanced at Maul’s direction at his grumbling, sparing him a faint smile. The zabrak was reminding him of Han at the moment, and for a brief, amusing second, he tried to imagine the two of them together in one spot. A grin spread across his face as he shook the mental image away, following after the others.

“Don’t worry, Maul; we’re coming. We’re coming.”

"That, I don't think I can fix," Ezra admits, reluctantly, in a low voice.

"I mean, I could probably do something on an empathic level to...separate you from the pain, but it wouldn't be real healing."

Maul spotted something that was very incongruous with the jungle landscape at large up ahead on the ground. It was the Jumanji game board. He approached it cautiously, making sure it wasn't about to do anything on its own. When it didn't, he folded it up and turned back towards his companions.

"I found the board," he announced. "Now we can start getting on with things."

Ariadne gave Ezra a tiny shake of her head. She didn't want the pain to go away. Well, no, of course she didn't want to be in pain. But in a survival situation, pain was a useful warning. And despite his attitude, Maul was unlikely to be the most dangerous thing in the jungle.

Which wasn't to say he didn't need to be handled with care.

"What do you suggest?" she asked him, glancing warily at the board, as she came to a stop before him. "As the person with the most experience here." Flattery. Yet also the patent truth.

Anyway, Ariadne had no desire to be the alpha in the group.

"I assume we need to keep rolling, considering that's how the 'game' started," Luke spoke up, a concerned frown on his face as he folded his arms over his chest. They didn't really seem to have much of a choice but to do that right now, even if it could lead to more problems.

He looked up to Maul, giving him a slight nod. Despite his teasing before, he was willing to trust him with whatever came next.

"That's how this place usually works. The Pthumerians sees us as amusement for them anyway, this is just a bit more obvious than how they usually work." The contempt in Maul's voice was obvious. He was none too fond of any of the pseudo-gods and trusted none of them, not even his own patron.

"Who wants to roll first?" He asked. Maul did seem to be bracing himself as if expecting the worst. "We should be prepared for anything to happen next."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Beware the Sound of Drums [Locked]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Sorry for my slowness!

No worries :)

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject