So strange it was that he had happened upon her like this... but then, for all she knew he lived here, or had been abandoned here, and she just happened to have landed in the vicinity that he called home.

Or maybe it was something else entirely.

She was opening her mouth to reply, when another thought struck her, lightning hard.

That weirdness on the escapepod that she had tractored here... the incorporeality of it... and now, here is this stranger, whose form flowed into solidity right in front of her very eyes....

Her heart tripled in pace and she drew in an involuntary breath of fear. But struggling against that fear was the fact that this thing, this "Nefrai Kesh" as he called himself, could have easily struck her down at any given moment.

An odd little niggle rose up in the dark corners of her mind to suggest that her weapons would be useless against him, even if she could manage to actually wield them against him.

She blinked, and finally managed to blurt out the unthinkable.

"Are you that... the thing that covered an escapepod of my recent acquaintance?"

She then fell silent, not really knowing if she wanted to know the answer to that, if only for the fact that she didn't really quite know what she would do no matter what he said.

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

"But I now do beg you, that you would take me with you. One thing has changed me, aside from the horrid thought of being trapped here. It was the jedi's belief I was not a mindless killing beast. I turned the idea away at first, but now I am not sure."

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

She didn't trust him one whit... and she couldn't run even if she tried. Her eyes flicked a moment to her obviously swollen ankle, then traced back up to stare directly into the empty sockets of the skullface of Nefrai Kesh.

I'm still alive.

That observation popped up from nowhere, as if once she truly realized her vulnerability before this murderous thing -- what was that he had spoken of, rending truly horrible destruction but now suddenly had no desire to kill any longer, did not want to be considered a mindless killing machine? -- it was then free to remind her that perhaps she was not as vulnerable as she thought.

I'd be dead now if that was the case. He could easily have squashed me like a bug, many times over, and then simply gone on and found Heaven's Forbiddance on his own, and left my body here to rot....

But he hadn't.

Obviously possessing the ability to merge into shadow, he had chosen instead to make himself known to her, to plea with her, and to try to assuage her panic and fear. Maybe he really was more than his appearance suggested after all.

Even if he did look like Death on the March.

She drew in a shaky breath, and then drew herself upright as steadily as she could.

"I'm here hunting for an antidote to a toxin, one which I feel can only be found on this moon.

"Help me to find this toxin, and then get back to my ship safely, and-- and--"

She paused again, staring into those seemingly depthless eye sockets. Something seemed to shimmer far in the back of them; she shuddered and then continued.

"And then I'll-- I'll think about granting your ummm...

"Request."

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"Why do you seek such an anditode for such a poison, for if the antidote can only be found on ancient corpses, what could its value in the modern day be? For there must be thousands of antidotes for it in the normal world. No matter."

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

It throbbed and ached like blazes, too.

Grimacing a bit, she returned her gaze to those terrible eye sockets, hoping that he didn't mistake that grimace as being directed toward him.

Well... too late now, Minna ol' gal, she told herself.

You might as well leap in all the way now.

"I'm looking for the antidote to the Mandalorian Temblor toxin. An acquaint-- that is, a client has hired me to find it for him.

"It seems someone has been stricken with this poison; strange, since it's really not been around for thousands of years... Anyway, I knew it had to originate upon this moon. I figured if the old Mandalorians created the poison to begin with, they would have to have an antidote as well, and would more than likely have their warriors armed with it, too.

"That's why I'm here."

She stopped with that, looking down to her ankle once again. Embarrassment welled up inside of her, for she was not usually this chatty, and had no idea why she had opened up to this awful stranger as she had.

Maybe to keep on his good side...?

Her mouth worked a little bit more, but she didn't say anything else. Instead she just remained in silence, blinking down at her injury, chewing on the inside of her cheek.

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

He crouched and reached out, then paused. "Do not fear." He took the angle gingerly, cursing the sharpness of his clawed hands. "I can do little, but my own regenerative powers..."

He closed his eyes in a spiritual way, for the mask obviously could do no such thing, and concentrated. Slowly, some of the bone-like flesh from his own body faded into the dark immaterial mist his was composed of, and drifted to his hand.

He opened his eyes and took his hand away, and he would have smiled if he could have, seeing that at least on the surface, her ankle appeared to have been mended. "Is it alright?

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

Upright, hale and whole, able to run....

She wiggled her ankle, checking it out; yessir, it was indeed back to how it should be, nicely healed by this... thing.

Her eyes flew back up to Nefrai's skullface and for a long moment she studied him. Every lick of fear within her had subsided, replaced now by wonder and growing curiosity.

He could have killed me... look what he just did to fix my ankle. He could have, he easily could have.

The words rang like a mantra in her mind, unable to be released. No further logic rose to initiate life-saving procedures; within her very being, Minna had the green light to go.

To go... along with him? Er- rather, to let him go with her.

"Th- thank you," she murmured, still staring into his sockets. She wiggled her foot once more, set it down gingerly, placed her weight upon it... it still held.

That step brought her even closer to his terrifying physicality. She stopped, practically butted up against his torso, and stared up into that skull.

"What are you?" she breathed, unafraid, reaching a cautious hand upward to touch what should be his chin with the tip of one finger.

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

"I do not know... I do not know what I was, nor what I am to become...."

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

She considered them a moment, then thought back on all this creature--

No. This being.

--had said to her during their brief and so fateful encounter. Something in particular caught her memory; she zeroed in on it lika a stooping hawk on a mouse.

A jedi had felt he was not a mindless killing machine. Now he does not know what he is to become.

He. Yes, that's a real gender there, not an "it," but a he.

She cocked her head to one side and finally spoke up.

"Well, maybe we can help each other, then," she said quietly. "You help me find the antidote I need, and maybe I can help you find out who you really are."

Or at least guide you into finding who you really are meant to be. And in the meantime, it would be nice having this hulking "monster" as a comrade; it just might come in handy one day.

"All right?"

She let her hand drop, but didn't move from where she was standing so close in front of him.

[ 11-11-2004 04:08 AM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Minna Manth ]

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He turned and looked about. "We should leave this place, I do not know why, but the predators do seem to avoid me in this place. However, I do not know if this if merely my fortune."

He took a few steps away. "What is this antidote supposed to resemble? An injector or vial? Perhaps part of some medical equipment?" He sniffed the air slightly.

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

"I don't know," she finally admitted, letting her shoulders rebound in the other direction and droop with the realization that indeed, she really hadn't the foggiest clue as to what she was looking for.

"I just know that the Temblor toxin was created by the Mandalorians, and they hid out here, and had their final battle with the jedi here long, long ago. I was going on a-- well..."

She paused for an uncomfortable moment.

"Well, on the assumption that if they had this toxin, they'd likewise have an antidote, and probably on their person. If we could find a warrior's remains that looks complete... I mean, no empty pockets or carrying pouches or anything...

"I-- other than that, I don't know what to do. I guess I somehow thought it would just, well-- be here... somehow."

She hung her head.

Dammit, but 40,000 credits was an awful lot of money.

Her mental image of her ship's complete re-fit seemed fainter and fainter by the moment, and she sighed.

[ 11-11-2004 04:37 AM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Minna Manth ]

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Something he said struck her then and she blinked, turning her head to look up at him as they made their way through the dark and ominously silent jungle.

"Kar-- umm, 'kariudo?' What does that mean?"

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"Kariudo, it is a ancient languages word for Huntress." He did not stop as he spoke, his gaze firmly set as they began the rise out of the crater, off to the side, he could see his destroying path when he had fallen down the slope.

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

Minna didn't say anything else, but she couldn't help but frown at what Nefrai had called her. She didn't feel like a huntress, never had in all of the time she had spent skulking hither and yon through the spacelanes collecting information for one client or another. The term "huntress" implied a person being more than a touch aggressive, and aggression just wasn't in her character profile.

I know it's in his, though....

She cut a sidelong glance up at the skullface, which in turn hid--

Who-- or what?

She shook her head. Maybe one day her newfound companion would reveal himself to her, maybe not. Until then, she would simply take him for what he chose to be in her presence, and hope to all the wide, wide universe that he wasn't going to change on her and go dark and evil and all ballistic.

Something loomed on the ground up ahead, and she pointed to it.

"There," she said, increasing her pace a little.

"That looks like armor; let's go see if there's anything looking like an antidote vial or something... and heck, whule we're at it, we just might see if any of that armor would be useful in itself."

Like, for me.

A mental image of herself clad in Mandalorian armor tumbled immediately on the heels of that thought; she smiled a bit, and merely quickened her pace.

[ 11-16-2004 09:01 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Minna Manth ]

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He found it to be empty, then went to another one, and another. "There is nothing here, I have not found....." He stopped as his hand fell upon a small datapad, playing the same scene over and over. He watched it, horrifiedly facinated for a moment, then quickly tucked it away into his cloak. "I cannot find any, have you found something?

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

And strangely touched with power, too.

Gulping a little, she took it off, and thus did not see Nefrai's furtive placement of the datapad under his cloak.

"Not really," she said offhandedly, casting about like a hunting nek. "At least, I haven't found anything that looks remotely like any antidote."

She paused, the helmet in her hands, unwilling to let it go. She wished it fit; maybe somewhere they might find a smaller warrior, whose armor would match her slender body more closely.

"I suppose we can keep on looking," she said, moving away from this tiny squadron, searching for others, the helmet slapping against her body as she plunged from the clearing where they had found the remains and began picking her way through the dense undergrowth of the jungle.

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

He glanced at his cloak where the datapad lay tucked away, and thought back to the image. The scene had been laid out from the eyes of the mandalorian he had found the pad on.

The mandalorians had moved through the brush stealthily, their target was a few kilometers away, but it didn't matter. They had halted, a quick break being taken as they had stopped. One of them commented on the stillness. They raised weaponry as a rustle was heard in the brush, suddenly comming from all sides.

Suddenly a shriek came through their comlinks as a dark figure had leapt out from a tree, rending through the mans helmet, tossing him aside. It by the time they had pulled their triggers, two more had been slain. In the end, they had all fallen, and the datapad had been damaged.

In the end, the only thing that truely had made this part of his notice was one thing. The beast, the creature, had been him.

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

Minna frowned a little, realizing that jungle inhabitant aren't usually cautious to such a degree.

Especially on such a moon as this, uninhabited as it was for many, many years.

Gradually it came to her attention that the various and sundry creatures of Dxun weren't the only silent ones; slowing a bit to shine her hand-light about she realized that her companion was silent as well, seeming to radiate an aura about himself that could only be considered to be...

Pensive.

She cast a look his way, shining her light not so that it struck his masked face, but hit him lower upon his body, sending a backwash of light upon the terrifying features of that skullmask. Shadows sprang into being there, underscoring his silence and turning it from being pensive into something utterly ominous.

She gulped, momentarily frightened.

"Umm..." she began, beating down that flash of hopefully unreasonable fear. "You seem quiet.

"Credit for your thoughts?"

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

He quickly cast about for something to change the subject. "So, you are looking for some of the armor these warriors wore?" He went to another one, and quickly roled it over under the pretext of searching it, quickly hiding the claw marks upon the breastplate that had punctured the armor.

"This one is empty."

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

At his feet was the disarticulated remains of a full set of the armor of Mandalore; furthermore, it appeared to belong to a warrior something on the vertically challenged side.

She drew in a quick breath and let the helmet she held drop to the grass at her feet. Then she reached out a trembling hand.

"It's beautiful," she whispered, pausing and turning to look at Nefrai.

"Do you think it will fit me?"

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

He could physically stop her, that was easy, but to do so would harm her. He could tell her of the damage, but she could easily put two and two together.

He was left of the option of lying to her, and telling her it was not going to work. But that was an easily seen through lie as well. "I...."

"We should find the cure first, then see to the armor afterwards."

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

She gulped a little, and slowly withdrew her hand. A sense of discomfort wafted about them; somewhere, the deathly stillness was broken as something rustled, breaking a branch as it moved through the dense cover of the jungle floor.

"All right," she said simply, then took a step away from the remains of the Mandalorian.

"Let's look this way some more; hey, you said you might be able to remove the toxin from my client if we can't find an antidote.

"Is that really true?"

She kept moving, hunting, searching, letting her words tumble out of her mouth so the returning quietude wouldn't crush her to the dirt. Ducking under a thorny overhanging set of branches, she kept picking her way along.

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

He searched through another madalorians armor as he spoke. "What I did for you was the first time, I can make no guarentee. I would suggest we find the antidote over a hope of my abilities."

He continued his search, wondering how long he could keep up the act of hiding the markings. If she came upon even a single mandalorian suit with his markings, she would know in a heartbeat he had lied.

He turned another one, and began searching through a medkit on the mandalorians side. Aged synthflesh, bacta pads, all useless poultices to injury. Wait....

He turned his hand over a round object he had found, and examined the small injector vial in the pouch he had found, the green liquid swishing as he shook it, making sure there were no leaks. "I think I may have found it, or something else!" He called out to her, closing the mandalorians pouch.

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

She reached out a hesitant hand and took it from him, and held it close to her face in careful scrutiny.

"I don't know," she finally murmured, now holding it up to the faint rays of moonlight that managed to break through the dense canopy above their heads. The tiny object glittered, the fluid within it shimmering and viscous, having the consistency of runny cement.

"It could be; I really have no way of telling. I don't have an actual sample of the toxin, but I do have this."

She reached into her own pouch and pulled out a small vial. It shone a deep, rich and ruby red; cocking her head a bit to one side, she looked up at Nefrai again.

"This is a sample of my client's blood; it has the toxin in it. Maybe there is some way we can test this, do you think?"

Turning back to the vial she held, her gaze inadvertantly fell to the pile of armor at Nefrai's feet. Her eyes widened when she saw the gashes upon it; she knelt down quickly and touched one of the gaping rents with one finger.

"Great Mother of All, what in all the universe could have caused this?" she asked, her jaw dropping.

"I thought Mandalorian armor was impervious to about anything other than a nuclear blast!"

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