Trial of a Lorrd: Subsistence
Posted on Thu Aug 30th, 2018 @ 1:05am by Thane & Bomoor Thort & Amare
Edited on on Wed Jun 8th, 2022 @ 2:01pm
2,414 words; about a 12 minute read
Chapter:
Additional Stories
Location: Black Rock Desert, Lorrd
Timeline: Day 1, afternoon
Tags: Zennibalas, force drain, concealment
Author’s Note: This series is a story told primarily from Zaracoda’s perspective (with the exception being the majority of this post and the prologue, “In Medias Res”, where it is explained from another character’s perspective). Commentary from our main SWANA cast takes place during Episode I: Cult of Evil, when the intrepid crew of the Red Raptor are en route to the fateful events which take place on Korriban. Their words will be in script format in the first-person, italicized, and enclosed between < hr /> lines. Everything else will be standard third-person narrative.
ON:
Coda: It was only hours after you left me in that desert and I'd already exhausted what little water you gave me. I tried to ration it, but I couldn’t help myself. Such was the heat on Lorrd. I kept hoping to stumble across a settlement, but all I saw were dunes and weathered old crags…and birds. Many small black ones were cawing above me, circling overhead. I didn’t know what they were doing. After a while, they were gone. They were probably scared off by beast that appeared unlike any other I ever saw, or ever hope to again.
What I'm about to tell you isn’t from my own eyes, but from what I learned when I touched this creature’s mind. I used to have dreams as a little girl about flying like a bird. I just never thought they would ever come true like this…
In the desert, hunger was everywhere, as it was most especially for the one the denizens of Lorrd reverently nicknamed, Zennibalas. A mighty winged creature of considerable girth and constitution, and a member of a species not native to the planet, Zenni, as the native children called him, was an apex predator who knew that deep trial to survive and subsist for as long as possible, at least as long as it took to pass its genes on to the next generation. Yet for what little he could feed from and sate its unyielding cycle of hunger, none of his roaring mating calls were ever answered.
Zenni was an avian-like beast of some mixed reptilian features with a feathered wingspan of nearly twenty-four feet and a bulky mass of several hundred pounds. He had a long, sharp, knife-like bill and a chitinous armour head plating that was chipped, burned, and cracked from previous battles with other powerful creatures and farmers armed with blaster rifles protecting their livestock and water supplies. Dorsally, he was covered in tufts of dark purple fur (vestigial holdovers from its planet of origin) running along his his long forked tail all up to the back of his head behind the protective plate. Ventrally, his body was covered in thick buildups of calloused purple skin and thick scales. His feet were much like many other birds of prey with long bony talons with enough torque to crush a rancor's arm and sharpness to poke holes through solid metallic structures like they were made of Cyrene silk.
For countless years of flying over the Lorrdian wastes--eating, sleeping, and repeating the process--not once was there a female of Zeni's kind to answer back. Nevertheless, despite his loneliness and advancing age, he kept trying. He was intelligent enough to realize the futility of endlessly calling out for a mate after so long, but there still remained enough animal in him to be completely unable to resist his primal instincts.
In following those same instincts, Zenni ignored the natural disturbance some distance as hunger was overpowering his better senses. In a sea of endless golden sands and brown rocks, the little blue dot roaming far below was a stark contrast, and near impossible to ignore. Zenni saw the dangerous surge approaching, and the blue thing was running for a bone-dry river valley, likely trying to take cover before the arrival of the deadly sandstorm.
This winged god of the wastes had to eat against all odds, and so it dove headlong from the heavens to snatch up what it hoped was a satisfying meal that made the risk worth the effort and expended energy. Closer, just a little more...not falling fast enough...air currents slowing descent...extend talons, should be an easy grab...miss! No!
Zennibalas bellowed a mix of a roar and the cry of an angry hawk. It hovered up just above the narrow shoulder of the river valley as the blue creature tumbled and rolled and cried aloud in fear down the sandy shore to the dry rocky bottom. There were outcropping and shattered ebony and stone boulders. Zenni and its blue target spotted each other, maybe thirty feet apart, but close enough for the winged Scourge of the Black Rock to pick up on the smell of the blue one. The scent was similar in some ways to the pale and brown-skinned Lorrdians, with their deodorants and irritating botanical cleansing oils, but there was something more pleasing to this one...a faint hint of...sea salt? There was something else...almost like a frog, or a fish. Zenni wasn't sure, especially since whatever it was was running on its hind legs, but it was enough to make him howl and salivate with delighted anticipation.
However, he noticed the storm too late. The blue thing dove behind a boulder just as the monster wave of dust, sand, and debris slapped Zenni down hard against the side of the valley. He took his own turn tumbling and rolling down to the bottom and was thrown into a confused daze. The valley was, fortunately, high and narrow enough for much of the storm to harmlessly plow overhead, allowing enough reprieve for Zenni to get his bearings as he rose up and scanned ahead for his luscious little prey. Zenni cawed and roared and plodded up towards where he last saw the critter. There was nowhere to run now. Nowhere for the little blue appetizer to...what? Where did it go? It was right there!
Zenni looked around, checking behind other boulders and jutting crags. Nothing. No meal. Not fair! Hungry...so hungry. It roared up skyward in protest and frustration. And then, at the end of his breath...a wild scream from behind.
He felt something latch onto his back. He tried wiggling his body, and growled in confusion. Was it something from the storm? Get off! Get off! It tried buffeting its wings to shake it loose. It refused. Then the little creature yelled strange sounds, "I'm sorry, but you have to stop now!" Zenni whipped its tail about and tried to thrust its back against the valley slope, but the creature was quick and scrambled to the other side of his body. "That's enough!" It was a small poke, but it broke soft exposed skin, an old wound reopened that lacked protection from its prized scales. The sting far exceeded Zenni's expectations...
For the first time in decades, Zenni felt wild, untempered fear. Another stab, then three, and four. It could feel the warm geyser of blood spewing out of its side. His cawing and roaring did nothing to dissuade the attacks. There was no choice. It flapped wings, and chose the storm to rid itself of this painful little gnat.
Coda: I don't know what possessed me to leap on his back. I'm still not even sure how he failed to see me sneak around him to even pull it off. I did cover myself with lots of sand with the hope it wouldn't see me as easily, maybe that helped. I had found a little pointy piece of dark stone that I used to attack a white spot I saw in its side. I just wanted to scare it, get it to fly away and leave me alone. I thought about letting go, but then I just held on as tight as I could as we took to the air. I think I was the one that was scared if I stayed in that valley. I remember closing my eyes tight as all that dust went at my face, feeling gravity pulling at me as Zenni took us up through the raging wind. I felt little pebbles scratch and scrape me all over. When he leveled off above the storm into clear air, I decided that the safest place for me to be was to get square on his back and hope for a chance to jump off if we flew over some water, but then I saw something on the soft part of the back of his head that wasn't covered by his head plate: some kind of strange mark. It looked like a barcode tattoo with Aurebesh numbers under it. I felt drawn to get a better look at it. I lost my improvised dagger at this point, and so I slowly crawled along his body to get to his head...
OOC: Music for the flight through the sky: Zennibalas' Flight
Zenni still felt the pest on his back, and now it was moving slowly along his spine. He flapped his wings faster, flying over the vast dusty flats, and beyond that his destination: his lair. Once there, he could trap the uninvited passenger and deal with it swiftly.
Coda: I heard a voice in my head. I thought it sounded like my father. He said to me, 'You are the prey of this beast, but are you willing to be the hunter? You must kill...or be killed.' I was almost at Zenni's head...
He could feel the blasted blue thing crawling up along the length of its long neck. Zenni started to shake his head to throw it loose, but it did no good as before. Just a little farther to the lair. Just...a little...
"Shhhh..." Zenni could hear the creature shushing him. It was getting more and more difficult to see, more difficult to flap his wings. Some kind of warmth on his head. He thought it was his empty stomachs or the lack of sleep getting to him. Maybe it was the wound, maybe...it was time to...sleep...
Moments later, the flapping ceased, and Zenni's wings were outstretched to glide the currents. It was a long, slow and steady decline further and further towards the surface. The top predator of the Lorrdian wastes was succumbing to extreme fatigue of all things. When he dipped below one hundred feet, his powerful muscles slackened and went into freefall. Unconsciousness took over when he crashed head-first into the endless expanse of the Bonnedill Flats.
Coda: It must've been early evening when we struck earth. The crash threw me off and I hit the ground pretty hard. I can't remember how many times I rolled, or how long I laid there, not too far from where Zenni was. I almost passed out, not sure if I hit my head. When I tried to move my left arm, I couldn't without a ton of pain; I'm fairly sure I dislocated that shoulder, and there was excruciating pain in my chest, likely fractured ribs. It was my first real taste of pain on that planet. Good preparation for my...'lesson' in the temple back on Yavin.
Thane: Then, perhaps, you still misunderstand. The lesson was never to learn of pain, either here or there, but to appreciate your own strength of character... and humility. Still, you must have overcome this physical torment to stand before us this day; you must have used your wit and talent to remain whole, rather than a broken and self-pitying Wolph?
Coda: Trust me, master, the physical torment was easier to bear than the stress on my mind that was yet to come. I somehow managed to stumble over to see if Zennibalas was okay. I bled his strength with my power as much as I could in the air. I just wanted him to calm down, but...it turned out that I did more harm than I intended, and...well, I could tell he wasn't breathing anymore. That was when I touched his fading mind and saw things from his point of view. It was raw, primal, and very sad. He was all alone out there for a really long time. Food had been growing scarce in the desert. Lorrd as a whole was heating up and the desert was expanding in all directions. He just wanted a meal and a female of his kind to keep him company. I didn't know his name at the time, or even that he was a he; that came later. It's strange though. In an odd sort of way, I think he saved my life. He helped me cover a lot of distance, and he took me where I think I needed to be. I wonder if some of us are meant to live our whole lives, go through all of our hardships, experience all of our smiles and cries, just to one day serve a purpose to help someone move forward, even if that one act was our final one. I don't know. Maybe I'm just overthinking it, or that's just the guilt talking.
Thane: You touched his mind. A mind not so different from those of the everyday sentient in this galaxy, in fact. A mind born of simple desires and needs. It is a great privilege to see such things from that point of view, but an even greater one to be able to appreciate its simple purpose in this existence of ours.
Bomoor: It is highly possible that that winged creature did have some part to play in your destiny; a foreign creature brought across the stars to Lorrd to aid you, even if it did not know it was doing so. Stranger things have happened in the Force; it makes you wonder what ripples our own lives have on the journeys of others. Do not pity the beast for it was simply the end of its journey, a long way from home. Your journey is only at its beginning.
Coda: It's interesting you say 'beginning'. I soon glimpsed upon what came close to being the end of my story...'the end of all things'.
TBC
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