Post by Cara Drume on Nov 23, 2009 18:42:08 GMT -5
I've finally begun to add something besides vagueness to the backstory of my character. This is just the 'late' edition, set immediately following Order 66.
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PART 1: Clones Never Miss
She sat in the dank and damp of the cave, hugging her knees to her chest and rocking back and forth, dark hair hanging in damp strings, the sting of her half-healed wound increasing with the perspiration and yet slowly fading into nothing. She didn’t care that she was hurt. She didn’t care she was filthy. All that she had cared about was gone.
Her brown eyes stared straight ahead at the cave wall but didn’t see the dripping surface slick with mineral-rich water. She could see nothing but death…
Her master had been running back to her with a look of utter triumph on his face. Not quite triumph, though…hope. And joy. He had something to tell her, something so important that it had brought him back from the front lines of battle and tearing back down the hill for their camp like a child with his first-term report card. If he’d had any flimsiplast with this important news, it would have been waving from his hand, flapping with a slight slapping sound in the breeze. His eyes were dancing so much she had wondered what all this could mean, could feel the joy rising in her as well in anticipation of the good news-
And then the clones fired. Not at a droid or to save her masters’ life, as they had before, but at the Jedi himself.
He had never seen it coming. He couldn’t even reach the saber hilt hung at his hip before the first laser blasts shot toward his back and hit their mark with deadly accuracy.
Clones never missed.
The Jedi had not been killed at first. At first the bolts had hit him in the ankles and lower torso, making him stumble and fall hard and fast down the hill on which he was running. Before he had stopped the clones fired again…and again, and again, until he had stopped moving and lay still, eyes still open and face a mask of confusion.
Her master was dead.
She closed her eyes against the horrible image but it came to her again, and again, tormenting her. She had seen it happen from the safety of the cave and had nearly exploded from her hiding place, ready to cut down the clones that had killed her master, but something held her back.
No. To cut someone down in anger was a path to the Dark Side. How many times had her master, and all the other Masters at the temple told her this? And so, as much as it had tormented her, she stayed where she was, crouched in a corner, waiting. She was certain the clones would come for her. Then, she would be ready. It was likely she wouldn’t last long against such seasoned soldiers, but with her master gone and those she had fought alongside now hunting for her, it would be better to die fighting than live alone. And she knew she was going to die. She was only a half-trained Padawan, and these were the Chancellor’s finest clones.
Clones never missed.
She had waited, trembling, hands gripping her only recently-built and yet untested weapon in a sweaty-palmed grip. The clones, after making sure her master was dead, said something to each other about ‘the other’ and began a sweep of the area. She had held her breath since seeing her master die, afraid to move, to breathe, to think as the clones walked until they were finally overhead, their boots making a dull sound on the stone. She waited until she thought her lungs would burst, ready to gasp for air or scream aloud. She began to panic as that niggling little survival instinct returned.
Calm, she reminded herself. Peace. You can hold on a little longer. And so she did, sitting in the puddle of water until her hind end was numb and soaking wet. A peace came over her as the clones finally left. Only after they had disappeared over the ridgeline did the Padawan breathe again.
They had not found her. She was alive.
But her master was dead.
Still trembling from fear and cold, the young woman edged up on her feet, barely able to keep her balance on her wobbly knee, to look at her master, stubbornly refusing to believe he was truly gone. She limped a few steps out the door before the knee gave way and she let out a gasp of pain that was more than just physical.
“Master!”
She continued at a crawl, knowing somewhere in the back of her mind the old-fashioned stitches and staples in her knee were gone and her leg was bleeding again, perhaps even falling apart again. When she reached her master she shook him, spoke to him, begged him to still be alive.
He didn’t stir.
Only then did the young Jedi let her feelings out in the form of a heartbroken wail. She sobbed until she could sob no more.
Gentle Jedi Master Tollan J’maan was gone, and gone with him was any sense of the way of the galaxy. Nothing was sense anymore. Everything had exploded into madness.
That had been some hours ago. When the young woman had cried until she could cry no more, dragged her master’s body out of the elements, covered him with a cairn of stones, and painfully wriggled back down into her cave, she curled into the ball she was in now and rocked, feeling empty and alone.
She didn’t need to talk to anyone to know what had happened. The pain she felt went beyond her wound or the deeper wound of losing her master. She knew more Jedi were dead…maybe all of them were…maybe dead in the same way her master had died. If her feelings proved correct, she was completely, utterly alone.
Sniffing back her tide of tears, Padawan Cara Drume’ wiped her damp eyes on her equally damp tunic sleeve, settled into an awkward cross-legged position and took several deep breaths, reaching, almost afraid she had also lost-
No, she hadn’t, she realized in releif. The Force was still there, guiding her…probably it had protected her from being discovered by the troopers. But for what purpose had she lived and her master died? Was there anyone else left? What could she do with no master and an army searching for her?
I am a Jedi, Cara thought as her eyes opened again. My duty is to trust the Force. Cara felt some comfort and breathed again.
Yes, the Force. Jedi or no, what choice did she have now?
The Force was all she had left.
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More coming soon!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
PART 1: Clones Never Miss
She sat in the dank and damp of the cave, hugging her knees to her chest and rocking back and forth, dark hair hanging in damp strings, the sting of her half-healed wound increasing with the perspiration and yet slowly fading into nothing. She didn’t care that she was hurt. She didn’t care she was filthy. All that she had cared about was gone.
Her brown eyes stared straight ahead at the cave wall but didn’t see the dripping surface slick with mineral-rich water. She could see nothing but death…
Her master had been running back to her with a look of utter triumph on his face. Not quite triumph, though…hope. And joy. He had something to tell her, something so important that it had brought him back from the front lines of battle and tearing back down the hill for their camp like a child with his first-term report card. If he’d had any flimsiplast with this important news, it would have been waving from his hand, flapping with a slight slapping sound in the breeze. His eyes were dancing so much she had wondered what all this could mean, could feel the joy rising in her as well in anticipation of the good news-
And then the clones fired. Not at a droid or to save her masters’ life, as they had before, but at the Jedi himself.
He had never seen it coming. He couldn’t even reach the saber hilt hung at his hip before the first laser blasts shot toward his back and hit their mark with deadly accuracy.
Clones never missed.
The Jedi had not been killed at first. At first the bolts had hit him in the ankles and lower torso, making him stumble and fall hard and fast down the hill on which he was running. Before he had stopped the clones fired again…and again, and again, until he had stopped moving and lay still, eyes still open and face a mask of confusion.
Her master was dead.
She closed her eyes against the horrible image but it came to her again, and again, tormenting her. She had seen it happen from the safety of the cave and had nearly exploded from her hiding place, ready to cut down the clones that had killed her master, but something held her back.
No. To cut someone down in anger was a path to the Dark Side. How many times had her master, and all the other Masters at the temple told her this? And so, as much as it had tormented her, she stayed where she was, crouched in a corner, waiting. She was certain the clones would come for her. Then, she would be ready. It was likely she wouldn’t last long against such seasoned soldiers, but with her master gone and those she had fought alongside now hunting for her, it would be better to die fighting than live alone. And she knew she was going to die. She was only a half-trained Padawan, and these were the Chancellor’s finest clones.
Clones never missed.
She had waited, trembling, hands gripping her only recently-built and yet untested weapon in a sweaty-palmed grip. The clones, after making sure her master was dead, said something to each other about ‘the other’ and began a sweep of the area. She had held her breath since seeing her master die, afraid to move, to breathe, to think as the clones walked until they were finally overhead, their boots making a dull sound on the stone. She waited until she thought her lungs would burst, ready to gasp for air or scream aloud. She began to panic as that niggling little survival instinct returned.
Calm, she reminded herself. Peace. You can hold on a little longer. And so she did, sitting in the puddle of water until her hind end was numb and soaking wet. A peace came over her as the clones finally left. Only after they had disappeared over the ridgeline did the Padawan breathe again.
They had not found her. She was alive.
But her master was dead.
Still trembling from fear and cold, the young woman edged up on her feet, barely able to keep her balance on her wobbly knee, to look at her master, stubbornly refusing to believe he was truly gone. She limped a few steps out the door before the knee gave way and she let out a gasp of pain that was more than just physical.
“Master!”
She continued at a crawl, knowing somewhere in the back of her mind the old-fashioned stitches and staples in her knee were gone and her leg was bleeding again, perhaps even falling apart again. When she reached her master she shook him, spoke to him, begged him to still be alive.
He didn’t stir.
Only then did the young Jedi let her feelings out in the form of a heartbroken wail. She sobbed until she could sob no more.
Gentle Jedi Master Tollan J’maan was gone, and gone with him was any sense of the way of the galaxy. Nothing was sense anymore. Everything had exploded into madness.
That had been some hours ago. When the young woman had cried until she could cry no more, dragged her master’s body out of the elements, covered him with a cairn of stones, and painfully wriggled back down into her cave, she curled into the ball she was in now and rocked, feeling empty and alone.
She didn’t need to talk to anyone to know what had happened. The pain she felt went beyond her wound or the deeper wound of losing her master. She knew more Jedi were dead…maybe all of them were…maybe dead in the same way her master had died. If her feelings proved correct, she was completely, utterly alone.
Sniffing back her tide of tears, Padawan Cara Drume’ wiped her damp eyes on her equally damp tunic sleeve, settled into an awkward cross-legged position and took several deep breaths, reaching, almost afraid she had also lost-
No, she hadn’t, she realized in releif. The Force was still there, guiding her…probably it had protected her from being discovered by the troopers. But for what purpose had she lived and her master died? Was there anyone else left? What could she do with no master and an army searching for her?
I am a Jedi, Cara thought as her eyes opened again. My duty is to trust the Force. Cara felt some comfort and breathed again.
Yes, the Force. Jedi or no, what choice did she have now?
The Force was all she had left.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
More coming soon!
