This post has the following content warnings:
smol Deskyl in Ventures
Permalink

Deskyl is eleven, and already knows that her life is going to be something special. It wouldn't be obvious just from looking at her, and she's pretty sure nobody else has noticed yet. But a few months ago, she noticed - it's not just that she can tell how people feel by looking, she can do it with her back turned, too. Or through walls, even when she doesn't know there's somebody there, she can still guess. And that means she's Force-sensitive, and that means she's going to be a Sith, sooner or later. Probably later rather than sooner - she doesn't exactly have a way to contact them from the unassuming farm planet she lives on, even if she were ready - but that doesn't mean she can't get ready for it. And that's what she's doing now, out in the woods without the distraction of other people being around. She wants the Force to help her talk, to hold the words still for her instead of letting them slip out of her mind too fast to catch. She thinks she's making progress; she still needs to figure out how to get it to give her words, but it's already helping her with sounds, and she doesn't think that's bad at all for a few weeks of secret work.

The woods are pretty safe, this close to the settlement, and even if they weren't, her knack for noticing minds works perfectly well on animals. So it's especially surprising when a giant silvery snake with a mirror for a face appears in the trees and half-dives, half-falls, directly onto her.

And then she's somewhere else.

Total: 183
Posts Per Page:
Permalink

She finds herself in a grove of evergreen trees, specifically in a small clearing with a campfire that isn't currently lit and a sleeping bag and a rocking chair each sized for someone a little shorter than most humans. The stars are maybe a little brighter than she's used to and definitely in different patterns. There's a path leading away from the clearing but it's probably a little hard to make out in the darkness.

Permalink

What the heck.

 

Well, given the option of wandering around in an unfamiliar forest at night, or staying here where there are at least signs of sapient life, she'll do the latter. She considers the situation for another moment and settles herself at the base of a climbable-looking tree.

Permalink

There are plenty of trees around, fewer of them have low enough branches for convenient climbing but she can find one without much difficulty. It'll be about two hours before she sees the sky brighten with the first signs of the coming dawn.

Permalink

She's quite bored, by then, and takes the opportunity to climb her tree as soon as she can see well enough to do so safely; it may or may not get her a better view of her surroundings but it's at least something to do while she waits for the sun to rise enough to navigate by.

Permalink

She's in the middle of a substantial grove so her better view mostly let's her see more trees. It does let her get more of a view on the sun. It seems to be moving noticably faster than she's used to.

Permalink

All things considered it's not that surprising that she's on a different planet.

She shimmies back down the tree and has a closer look at the sleeping bag, just in case there's any indication of what's going on there.

Permalink

The sleeping bag and the cloth covered rocking chair seem to be the product of hand sewing, the fabric is quite soft and fluffy. In the light of day there are a few sheets of paper that she didn't notice before written in an unfamiliar script held down by a rock.

Permalink

Huh. On one hand, probably whoever left the papers here will be back for them before too long rather than risk them getting rained on or what have you; on the other hand, she's hungry, and the idea of waiting around here rather than trying to do something about that isn't very appealing. If she's careful about keeping track of how the paths go she can probably come back if she doesn't find civilization in a reasonable amount of time.

She leaves everything where it is and heads down the path.

Permalink

The path is well trodden, it winds a bit and occasionally branches but it's certainly possible to determine which branches see the most traffic and following those leads to the edge of the grove and not far beyond it a building.

The building seems to be a fusion of two different styles of construction the center seems to be formed from wood and metallic sheets while other parts of the structure are made from some sort of ceramic material. The ceramics are painted with pictures of planets and the night sky. At the center of the building there's a large tower easily three times the height of the main structure with a number of antennae and communications dishes. There's a clear doorway on the near side of the building and she can hear what the tones might be a woodwind instrument drifting out towards her.

Permalink

What a neat building. She goes in.

Permalink

The inside of the building has more murals and several printed photographs along a short entrance hallway before opening up to a larger room that has more of the same in addition to screens with more of the unfamiliar script and most importantly three blue skinned four-eyes humanoid aliens with big ears placed high on their hairless heads. One of them is playing what indeed looks a bit like a woodwind instrument, another seems to be listening to the musician a tall staff with some sort of integrated equipment leaned up against the wall beside their chair and the third is typing on some sort of keyboard. None of the three are oriented in her direction.

Permalink

She doesn't want to interrupt the performance but does gawk a little - it's not like she doesn't know that aliens exist, she's just never seen one in person before - before looking around for somewhere else to check for more people.

Permalink

There are side rooms to investigate but as she moves towards one of those she passes into the vision of the listener. Their ears wiggle, they sit up straighter, and they say something in an unfamiliar language. The other two stop what they're doing and look around before spotting her. Their ears also wiggle. If she's paying really close attention she might notice that their upper eyes move independently of their lower eyes.

Permalink

Oops? She turns to address them, anyway. "Do you know Basic?"

Permalink

They say something else unfamiliar... there's a different cadence to this utterance it might be a different language. The one near the staff grabs it and does something with it that causes a spiral of blue symbols to draw themselves across the floor from the point where the staff touches it.

Permalink

"I only speak Basic, sorry." She tries a little harder to enunciate this time, thinking maybe they didn't catch what she was saying; her new Force trick helps with that but maybe not enough yet.

Permalink

It does not seem to help... it's possible they don't know basic.

The one with the staff does something else and a growing green field is projected out. They take a step towards her and then stop, the field briefly disappears and they say something to the one at the keyboard who comes over. The green field reappears and the keyboard user sticks their head in it. They make vaguely beckoning gestures I  her direction and project the green field at about her head height.

Permalink

That's weird, she's never seen tech like that before. It's obvious enough what they want, though, and she heads over to do it, though she's going to stick a finger into the field first before she puts her head in.

Permalink

What happens from sticking a finger in is that there's an odd sense that someone is trying to communicate something. It's very vague from such indirect exposure but it feels like it's probably a question.

Permalink

Huh!

Sure, she'll stick her head in that.

Permalink

She gets a series of three mental images and a deliberate blank space with the vague sense of meaning none of the above.

The first image has her arriving in a spaceship, the second has her walking out of some sort of strange glowing plant thing with sharp looking thorns and the final image has a white sphere appearing and then disappearing to leave her where it was. They're all a little fuzzy more solidified concepts than anything. She gets the sense she can pick one of them.

Permalink

Yeah, none of those. She'll try projecting 'teleporting snake monster' into the empty spot in case that works.

Permalink

That seems to work. There's an immediate follow-up about whether the monster is still nearby.

Permalink

She hasn't seen/heard/sensed it, no.

Permalink

There's an acknowledgement and then another multiple choice question this one with images of her eating, drinking, sleeping, being immersed in water, and again another blank space.

Total: 183
Posts Per Page: