trans_9 | space & creatures [closed]

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space & creatures [closed]

Arha leaned over the tub her Little Maker had been confined to and hummed something that wasn't exactly a tune and yet was. It was rhythm-less, but it seemed to help ease the Shai-Hulud's distress. He was uncomfortable confined like this, much in the same way she was. Her fingers, too, helped, as they brushed along the sand-smooth hide.

Arha did not feel well. Unbalanced was a good description for it. Hot was another. It was not illness.

Yet today, the racing flipping colors outside that had fascinated her made her wish to vomit quite violently in the utmost of non-Fremen ways. She, like one of her training could, ignored the impulse and sat with her back to the lightshow, with her fingers gliding over the Little Maker's head as he bumped his tri-sectioned mouth into her hand. Arha closed her eyes and lay her head against her arm.

She was not so sure she liked space.

Perhaps it would pass.

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She knew it was him long before he arrived (the sound of his footsteps, the change in the air, something, that intangible something), but stayed still, letting her fingers dart in and out and around the worm's triangular lips. Arha turned her head just a little a slight smile touching her lips.

"This is he," she said, keeping her eyes closed. Arha was silent for awhile, still playing with the worm without her sight. He nipped at her, almost playfully, cheered at her efforts. He was not always thus. "This place is too small for us."

He did still, then, and rumble-roared, though it was a tiny non-threatening sound. When he was much larger it would vibrate the room and deafen a man. Images flickered in her mind -- the hum of a desert wind, the polish of sand, the sharp smell of spice, and the movements of a Mau'Dib mouse. Arha let out a sharp laugh and her eyes flew open to fix onto Luke's.

"Desert rat," she said, laughing, a hand over her mouth.

Luke stared at it, fascinated. He couldn't think of many creatures he knew that were like it. "Stacy brought him along with you?"

He leaned forward, wanting to get a better look but not get too close in case it didn't like him, but looked up at her laugh. "Desert rat?" he repeated, curious.

"The Thinking Machine, Stacy, did take him as well," Arha said. "I do not know why." She shifted, curious as her fingers touched his hand. As always her touch was light, not intrusive. "He is curious, wishes to know if you are a desert rat. The same as myself."

Her thumb brushed his knuckle absently.

"I am here," she said. "He shall not take your hand off."

He smiled, and reached out to touch the sandworm curiously. "What was it you said last night? Desert creatures call out to each other?"

His fingertips touched the worm, and the awareness of it flowed up his arm. Like Arha, he could sense it more clearly if he touched it, as though the rubbery, thick hide were a conduit. Its Force-presence was very interesting; it could think, though they were primitive thoughts of sustenance and survival, and it could feel--pain, happiness, sorrow. Like the desert it--he--they--all hailed from, it was warm, like the sand it burrowed through.

"He must be here for a reason, as are we all," the Jedi said quietly, still stroking the sandworm. "I just wish I knew what that reason was."

"Like calls to like," she murmured, drifting away to settle against the heavy container. The Little Maker swung away to follow her for a half second, then bumped Luke's fingers, curious. Desert wind, cool nights, stars -- home -- water, poison, sadness -- the moons rising, the sand stirring in the breeze, the odd cinnamon scent of Spice. Arha closed her eyes and leaned her head back, wondering if Luke could interpret the question it was asking.

"Everyone wishes to know the unrevealed," she said, her voice weary as she tucked her knees to her chest and waited for the wobbly, queasiness to ease. The colors did not help.

Luke furrowed his brow, thinking, trying to make sense of what the worm was sending to him with these images. Half-closing his eyes, letting his fingers trail along the segments of the worm, Luke let the Force fill him like warm water, and help decipher them.

"Home..." He murmured softly... "I did leave--or, well, I suppose Stacy took me. I have had many homes, though." He conjured in his mind images of Coruscant, a planet entirely covered in city lights, of the Jedi Temple there with its soaring towers. Then it was Yavin IV, a jungle world, the temple of the Massassi that had been converted into the Jedi Praxeum where he'd taught students the ways of the Force. And finally, Tatooine--bright sand and brighter twin suns, setting against the dusky horizons--the sunset the night before his life had changed forever.

The next images--water was poison to the worms, Arha had said, and he got a profound sense of sorrow from the Force. The image that immediately came to mind was Mara's funeral, the haze of grief he'd been in at losing the love of his life. He showed the worm this, using the Force to send the image of Mara's body laid on a bier, her vibrant red hair arranged neatly. The sorrow he felt when Darth Caedus, who had once been his nephew Jacen, was killed. The sorrow he felt when large numbers of people died in wars. When Obi-Wan had died; these images, feelings, he gave to the worm in reply.

His fingers still stroked it though, comfortingly and as though he was with an old friend. The Force swirled strongly about it even though it was not of his world. The last images were peaceful, and Luke smiled. "I have found it," he murmured, and opened his blue eyes fully to look at Arha serenely.

"If only for a moment," he said, resting his hand kindly upon the sandworm. It was a creature that served the good, and ought to be treated with respect. "Perhaps I'll find it again."

The Little Maker rumbled, a curious thrummming sound. Feet running against the ground, vibration, atomics (fire - it did not hurt), the world turning from opressor to 'savior', Arrakeen burning, the Harkkonen scattering, the Fremen rising with their blue-within-blue eyes glowing -- death that came from the sky in the form of rain -- worm death, sand death, people death. In its own way, the Little Maker understood and let out a curious sound, sharp and high.

Its lips opened and closed, snapping at nothing for a moment, then its agitation died.

Smooth sand, spice, peace. Understanding.

Arha.

Arha who heard half the conversation with her eyes closed as she steadied herself and worked on pulling the off balanace feeling from her body. The worm thrummed again, softer. It had begun in peace and peace would be found again. But he still needed a bigger area with more sand.

It was stifling him.

Those images he was able to understand without help. The little one had seen war--or knew war from its elders, one of the two. But it seemed there was something else, the death of something beyond people and worms, but he couldn't identify it. Perhaps it was simply too foreign an idea.

The idea of being stifled wasn't too foreign at all, though, and with a smile he gave the worm an image of himself angrily working on Threepio and Artoo, the sense of the impatience he'd had when he was young. "It'll come soon enough, little friend," Luke told the worm, and sat back, still playing his fingers round the segments.

"He's very interesting," Luke told Arha honestly. "Reminds me of a thernbee that I met once." He was quiet. "He just wants a big space to move in."

"As do I," Arha said, squeezing her eyes shut. The uncomfortable wet heat was not helping her calm and made her itchy, made her waste water as beads of sweat broke out. She needed to realign herself again, but the Little Maker, she could not adjust. There was much water in the air.

"There is a city, below, they say," she said, her voice a little strained as she shifted. The Shai-Hulud fell back into his container and burrowed into the sand, something she suddenly wished she could do. "With space around it. I do not know," she took a breath, "if that would help."

"I heard it was dangerous," Luke said absently, staring at the place in the sand where the worm had disappeared. After a moment his blue eyes flicked back to Arha, still full of that Jedi Master serenity that some in his world found so irritating. "But if it will make things easier for you and for him, perhaps you should at least go down and have a look at it."

He tilted his head; Arha was sweating, and looked uncomfortable, sick--just like her worm, like she was being stifled. "Is everything all right?" he asked.

"Too wet, maybe," she murmured. "Not enough space. Too much space." Maybe it was the worm, the worm she'd absorbed, broken down, returned to the sand. The worm that had given her its knowledge and given her the desert. The water aversion must have something to do with it, her reaction. And yet, she could bathe. It didn't make sense.

"You're not used to space travel, are you?" he asked gently. He could see ow the swirling colors outside the observation deck would make someone used to tan sands and washed-out skies uneasy.

"There is little travel involved," Arha said. "The Guild Navigators fold space from one point to another. No movement, just planet descent. No colors."

"Fold space? You mean they use hyperspace?" Luke was trying to distract her from the swirling colors with conversation, though he was genuinely curious about her world. Both her home and his sounded so similar. "But even then there's time involved. A long hyperspace jump can take hours."

"Instantaneous," Arha said softly, focusing through the way her very bones seemed to want to crack open. It would pass, given time. "No time, no movement. Just here and then there."

"How do they--" Luke stopped himself, grinning at his own enthusiasm. "I'm sorry, I should do more to help get your mind off what's wrong, rather than pry. Is there anything I could do?"

"Spice," she said, sinking down against the tub as she tried to force her body to accept the new environment yet again. It worked for a few days before she had to do this all over again. "They do it with Spice." Arha was still for awhile.

"It is not a mind thing. It is a body thing, and the mind bends the body," she finally said, teeth grit. "We need to try the city. If there is danger in it, so be it, but such is preferable to this space." There was a hissing grumbling that came from the pen. "I shall need to get him down there as well."

Arha forced herself upright and lifted the awkward pot-like pen. It was definitely heavy with the weight of the container and the creature within. She felt, for a moment, like she was suffocating in the air, in the water, this ship, this place, and she stood there, shaking, clutching her last remaining physical link to her home.

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

The shaking stopped, though the physical strain did not.

Worried, Luke held out a hand, exerting the Force to wrap around and support the little pen the worm was in. "Let me," he said softly. "You can let go of it, and I can support it as we walk. You don't look well enough to lift a bantha cub, let alone anything else."

"I could carry it to the ends of the sands and back, though this place would drown me with its water," Arha said fiercely. She let him have it though, her point made. "I am not pleased with the humidity of this...this Thinking Machine."

She paused in her moment of tirade.

"...what is this...bantha cub?" she asked, flicking a glance at him. Arha was unhappy with the fact that she had no stillsuit to collect all the moisture she was leaking and it was all sliding down her cheeks and into the suit and it was wrong, like she was going to lose it all and there would be nothing but sloppy skin and bones left. She controlled her breathing, focused,and let the fear go. This was no time to completely lose her mind.

She had survived the Agony, she would survive this, too.

Luke began to get the idea that perhaps she wasn't ill, but unaccustomed to any air but that of the dry desert, and the marked humidity inside the ship was too fast a change for her. He kept his hand out, levitating the tub in front of him as they walked, his use of the Force opening him up to more of her swirling, turbulent emotions.

"It's the cub--the young of a creature native to Tatooine," he said as they walked. "Come to think of it, you probably couldn't even lift a womp rat right now, you really ought to rest."

"You will have to show me what it looks like, in the...Thinking Machine's light room." Arha moved less fluidly than she had before, but carefully, trying to save as much of her water as she could. The dripping would have to stop as it irritated her. Had the worm changed her insides as much as it had changed her mind?

"I will rest when this is finished," Arha said calmly. "No sooner."

"Stubborn," Luke muttered, but he was grinning as they got to the Hub; Luke reached out and grabbed the sandworm tub before he walked up to one of the tubes and looked in curiously.

"I guess this place wouldn't have elevators if it's living," he said absently. "These tubes are like its arteries and veins in a way."

"Survivalist," she shot back.

Arha looked at him and then at the tubes uncertainly. She didn't especially want to go down (up?) there, but she was fairly certain it had to be better than dying where she was. The only verbal opinion she had on the matter was a soft curse about thinking machines.

"Even survivalists know their limits," he said seriously, and stepped forward into one of the tubes, the container with the worm firmly gripped against his body. He could feel its impression in the Force, squirming through the sand as they plummeted and were pushed out onto the city level. Using the Force to cushion the transition, Luke set the container on the floor and levitated it again, waiting for Arha to come out of the tube.

Even only having known her for a few days, Luke fretted about her. She hadn't seemed like this when they'd met, sweating and uncomfortable, and as with anyone he cared about even a little his heart went to her, wanting to do what he could to alleviate the pain of someone close to him.

Oh just go.

The thought wasn't her own, not really. It was one of her mothers-within. She wasn't scared of it, of the falling, of the landing. She moved carefully, wanting to scowl as she stepped forward, but she didn't. This was highly annoying as a means of travel. She did not exit as well as she might have liked -- certainly nothing befitting a Reverend Mother.

The heap of limbs was not at all attractive, but she stayed there for a long moment. The air was better, at least.

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