It had happened innocently enough at first, a man wearing simple green robes, carrying himself as a traveler - a galactic drifter of sorts, moved through the streets in the capital city of the Calipsa province; Cambar, the movement is perhaps difficult for others to track, across the street a man stands, nervous and uncertain, eyes glittering back and forth watching the front of a small restaurant. A young red headed woman steps out, her bearing of noble descent, the bodyguards slithering through the crowd out front a testament to her breeding and importance to the world. There is a moment of hesitation, deliberate regret - a blaster is drawn. The first shot misses and strikes the bodyguard to the left, as the other grabs the girl and pulls her back inside, as the shooter follows, firing again. Adrenaline steadies an uncertain hand, another blast striking the wounded bodyguard. The green robed man who had been just sedately moving through the streets is now moving. A chosen action, more rehearsed than reactive. Reactive would have been a green blade from a curved, black handle with sure, gloved hands riposting the bolts and ending the threat. Rehearsed is a silver hunting pistol, with a longer barrel, a fitted grip made by an artisan's practiced hands. Unnatural aim and controlled breaths, a shot fired from across the street. A startled gurgle, as a bolt takes the attacker in the throat...And that was how it began The woman's name was Jind'al, a girl named after one of the world's her family ruled. Her father was an important noble of the Calipsa family, and for his sure aim and willingness to act, Tarodal Navlon had become a young woman's most trusted..and loved guard. It wasn't a reciprocated love, the girl falling for the tall, dark haired man with the hawklike gaze that seemed to so inspire her father. Due to a movement within the Calipsa province that was hushed about, never spoken of - the girl and her family had become popular targets for enemies of change, for those content wtih the status quo, and it was a rare span of weeks that found no action for Tarodal, a man who seemed to quietly live for all of those moments that seemed to challenge his mortality, feats of courage beyond that of a hired man - that rumor was indeed true, for his service to the family, he accepted no pay, no reward. The talk was enough for him, it seemed.
Rumors abounded within the Tapani sector that he was genetically engineered, a product of one of the bygone Empire's failed attempts at playing God. A superweapon in human form. Others that he was the son of a long forgotten line of Jedi Knights, another that he was an illegitmate son of the Calipsa family, guarding a half sister. He was eccentric, keeping to himself when not on duty, but seeming to always be there if there was cause for him to be, a second, third sense about danger it seemed. Jand'al's father offered the woman to him several times, in hopes of bringing the talented man's genetics into their bloodline - an outsider that he would trust with the family's child even, but always with a soft smile, and a low, unassuming tone.
"Forgive me Lord for refusing your generosity, but I cannot accept."
"I'd press you more for why, Mr. Navlon...But I don't think you'd tell me. Making up for something you did in war?"
"Perhaps, m'lord. Perhaps." Indeed. Just not what I did.
Added (09 Jan 2010, 11:31 Pm)
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Jind'al, like many others within the Calipsa family had suspicions that Tarodal was more than he presented himself as, not to diminish his service to their family over the last few months, but he just handled it all so gracefully, stoicly even; that he just seemed to be capable of so much more. But what was it, this proverbial more that he was...is capable of? It wasn't the smooth, curved black lightsaber hilt that he kept hidden in his quarters, unknown to the others that shared their roof with the quiet bodyguard.
Or the time that he stood down pirates between Calispa and Jinda, after mines had pulled Jind'al's transport from it's route.
His challenge to them had been simple enough.
"You may not fear me now..But your family will."
She couldn't quite put her finger on it..but it was just the way he seemed to say the words, that had caused the pirates to change course and disengage. He wasn't invincible, more than once she had shown her gratitude by personally tending to his wounds, something about touching his bare skin with her hands excited her, the way he just barely grimaced as she tugged on the spidersilk thread that they used for sutures enchanted her...but he was forever distant. Her's in a way that was so intimate, so close - and so very far away.
Shielding her body with his, those broad shoulders, his strong back scorched by an explosion as a suicide bomber crashed into the building he had just convinced her to leave, on one of his indiscernable 'hunches', wearing a backless scarlet dress, her skin naked against the damp touch of his sweat moistened shit as he forced her into a kneeling position, the way she felt his body give as shrapnel struck him, her had he not been there.
So painfully intimate...but not. What was Tarodal about? What did he want?
Why didn't he want her?
Added (09 Jan 2010, 11:54 Pm)
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Jind'al stood in the doorway that led to Tarodal's private quarters, watching him sleep; if it could be called that. The servants that catered to the dormitories where the bodyguards were housed whispered that Tarodal Navlon, great defender of House Calipsa, suffered from many a nightmare. He shifted and turned in his sleep, tormented by something that he battled in his dreams.
Like all the others, was it a battle he could win? She put her hand to her mouth as she watched, her heart breaking for the nocturnal terrors that her fearless guardian seemed to be suffering from. She desperately wanted to protect him somehow, something that would make him love her, make him reciprocate the love that had grown for him deep in her most secret and guarded of places, deep in her heart. Her father saw Tarodal as an asset. Her mother relied on him to protect her politically active family. Jind'al saw him as so much more, in a galaxy filled with hypocritical Jedi, dauntless Sith and Dark Jedi, endless wars and an overbearing Republic; he was a shining beacon of goodness, a bright light that refused to yield to any darkness, that refused to allow fear and political chicanery to rule his choices, to decide his path.
He was a good man, brave and wanting nothing. She didn't know men like him. Her male peers all sought her as a means to her family's influence, he denied her kindly, if consistently. She imagined that if he had the Force, he'd have been like one of the Jedi that her old nurse had told stories about, men that stood against the greatest of evils, men that had single handedly changed the destinies of millions.
But he didn't use a lightsaber, so he wasn't a Jedi. Just an ordinary man, she thought, if a bit light on the ordinary part.
She wondered, and it frightened her to think of it, but if Tarodal had nightmares...
Just what was he afraid of?
