Lost: from A to Z [Alkestis/Zee]

[Zee]

Location: Kothlis

It had been the crustaceans’ fault. The seemingly chaotic scuttling of their flat, saucer-shaped bodies across the sand had drawn Zee further away along the shore. Fascinated, the girl ran along the dotted trails sketched by their short buruktin legs (a polymer sturdier than chitin; from the Bothese burukt, hard-headed), gawping at the shards of iridescent sky that crawled around her. She collapsed laughing when the pile of algae-covered stones that she’d marked as her observation point scuttled away from under her soles; she yelped when ripples in the sand rushed over her toes as harmless sand-snakes. She stared up at the clear sky, and consequently fell flat on her face in the silt. Her laugher rose in bubbles.

She saw patterns everywhere, mathematical models that rippled like waves though her childlike, mathematical mind. Sweeter than any dessert. Science was, after Zee, a way of tickling the universe to find out its jokes.

Before that, it had been Gar’phil’s fault. Her mentor had practically kicked her out of the ship that morning, convinced by her own mathematical models that fresh air and exercise are more appropriate for a growing Zelosian than constant seclusion in their flyspeck spaceship. Zee couldn’t really argue. Data was data. Besides, she didn’t really mind. Whether in binary or nature, maths was maths. She’d completely forgotten about the Jedi classes that Gar’phil had tactfully suggested earlier. It didn’t seem relevant. Despite Knight Sera’s assurances that she could use the Force (the one with a capital letter, nevertheless), Zee was far from believing that far-fetched tale.

And it might have been her fault for going directly east while wholeheartedly believing she was heading west…

Well now, if you want to go back to Adam and Eve (whatever this ancient idiom meant), it was the fault of the Big Bang and of the resulting three moons of planet Kothlis. The complex tides that they created were regularly prognosticated together with the weather on local Eich-Vee stations (Holovision,as one would say). It meant that the map of Kothlis could not be the same hours apart, as islands rose or sunk. Bothan-inhabited islands had the dangerous areas clearly marked. But the few islands used by the Jedi were not normally inhabited. A Jedi which would ignore something as simple as tides, Bothan leaders logically considered, was likely worthless for the galaxy anyway.

It meant that the kilometers-wide interisland corridor that Zee Irving had accidentally followed was soon reduced to a narrow spine of earth. She looked back. Only sea. To her shock, the green blur of the tall island palms was nowhere to be seen. The peaceful splashing of the waves suddenly took on a darker tone. They retreated, only to bite slightly deeper into the sand, like a sarlacc that takes its sweet time to devour its prey. The azure crustaceans started digging trenches, to avoid being swept away by the waves. But they could breathe underwater.

Zee started running in the only possible direction: forward. Her heart was beating loud, loud, the panic almost turning into physical pain. She stumbled and fell and sniffled and rose and ran. Her legs hurt. A proper book character would have glimpsed the next island just on the verge of despair, and still found in them the strength to carry on. But Zee didn’t have the endurance. She ran too fast and then walked too slowly as she tried to recover her breath. She kept on hoping and panicking in a repetitive, boring, predictable emotional clutter that would have shamed literature. At one point her path simply sank, and she walked a hundred frightening meters through knee-deep waves, unseen and cold organisms brushing against her skin, until she reached an outgrowth of rocks that rose meters above the sea.

After a harsh climb, Zee saw that the path expanded some distance away into a sandy landmass covered by forest. She raced all the way to the beach, sliding face-forward in the dry sand, rolling over and waving her limbs to shape with her body an ‘angel’. Eventually the adrenaline trickled down, and she jolted back up, heart pounding, when a sound like the snapping of a flag flew over her. Zee turned.

It was a bird-equivalent. Its claws scritchy-scratched on seashells as it landed, its snapping black wings as wide as Zee’s arms and covered with small triangular feathers. On the ground, the massive bird seemed to use its fleshy tail as a walking stick. Zee was hypnotized by eyes staring her down from above the curved beak, black like the most precious of krayt dragon pearls. It hopped, awkwardly, towards the girl. It was a scavenger. In its experience, everything that was now alive would eventually be dead. It didn’t hurt to check.

Every now and then, it got tired of waiting and hastened the process.

Filled with an uneasy feeling she could not quite name, Zee crouched and stumbled backwards. With its hopping gait that would have seemed quite comical otherwise, the bird followed. The silence beat heavily in Zee temples. She could not tear her gaze away. With mechanical gestures, Zee slipped away from one of her soft beach slippers and unconsciously raised it in defense.

 

[Pyromaniac]

Many times, cyborgs will avoid three types of worlds: wet, sandy, or highly magnetic. Apparently someone thought that a cyborg girl with little emotion deserved to meditate on what it means to be a Jedi... on a beach. Alkestis was covered from her feet up to her neck in a white jumpsuit she had bought before coming here. The jumpsuit did not really impede her movements, but it would keep the majority of the sand and ocean spray from her cybernetics. Her speaker and rebreather, both repaired, were not covered. The little Padawan was standing on a beach, staring at the vast expanse of the ocean with mild curiosity.

How strange that she always seemed to be taken to warm worlds, when she was from a much more frozen one.

She had been standing still for so long that a seagull had taken to perching on her shoulder, and a few crabs scuttled past her feet. Alkestis did not move, until she noticed the tides rising. Blinking, she took a few steps back, the seagull taking off. The tides rose some more, and finally Alkestis concluded to find higher land. She walked along the inner edges of the beach she was on, trying to ignore the heat and focus on why she was here.

She had come here to train, to practice and think on the lessons Jaleer had taught her on Ryloth. Also, she was hoping to learn how to throw her lightsaber and catch it, or maybe levitate some coconuts. Either way, she had come here to better herself and find more about what it meant to be a Jedi. While thinking, she heard a small splash. Looking down, she noticed her foot was touching water, while the other one was on sand. The tides had risen drastically!

Alkestis began to climb the rocky wall to her left, to escape the water that would no doubt kill her if she allowed it. No one knew this, but Alkestis could not swim. Due to her cybernetics and frozen homeworld, swimming wasn't exactly taught to every Ayuutani child. Her cybernetics were water-proof, but being submerged by the ocean waters for extended periods of time? They wouldn't last, even if she could swim.

Once she reached the top, she scanned her surroundings. There was more sand, a lot more, but it became forest further in. Alkestis decided to wait and circle around, in hopes of finding a place to escape this island. She had come here thanks to a series of islands and land bridges, but with the tides rising as they are, she was sure it was sunk. Her only hope was that this island didn't sink completely, either. When she began her exploring, she didn't think to ask about the tides.

Before her came a curious site. A bird-like creature, using it's tail like a walking stick. It was making it's way towards what appeared to be a girl, using her slipper as a shield. The Ayuutani blinked in confusion. Were there more Jedi out here than she? Or was she just lost? Either way, Alkestis thought back to Jaleer's words, about how Jedi were there to protect others and defend. Perhaps... this is what he meant?

Deciding to test out her theory, Alkestis raised her hand and called forth a short, but painful burst of Force Lightning at the ugly creature. It hit, and the bird began to spasm and flop around on the sand in pain and surprise. Without much more delay, it took off, leaving the two girls alone. Alkestis walked towards the strange one, and said, "Did I... do what a Jedi would do?"

 

[Zee]

A gust of sand hit Zee in the face.

Her breathing had stopped. The alien bird was thrashing on the ground, its wings snapping like black paper fans. Zee saw sparks crawling across its harsh feathers. She saw the panic in its eyes. Without understanding. She didn’t trace the lightning thread back to the hands of the other girl. Not yet. She only saw movement, and a maddening silence. Her heart tightened to the size of a flea.

Communication -> Molecule -> Transmission -> Rabies, was going through the mathematician’s mind.

Then the bird flew away, gliding over the treetops, cawing rarely. Zee exhaled. Time, stretched to the maximum by the knife-edge moment, snapped back like a rubber band.

She heard the stranger before she saw her. Footsteps in the sand. A soft voice with a synthetic vibe. Droid? No, not likely. Zee’s eyes clung to the respirator with the candor of a child. Gar’phil wasn’t there to poke her about staring. She then looked down at her own entwining fingers. A blue slipper. The pieces of the story were all in her palms, she just had to put them together.

2 + 2 = 4.

Had a travelling narrator been near them on the beach, they would have noticed, as the waves kept crashing on the shore, how similar and yet different the girls looked. One appeared to be a child of technology, a white jumpsuit with a respirator; the other, in her long vaporous white outfit with the occasional flower print embroidered on the trousers, could have as well come from dark ages before space flight. A straw hat, tied with a thin chord around her neck, rested on her shoulder-blades.

“I am not the best person to ask.” Zee spoke. Her eyes fixed the air, as if fishing answers from between molecules. “Jedi respect all life in the galaxy, in any form it may take.” The first two fingers of each hand (one of which was still holding the slipper) raised to sketch quotation marks. “According to that, you did well, since all of the organisms involved did not suffer unnecessarily.”

She thoughtfully gnawed on her lower lip. Looked up. And chuckled.

“But it’s funny how much that depends on levels of sapience!”

In prey bird versus human, one didn’t necessarily side with the weakest combatant. But simply with the one who could hold a conversation.

‘Empathy?’ Zee mused in her mind. A cold wind enveloped her, making her hat twitch.

She shoved her wrist before her eyes, reading the equations written there with a queasy feeling. She’d forgotten something. She’d spoken too much. She’d forgotten…

“Are you a Sith?” Zee checked, pointing the slipper at the other girl. “I heard that Sith can be tricksy.” She seriously nodded. Gar’phil had warned her not to share too much of her new curriculum with strangers. She said they could be dangerous and even lie outright, could you believe that?

A thoughtful expression passed over her face.

“But even if you are a Sith,” Zee mused, “are you tricksy enough to know where the Jedi headquarters are? Hexacontagon is landed there. Gar’phil is going to be worried if I don’t make it in time for dinner.” Her voice hand an almost...pleading tone to it.

 

[Pyromaniac]

Alkestis blinked in confusion at this young girl. After the initial shock of seeing her, the girl quickly seemed to jump into a rather... strange form of mannerisms. The girl talked about the Jedi ideal not to hurt life unnecessarily- a strange and difficult act for the Ayuutani- all the while holding that slipper. Was it special? Alkestis was unsure, it appeared just to be a simple slipper. Was it made of some special material that would allow it's use as a weapon?

Highly doubtful.

Alkestis noticed their difference in dress. This girl was in an outfit that seemed old fashioned, but still adorable even by today's standards, while she herself was in her jumpsuit- a design that was functional and not so much 'cute'.

The girl shivered, and Alkestis wondered if she was cold. She had felt the wind, but it hadn't affected her that much. The young Padawan thought that as a Jedi, would she offer something to keep her warm? Looking around, Alkestis looked for something that would keep this girl warm, but other than burying her neck deep in sand, she really saw no way on this island.

"Excuse me, but did you want to be buried in sand?" Alkestis asked, tilting her head to the side like a puppy.

When the girl asked if she was a Sith, Alkestis frowned. The girl misspoke and said 'tricky' like 'tricksy'. Alkestis's mind suddenly had a large 'error, error, error...' pass through at the mispronunciation. She also had no idea who this Gar'phil-Garfield-Garfunkle was, but she did look around. Where were the Jedi Headquarters? She had walked here with the aid of the low tidal shifts, but now everything looked so different. She supposed she could make a compass, but that would have required her knowing which direction she had come from anyway.

"I was a Sith once, but now I am a Padawan. I do not know where the headquarters are... I was not paying attention when the water rose. I think your friend Garfunkle will be eating alone tonight, because I have no idea where we are right now." Alkestis's voice was monotone, but light, as if she were simply confused about their predicament.

A large coconut was in the sand two paces to her right, not far from where the bird creature had been. Alkestis walked over and picked up the coconut, clutching it to her chest, and turning to the strange girl in the sand, "I... don't like water. You can try and swim, but be weary of the carnivores. I think... I'll stay here... with this coconut, for a bit, until the tides change."

She had no idea when that would be, but having a coconut was better than being alone and waiting on the hot, sandy island for the water to recede.

 

[Zee]

Buried in sand?...

Zee’s eyes grew larger. She imagined that she could almost glimpse her own face in the girl’s brown eyes. She herself would be reflected in the eyes of the mirror image…and so on, to infinity. The tension in Zee’s shoulders crackled and dissolved. One kind of people in the entire universe would bury others in sand, as far as the secluded girl knew.

Pirates!

The corners of her mouth twitched.

“I never tried.” She shook her head, looking down. Failing to hide the big smile plastered on her face.

Anyone knew that pirates were awesome. Not the bad people that you heard about on Holonet news, but the Real pirates. They swung on ropes with knives in their teeth, found treasure, told the best stories and made the best ginger ale. Zee Irving knew all that, because her grandfather was a pirate, one feared on all the nine seas. He used to kidnap her each year when he attacked the port and carry her on his shoulders, as part of a beloved festival of the History Preservation Society.

But-

Zee’s mind stopped into a sound of stumbling gears.

-she didn’t like water?

Zee’s neurons elbowed each other awkwardly. Impossible. A pirate who didn’t like water was like a bird without wings. A Jedi-former-Sith-pirate who didn’t like water was even stranger. Zee turned to keep looking at the other girl. The Zelosian was too stupid to catch the concept of safety in numbers, just yet. She didn’t like to pay attention to people, and might have simply walked away had the setting been different. But Zee was tired, and pirates were awesome.

“Looks ticklish.” Zee said, gazing at the coconut fruit in the other girl’s arms. Imagining the texture of its fibrous husk under her palms. It made perfect sense: she had a slipper, and the stranger had a coconut. The slipper slipped back into the sand, and on her foot.

“I’m Zee, and I don’t think the carnivores would like me.” She spoke simply. There was the faintest accent on ‘carnivores’, but of course, a native of Zelos II was essentially a plant. “I don’t have a Jolly Roger, but could I stay with you?”

An idea germinated in her mind, its leaves glistening joyfully through Zee’s eyes.

“Would you…like to play a game?”

 

[Pyromaniac]

Alkestis tilted her head to the side again as she held her coconut. This girl was strange, she could tell already. She was smiling about being buried in the same. Was she not cold anymore? Next thing that happened was the girl said that her coconut looked ticklish. Alkestis blinked and looked down at the fruit and said, "Do coconuts on this planet feel ticklish? I thought they didn't feel anything."

When the girl said her name, Alkestis said, "I'm Alkestis, a pleasure to meet you, Zee. Did you want the carnivores to like you? I wouldn't." Alkestis noticed her accent, but couldn't place it. Why would the carnivores not like her, anyway? Wouldn't they just eat her? Or were things different on this planet?

The term 'Jolly Roger' stumped the Ayuutani. The gears were grinding in the girl's mind, but nothing was clicking. She finally asked, "What's... a Jolly Roger? And... what game? I don't know any games." The cyborg girl began to rub the coconut, oddly intrigued with the feeling of it's skin. Not once had she seen or touched one of these things before and it made her curious. What else was on this strange planet that was new to her?

 

[Zee]

“No, I meant…” Zee spoke, confused. Then she shook her head and clung to another thread of thoughts. “It could feel your hug, though. Your warmth, more exactly.” She took a few small steps closer, and nearly touched the coconut’s surface with the fingers of her right hand. “In a few hours.” She mumbled, and retreated. Plants were known for taking the time to think things through.

Under its shell, Zee imagined that she could sense a curled-up life like a held breath, anchored at the edge of an immense living ocean. That would have been the embryo and the liquid endosperm, or ‘coconut water’. Naturally, her impression was a mere placebo. Not real.

For Zee, to admit a Force sense was to perform the ritual suicide of her own safety.

“Plants can’t afford to be sense-less if they wish to germinate and survive.” She explained, as an after-thought. “True.” She later replied to the comment about predators.

Her eyes grew as big as tea-saucers.

“Uhm...”

Alkestis didn’t know what a Jolly Roger was! Or a game- No, it was so outlandish that Zee’s mind couldn’t quite grasp it. Even as she instinctively blocked off the meaning of the words, an uncomfortable feeling gnawed in the back of her mind. Had this been a mathematical problem, how could one solve it?

It was quite simple.

“A Jolly Roger-!” Zee enthusiastically exclaimed, raising her arm in a declamatory gesture, “is a flag, a symbol of the pirates who rule the seas! A mark of freedom!” She spun around. Her feet sketched a circle on the sand. She grinned. “Pirates are a bit like Jedi, in the sense that they can accomplish amazing things and form a community, but they’re more awesome. My grandfather once stole the horizon.” The girl spoke proudly. Try to see a Jedi accomplishing that! For a Zelosian, stories and factual reality didn’t often have the black-white distinction they held for others. No wonder that their planet had been called (by some of the few who even knew about its existence) the Land of Liars…

“If we’re pirates for today, then we’ll be safe. Even on a deserted island. Because everyone knows that pirates are the most fearsome beings on and near the sea.” Happily, she gestured. “The coconut could be a pirate too –“ Her index finger poked the air.“-a pet better than a monkey or a parrot. You could name it. But if you name it,” she spoke with an air of unraveling pirate tricks of the trade, “you can’t eat it.” Pirate rules: no cannibalism, ya scallywags! The girl’s eyes hesitated on the respirator, and she wondered if eating would have been possible in the first place.

Zee crouched, and leveled some sand with her forearm. She picked out the shells left in the newly-found space, then leveled again, leaving behind a flat square.

“Would you like a boardgame?” She asked, looking up. “It’s ancient. Older than the Jedi. Some say that it’s the most complex game in the galaxy, despite having laughably simple rules. Could you gather some shells, please? Dark and light. Or stones, if you find.” With the edge of a shell, Zee started drawing. Straight parallel lines ran from one side of the board to the other. Her precision would have rivaled a droid. Eventually, a grid of thirteen vertical and thirteen horizontal parallel lines would sprout on the sand. “Or shall we go exploring first?” She thoughtfully mused.

 

[Pyromaniac]

“A Jolly Roger-!” Zee enthusiastically exclaimed, raising her arm in a declamatory gesture, “is a flag, a symbol of the pirates who rule the seas! A mark of freedom!” She spun around. Her feet sketched a circle on the sand. She grinned. “Pirates are a bit like Jedi, in the sense that they can accomplish amazing things and form a community, but they’re more awesome. My grandfather once stole the horizon.”

"If we’re pirates for today, then we’ll be safe. Even on a deserted island. Because everyone knows that pirates are the most fearsome beings on and near the sea.” Happily, she gestured. “The coconut could be a pirate too –“ Her index finger poked the air. “-a pet better than a monkey or a parrot. You could name it. But if you name it,” the strange girl said, “you can’t eat it.”

As Alkestis tried to process all of this information, she had to stop petting the coconut. How could someone steal the horizon? The horizon was an optical illusion brought on by a planet's spherical shape, so how could someone just take it? The young Ayuutani was struggling with this, as the confusion on her partially obscured face was showing.

"Pirates... Most pirates I've met are free, yes, but they remind me more of Sith than Jedi... They take things, kill, for themselves... Jedi aren't supposed to do that... right?" If Alkestis was a droid, there would be sparks flying from her head in confusion. This girl... was strange. Alkestis was not sure she liked her logic, for it was impossible- even with the Heart- no one could steal the horizon. And to make a coconut a pirate? It couldn't do anything other than roll around or be used as a blunt instrument!

Does not compute, does not compute....

The girl suggested either playing a game, or exploring. Alkestis was indeed curious about this game, but after the literal mind scrambling she just underwent, she was afraid to learn a new game just yet. "We can gather the shells and stones, and play later... for now, we should find out where we are... and if we can get off this island. There may be carnivorous fauna that I would not like to meet. Plus... we need to prepare for the worst, if we are stuck..." Alkestis reached down with one hand to show the girl a large pocket on her left leg of the jumpsuit, "Please, proceed to place all shiny stones and shells in here to storage."

Alkestis would help, keeping the coconut under her right arm. She hadn't decided if she should name it as suggested, but she liked it.

---

OOC: I apologize for the wait time, RL has been killer!

 

[Zee]

“Then you must have met the wrong sort of pirates.” Zee spoke, with a knowing tilt of the head. “That’s why a Jolly Roger is essential. As for the Jedi-,“ She looked up, at the sky waving through the leaves of a palm. “-they are more indirect. They do plenty of things for themselves, but a whole galaxy may interpose in that sentence. They are guardians of peace; but what is good for others is indirectly good for the Order, in terms of recognition and help. Such as the very planet under our feet – a hide-out offered by the Bothans. And what is good for the Order is often indirectly good for the individual Jedi. I don’t mean that individual Jedi are necessarily aware of it, but I don’t think that makes my reasoning wrong. It may not be the most straightforward pattern, but it has perpetuated itself through millennia.”

If you modeled culture like species evolution, then would the Jedi code be equivalent of genes? And would the new Code represent useful mutations?

“What I don’t understand,” Zee added with a little frown, “is why both Sith and Jedi care about others so much. It seems such a bother,” she shrugged, “to either kill or protect.”

In the end, exploring it was. Zee nodded happily, and ran about to pick the nicest, smoothest pebbles and shells she could find. The exact direction didn’t matter. Whether the strategy would be to go round the shore or brave the jungle in order to get at higher ground, the Zelosian would tag along. After all, despite her earlier encounter with the scavenger bird, the concept of ‘carnivores’ didn’t elicit the smallest twinge of fear from the girl. It’s not that she was invincible. A predator could very likely maul her to death before it realized that it didn’t like the taste. However, Zee was simply stupid.

Incriminatory evidence: She stumbled twice in five seconds and fell with her face in the sand. Oh look, shiny! And it was just then that the words ‘prepare for the worst’ sunk in her mind. Zee gulped. That triggered a violent fit of coughing and spitting out a mouthful of sand (as well as a frightened, tooth-sized crab baby).

“Y-you mean that we’ll have to spend the night outside?” She coughed out, evidently frightened. “But the Roc-Crone Bird, and Ygratul the Many, and…and…” She flailed her arms, while struggling to stand back up. For the Zelosian, what others may have considered genuine threats were far less scary than the monsters living in the stories inside her mind.

“I think I may be able to tell apart some edible plants.” Zee spoke softly. “Would that help?”

She wasn’t confident. And it was a subject that could kill at a single mistake.

OOC: Don’t worry about it! I can’t write very fast either ^^’