Ask Adventures In Jakku

[Ezra Thorne]

Ezra breathed properly for the first time when the blurrg was blasted off them. He could barely enjoy the relief when Kieran began tugging on the sleeve of his broken arm, “Shut up!” Ezra hissed, speaking in a low whisper, “There are things down here!” He said with slight panic in his voice. He didn’t dare switch on his flashlight, so they would have to temporarily navigate in the dark. Fortunately, he had super hearing, which would be instrumental in the cave.

He reached out to grab Kieran with his intact arm to keep them from being separated, “Can you walk?” He asked quietly. Ezra began to get up, learning quickly that Kieran had a gimp leg. With a curse, he tossed the other Padawan’s arm around his shoulder to lean on him for support. The sounds of the other vexis began to rapidly grow. Ezra picked up the pace, half stumbling and lumbering through the darkness. He was focused strictly on going in the opposite direction of approaching noise.

Ezra took a turn and couldn’t hear any immediate noises here, so he finally reached down to switch on the flash light. The light revealed an underground tunnel that opened up into a large room. He squinted to look, hobbling over while helping Kieran. After getting a little closer, the light revealed there were rows upon rows of giant eggs.

“Oh…fuck…”

@Malon

 

[Kieran Nomar]

All the stumbling wasn't helping. Kieran hung onto Ezra, but the pain in his leg was too sharp to focus on the calming presence of the Force, and without Thorne's super-hearing or any way to see, he constantly got his foot jammed on rocks or bone left in the vexis nest. And then he made the worst mistake of all.

His good leg landed on something soft and brittle and punched right through it into a warm fluid. It felt rather like an eggshell. And when Ezra flipped his flashlight on, sure enough, it was an eggshell. A snake eggshell.

Rustling behind them.

"Fuck!" Kieran cursed.

Of all the goddamn times to not have a lightsaber. He just had to lose his during the evacuations on Yavin, and it didn't look like Thorne had one of his own yet. They were both unarmed. Defenseless. If he somehow managed to crawl out of this hole, he was going to claw Kaisa's eyes out for sending him on this mission so unprepared.

Something hissed in the darkness and Kieran froze. Whatever had made this nest had come back. He wracked his brain for a solution, though he knew in the end there was only one.

"Ezra, you've gotta get out of here," he whispered tensely, as if it mattered how quiet he was. The vexis was so close already. "You've still got both your legs. I can't run. I'll try to buy you some time."

How he was going to do that he did not know. All he knew was that someone had to get back to the others, and their best bet was Ezra.

@Sreeya

 

[Ezra Thorne]

Kieran was a rancor in a china shop. Anytime he heard anything, Ezra gripped Kieran tighter to keep him from stepping into some new bullshit. Of course, none of that kept Kieran from stepping right into an egg. There was a moment of silence where both teens just quietly stared at Kieran’s foot in the egg with Ezra’s flashlight shining on it. No words needed to be said, but both were crying internally.

When Kieran suggested Ezra get out, he blinked a few times. Was this a test? Oh well, “Yeah that sounds logical,” Ezra said simply. It was true - Kieran couldn’t walk and he could. It didn’t make sense for them both to sit around here. He helped set the other Padawan down and started walking off without a second thought.

Ezra heard a vexis approach towards where Kieran was but he told himself the padawan could handle it. He had been a Jedi longer, right? Some part of that simply didn’t sit right with him, but Ezra kept walking. He was so inside his own head that he completely missed the hissing noises of the vexis he practically stumbled into. It was bigger and nastier than any of the others and it began to rear its head to prepare an attack.

Ezra was backed into a corner and he knew he was moments from death. However, instead of panicking, he desperately called for the Force. He closed his eyes and focused. He could hear the hissing, but everything seemed to slow down. He could hear the faint pulse of a heartbeat, and he realized it was not his own but that of the vexis. He could see the snake in a different plane, begin to see its mind, its thoughts. It was the Force in a way he hadn’t experienced it, but it surged through him powerfully in his moment of desperate need. The beast recoiled slightly, preparing to lunge again. Ezra didn’t budge, remaining standing where he was, still navigating through that alternate plane of existence where he could move through the fabric of the Force and into the creature’s psyche.

Meanwhile, Kieran would feel completely and utterly doomed. He was left for dead in the dark and could hear hissing and movement rapidly approaching him. By now, he could probably make out faint outlines and would see a vexis cornering him.

That was when there was a rumble from a distance, the sounds of parts of the tunnels collapsing resounding. Kieran would see faint rays of light as the surface from far above allowed some sun through. Emerging from the opposite tunnel was the biggest Vexis Kieran had seen yet. The beast reared up and bared its fangs.

But then it turned to hiss at the other vexis that was about to strike Kieran. The vexis shrank down, and slithered away. This left Kieran alone with the massive vexis focusing its attention on him. The snake stood poised to attack, but it didn’t move forward. That was when Ezra’s head leaned far to the left from behind the snake to reveal that he was actually mounted on its back. He had a smug grin on his face, “I’ll even let you ride in front this time,” He said with a wink.

nat fucking 20

@Malon

 

[Kieran Nomar]

Ezra.

Ezra riding a snake. Kieran couldn't believe it. He was so stunned, so convinced he was about to die, that he burst into a hysterical fit of laughter before reaching a hand up to have the other Padawan help him onto the vexis' back. "I owe you... several," he chuckled. Because he owed Ezra far more than just one after saving his life in such a dramatic fashion.

Riding the snake was not like riding a blurrg. Its skin was rougher, easier to sit on, and it didn't buck around as much. Kieran wanted to know how he did this. What kind of Force power did you need to tame such a beast? He decided it didn't matter. They were safe now, and the pain in Kieran's leg — while still formidable — was at least a dull ache. He would need to get it set and fixed so it didn't heal wrong, but it wasn't unsalvageable.

"I wonder what happened to the others," he said, voicing a thought he had had since they first fell into the quicksand. The vexis could take them out of the tunnels now, so they should try to learn what happened to them. He tried to focus on the Force, but either he sucked at that too or he simply couldn't feel them. "They don't seem to be close by anymore. I can't feel anything from either of them."

And while he was thankful that meant he wouldn't emerge into sunlight to shrieking or a girl playing with shit, he was concerned. What if something had happened to them too? He highly doubted either one of them could make it out of a vexis nest. If he had not been with Ezra, he wouldn't have made it out either.

@Sreeya

 

[Ezra Thorne]

Before long, the Vexis burst out from the tunnels and into the surface. The blinding sun made Ezra squint from the shock of it. The snake came to a pause as he willed it. He used his one good arm to look on his NalPhone for the nearest outpost. Sweat was rolling down his face, and he unbuttoned a few more buttons of his shirt, “Niima outpost,” He said, “Let’s go there and get some bacta. Then we can try and figure out what happened with the girls.”

Ezra had no desire to investigate what happened with Ciri or Lia. He hoped they simply got lost and abandoned the mission. No doubt they would all find each other back on Ithor again. However, he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was seriously off. Something terrible had happened, and it had nothing to do with Ezra and Kieran’s misfortunes.

“Hold on!” He shouted to Kieran right before the vexis dove into the sand yet again. They were back in the tunnels, the snake rapidly streaking through the caverns towards the outpost. It didn’t take them too long to arrive, the vexis bursting out again. This time Ezra hopped off, helping Kieran climb down with his one good leg. The snake would scare off anyone at the outpost, so he released it from his hold.

“How, exactly, were you going to ‘hold them off’ while I got out?” Ezra finally asked as he walked towards the outpost while letting Kieran use him for support.

@Malon

 

[Kieran Nomar]

Kieran was hoping that Ezra wouldn't ask him that question. Not just because now that he was safe, he felt humiliated at being so useless, but because the answer was even more humiliating. But he couldn't manage the energy to bluster. The missing girls were at the forefront of his mind. They hadn't seen any sign of them on the way to Niima and he was beginning to fear something had happened to them.

"I wasn't," he confessed. "Even if I managed to summon the Force again, they would've killed me. I knew that." I thought you did too. He had almost been relieved Ezra had left and didn't stay around to fight him over it. It was good enough to know at least one of them had survived. "I figured if they were distracted with, you know, me they wouldn't go after you and you'd be able to get out. Find the girls, maybe." He scanned the outpost for any sign of them from his place at Ezra's side. "But now it looks like you would've been the only one left."

He spotted a stalled with several dusty containers of bacta. He heard mending broken bones with bacta was... painful, but doable. Couldn't be more painful than what he was currently dealing with. Only problem was, he didn't have any credits. Once again, useless. "Over there," he inclined his head so Ezra could see the stall. "That big alien has a few vials."

While Ezra was dealing with the bacta, Kieran continued to scan the outpost market. There were an unusual number of Gamoreans about. He didn't know the pig-aliens came this far into the Inner Rim. "Since when did they get here?" he asked, trying to make idle conversation. "Don't they usually hang around Hutt palaces."

"There is one," the alien running the stall said, and pointed one fat finger at the mountainous Star Destroyer crashed on the horizon. "In there. Moved in years ago. Converted the whole thing into a palace."

@Sreeya