Ask Superstition

[Soleil Altan]

Mixed academy field trip! Usually something Sol looked forward to even if some of them were basically mandatory. He liked seeing new things, plain and simple. Problem with this trip, in particular, was that it was to Moraband which, yes, very cool, very historic. But also hot and dry. Not comfortable for his Wrean physiology and very limiting on the fit choices.

Luckily not so hot he couldn't wear normal clothes, though. They were supposed to be 'respectful' so he had an actual Drommund Kaas-standard acolyte's tunic and pants on along with a ton of high-SPF, moisturizing sunscreen across every inch of his skin. Even his curly surfer-boy hair was a bit closer to what the ancient history teacher considered 'appropriately neat'. Batty bitch.

For the moment he distracted himself from physical discomfort by going over the history of the day's subject on a datapad and sipping water every few minutes. Even had a couple of spare containers on his belt. They were primarily there to see the Valley of the Dark Lords- under strict supervision, of course- and examine the Dark Nexus of the many dead and buried Sith for themselves. A peek into the Dark Side is how it was advertised. Right now though they were waiting for the guide to show up.

Sol glanced up while taking another sip of water and spotted a familiar face- Altair, he was pretty sure. Last Sol'd seen the Tiefling in person he'd been charging out of a party. He'd tried to send a box of snacks his way but he didn't think they even went to the same academy. Sol scooted over toward him and quickly caught on to the fact Altair was being taunted at by a similarly jacked-looking Feeorin jackass. What a start to the trip, he thought as he sidled closer to the commotion.

@Sreeya

 

[Altair Din]

“Come on, you just gonna stand there?” The feeorin kept taunting Altair. The tiefling, meanwhile, silently kept walking. His mind was preoccupied with thoughts of what was going to happen to him with the Wildfire mess. Sweat lined his body and it had nothing to do with the weather. Altair felt sick to his stomach, and his mouth was completely dry. He needed another hit, but he didn’t even know where to get it.

“Fuckin’ pussy!” The Feeorin called out, slightly out of earshot of the teacher. Altair turned to look at him, the alien definitely bigger than the tiefling. What did he have to lose, anyway? Once he was stripped of the Force, he would be kicked out in the end regardless. The Feeorin opened his mouth to say something, but never got the words out.

A curled fist came sailing in abruptly, charged powerfully with the Force. It collided harshly with the Feeroin’s jaw, but it packed enough force to send him tumbling back. He tripped over a rock and bodily fell to the ground with a thud. His friends stepped back in shock, not having expected such a solid punch from a smaller guy than the Feeorin.

“What’s going on back there?!” The teacher screeched, storming back up to the class. She spotted Sol first, grabbing him and pulling him aside.

“What did you see?!” The teacher was well aware the boy was mute and waited for Sol to type out what was observed.

Altair simply rolled his eyes and looked away, crossing his arms over his chest. Feeorin’s friends almost opened their mouths but the tiefling shot them a glare.

@Mr. Teatime

 

[Soleil Altan]

Sol successfully slipped his way closer to see what was up just about in time to watch Altair clean the Feeorin's clock like it was his job. Goddamn, he pounded that Feeorin's face so bad that Sephi chick who hung around him was gonna be jealous. There was probably some hyperbole in there but boy did Feeorin and his friends not expect to be eating dirt today.

Now, Sol generally avoided getting in trouble with teachers, in part because he seemed like a nice, quiet mute kid. So when a teacher snatched up him, yelling all the while, he started, wide-eyed as could be. Batty lady was screaming in his face asking what happened and, of course, Sol had to get his smartpad out. The quiet tip-tap-tip of him typing away totally didn't work with the tense vibe of what just happened. He glanced at the Feeorin mid-type, noting the pretty obvious bruising already forming.

After a few seconds, he awkwardly held it up between his face and the teacher's like a shield so she could read it. Keln tried to fight Altair and got punched, ma'am. Then he tripped. Short, sweet, simple, not entirely untrue. Dude had it coming. Some people just needed to get punched a bit and Sol wasn't gonna try and convince Ye Olde Batty Teacher that the nasty blue-red mark on the Feeorin's jaw was from falling over. Some kind of punishment was probably inevitable.

The teacher whipped around so fast Sol thought her stick-thin legs might catch fire from the friction and stomped over to the group, already screaming again. "Getting into fights in the Valley!?" she yelled, the last word squeaking up several octaves from sheer, impotent rage. "You lot get to the front!" They grumbled, knowing for sure they'd probably end up carrying stuff or the teacher. "And you, Soleil!" He jumped again at being addressed, trying to disguise his displeasure with her pronouncing his name 'So-layl'. "Make sure that one doesn't get in any more trouble, you hear me!?"

Yeah, Sol fucking heard her. He was pretty sure the ghosts in their tombs could, too. Feeorin-guy and his friends shuffled off, looking back with dagger eyes at Altair as Sol scooted his way up to what was apparently now his job. Altair looked really, really sweaty. He never looked sweaty. Weren't Devaronians like, heatproof?

The silent acolyte shuffled in front of the Tiefling and offered him a water canteen with a sheepish look.

@Sreeya

 

[Altair Din]

Altair glared when he realized Sol mentioned a fight at all. He could’ve simply said the stupid Feeorin tripped and that was it, but the bits about a fight implicated him. A surge of anger went through him, but he said nothing about it. He tried to recall if the kid was at that party, but he couldn’t remember. His mind was in a fog most of the time that night.

Feeling pissed about needing a babysitter, he stuffed his hands in his pockets and began to follow behind the group. His gaze flicked over a few times towards the Feeorin, plotting ways to shut him in a tomb without anyone noticing. The tiefling heard Sol walk up near him, and he glanced over at the water canteen. Altair was still salty about being implicated in a fight and this kid was acting like everything was chummy. Without warning, he reached out and slapped the canteen out of his hand.

“Report that to the teacher too,” He said icily before he strode right past Sol, stuffing his hands back in his pockets. There was no doubt he was on edge, and his mood had considerably soured. He would need another morphine shot soon, and he had to do it discreetly.

“Now here we have the tomb of Lord Aries!” The teacher called out, pointing out the tomb in question which had a cavelike entrance, “Who can tell me about this Lord?”

@Mr. Teatime

 

[Soleil Altan]

The canteen was slapped out of his hand and Soleil rolled his eyes with such intensity an observer might think they were about to leave his head entirely. He bent down to get it and took a couple of short gulps from it before following near Altair. Wasn't his fault something crawled up the dude's ass and guided his hand into Keln's face. A classmate feuding with his dickhead ex was just what Soleil needed in this Chaos forsaken weather.

Besides, could've hit him in the stomach where it wasn't stupidly visible. Luckily there were other things besides sweaty Tieflings and the sun to occupy his attention as they arrived at the entrance to a tomb. Sol was taken in by some of the symbols around the entrance. At least until one of Keln's buddies chucked a pebble at Altair's head while the teacher wasn't looking. Soleil's hand shot up to catch it- just about when the teacher was asking people to tell her about Lord Aries.

"Go ahead, Soleil," the teacher said, interpreting his raised hand as volunteering. Fuck. Soleil was not ready for this question and had no goddamn idea who the hell Lord Aries was, expression nonplussed. Habitually he pocketed the pebble and, with a resigned sigh, typed an answer on his smartpad that text-to-speech read out in a bored, monotonous voice. A Gotal Sith Lord?

Sol thought it was a clever guess. The teacher didn't, though, looking both disappointed and personally affronted. "Well! Since you clearly need a reminder, you can find out for yourself!" And that's how Soleil got sentenced to Tomb Exploration for being a smartass. Altair got sent with him because he, quote, 'Looked like he was plotting trouble'. They were to rejoin the group after finding something of worth inside and they 'learned a lesson'.

Well at least it was shady, Sol convinced himself in an attempt at optimism. Wary of outbursts, he kept a bit out of the Tiefling's reach. "My bad," said the text-to-speech voice in an attempt at an olive branch. This one actually was entirely Sol's bad.

@Sreeya

 

[Altair Din]

Altair had promptly forgotten about his babysitter, his focus solely on Keln and his buddies. He conveniently began to drift from the group to move a bit closer towards them to find ways to sabotage them. While Keln glared at him, his buddies shot Altair nervous glances. The tiefling grinned at this, even blowing one of the guys a kiss just to piss them off. He came to a stop when the class paused before the tomb.

The tiefling looked at the teacher when she asked a question, half expecting to be called on. He generally was picked on for stupid questions because he often got in trouble. This time, however, the mute boy volunteered because of course he did. Altair stared, bored, at the teacher as Sol text to speech’d his answer. Right away he could tell the teacher was irked. The revelation caused a bit of a snicker.

Altair stood there with a smug look as Sol was sent into the tomb before he was promptly reminded that the two were stuck together. The expression was wiped off his face like an egg had cracked on his face and slowly oozed off. His cheeks burned hot as Keln and his buddies snickered behind him.

The tiefling entered the tomb, scowling the entire time. In the middle of the dark tomb, he heard Sol’s robo text to speech comically cut through the air. Altair glared even more at that, still furious about being in here which he blamed on the dude for not being able to bullshit an answer or pretending he didn’t see anything, “Man, shut up,” He missed the irony of telling a mute boy to shut it.

He had to duck to get through the tomb, unable to see anything for a bit until the hall opened up wider. Altair looked around the walls, spotting a few carvings and markings in ancient Sith. Of course, he slept through most of his ancient Sith classes.

To his great dismay, the path got even narrower a few steps in and there was a very small tunnel that would require actually crawling through. With a huff, Altair struggled for a bit to get his horns in, causing some of the top to fall in debris around them a bit. He finally got in and began to army crawl through the dirt shaft. After a few seconds he paused, squinting as he gazed out the other end.

“The fuck?” He could be heard whispering if Sol was behind him, “I think there’s something..moving up there..”

@Mr. Teatime

 

[Soleil Altan]

Sol adopted a wry expression. Did this just dude just tell a mute kid to shut up? He got the idea, but still. He made a face and gestured dismissively from behind the Tiefling. Quickly though he busied himself looking at the ancient wall art, slightly reflective eyes scanning over them. With a little help from his smartpad's light, of course. One particular bit of imagery he even took a picture of before putting the pad away.

From what Sol could tell, there were a number of warnings about trespassing- standard in every tomb, let's be real, it was like the first thing students learned- and something about vengeful demons. It was all worn down by age and looters, plus there were some symbols Sol just didn't know. He was still taking the classes for it.

He eventually left the wall and sped up a bit to catch up to Altair, who was very busy trying to squeeze himself into a tight hole. Sol wondered if he was used to this kinda stuff, and sure enough, he managed to navigate his head inside in spite of the horns. The silent acolyte, right behind him, got his hair showered in grave dust and shook it out like a wet dog, looking aggrieved. He had a much easier time following. While the view was pretty good, every time the Tiefling's horns scraped the tunnel's top Sol got a fresh coating of dust.

Just as Sol was pushing down the urge to sneeze Altair whispered something about movement. Sol tried to get a look, squashing his cheek against the tunnel's side to peek under the other acolyte. Yup, movement in the shadows of the next chamber. It sort of hopped, a gentle brush of little feet on stone. As it came a little closer it was, quite obviously but all accounts, an ordinary gizka.

But then it took another couple short hops toward them and was definitely not a gizka. Sol froze in place, eyes widening. Without warning the horror-gizka lurched forward with a gurgling screech, sprinting on its weird, gangly legs toward the tunnel-bound acolytes. Sol jerked upwards in alarm and knocked his head against the tunnel ceiling, grit his teeth, and pushed his hand forward in what little free space there was between Altair's ass, tail, and the wall.

As the gizka-thing leapt forward to try and see what Tiefling face tasted like it froze in midair, legs still working like it was trying to air-walk.

@Sreeya

 

[Altair Din]

Altair yelped as the weird creature lunged at him. As a result, he abruptly backed up in the little tunnel, probably knocking Sol over with his ass and tail, whichever reached him first. Naturally this would break the other acolyte’s focus and land them both in a mess, “Go back go back!” Altair hissed, his horns collided up against the tunnel’s ceiling. This caused a soft rumble, bits of debris falling behind them.

“Fuck, move forward move forward!” He yelled as he channeled the Force to blast it forward, sending the thing flying back. Altair used the opportunity to quickly crawl the rest of the way and tumble out. He would actually turn and physically yank Sol out as well because hell no was the kid getting out of this when he landed them in this mess.

The tiefling looked back, ready to fight, but there was nothing there. Altair’s eyes widened, his fists up near his face in a defensive posture.

“....Where did it go?” He asked suspiciously, “You did see it right?” He looked at Sol, “I didn’t make that shit up!”

@Mr. Teatime

 

[Soleil Altan]

Simplifying matters, and to Soleil's displeasure, it was both ass and tail that knocked him over. He bounced off the wall and scrambled backward, becoming increasingly uncomfortable in the tightly confined space with every passing moment. Sol scrabbled away back where they'd come and away from the blade-ended tail whipping in the tunnel, keeping a safe distance in case Altair changed his mind a third time. His caution got him unceremoniously dragged from the tunnel, from which he rolled like a ragdoll, flopping onto his back and looking at the ceiling with an expression of almost serene discontent for that brief moment.

He questioned his life choices. His new headache went great with the stinging left arm pain where Altair's tail'd whipped it. Green eyes looked around the dark as hell chamber as he got back up. Sol's eyes met Altair's and he shrugged, then nodded in agreement, motioning to his eyes and then making an 'OK' sign in case that wasn't clear. He could see in the dark, this was fine. Totally fine.

Searching around while slowly getting to his feet, he didn't see or hear a godsdamn anything. Right up until he did, since the thing was sprint-hopping toward him from the direction Altair'd launched it. Soleil flinched backward in abject alarm and raised his left arm like a shield. The creature's gross little mouth latched onto the limb before Sol could do something else in time, so he went for option two. Which here meant headbutting the fuck out of it, throwing it onto the ground with a wet slur-smack, and kicking it like the galaxy's most disgusting football.

It emitted a sound somewhere between an indignant frog's croak and a deflating balloon as it bounced and rolled away over near Altair. Between getting chucked into the far wall by Altair and now bludgeoned, it was quite stunned. But, regretfully, still alive. Why did someone make this? Why?

@Sreeya