sixthiterationlogs | under the stars i'm alone among strangers

WHO: Taako
WHERE: Around 6I
WHEN: First two weeks of September
OPEN TO: All
WARNINGS: None anticipated, will add if needed

Taako's not settled in. That would suggest he has some intention of relaxing and staying here. But he has finished hurling himself into all the obvious corners at high speed in hopes of finding a simple solution. Time to let those bruises fade and test his surroundings more carefully. And to find a place to actually live, so empty houses feature heavily in his prowling. He climbs a lot of trees in the hopes that the vantage point will make things clearer somehow. And to keep out of the way. He doesn't trust any of these people any more than he does their cute little prison.

Not particularly concerned with social graces--it's not like he ever has been--he sticks his head in wherever seems fair, poking around the inn and any other buildings that look public, accosts hapless passers by with "what's your story" or the occasional blunter "how've you tried to get out so far?"

And sometimes he does have to go have Taako time. He's found a fiddly little fishing setup. It's been a while since he fished, but he's pretty good at it, and it's always been a good way to sneak in a nap while ostensibly being productive. Naps happen a lot more now that he actually needs to sleep. Being a human sucks, and he's awful at judging how tired this stupid body is. (He's also walked into a few walls and trees when he forgets he can't see in the dark.)

Less relaxing but just as reassuring, he also takes up refreshing his very rusty swordsmanship. He hasn't needed it for years and he was never actually good. Just competent. When he has a sword, the other person is more likely to get hurt than Taako is, but the other options are just much better when there's not a horrible arcane dampening field over everything. The missing magic is vast and terrible and impossible to contemplate, hobbling Taako himself and potentially keeping any rescue attempts away. But he's dealt with that periodically, being out of spell slots and components, being up against it. The difference is he's...

He's alone again. The problem manifests consciously as no Magnus, but he's got lots of people he's hidden behind over the years. Even Sazed was... Well, he doesn't do so great without backup. That's just facts. Taako with a shortsword-sized stick versus a tree is a periodically amusing sight. He does more or less know what he's doing, approaches the combat like a saber fighter. He's graceful, if much too showy and not flexible enough in his stances, not a lot of strength behind any of the blows. The tree can take it.

He circulates a lot. Even for the Valley, it might be a bit odd to get used to the sight of the tiny man with three feet of braid dangling behind him, magenta scrubs somewhat inexpertly altered into a wrap skirt and an off-the-shoulder, half-length top. The fabric is crap and he's not used to sewing he can't assist with magic, but he doesn't hate the color and it's better than nothing. He may be stuck as a human with no hair products, but it'd be worse not to try. He's not giving an inch, here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Maybe because you have people to look for you, they will find you," Baze offers, though he's not great at reassurance. Or hope, for that matter. He knows there's no one to look for him, but other people surely do have people who would miss them, right? This one apparently does. "Especially if they are used to things as strange as dying nineteen times and checking celestial things." What the kriff is an astral plane?

"It was a couple of separate special circumstances, but basically there were some minor snafus with time, realities, and planar systems, but it's a whole thing with the Raven Queen--I mean, she is in charge of the natural passage of life and death, so, like, pet peeve? So we ended up on the bounty list as errant souls and then we didn't remember shit at the time and it was a whole deal. But if there are other people here who are supposed to be dead, I like to think that'd show up in the Big Book of Naughty Ghosts to Get Spooky on." He wishes now he'd asked for a bit more detail.

"No, Bodhi and I are definitely supposed to be dead," Baze agrees, glad now for his experience with both Bodhi and Chirrut, because that sure was a ramble. "Grenades exploded on us. I have never heard of the Raven Queen, though. For us, dead is just dead, unless you have enough connection to the Force to spread out into it and become part of everything else."

"Hard to argue with a grenade." Taako's not seen a lot of explosive ordinance, coming as he does from worlds with magical ways to make things blow up and be on fire, but it comes up once in a while. "It ain't that dead ain't dead, if you follow, it's that if you find a loophole like, y'know, usually being a lich or something undeadly like that, RQ gets all bent outta shape about you not showing up for the usual dead guy stuff."

"So you think she will come here to look for us," Baze summarizes. "Or you hope she will." Well, after all, he won't complain about someone showing up to bust them all out of here. Even being dead is better than being stuck here with no purpose, no way out, and no Chirrut. (Mostly, anyway. There are a couple better things than being dead and alone. But not terribly many.)

"Probably not her personally. We haven't actually met." He suspects Krav is a little nervous about introducing him around the... He's not really clear if it's more or an office or a home or a really magical rec center. Gods are not his area of expertise. "Though I have hung out with Istus, so, like, if the Lady of Fate has any sway? Is it weirder to only know one goddess or none?"

"Any gods at all is strange enough for me," Baze comments, shaking his head. "The Force is all there is where I come from. And there is no proof of that, nothing to see or speak to, so it may as well not exist." The man who has met gods conversing with the man who believes in nothing. Fun, right?

The Force would not be a particularly hard idea for Taako to get his head around, but his own experience suggests a few questions of his own. "Which one?" He's used to tons of complex, interacting forces. Arcana and science and bonds in all their multifaceted and intertwining variations are the background of his life. The Force could be a localized name for any or all or some specific subset of one.

"Which one? The one. The one that supposedly binds everything together, flows through everything, and can be used and manipulated if you have the skill and the faith to do it. Or used to be able to." Baze shrugs. "The Jedi were all slaughtered when I was still a young man, so it didn't protect them like it should have."

"Sounds celestially arcane? But don't quote me." When people aren't specific, working out the structures and functions of the magic that belongs to other worlds has always been a headache. And if this guy's not a practitioner, well, how many people think a witch, wizard, and sorcerer are the same thing, after all?

"Since 'celestial' means nothing to do with religion and everything to do with space, and 'arcane' just sounds like it means old, I will not quote you," Baze tells him dryly. The joys of specialized jargon from a completely different world, right? "Are you done wanting to attack trees or other people?"

"Celestial's the plane the gods chill on, brosef. Can't help you with that. I've been to space. Whole other dealio." But that's probably just more confusion. He shrugs and nods toward the tree. "I think the tree and me have worked out our mutual aggression."

under the stars i'm alone among strangers

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