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Post by goblingirl on Aug 30, 2006 11:03:48 GMT -5
Well, Lucy and Obi-Wan and Xanden and Astaldin are probably trustworthy, and although my opinion of Ashara is low, she's not VERY likely do anything TOO stupid, but everyone else is suspect.
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Post by Hobbit-eyes on Aug 30, 2006 17:27:39 GMT -5
That's a pretty good way to look at it ;D
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Post by goblingirl on Aug 31, 2006 5:11:52 GMT -5
It's the way I look at life.
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Post by goblingirl on Aug 31, 2006 8:31:24 GMT -5
Update!
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Post by Hobbit-eyes on Sept 1, 2006 6:21:42 GMT -5
*sigh* If you insist...
“SETHAN!”
Astaldin ran into the room after Xanden, and saw him tearing a white-haired boy away from Ashara. The boy fell back, blinking and looking extremely confused, while Ashara, eyes still closed, crumpled to the ground. Astaldin ran and knelt down beside her, turning her face towards the light, but her eyes were still closed.
He heard Xanden ignite his lightsaber, and turned to see him pointing it towards the fallen white-haired boy, who still looked extremely disoriented. Hot rage burned in Xanden’s voice as he advanced on him saying, “You rat, thinking you’d just sneak on here while we’re outside – what on Valorius were you doing to her?? Lucy sensed you, sensed psychic power in here-”
Ashara still didn’t move. “Xanden,” said Astaldin desperately, “She won’t wake up.”
Xanden looked back at her, and Astaldin saw fury contorting his features. His head snapped back to Sethan, and he yelled, “What did you do?”
“Xanden!” Lucy and Obi-Wan appeared in the doorway. Obi-Wan put a hand on Xanden’s shoulder, pulling him back, while Lucy moved in front of Sethan, igniting her own lightsaber, her face icily calm.
Obi-Wan crouched down beside Astaldin. “What’s wrong with her?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” said Astaldin helplessly, “Xanden and I just came in, I didn’t see – Xanden pulled them apart before-”
“He was standing right in front of her,” growled Xanden, “with his hands on her head. They both had their eyes closed. He was using psychosis on her, Force knows what he was doing!!”
“I was just,” panted Sethan on the floor, “talking to her.”
Lucy angled her lightsaber so that the point was only inches from his face. “Your voice suddenly not good enough for you?” she said, her voice cold, “Or were you expecting her to run away for some reason?”
“Well, with you telling her I was evil, I didn’t know what to expect!” said Sethan angrily.
“You ARE evil!” yelled Xanden, striding up to him, “We know what you did!”
“You don’t know anything!” shot back Sethan.
“Why won’t she wake up?” asked Obi-Wan calmly, and Astaldin got the idea he was trying to pacify the situation.
Sethan took in a deep breath, held it, and let it out. “Because someone tore me away from her, breaking the physical connection before I could sever the mental one,” he said angrily, “She’s lost in her own mind. She doesn’t have experience, it’ll be near impossible for her to find her way out on her own. If you’ll just let me -” He started to get to his feet.
“You’re not going anywhere near her!” yelled Xanden, pushing him back down, “Lucy, kill him.”
“‘Lost in her own mind’?” said Lucy, ignoring Xanden, “Never heard of that happening before.”
“Yeah, well, my abilities are kinda rare,” snapped Sethan.
“Now, that tone won’t get you anywhere,” tutted Lucy,
“Lucy! Kill him!” ordered Xanden.
“When did you start giving us orders?” demanded Obi-Wan, getting to his feet.
“When no-one will see sense!! Why are we still talking about this? This thing is evil – we’ve been hunting him down and now he’s right here, defenceless - and we’re just standing around chatting!”
“He might be the only one able to save Ashara!” said Obi-Wan.
“Who cares? She’s not important!”
Sethan was suddenly on his feet. The look of cold rage on his face was so intense that everyone fell silent. “You,” he said slowly, “are very very lucky. Because if I had wanted to…” He looked slowly round at them all. “…I could have killed you all already. I have every reason to. And yet I don’t. Because I want you to know two things. One, I have done nothing to harm Ashara, and never want to. And Two… never assume that someone is defenceless just because they’re not armed.”
Astaldin stared in astonishment as an invisible force suddenly threw Lucy, Obi-Wan and Xanden into the air and crashing into the opposite wall. Sethan looked down at him, and he saw his eyes were burning with icy fire. He looked at him for a second, glanced down at Ashara, and then strode out the door.
A few seconds later, Xanden was back on his feet and sprinting out the door after him. Lucy and Obi-Wan scrambled up a little slower.
“Are you all right?” asked Obi-Wan.
“Yeah,” said Astaldin bitterly, “But there goes any chance of helping Ashara…”
“Don’t be too hard on Xanden,” said Lucy.
“Why not? He’s an idiot!”
“That he is. But… this is personal for him. Sethan killed his parents.”
Astaldin stared, and Obi-Wan nodded. “He’d been hunting them for months. Han and Leia knew they were in danger, and sent him to Dagobah to be raised by Yoda. But Sethan found out. He killed Yoda and kidnapped Xanden when he was only six. Han and Leia came to rescue him, and… he killed them in front of him. He made him watch. He was going to kill Xanden too, but our dad Luke arrived at the last moment…”
Xanden reappeared in the doorway. Before his face had been contorted with rage, but now it was utterly expressionless. This dead emptiness disturbed Astaldin more than the anger.
“He got away,” he said in a hollow voice, “He just vanished.”
“We’ll find him-” began Lucy, but Xanden cut in sharply,
“Don’t – just don’t talk to me.” He walked away.
Obi-Wan, Lucy and Astaldin were left in awkward silence. Astaldin looked back at Ashara. She could have been sleeping – she looked peaceful.
“Trapped in her own head…” he said thoughtfully, “I wonder what it’s like in there?”
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Post by goblingirl on Sept 1, 2006 15:54:57 GMT -5
Ahh...finally, we hit true angst.
More?
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Post by Hobbit-eyes on Sept 1, 2006 18:41:45 GMT -5
I thought it had been somewhat lacking. Anyway, here's some more, since I'm going away for a few days....
Ashara was sitting alone in the room, thinking hard. It was somehow very simple in here – clearly because she was away from any distractions. Which was good, because she had a lot of thinking to do.
She could no longer believe that Sethan was evil. He could be lying of course, trying to get her on his side, but for now she chose to trust him. She remembered what Lucy and the others had told her about him, but she couldn’t bring herself to believe it. Maybe she didn’t want to. But whatever he might have done in the past, Ashara didn’t think that he was up to anything now, or trying to kill her. He’d had too many opportunities by now.
As for Valistar, he had drugged her and treated Sethan terribly – but could he, like Lucy and the others, just see him as an evil psychopath? If they could be mistaken, surely Valistar could be as well. She expected Xanden at least would behave similarly if he had Sethan as a captive. But then why did he drug her? Sethan said that it was because Valistar himself was evil, and that he wanted her to forget seeing him; but why? Unless he was working for whoever was after the Rings…
She frowned. If he was working for someone, why did they choose him? If he was working alone, how would he have access to the kinds of Dark Magic needed to release Morgoth? He would have seen from the moment she arrived that she didn’t have Adyra; why didn’t he just kill her or send her home then? What else would he want with her?
She wondered what had happened to Sethan. She guessed somehow their connection had been broken – perhaps the others had returned and found them. It crossed her mind that perhaps he’d deliberately left her there, but quickly ignored it. She just hoped the others didn’t do anything to him, but thought with a sinking heart that that was quite unlikely.
She had to wake herself up and stop them. But she had no idea how. She had tried the window out onto the plain, but it wouldn’t move. She wasn’t sure she’d dare to go out anyway.
That only left the door into her memories. Perhaps – perhaps if she found a strong enough one, that would wake her up? Or perhaps she’d find her way to her conscious mind?
Either way, she wasn’t going to accomplish anything just sitting here. She got to her feet, went over to the door, took a deep breath and stepped through into blackness.
“What do we do now?”
Obi-Wan, Lucy, Astaldin and Xanden were sitting in the passenger bay on the Millennium Falcon. Astaldin had moved Ashara to a bunk, and stayed with her until Lucy and Obi-Wan returned, having finished retrieving Narya. Xanden had guarded them again, but the dark expression on his face told them all that they shouldn’t mention what had happened.
“We have Adyra, and Narya,” said Obi-Wan, “We should go to Lothlorien, and give them to Galadriel. She might be able to help Ashara too.”
Xanden nodded and headed out towards the cockpit without saying a word. Astaldin and Obi-Wan remained sitting, but Lucy got to her feet and followed him.
She caught his arm out in the corridor, turning him to face her. “What is it, Skywalker?” he demanded.
“You tell me, Solo,” she snapped, “You’re acting like a complete idiot. I know you’re annoyed that Sethan got away, but that’s no reason to completely blank us.”
“I’m not annoyed he got away,” said Xanden angrily, “I’m annoyed that you didn’t listen to me. You know what he did, Lucy, there’s no excusing it.”
“Yes, I know,” said Lucy firmly, “But you can’t let things like that mess you up. We couldn’t just kill him in cold blood.”
“Then what should we have done, given him a lightsaber so that it was a fair fight?”
“We should have talked to him.”
“Talked to- Lucy. You know what he’s like. He has powers of persuasion, trickery, deceit. Chances are he was talking to Ashara to get her on his side. He could probably get you on his side if he tried,” he added bitterly.
Lucy hit him. “You think that just because he killed your mum and dad, you hate him more! Well, he’s killed more people than just Han and Leia. I do hate him. I want to stop him. But just rushing into things could do more harm than good.”
“Yeah, well,” muttered Xanden, “He got away anyway, didn’t he? So we’ll never know.”
Lucy sighed in frustration and looked away from him. “Just get us to Lothlorien,” she said, and walked away.
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Post by goblingirl on Sept 2, 2006 7:55:32 GMT -5
Yes, you could. And it would probably have saved a lot of time and trouble if you had.
Tch, stupid characters.
Update....when you're back
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Post by reasonably_crazy on Sept 10, 2006 4:24:18 GMT -5
I concure. There are times where the story makes me positively writhe in agony, but update anyway.
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Post by goblingirl on Sept 10, 2006 10:23:12 GMT -5
She said a few days! It's been over a week! I feel betrayed!
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Post by reasonably_crazy on Sept 11, 2006 0:26:55 GMT -5
"Just like Cain and Abel, you pulled a sneak attack! I thought that we were bothers, then you staaaaabbed me in the back. Betraaaaaaayed, oh, boy I'm so betrayed!"
I loff the Producers.
Oh, I totally have this figured out, by the way. Obi-Wan, Lucy, Astaldin and Xanden are all good guys that have her best interests in mind, but they have some things wrong. Sethan is working for the sith, but he's secretly in love with Ashara and has a terribly sad and twisted past that leaves him haunted and confused. And Valistar is evil.
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Post by goblingirl on Sept 11, 2006 10:38:24 GMT -5
Stop it, or my inner 14-year-old self will steal her pom-poms back!
And I'm serious! Katie got me addicted to this story, she'd better come back and finish it. Or she really WILL find me living at the bottom of her wardrobe......
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Post by Hobbit-eyes on Sept 11, 2006 14:46:10 GMT -5
*eyes wardrobe nervously* I'm back!! Don't move in there, for your own good - I have no idea what's down there....
Lothlorien was very close to Moria, but it took some time for Xanden to steer them out of the crevasse; the Falcon’s engines weren’t strong enough for them to just power straight up out of it, so he had to steer it in zigzags, rising a little each time. After some time – too long, Astaldin thought, extremely nauseous after the string of jerky tight turns – they finally emerged and flew out of the Mines – too fast, Lucy thought, but didn’t say anything, just looking at the back of Xanden’s head.
No-one said anything, in fact, all the way up and to Lothlorien. Xanden’s stormy silence seemed to have infected them all, and no-one had anything to say to break it.
Until they arrived. As they descended through the trees, Xanden suddenly leant forward in his seat and said, “What the…”
None of them had to ask what he meant. Below them, the city of Caras Galadhon lay in ruins. The delicate structures which twined their way around the tree trunks and normally sparkled with a thousand lights lay smashed on the ground below, jagged wreckage jutting from the trees like bare spines. Here and there they could see fires, which were just starting to spread to the trees themselves. There was no-one in sight.
“Take us down,” said Lucy quietly. Xanden was already angling the Falcon for descent.
They emerged into a dark world of destruction. The remains of the elegant staircases around the trees lay twisted around them. Without the soft white glow which had seemed to permeate Lothlorien before, it was almost completely dark, next to no light making it through the thick canopy so far above their heads. The best light came from the fires dotted around them, burning on the ruins and the undergrowth of the forest itself.
There was no magic here now. That was gone. Lucy, Obi-Wan, Xanden and Astaldin walked through it all, lone wanderers in a devastated paradise. No-one said anything. Again, they seemed to be waiting for something to say.
Suddenly, Obi-Wan said, “We’re in a lot of trouble.”
“You’re telling me,” snapped Xanden, “Sethan. Ashara must have told him where the Rings were.”
“I know Ashara,” said Astaldin, “She’d never tell-”
“Did I say she told him willingly?” snapped Xanden. He looked around at the burning wreckage, eyes lingering on a pile of wood which must have once made a house. “Once Sethan wants something,” he said, “not much can stop him.”
“That’s not what I meant,” said Obi-Wan, looking all around them. “If he had Nenya and Vilya, he’d still be after Adyra and Narya. If Ashara did tell him where the other Rings were, he’d know we already have Adyra, and possibly Narya. So he’d be out to find us. He’d know we’d come here right after getting Narya, so if he wanted to lay a trap for us, this would be the place.”
Before, Lucy had been looking around, keeping her face determinedly still as though even moving it would cause her to break down. But at these words, a steely resolve came into her eyes, and she immediately reached for her lightsaber. “Then why hasn’t he sprung it yet?” she asked, eyes darting around them.
Obi-Wan turned to face her. “You tell me. Do you sense anything?”
Lucy stared into nothing for a moment, her body tense. A moment later, she frowned and relaxed. “No. Nothing. There’s nobody nearby… nobody living,” she finished, looking slightly sick.
“Exactly,” said Obi-Wan. “If Sethan was behind this, and he knew we had the other Rings, he would have killed us the moment we stepped off the Falcon. Well, maybe not all of us, he might have kept one of us alive for questioning if we were lucky. But the fact we made it this far means he didn’t know we were coming.”
“Could Sethan even get here this fast from Moria?” asked Astaldin.
“Don’t put anything past that guy,” muttered Xanden.
“He can travel quickly, yes,” said Obi-Wan, “But he couldn’t do this by himself. This would take a large group of warriors. And as far as I know, they can’t travel as quickly as him…”
“Could it be possible-” began Astaldin, but Lucy shot him a warning look. In his head, she heard him say, Yes, it might not have been Sethan. I’m not disregarding that possibility, and neither is Obi-Wan. But Xanden won’t be as allowing.
Out loud, she said, “That’s right, the soldiers probably left on foot or horseback. Start looking for a trail. I’m going to go back into the Falcon and try meditating, to find out what happened here. Astaldin, you keep an eye on Ashara.”
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Post by Hobbit-eyes on Sept 11, 2006 14:46:55 GMT -5
OK, you get two updates. Because I'm nice.
Ashara found herself back in her dream. She was back looking through the eyes of the woman at the campfire, where the dark elves were gathered, listening to what they were saying.
Concentrating, Ashara slid herself sideways out of the woman’s body so that she could step back and look at her. She felt a slight twinge of surprise – it was like she was looking in a mirror. This woman had the same long black hair, the same face – though her eyes were silvery-sapphire-emerald, while Ashara’s were just plain blue. There was also the fact this woman had large shining white wings. But Ashara immediately knew she was looking at her mother.
Which made the fact that Ashara knew this woman was going to die very shortly all the worse. Ashara caught sight of elves silently moving through the trees towards her, about to grab her arms, and instinctively tried to cry out – but her voice didn’t make any noise. She could only watch as they seized her, and wince at how sharply they tugged her arms away from her. When she suddenly froze, floating in the air, Ashara could scarcely bear to watch. But she forced herself to. She’d come to this memory for a reason.
Sure enough, a moment later, the white-haired boy came stepping out of the shadows. He stopped to the right of her, and just looked at her, delicately tracing her hand with one of his fingers. Taking a deep breath, Ashara forced herself to go right up to him and look at his face.
There was no doubt about it. It was definitely Sethan. Ashara was surprised at how much this upset her. She didn’t want to believe he was evil, but here he was; killing her own mother.
She suddenly noticed his eyes moving from her mother to look into the trees just behind her. Following his gaze, her heart stopped; concealed in the shadows, unmistakeable, was Sethan. As well.
Her head snapped back and forth between the two of them so many times she felt dizzy. But he looked exactly identical in everything but his facial expression. The Sethan next to her mother had a small, vindictive smile creeping onto his face; the one behind her had fear radiating from his eyes.
The two Sethans looked at each for a moment. Then, shooting a malicious smile at the other Sethan, the one next to her mother drew his knife and slashed off her mother’s wings. Ashara watched as he summoned the fallen wings into his hand, stepped in front of her, and held them out. The Sethan behind her, also watching this, stared on in horror, clutching the tree trunk he was standing behind so tightly that his knuckles were white enough to see from where she was standing. Ashara moved closer to him, and saw devastation in his eyes – he looked as though it was killing him to watch, but he had to, and couldn’t interfere.
She turned in time to see the other Sethan throw aside the wings and spin his knife in one hand. Just before he plunged it in, Ashara looked back at the other Sethan. He was shaking. At the last moment, he screwed his eyes shut and twisted his face away.
Sudden blackness. The memory was over. The memory was never hers, it was her mother’s – and now she was dead.
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Post by goblingirl on Sept 11, 2006 15:46:00 GMT -5
.....What the....
And I don't care what's at the bottom of wardrobe - it's gonna get booted out.
MORE Update!
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