OOM: AU Child! Ibani

[last_kallig]

The last few months have been even harder than usual, after the death of her mother figure. Perhaps grief made her weaker, more vulnerable to sickness, because she knows she's dangerously ill. She hadn't meant to wind up here, wherever here is, but it has shown up in the nick of time.

Ibani shivers against one of the walls of Milliways, her body wracked with fever and hunger both. She's somewhere between seven and ten, clothed in fabric with far too many holes in it, and wearing a slave shock collar around her neck. Her bones stand out too sharply against her skin, and her eyes are fever bright and darting around the room.

She's not sure if this is some dying hallucination, if she's gone mad, or if she truly HAS wound up somewhere utterly strange. Whatever this is, instinct and her body DEMAND food, fuel to fight the sickness that is killing her. Untrained in the Force, she's grasping on instinct for any energy it can give her.

Maybe, maybe if she gets close enough to one of the tables she can steal some food without anyone noticing. Yes, yes that's a good plan

Comments

[27_53]

He is honestly not all that tired (there's a hint of weariness there beneath the surface) but when she curls up against him like that, it is hard to resist the urge to let himself actually rest and sleep.

And it is easier when there is another heartbeat nearby to focus on.

[last_kallig]

Given...everything, it is perhaps not surprising that Ibani has a nightmare. She's never pulled anyone into one of her dreams before, but she KNEW Ma'Vena was powerless to protect her. Skellig, Skellig is strong. (And, even though he's not Force sensitive he's not exactly NORMAL now, is he?)

The tiny flower is the loveliest thing she's ever seen and so vibrantly ALIVE that she fails to notice the warning note in the Force in time. The collar around her neck activates in a few seconds of utter agony that FEEL like much longer, her whole body twitching on the ground. She can just see a pair of boots, but they're not familiar.

"Lazy, lazy," the guard mock tsks, his tone cruel. "Guess those collars DO work as advertised. Not very satisfying though."

Ibani has forced her limbs to obey enough to get to her knees, desperate to avoid more punishment. He has a heavy baton in his hands and his smile is the smile of someone who likes pulling the wings off of flies. "I've always preferred the hands on approach."

The nightmare shifts, and Skellig will find himself able to move, to act!

[27_53]

When Skellig 'blinks awake' he is not in his room at the bar, but in a dank, dark space, the scent of...metal and mildew mixing on his tongue, and the high-pitched electric whine in his ears is painful.

And then he sees the child on the ground. Ibani, on the ground. And the baton in the hands of this guard, hear the thud of the heavy bootsteps on the ground as he moves closer to her, lifting his hand to swing...

The crack of the guard's elbow joint shattering is enough to send echoes down the tunnel, the controller of the collar hitting the ground a second after, and somehow Skellig has crossed the distance, closed the gap between them, has the guard's arm wrenched firmly behind his back at a most unnatural angle.

"You will not touch her with a fingertip," he snarls. "Let alone a hand."

[last_kallig]

The guard makes quite the noise of pain when his elbow shatters! He snarls at Skellig, enraged. He assumes Skellig MUST be another guard, because there's no way anyone else can BE here except as a slave in a collar.

"Little young for you to be getting territorial over her, isn't she?" he sneers. He's trying to distract Skellig enough that he doesn't notice he's moving his other hand to turn on his communicator, call for help.

Ibani has taken the opportunity to get AWAY from the fight, even if she's moving quite slowly.

[27_53]

Inwardly, Skellig is revolted by the insinuation and all it does it fuel the fire that is the rage burning beneath his skin - normally he does not allow this side of his energy to flare so brightly but this is a different scenario.

The guard doesn't get a chance to go for his communicator; Skellig grabs hold of his wrist and snaps it with another sickening crunch, this one causing another shout of pain and cry that echoes through the caverns.

(Part of him worries that this will be heard, but even if it is, even if more bootsteps start to hurry in this direction - he will put an end to all of them if he has to.) He pushes the guard away from Ibani, up against the nearest wall where he can grip him by the throat, pin him tightly to the point where he can only just barely breathe.

"Should rip other parts of you off for that remark," he growls, voice low. "But I'd rather just leave you here to rot instead."

[last_kallig]

"Not going to be the only one rotting," he manages to get out, just. "Too much trouble here and they'll pull out and wait for everything here to starve to death." His eyes flick toward Ibani. "Or detonate the collars on all the equipment, trash the batch and start fresh."

[27_53]

"Don't you even look at her," Skellig tightens his grip. "I will make you look like a cave-in accident crushed you beneath these rocks and you will be nothing but a smear on the floor that they will step over as they keep digging."

He has about taken all the oxygen (is it even oxygen here, this deep underground?) from this guard that he can without killing him, and it is so very tempting to just snap his neck and be done with it. Drop him to the floor and then find the key (he has to have a key on him, right?) and get her out of here.

But Skellig does not snap this guard's neck. Normally when he does this, it hurts him deeply, but this instance, for some reason, it is not really bothering him all that much.

"You are worth less than the 'equipment', because you do this willingly without a collar," his grip tightens. Now the guard can't breathe, he's struggling harder as darkness creeps in around the edges. "You have no spine."

[last_kallig]

It is definitely oxygen, or Ibani wouldn't be able to breathe. Maybe it doesn't hurt because this isn't real, or maybe Skellig is just THAT angry, the fire in him burning bright and hot enough to keep the Dark from sinking its tendrils into his being.

A Jedi would be appalled at what Ibani is doing right now, which is watching the proceedings with a sense of vicious satisfaction. She can feel his terror, his suffocation, but right now it isn't sickening. For all of her life that she can remember, she's been hurt with impunity by people like this, seen so many children die. (Helped pile rocks over their corpses because the ground is too frozen to bury a body and there's no fuel for a pyre.)

It might not be justice, but it will do just fine.

[27_53]

In the back of his mind, her presence is still a shadow on the radar of his awareness - she is hurting but she is not hurting, not at this very moment as he snuffs the life of this guard out with his bare hands.

Eventually, the struggle and the kicking and scrabbling stops and the guard's weight grows heavy; Skellig presses harder until he can feel the trachea collapse beneath his palm, the bones of the spinal cord crush. Once he is satisfied that the guard is DEAD, not just unconscious - he allows his grip to go slack, the dull thud-thump of literal dead weight hitting the ground likely one that Ibani has heard before.

Many times before, though softer and smaller, for children do not have as far to fall to hit the ground.

Skellig does not immediately turn to her, has to take a moment to steady his breathing, calm his heartrate down a bit.

[last_kallig]

Ibani has heard one or two adult bodies hit the floor, but most of them were children. She feels him die, in the Force, relaxes.

Ibani walks right up to him, unafraid. "You saved me," she whispers, knowing Skellig will hear her. "And he won't hurt anyone ever again."

[27_53]

"He will not hurt anyone ever again," he echoes, keeping his eyes away from her gaze (he can feel it, but he would not want her to see his eyes like this, as dark as they are with his feral nature running strongly beneath the surface) and his head turned. "You are safe from him."

There are others. The key. He has to find the key.
But what if there is no key?
What if another guard comes looking if this one does not check in?

Panic is creeping in at the edges of the nightmare, his own dread taking hold around the cracks at the sides of the shadows.

"Does he usually carry a key? We need to get you out of here--"

[last_kallig]

Ibani is growing deeply concerned that Skellig won't look at her, as it's vastly unlike him. Did she do something wrong, was she not good enough?

"Skellig?" She touches his arm, the one he crushed the guard's throat with. "Why won't you look at me?" Her voice is a mix of worry and desperate pleading. "I must have done something wrong, but I won't do it again, I promise!"

[27_53]

Thankfully, his reaction when she touches him is not to jerk his arm away from her, but he allows his glance - it is still dark, but there is shame and something else, something darker (is it fear, fear of himself, of what he is capable of?) running underneath the surface. Vulnerability, maybe?

"Ibani, no, you have done nothing wrong." He swallows hard, shaking his head. "I just know...I am raw, when I am like this. Unfiltered. I did not...I did not want to scare you, when I am like this."

He covers her hand that is on her arm, and it is him that is reaching for something to hang on to a bit, some form of support. When it should be her that is using him as the rock, the holdfast...

"You have done nothing wrong, I swear it."

[last_kallig]

She's relieved when he says she's done nothing wrong.

She seems older, wiser, than she ought to be, when she meets his eyes unafraid. She wraps her other arm around him. "It wears on you, using the Dark that lives inside, but it's nothing to be afraid of, or ashamed. We all have it, and surviving and protecting is what it's for. Ma'Vena told me that, before she died."

[27_53]

"You are right, little one."

Skellig takes her into a hug, presses his lips to the top of her hair - it is dirty and gritty but he does not mind, just so grateful she is not injured worse than she already is by that collar and being back (where ARE they? is this real? it does not feel entirely real, but he isn't sure) in the mines.

"I still have much to learn from you," he mutters.

[last_kallig]

"And I've got a lot to learn from you," she tells him.

"This, this place doesn't FEEL right, but I can't put my finger on why," she grumbles. She glances at the body. "He won't have a key, they don't even bother removing the collars from the bodies." She bends down, tears the communicator off of his wrist. "I know where one might be, but we'll need another communicator for both of us to get in there."

She eyes the death wound in a considering sort of way. "There are big cats here that kill like that, crush the throat. They come into the outer edges of the mine sometimes, eat people, when they are very hungry."

[27_53]

"I just don't want you to get in trouble, or hurt."

Or killed.

Skellig glances at the guard. "Do we need to move him? Or will he be fine there, until he is located at some point? If we need to hide him...is there a place we can do it?" A pit, perhaps? An alcove in the rock, an unused passage?

[last_kallig]

"There should be another guard out patrolling, farther toward the edge of the mines, alone. If we take this body with us, we can dump it out there where the creatures might get a meal out of it and it might be more readily believed to be an animal attack."

[27_53]

"I can make him lighter," he says, already stepping back slightly to move towards the body - that is all it is to him now, a shell of a being that he doesn't even really want to consider as a person, for several reasons.

Skellig is grateful that he was not more...violent in his methods. The broken elbow and arm are bad enough, but at least that will not leave a bloody trail to tie them to the scene.

"I can carry him, if you lead us."

[last_kallig]

"We won't be able to go my usual way, you won't fit," she mutters. "This way." She takes his hand, leads him down the winding passages farther away from the sounds of people, of mining. The lighting is sparse, but it doesn't seem to bother Ibani at all. She's used to navigating in total darkness.

"I can take care of the second guard, if we can catch him by surprise near a ledge," Ibani offers, matter of fact.

[27_53]

With his highly-enhanced vision, this is not an issue. The corpse he has slung over one shoulder is...kind of annoying, because even having made him lighter, it is still a corpse. Thankfully it is still fresh, as far as dead bodies go.

He is only mildly taken aback when she mentions 'taking care of' the second guard.

He keeps close to what she's doing, trying his best to stay close to her as they move through the tunnels.

"We will have to remember for the communicator," he points out. "Before you knock someone off the ledge."

[last_kallig]

"True," she admits. "That complicates things." She frowns. "Could you make someone not notice you enough that you could get close enough to grab it off their arm and get away safely?"

[27_53]

Nodding: "I could do that."

There is another heartbeat nearby, faint and different - much more casual. At some point, Skellig will leave their first 'effort' slumped up against a wall, and choose to creep closer alongside her, moving towards their second guard.

[last_kallig]

This guard is big, bigger than Skellig, with tiny horns all over his head and orange skin. He is also very, VERY bored, mind wandering. This patrol is such a drag, nothing to see and he can't even entertain himself by harassing the slaves!

They're in luck, as he wanders near a ledge that drops steeply away onto some VERY sharp rocks. Skellig could take care of him himself, once the communicator is gone. Wouldn't be TOO hard to shove him over the edge...

[27_53]

Keeping himself hidden is key - he moves swiftly, throws a rock in one direction, causing the guard's attention to shift away from the both of them as he looks in the opposite area towards the clattering sound.

With a 'nudge', he adds another layer of distraction. The guard hardly notices the communicator going missing - no need to worry about it either - before Skellig tosses another rock over the side of the ledge, causing another clatter that clearly needs investigating!

And with his back turned and looking down at the sharp rocks, it will only pain Skellig slightly to give him a solid shove...