In The Hall of The Ravenwing

[Arya Ravenwing]

“I’m fine. I just worry about the sense of humor of the other two.” Arya jerked her head in the vague direction of the other Lupines.

“Let’s be honest, this place is a shithole. I don’t even know what I’m looking for anymore.” She was trying to hold onto anger, but a note of dejection leaked into her last sentence, and hung awkwardly in the air between the two shipmates.

[Twopio]

“Perhaps after you replay the footage you will locate something,” said Twopio, turning slowly as the cam on his chest took in their surroundings. “I am only a protocol droid and not very good at exploration.”

[Dietre san Luthgarde]

Following dutifully, Dietre couldn't help his slower pace. He drank everything in as though he was a whelp seeing the world around him for the first time.

Jaas and Arya spoke amongst themselves, and the blue droid prattled on about... things. It was one of the very first things that he'd learned ever since joining the Ravenwing woman.

Mostly ignore the droid.

It was advice that he'd taken to heart.

What he knew not to ignore however, was the tone of Arya's voice. It concerned him, and Dietre couldn't help the slowly budding seed in the back of his thoughts, that he had done something wrong. What that 'something' was he was unclear of, but it worried him none-the-less.

But when Arya spoke of not knowing what she was looking for, the Luthgarde couldn't help himself. He ambled his way past the droid to stand close to her. Jaas held an apprehensive look to his face, and the old Lupine let his hand fall upon his Cizerack friend's shoulder in an unspoken reassurance.

"The answers," he let his eyes continue to traverse the rough-hewn stones of these lower depths of the Ravenwing Manor, "... show when needed the most."

She had been bothered by the Losstarot, that much was certain. It was a mutual feeling that Dietre latched on to. Not out of malice - since the Losstarot seemed as steeped in the old lore as much as he - but out of simple blood preference.

He wanted to know her thoughts in this moment. Of what she had hoped to find.

"You want to be hoping to find something... " his grasp of Basic was trying at times, and with a look around them, he let out a huffing breath before returning to her.

"I am thinking that you are not finding what you want."

He pushed away his immediate and reactionary responses, trying to be more 'understanding', as had been explained to him so many times before in the recent past.

"What are you to be looking for, Arya."

It was the first time he'd addressed her by her first name.

[Arya Ravenwing]

She stopped walking, letting Jaas and Twopio take point as they continued on into the next chamber, a mostly intact room that might have held a swimming pool at one time.

Arya turned toward Dietre, his use of her name not lost on her. “Connection, I guess. I thought that I’d step in here and feel all the history and family here and it would just... happen. But this is just a house. And a painting is just a holo of the past. I don’t... feel it. The way Lok talks about this place, this planet, I thought maybe... maybe I’d just feel at home. But it’s just another ruin.”

She fished her father’s medallion out of her shirt and clenched it in her fist. “This I can feel. This...” Arya gestured at the room around them. “This I don’t know what to do with.”

[Dietre san Luthgarde]

He stared at her, his brow furrowing in thought as she pulled her medallion out and held it protectively. He could grasp enough of what she was saying, and taking in a deep breath of the old, stale air around them, he let it back out in a long exhale.

"I am thinking," he started slowly, "... that your treasure," his head nodded to her medallion, "... is cared for. You keep it at close with you."

His gaze left her then, to take in the dilapidated state of her House's manor.

"But all of this, it is not cared for. There is no masters here to be giving the same attentions of how you give to your treasure. And so... "

He trailed off then, a strange sort of sadness seeping into his eyes.

"... It is never a thing of pretty to see, when a great family's home loses the ones that used to be giving it so much love."

[Arya Ravenwing]

"....right."

Arya looked into the san's eyes, searching for understanding. "Yeah, the house is a wreck. But that's not... I mean, I knew it was going to be bad."

She looked around, tucking her medallion back into her shirt. "Did my grandfather grow up here? Is our House book here?" Arya shrugged her shoulders. "Or those bone talismans you told me about. Those would be pretty useful. But as much as I try to reach out and understand the history here, and connect it to me... I just can't.

"It doesn't help that Lok is protecting that monster," she muttered. "More than that, she --"

Arya broke off, shaking her head and turning away.

[Fenriss]

Over so many years, the family had made enough small nooks and tunnels to pass through each room of the old manor with ease. Fenriss shifted his way through, following the raven-haired woman and that scar-headed San. They were like visions come to life, the sort of old creatures from the drawings and books that were kept in the Places of Letters. From his new vantage, he watched and listened to the strange chattering of those below.

[Dietre san Luthgarde]

"More than that... what... ?"

There was a strange hesitance that Dietre could sense - perhaps this was one of those times that he mistranslated the Basic?

She spoke as though maybe he should know why she was angry? What was he to be angry over? Was he to channel her frustrations?

A few moments later he frowned in thought, taking himself back to another thing that she'd said, and with a suddenly steely look, he gave her a nod.

"The bones. Yes. I can be helping you to find them. They are most... most... " his Basic failed him then, and the Luthgarde looked away in slight shame at not being able to properly express himself.

A long exhalation then, as he cast his gaze upwards.

"They are towards the skies."

[Arya Ravenwing]

For a moment she could feel herself slipping. Those eyes staring at her with curiosity, blueish light reflecting off of those ridiculous glasses. Arya caught her breath and forced down the memories. Squashed the rising panic and fear into a brick of hard anger, and shoved it into a mental drawer.

She could take it out later and examine it, when she was alone.

San Luthgarde's words filtered in through her ears, and she squared her shoulders. "Figures I would go in exactly the wrong direction. Jaas, stick with Twopio and follow us up."

Arya turned toward the staircase, and paused. "After you," she said, gesturing the san forward.

[Twopio]

The blue droid rotated in the direction of the bulky Cizerack as the two Lupines disappeared nimbly up the stairs. "I think Captain Arya is trying to say that I am too slow." He tottered forward a few steps, knocking a metal foot on a tumbled bit of masonry and tipping sideways.

"In fact I am zero point two times quicker than the average C-3 protocol droids." Twopio waved his arms helplessly as gravity did its nasty work against him.

[Jaassuuvi Ageerrodarr]

"Oh come on! Whjy am jI gettjing sstuck wjith old Bluebell?"

Jaas bellowed from his spot in the middle of the empty pool. Well, mostly empty. He stood on the edge of some of the murkiest, chunkiest water he had ever seen that was pooled in the deep end; and had been poking some of the debris with a piece of wood that had fallen out of the ceiling to see if there was anything worthwhile floating in the muck. All it revealed was a damp, moldy odor that smelled of sweaty socks and wet cardboard.

Hefting himself out of the pool he wiped his wet hands off on the sides of his trousers and grimaced at the sight of the muck building up on his boots. The brightly colored logos on the sides were already turning brown. Dank farrik!

"That'ss good. jYou'll need all that sspeed when jI usse jyou ass bajit when we rrun out of food jin a week. A planet ljike thjiss hass to have ssome bjig beasstjiess. Get movjing. jI'll be rjight behjind jyou."

[Dietre san Luthgarde]

He led the way, doing his best to navigate the maze of corridors that led to stairways, and stairways the led to more corridors. Every so often he would stop to test the stale air, a wisp of... something... taking his attentions every so often. It was a strange scent that was both familiar and new to him, but each time he thought that he could place it, it ebbed away to only be replaced by the musty notes from the rest of the manor.

The group passed through a grand library, and Dietre slowed finally until he was standing before a crumbling bookshelf, leatherbound tomes and other journals seeming to hold up the very structure that was supposed to keep them aloft.

"It is... being behind here... "

His hesitation as he ran gentle hands over each spine was easily seen, as though he was afraid that the wrong move would send everything crashing downward.

"All for de Houses. Dey haff a room for de secrets and treasures. And de t'ings dat dey keep close to de chests."

His palm passed across a book, with gold embossed lettering in Bast'yr, and he let out a soft grunt before slowly pulling it out. He held it for a moment, wiped the dust from the cover, and passed it to Arya.

"You would be liking dis one. Is about favorite foods of de Ravenwing House."

[Fenriss]

The group had made their way to the Place of Letters, and Fenriss made sure to keep pace with them every step of the way. Through the hidden passages that only small bodies could traverse, through secret doorways, peering from places of high vantage and safety.

The scar-headed san pulled a book from the many others tucked into a shelf, gave a sound, and extended it to the woman, saying words that were indecipherable.

For the curious Wyst, this was something that - never in his wildest dreams - he thought to ever experience.

Hoping to catch whatever reply the woman might give, Fenriss leaned farther from his perch high above. A slow hand shifted out to stabilize his frame, grasping the top ledge of a corner bookcase.

Moments later, yet far too late to correct his folly, a crack sounded out, and before he knew what'd happened, he was pitched forward and down. Even if he was small, the old wood was unable to hold his added weight, and the Wyst tumbled from his viewing spot. A shower of falling books heralded the unceremonious descent, and when it was all finished, Fenriss instinctively curled into a ball at the bottom of a pile of tomes and broken wooden shelving.

And even though he wasn't exceedingly close, he wasn't exactly far away, either.

Maybe if he didn't move, they'd think it was just books falling?

[Arya Ravenwing]

He passed the book to her and when she accepted it the entire bookcase collapsed. Arya jumped back, coughing as dust billowed from the pile of debris.

"I think you destabilized it," she managed, the ornate cookbook clutched to her chest.

[Dietre san Luthgarde]

Dietre gave a rumble, taking a few steps back from the bile of books.

"Is one book, not enough to making a crashing down for de rest," he puzzled, staring at the unfortunate pile of freshly-fallen books and what was left of some of the shelving. It was ornate and beautiful, looking to have been hand-carved and lovingly stained. Of course, the eons that had passed from the creation of the shelves to this day, here and now... it was a sobering thought. The library here, it was so much older than even he. Each book so precisely placed on a shelf a great many years ago. His gaze swept of the pile of books, broken shelving, and well, dust. There was so much dust and detritus.

Except...

Eyes narrowed, and reaching out, the Lupine plucked a broken shelf-board up to give it a closer examination.

A deep frown, and Dietre cut his gaze to Arya while holding up the old slat. In the dust was a very obvious three-fingered handprint.

"Dere are ones beink here dat are not us."

[Jaassuuvi Ageerrodarr]

The loud clack sounded from behind as Jaas pulled the boltcaster free from his shoulder and toggled off the heavy safety switch. The magnetic accelerators hummed loudly in the still air.

"What jiss jit, Dee?"

His yellow eyes swiveled wildly in his head, looking all around for whatever creature Dietre spoke of. This place was a mess and there were too many hiding places and avenues for attack.

"Vampjirress? Ghosstss? Lupjine zombjiess that hungerr forr brrajinss?"

[Fenriss]

The terrifying sound of something winding up - no doubt a weapon - it was enough to chill the blood in his veins. Fenriss couldn't help himself as he reached up, two spindly arms emerging from the pile of fallen books. Narrow, three-fingered hands splayed wide as he let out a helpless gasp.

"Atasko keh tu san... "

The short phrase tumbled out, and he hoped that those in the great book-room could understand his apologetic missive.

"... Aiso feynsaka ti tu seh sako... !?"

He only hoped that the next sound he heard would not be the last he heard.