[center][color=9966CC][sub][sub][b][h1]Draven Windu[/h1][/b][/sub][/sub][/color][/center]
[center][sub][sub][b][h3]I.i: Out of the Darkness[/h3][/b][/sub][/sub][/center]
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Wind whipped as blades against the traditional Jedi garment Draven wore. He had been hiding on Or Tuma so long his hair and beard began to match the nigh-pure white coat of the planet's surface. Honey-skin showed no signs of age despite the decade and a half which Draven resided there. Typical rigors of Jedi training absent--owed to his hermitical life--he had the spring and spirit of a man ten years his junior. He was, no doubt, still in his physical prime and perpetual winter made him look and feel so. No contact with the outsidee world, he had spent the last fifteen years biding his time and waiting for some sign of hope. In all these years, he heard nothing; it did not help him that he had not bothered to break himself from isolation in order to seek out this elusive hope--better yet, do as a Jedi should and initiate a rebellion against this galactic tyranny himself. Draven couldn't, if for no other reason: his years of training and meditation did nothing to rebuff his cowardice.

Draven Windu lacked his father's iron will, but his capacity for empathy was deeper. He was frightened of what was out there, afraid to step out into a galaxy which surely did not mirror the same one Draven abandoned; more than this, he was afraid of how far the wraith hand of the Empire reached. Not since the Purge had he felt the Light's beat, but he had felt it dying. Now, he sensed nothing at all--and if he continued in this manner, he would never sense it again in his lifetime. There had to be something, [i]someone[/i] out there who had rallied against the great monster. He knew he could not continue in this impotence, much as he desired it. Or Tuma's seasons never changed, and there was no appropriate clothing but robe and thick bantha hide. Few Bantha existed on this torpid rock, instead the Bantha came into Draven's possession thanks to some bargaining with the local Twi'lek population. It was a gift--and a people, most importantly--he was fond of, unbeknownst to the people themselves.

This Twi'lek settlement and its dwellers called to mind pictures of Raylah's stories she used to tell Draven about her homeworld. Yet, none of them were her. There was no love there, Draven assured himself. It was the sole, interpersonal relationship he had left, and in truth it had become the one thing tethering him to the world around him. Without it, it was likely he would retreat into meditation for the rest of his days. Attachment is what his patron Jedi were adamantly against, it bred reliance on things that did not last, and those only became gateways to pain. Draven rebelled against those teachings then, and he did so now while warming himself inside igloo-style lodging and sitting net to a rising fire. In Draven's right hand there was a cup of Bark tea, bitter and almost coarse as chewing bark itself. It went down hard, but it settled Draven's uneasy stomach.

In a small chair in front of him sat a tall Twi'lek male, he was considerably older than his ilk. Torvin Drallis was old, even for a Twi'lek, in his dark red face there was wisdom. Torvin spoke,

"Is this truly what you want to do?"
"Really? I am not sure. I believe I am ready, but the world has changed so much." The elder Twi'lek chuckled during the beat, his personal confirmation of his advancing age and his own slipping understanding of a passing world,
"Well, we don't need you bothering us anymore, hm?" Torvin continued, Draven sawed a smile on his face. Draven knew Torvin was right, he had grown accustomed to the people--not so much the near desolate planet itself.

Draven finished the Bark tea and rose to his feet, the Jedi robes he dawned were somewhat stiff from the chill of the outside wind. The fire, which burned too bright and hot for a few sticks of wood, kept burning its at an ominous height. Draven gave Torvin a nod, a solemn acceptance of Torvin's advice, but Draven knew not what he were to do, but he knew where he was to go: a merchant planet nearby, Nag Ubdur. If the hand of the Empire reached far as Draven suspected, he would find answers there, where life bustled. Back to his personal hermit hole he went to procure his weapons, none of which he could use in the open once he visited Nag Ubdur for fear of the eye of the Empire. He would use other measures. He moved to the small ship the Twi'leks and himself built. It was time to step back into the world.