TheElvenJedi

You never see it coming[Freedomliveson/The Elvenqueen]

Awesomeness, can't wait to see what you've come up with! :D

You never see it coming[Freedomliveson/The Elvenqueen]

There we are! Went for a little bit of both/a compromise regarding Roan tagging along so they can have some time to themselves without him breathing down their necks XD

Wanted to try and make the cat things more similar to Tython's Manka cats but then I realised that if they were tree dwellers like jaguars they'd need tails to balance D: (maybe they could still be distantly related somehow idk haha XD)

You never see it coming[Freedomliveson/The Elvenqueen]

Aria nodded slowly as Neta gave them an overview of the map as it filled itself in, tilting her head slightly to one side as the rectangles winked into view. Thinking back to their previous experience on a Wild Space planet, she exchanged a glance with Yerbol and murmured:
“Could be temples. There was one on the other homeworld. Or totems.”
“Only one way to find out!” Neta beamed, waving them off again. Aria wanted to protest to taking her father and his tomb beasts along with them, but realised that it was probably safer than trusting him to stay with the rest of the group. All it would take would be one wrong step on Janika or Manso's part and this could all go horribly awry. “Okay, let's go.” she agreed, nodding to the remaining individuals they would be leaving behind. “Good luck with the ship, Manso. And everyone else, Neta's in charge while we're gone, so just help her out with whatever you can.” Janika and Manso wouldn't be a problem, she was sure. Even Takree seemed relatively cooperative, volunteering to check the hull for damage. That just left Vano, who she hoped would be more amicable after their previous group effort.

With little more reason to hang around waiting, she and Roan accompanied Yerbol down the loading ramp, the Tuk’ata trailing ever-fauthfully at the Sith Lord’s heels. Following the line of the ship's hull, they could soon see the cluster of trees their pilot had indicated was shielding the rectangular formations.
“Well,” she laughed nervously, “let's go find out what killer beasts we're sharing THIS planet with.” if Roan had found the jest amusing, he didn't indicate it by the almost nonchalent grunt he responded with. Apart from the thicket they were venturing into (and a few others of the same kind dotted here and there throughout the valleys, as indicated by the geometric circles), there appeared to be very little cover on this world at all.
“It's so...open out here, I don't like it.” Aria muttered, an uncomfortable shiver passing down her spine. “Anything could see us coming from miles away.”
“But we can also see anything coming OUR way.” Roan pointed out, ducking underneath a low-hanging branch. There was no real path through the foliage, only a narrow line of trampled ground presumably made by some herd of animals passing through it frequently. But it was enough to give them a glimpse all the way to the other side, where they could just make out some kind of building.

She paused as her father held up a hand to stop her from trudging straight onwards that direction, gesturing with his eyes to the trees above their heads. Frowning in confusion at first, Aria followed his gaze to rest on the feline-like creature that crouched on the branch, its spotted golden-tan coat blending almost perfectly with the dappled light breaking through the leaves, brown eyes glistening as it watched the group below.
“YARK! YARK!” beside Roan, the two Sith hounds let out a barking alarm call, spinning around to face more of the cats as they slunk into view from either side of them.
They hissed and growled softly amongst themselves, apparently perplexed by finding these strange new creatures in their habitat, sliding down the tree trunks to drop onto the floor and encircle the group. Eyes narrowed, Roan took a step forward and pulled Aria to stand behind him next to Yerbol, whispering. “Stay behind me and don't move.” the Tuk’ata took up positions on either side of the younger duo, snarls rumbling in their throats as the felines began to move in closer. Aria responded with a squeak of alarm, unconsciously grabbing hold of Yerbol’s arm and huddling closer to him in order to comply with her father's instructions. They were just shy of the Tuk’ata’s shoulder in size, but apparently no less territorial. As the lead cat lunged forward and swiped in his direction, Roan sidestepped and stood his ground, locking eyes with it and growling back. A few more moments passed, with some snapping of teeth and more growling as the Sith hounds held the other two felines at bay. Whatever Roan was trying to do, the cat stubbornly tried to resist, hissing and snarling all the while, until the Sith Lord took another pace forward and snarled: “Away with you!”
The cat snorted and flattened it's ears, hunching over at the authoritive command, eyes flicking over the group once more before it cowered back into the safety of the trees, the rest of its family following close behind it, thick tails tucked between their legs.
“You have GOT to show us how to do that!” Aria breathed, grinning in relief and abruptly releasing her grip on Yerbol's arm with an awkward mumble of apology now that they were once again safe.

It wasn't clear whether the structure WAS in fact a temple, there were no ornately carved statues as the duo had witnessed in the last one. Roan stopped again, a silent jerk of his head sending the tomb beasts prowling off ahead of them.
“Let them go first, we don't know what else could be lurking around in there.”
A few moments later, a dark shape appeared in the doorway and made a low ‘chuffing’ grunt, apparently confirming that it was safe for the humans to venture inside. Nodding to the pair, Roan muttered. “You go and look around, see what the place is like. I'll keep watch out here.” as they passed him, the Sith Lord’s yellow eyes met Yerbol's with a glare that implied there would be furious retribution involved if anything untoward happened to his daughter while they were left to scout on their own.

Greatful for at least some chance to talk to the Knight without Roan listening in, Aria dipped her head and stepped into the building. After a quick glance over their shoulders to make sure they were in fact by themselves, she whispered. “Are you okay? I didn't….I didn't hurt you, did I?” she was reasonably sure he was strong enough that her vice-like grip couldn't have done any damage, but it didn't stop her from being concerned nonetheless. While she waited for his answer, she surveyed the surrounding room that appeared to be relatively empty apart from an old terminal against the far wall at the foot of a staircase leading to the next floor, and a few dust-laden seating arrangements.
“Could be an outpost of some kind, or a watchtower for another building.” she mused out loud, recalling that Neta had located more than one rectangle on the map.

You never see it coming[Freedomliveson/The Elvenqueen]

Definitely a step in the right direction that's for sure ;)
Careful, Neta, I don't imagine prodding a Sith Lord's ego is any better than poking a sleeping bear! pahahahaha

Awesome, I shall have something up for you in the morning! Got an early start tomorrow (hooray) so have to be hitting the sack :P

You never see it coming[Freedomliveson/The Elvenqueen]

Unfortunately, yep! >:L

Hahaha it was certainly a tough pick, but hooray for forced team-building exercises! *hesitantly cheers* XD

You never see it coming[Freedomliveson/The Elvenqueen]

A quiet groan of frustration escaped Aria as she took in Neta's concerns, resting her head in her hands as she grumbled quietly under her breath. After taking a moment to collect herself, she looked back up at her companions and addressed Yerbol's question. "I don't know...it IS a tricky thing to do..." she admitted, chewing her lip as she tried to consider whether there would be enough strength between the grop of them to slow the momentum of a ship of this size. "I mean, we could hit turbulents on the way down and get thrown towards outcrops and then we'd have to actually MOVE the ship back on track between us and..."
"It's doable." Roan muttered, eyes not leaving the screen readings. "Tricky, yes, but doable."
"If we work TOGETHER." Aria put in firmly. "That means no putting each other off, or any of that."
The others were quiet as the statement sunk in, each seeming to think about it from their own point of view.
"He's right, isn't he? It would give us the advantage." Takree chipped in. "No-one would follow us down there too quickly."
"We'd be making ourselves easy targets if we set up on the other planet." Roan continued. "They would assume we wouldn't be brave enough to try navigating the peaks and check there first, if they managed to track us out here."

Aria looked from the other Force users back to Neta again, who still seemed less than keen by the whole idea. Had they not taken enough risks for one trip? Probably. But they needed to give themselves the advantage somehow. She was well aware that she might be held responsible for anything that went wrong (for not being the one to step forward and say 'this is going to get us all killed'), but in the circumstances before them it seemed like an extra risk worth taking.
"I think we should try it. We could use all the extra advantages we can get right now."
"Son of a bantha!" Neta complained, throwing her hands into the air. "You're going to get us all killed. Fine...fine, but remember that I TOLD you so when we end up wrecked on the side of some giant rock formation...thing." the pilot conceded, heading back towards the cockpit to take the controls.

"Alright, well...everyone focus. We can do this, we just need to be VERY careful." Aria swallowed the lump in her throat and settled down on the floor beside the galaxy map, palms turned upwards and rested on her knees. "Get as comfortable as you can and concentrate, if any one of us loses focus we could all die, so...no pressure." a nervous chuckle escaped her again before she shook her head. Once everyone else in the room had found themselves a space to occupy, she called ahead to Neta.
"Okay, Neta, let's get this over with!"
The only reply from the former spec ops soldier was another disdainful snort, before the ship's engines whined loudly as she pulled back the throttle and put them into a descent through the patchy atmosphere. Aria kept her eyes closed, letting the Force show her where the dips and spikes in the rock clusters were rather than allowing her physical sight to distract her. She had to admit she worried about the abilities of the younger Force users, they were even more inexperienced than Aria and Yerbol and she wondered if they could deal with the pressure involved in undertaking such a task, but she had to push that aside and trust that the rest of them could use their own strengths to make up for it.

On more than one occassion, a warning siren would cut through the silent atmosphere as the ship rocked too close to one of the formations, Neta's stream of curses almost loud enough to drown out the shrill wailing until the group could push or pull the ship back onto the right course by manipulating the eddies in the Force. She had no idea how long it took them to get all the way down, but it seemed like lightyears later when the landing gear finally deployed and the engine noises abruptly ceased.
"We did it? HA WE DID IT!" Vano crowed jubilantly.
"I thought we were gonna die that last time for sure."
"You okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine!" everyone's relieved exhortations seemed to melt into one, Aria opening her eyes to find everyone's faces painted with various grins of pure relief.

"Breathe, Aria!" it wasn't until a strong hand clasped around her shoulder and shook her that Aria realised she had, in fact, forgotten to breathe during the entire descent. Ducking out of Roan's grip, she sucked in a sharp breath and looked around the room for Yerbol, smiling a little herself.

It was a small step, but they'd worked together as a team to get the ship down without killing anyone else.

You never see it coming[Freedomliveson/The Elvenqueen]

It does get...challenging, sometimes XD I've had customers get angry and call me rude for no reason whatsoever before and you just have to be like "yeah, okay I apologise" even if they're being unreasonable as anything o.o

Awesome. Hmmm...Yerbol raises a good point about it being difficult to get to, actually o:

You never see it coming[Freedomliveson/The Elvenqueen]

I'm in a volunteering position right now (so it's unfortunately unpaid, but it's still 'working' and I get a reference for it and it means I have some retail training at least XD) but it's retail, so I work in a shop and work the till and take people's money so they can buy stuff XD

You never see it coming[Freedomliveson/The Elvenqueen]

Eeeeek, good luck! O_O

Aww well that's the important part, at least you can enjoy it enough that it doesn't make the boring parts completely unbearable ;)

I'm going to get sooo confused, I dread the day I actually have to drive a car for the first time, I'm not sure I'll know what to do with it XD (Thank goodness my dad will have to come with me to 'supervise', he can at least hopefully stop me getting TOO confused lol)

You never see it coming[Freedomliveson/The Elvenqueen]

haha I can imagine, my dad teaches as well and he says it's THE most boring and monotonous part of the job :P I can quite believe it too, having to read like 20-30+ copies of the exact same thing over and over again and mark it O_O

Yeah, way I see it is I'll find the right one eventually and if it's meant to happen it'll happen so I'll just keep on going and see where I end up ;) XD

I hope not! O_O I haven't done any actual driving yet (you have to pass a written test before they even let you behind a wheel here which is I suppose sensible lol) so I've been reading all the books for that and some of the rules are so contradictory as well "You're not allowed to do this or that because it's dangerous" on one page and then a few pages later it's like "but you can do this or that if you REALLY have to, or in an emergency" and it's a bit like....well which one is it then? Can I or can't I? pahaha