TheElvenJedi

You never see it coming[Freedomliveson/The Elvenqueen]

Bwahahahahahaha, excellent, feel free to run away with that however you like xD

Awesome, sounds good! :D

You never see it coming[Freedomliveson/The Elvenqueen]

Aria kept in stride with Yerbol as they made their way through the forest towards the plains where they had first landed, her attention devoted to the birds as they flitted across their path overhead, until she strafed too far to the side and bumped her shoulder into a tree trunk, or Yerbol’s own shoulder, and had to focus on the path once more to reorient herself. Her lips pursed together in thought as he mentioned the idea of being able to use the Force to ACTUALLY fly.
“It must be nice.” she agreed, almost wistfully as a somewhat adorable grin creased her features. “I mean, nothing could stop us then, could it? We could just swoop in and rescue everyone from injustice and then fly away again before the crooks could blink twice!” she snorted with laughter, turning her head to look sideways at him. She hadn’t noticed before, but he was shivering slightly. Having ventured out with a cloak wrapped around her shoulders (space got pretty cold, too) and not removing it before they left the complex, she hadn’t noticed how biting the wind had gotten. “Aw, we can turn around if you’re having second thoughts Bol.” she quipped back at him. “Seriously, you’ve just been to HOTH and you’re complaining about the COLD?”
They fell into a mutual state of quiet appreciation of their surroundings for several moments before Yerbol broke the silence between them and spoke of his parents again. Aria hummed softly to convey her sympathy, slowing her step as she suggested:
“Have you thought about, well...trying to get a letter or a holomessage out to them? We get other stuff through, we could manage it. You said they’re probably still on Taris, right?” of course without any way to be SURE his parents still lived where he remembered, it would be risky to try, especially if they had relocated….but she hated knowing he missed them that much and being helpless to do anything to make it better. One of the downsides to them getting so close, she supposed. He didn’t answer straight away, which prompted her to shrug and mumble. “Just think about it.”

The atmosphere between them seemed to shift suddenly as he changed the subject to what they would do once this whole war was over and done with. Once, the degree of sincerity in his voice would have terrified her; but now it left an odd feeling of glowing warmth in her chest that Aria couldn’t quite explain.
“Y’know, I like the sound of that.” she admitted, another genuine smile forming. “We could be vigilantes, rescuing people from slavery or…’steal from the rich to give to the poor’, that sort of thing. It’d be a great gig. Then when we’re old and grey we can go somewhere nice and just sit on a porch all day talking about...whatever it is old people talk about. If we’re feeling particularly nostalgic we could even go to Manaan.” she giggled at her suggestion, recalling their last trip to the Selkath homeworld and how they had both been surprised by its relaxing, lavender-smelling (where there weren’t enough Selkath nearby to overpower it with their fishy stench, of course) atmosphere.

Aria bumped his shoulder in return, glancing up as they paused their walk to skirt around the same wide-trunked tree from before. The former acolyte was quiet, perhaps TOO quiet, for another few heartbeats as she seemed to think the action through before she threw all of her weight into the next nudge (though she would have to use some basic Force manipulation to bolster her strength enough to have a chance at actually knocking him off balance due to their size difference), leaping up into the low-hanging branches above their heads with a jubilant cry of:
“LAST ONE TO THE TOP’S BANTHA FODDER!” she had already grasped hold of the next branch and was hauling herself up another level when she heard Yerbol shouting something that sounded like “Hey! That wasn’t fair!” from down below. Not only had she given herself a few seconds’ head start by catching him unawares, but Aria’s lither build granted her the ability to flit from one branch to the next with an almost frightening level of agility. She may not have been as physically strong as the other acolytes in the Academy, but she had clearly learned to make up for it by being light on her feet. It was no surprise, therefore, that she managed to remain a few inches in front of the young Knight, only pausing to ‘take pity on him’ and call back another playful taunt.
“What’s the matter, Bol? Didn’t you ever climb trees on Tython; or did you spend too much time reading?”
Puffing slightly for breath, Yerbol scowled up at her though instead of preparing a witty comeback of his own he called out.
“Ari, be careful! They’re a lot thinner up-”
He would be cut off by her startled shriek as the next branch she grabbed snapped clean off the trunk under the strain of her body weight and sent her crashing through the previous levels of branches, knocking Yerbol off balance as he tried to grab her hand to stop her from falling any further which simply resulted in both of them tumbling down to ground level.
“...There.” Yerbol finished as the duo landed in an awkward heap at the foot of the trunk.
“Totally did NOT see that coming.” she gasped, clearing her throat as she tried to scramble away from him and allow him enough space to right himself too. “Force, I’m sorry, Bol. Are you okay?” with another squeak of alarm, her foot caught on an exposed root and she fell back down onto his torso again, heat engulfing her entire face as they both fumbled to try and disentangle themselves without making the situation any worse.

If they hadn’t looked dishevelled enough from the bits of twigs and leaves sticking to their hair and clothes after their fall from the tree canopy, the multiple attempts it took them to both get their feet firmly planted underneath them again did not improve the situation. Aria cleared her throat again, plucking one such leaf from behind her ear and letting it float away on the breeze.
She had a feeling her face was about as red as Yerbol’s was, shifting her weight from one foot to the other she put forward another suggestion while raising her right hand at the same time:
“Those in favour of sneaking into the compound so Neta DOESN’T see us coming back looking like this?”

Whether or not they would accomplish that feat, remained to be seen….

You never see it coming[Freedomliveson/The Elvenqueen]

Awww, he's so adorable and innocent I just want to squish him! ;w; xD

I sincerely apologise for the incredibly awkward situation I am about to put you both in (*whispers* nah not really mwahaha, I just wanted to embarrass you both terribly and I have NO regrets even if it is slightly cliche. Have fun explaining this one to Neta, if she ever finds out, kids *prances away cackling*) Post is imminent after I've finished it up! :)

Also when abouts should we move them along to the next "phase" as it were? o:

You never see it coming[Freedomliveson/The Elvenqueen]

Slightly amended the Wampa joke because I totally only just realised they AREN'T on Hoth and I got that mixed up when I wrote that reply last night, oops XD apologies for any confusion this may have caused lol

You never see it coming[Freedomliveson/The Elvenqueen]

Of course feel free to alter their little escapade as they avoid their responsibilities for a while, up to you XD we could just wing it and see what kind of trouble (if any) they end up getting themselves into lol

You never see it coming[Freedomliveson/The Elvenqueen]

Aria plucked a piece of the jerky out of the packaging as he offered it to her, biting a piece off the end and chewing and swallowing before she retorted. "And didn't your mother ever teach you not to talk with your mouth full?" She giggled at his somewhat unexpected compliment, shaking her head abruptly and following up with:
"We just got lucky, I guess. It was a bit of a close shave at one point, and I DID have to re-do my hair twice." couple that with another quip about her ears suffering some unseen internal damage from the politician's incessant babbling and the pair were in hysterics for another few minutes before they could contain themselves again.
She squinted at the cut on his forehead and pulled a face, prodding it gently with the end of her thumb until she ascertained that it was healing well enough and slumped back again.
“You couldn’t see a Wampa coming, really, Bol?” then again, there had been an awful lot of snow lately and she supposed white fur blended in rather well with that kind of landscape so she’d let him have that one. “Okay, fine.” she smirked, holding her hands out defensively, though anything else she was about to say was cut off by the incessant chirping of the comlink on the other bed. With an over-exaggerated groan, Aria fell back against the creaky mattress and proclaimed: “Can they not leave us alone for five minutes?!” their constant need to be a presence in everything was becoming rather tiresome and she was desperate to just forget about the whole war and have some time to themselves.

Thankfully, however, the person on the comlink seemed in the mood to grant that request as Yerbol signed off a few moments later to declare that they would have not one, or even two, but TWELVE hours of uninterrupted rest time. That sounded fabulous. Unable to keep the smile from her face, she rolled over again to look at him, noting he seemed a bit disgruntled by something that had been said though she decided not to pry. He’d tell her if it was anything really important, after all.
“I’d be up for looking for that bird. Or maybe we could track down something that looks like a Wampa and we could practise how to spot them trying to sneak up on you, maybe teach them a lesson about what happens when they bully people who can use the Force." she didn’t expect him to take up the suggestion at all, but it made her chuckle nonetheless. “I’m kidding, we should probably give anything like that a wide berth. They were here first after all.” She stretched out her legs with another groan. “Some fresh air and a walk to stretch my legs would do me some good though, that shuttle was oh so very stuffy.” rolling off the cot, she got to her feet again and glanced back at him. “Then maybe when we get back we can try and figure out how that game of Manso’s is supposed to work, how’s that sound?”

It would be a simple enough matter to slip out the back of the complex and head for the other crystal building, the birds seemed to like it up in the rafters over there. Aria had to admit they hadn’t had much chance to observe the local wildlife and while it usually wasn’t her thing, it would give them an excuse to go AWOL from the base for a few hours.
“So, we follow birds around till we get lost or tired and then see about ambling our way back?” she proposed.

You never see it coming[Freedomliveson/The Elvenqueen]

Sounds like a plan! Man, I love how blatantly obvious Neta is about everything and how embarrassed he gets when she brings it up haha XD

You never see it coming[Freedomliveson/The Elvenqueen]

Tah dah, post achieved! Sorry it took so long, next one will be delivered in a more prompt time period once I get back into the swing of things haha

I tried to sort of build on what you'd laid out without lingering on it too much, figured Kira and Ari would get along pretty well (gosh I love that redhead so much, my fav companion so far of all the ones I've played with in the Knight and Consular storyline XD). I wanted to give them a bit of a breather since a looooot of stuff is gonna hit the exhaust fan soon, but feel free to speed them along to the actual breaking out if you want :P

You never see it coming[Freedomliveson/The Elvenqueen]

They didn’t have very much time to ponder the strange man’s cryptic riddles for the next several months, as they successfully planted the beginnings of their information warfare on both Coruscant and Dromund Kaas and the intel began to feed onto less well-known channels on the HoloNet, people would begin to take notice of their little rebellious movement and they would be scrambling to try and cater to their new network of supporters-supporters which flooded in FAR quicker than any of them could have anticipated. Neta had dropped back into her Spec ops leader role almost flawlessly and had taken up a second-in-command position to Dorne, providing a voice of tactical guidance for the duo as they tried to wrap their heads around the concept of having to step into pseudo-leadership positions. Naturally, as the two who had discovered the True Sith’s resurgence in the first place, they had become quite the figureheads and while they left the bulk of the tactical decisions to the older, more experienced members of the group, they still had to hit the ground running and learn fast.

The good news was that more exposure meant more help, smugglers and former mercenaries crawling out of the woodwork to offer their services in order to aid the resistance. Whether it would last through time, Cheriss had commented in a clipped manner, they would only have to wait and see. But with Neta spearheading their efforts to expose any and all the True Sith leaders as the frauds they truly were, it was no surprise that they eventually had to concede they could no longer hide in the shadows and that’s when the sting operations had begun. Through some careful snooping from specialised members of Havok (and also Bek, Kandar and their colleagues) they managed to discover that the initial purge of Force users that Bracknell had declared had not been so straightforward; many were still being held prisoner temporarily until the Alliance could get the manpower together to “ensure they were properly disposed of”, as Saresh put it in one news broadcast they had caught the tail end of.
It was a crazy idea, but they had collaboratively concluded during their next strategy session that boycotting those transports and liberating the captive Force users would be an excellent way to not only bolster their numbers but also to boost the morale of their current troops. It would take some time to organise, but many of their haphazardly-formed Council (even Ailel, Matthew and Voldon were forced to admit that while an aggressive solution, it was the best they had) agreed they should take steps towards arranging it.

In the meantime, Aria had been kept busy leaping from training or messing around with Yerbol (something they learned not to take for granted as they never knew when they would have to work apart again, although their bond had grown in strength and they found that even while apart they could still, however faintly, feel the other’s presence in some way) straight onto a shuttle to go darting out to act as a convoy for approaching defectors. The hyperspace route between known space and Zinuthra was quickly becoming not-so-hidden, and any craft which Soto, Bracknell or Saresh suspected to be heading towards Wild Space co-ordinates was often intercepted and shot out of the sky before they could even get there. Aria was still the more adventurous of the pair and had jumped at the opportunity to volunteer to lead “Operation Guard Dog” as Neta had affectionately dubbed it, closely accompanied by Kira. They had worked together on more than one such operation and while it was nowhere near as fluid or effortless as her teamwork with Yerbol, she liked the redheaded Knight; Kira seemed to appreciate Aria’s sarcastic sense of wit where many others either chided her for being overly-abrupt or simply got offended. It was nice to have somebody other than Yerbol that understood her snarky disposition and wasn’t bothered by it. It was the first time Aria could ever really say she had considered people as her ‘friends’, properly. Or even best friends, in Yerbol’s case, much to her father’s distaste. Though Roan didn’t approve of their developing relationship, the constant grumbling and threats directed towards Yerbol had stopped and the former Sith Lord had developed a kind of ‘quiet tolerance’ to his presence in Aria’s life. He made no further protests to their spending time together despite keeping watch over them out of the corner of his eye whenever he could.
While it usually annoyed Aria that Roan would still accompany them on missions, she had never been more glad to have him and the tomb beasts around than the incident with Senator Iwoi, during which she could have sworn Yerbol had very nearly met his end due to flying out of the nearby window, had Roan not appeared in that precise moment to halt the Knight’s momentum mid-air and set him back on the ground. After the initial shock of the incident had worn off, it had become somewhat of an inside joke between the pair, though Yerbol always seemed less fond of it being brought up in conversation than she was.

Presently, Aria was rising from her seat as their shuttle touched down in the hangar bay they had managed to improvise ever since their rebellion had gotten more substantial, looking forward to meeting up with Yerbol again after several days stuck in close proximity with a plethora of diplomats, the typical ‘look-down-their-nose-at-you’ (though they spent half their time stressing how grateful they were that the Force users had taken the time to escort them since they were ‘feeling rather threatened by the Alliance’s increased military presence along the route’) political type that Aria had spent most of her early years around. They were just as boring as she remembered and she was desperate for a chance to get away from all of it even for a little while, before they attempted to put their “prison break” operation into proper action. Bidding Kira a quick farewell (and ignoring the redhead’s furious jibes of how ‘she would pay for leaving her to deal with these snobs if it was the last thing she did’), Aria danced around their latest charge of grateful rescuee’s and quickly flitted through the compound to their assigned quarters before anybody else could ask her for “just one more favour!”, thankfully she managed to look tired enough that nobody would begrudge her a few hours of rest after such a long flight.

She would find Yerbol seated on his cot, looking up almost immediately as he no doubt felt her approach before she actually stepped through the doorway. Nonetheless, the Knight would scarcely have the time to get to his feet once again before she threw her arms around him and graciously took advantage of the hug he had been pre-empting. Over the past few months, the gestures had become a lot less awkward for them and what had started out as another quip shared between them had become almost second-nature now, especially after they had been apart for such a length of time.
“Boy, am I glad to see you!” she laughed softly after he had set her down and they had stepped apart slightly to talk again. “I thought that route was never going to end. They spent the whole trip ‘catching us up’ on the current legislation hullabaloo that Bracknell’s been trying to pass in the Senate, if you could even call it that now.” her nose wrinkled in distaste at the memory. “Do you know he’s trying to make it illegal to possess any kind of holocron or teaching archive without authorisation papers? Probably a pathetic attempt to try and track down the stuff we leaked back and destroy it for good.”
She flopped herself down onto her own makeshift bed, folding her arms behind her head as she looked up towards the ceiling. “How have things been over here? Any movement on that shipment of Force users yet?” though of course, she wasn’t REALLY interested in talking business, or anything about the war. At least not for a few hours. It was about time they took some ‘time off’, if for nothing else but to save their sanity.

Aria quickly realised this, holding her hand up to halt anything he had been about to say in response to her original question. “Actually, you know, let’s go goof off for a while, I’m sure Neta will be the first one to tell us when it’s “go time”.” a teasing grin graced her features as she noted the discarded packaging and proclaimed. “I thought that’d cheer you up. We should petition for Neta and Elara to request a bigger shipment next time, that stuff’s about the only edible thing we’ve got and it’s always the first to go.” her eyes twinkled, and it was impossible to tell whether she was being serious in her next statement or not. “I had to start a fight with the little old lady in the shipping depot to get that sent back ahead of us, you know.”

You never see it coming[Freedomliveson/The Elvenqueen]

Sweet, I shall have something up for you in the next few hours, frantic rush to get everything done before I go back to work tomorrow ahaha XD