fighting_mad | [OOM] War

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[OOM] War

Thaks are ugly creatures by anyone's aesthetic standards, big and scaly with long necks, four webbed feet, long tails, and sharp teeth. They smell and are grumpy and tend to have tempers.

Plourr loves them.

The wind flies in her face and clouds scud across the blueblue sky overhead, and she grins fiercely, staying in the saddle as her thak leaps a fallen log. She gives a wild shout of delight, finally reining the creature in to give Rial the chance to catch up.

She is surprised to look back and see him just behind. "You ride well, my count! Not many can keep up with me when I get going!" she calls.

[All dialogue from Lucasfilm's and Dark Horse Comics' Star Wars: Rogue Squadron: The Warrior Princess.]

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He is. "Princess..." He trails off, listening to the soft thuds of the thaks' footsteps behind them. "Plourr. I want you to know how ashamed I am of the role my father played in the death of your family." The words burn in their sincerity, in their disgust. "He--"

She hears the loathing, and she doesn't let him finish. "Your father was not responsible, Rial." Plourr knows that now. "In fact, he tried to prevent it. There is no shame on your house." The pond water laps at her boots before she glances over at him. "Nor on you, my count." She kneels down at the edge of the water, tethers Koer to a log and watches the thirsty creature begin to drink.

Rial does the same with his thak and then stands quietly, watching the princess. "Perhaps. I only wished to ease the pain of your return in some small way. It must be difficult for you being here, all memories of this place, after seeing them die..."

She plucks a long stalk of grass, resolutely not looking back at him. "Thankfully, I never saw it..." She twirls the grass between her fingers. "But hearing their screams was enough. I realized what was happening and ran. I guess I didn't realize that I was leaving them." The twirling grows more violent. "Maybe if I had gone back, I could've done something--"

"Stop." He places a strong hand on her shoulder, letting the other curl into a helpless fist behind his leg. She stiffens but still doesn't turn to him.

"There is nothing you could have done. You are alive now, and not only can you avenge them, but save their world as well."

"Ha!" She rises, wiping her fingers on her jumpsuit's trousers and looking out across the trees, and the mountains in the distance. "If there ever was a world that needed saving. Poor Eiattu! So many dirty hands groping you!"

She rests her hands on her hips, shoots Rial a sideways glance. "Perhaps Count Laabann's the dirtiest of all, eh?"

He stands beside her, arms crossed over his chest as he, too, looks outward. "No question Laabann is a concern to our cause. A Hutt tongue is hardly as slippery. However, the majority of the Priamsta is not as foolish. They will join us. And with you leading us," he glances over, "we will surely win the day."

The glance becomes a long, steady look. "I only ask that you allow me to be at your side from now until that day comes."

Plourr doesn't meet his gaze. Eyelashes are dark smudges against her cheeks, her head lowered. "Your confidence in me is ... reassuring. I only wish that I could match it with my own. I've fought so many battles, but this..." She opens her eyes and stares at the ripples distorting their reflections.

"If this goes wrong, I'll have destroyed us all."

* * *

Hiking up the steep incline, Plourr turns back to offer Rial a helping hand. "The PLB or the Priamsta, these are the allies I have to choose from?" She snorts. "At least I know where the Empire stands."

He clasps the hand, allowing her to help pull him up. "I know you will make the right choice."

"Oh? And just how do you know?"

"Because I know you. Just as every husband should know his wife."

Plourr's eyes flash. "I'm not your wife!" She yanks her hand back.

Rial falls flat on his toned ass with a yelp.

She sighs, brusquely extending her hand down to him again. "I'm sorry. But how can you continue to hold on to these ridiculous archaic traditions?"

He takes her hand in a firm grip, calluses brushing calluses, but remains on the ground. "Yes, I am bound by these 'ridiculous archaic traditions.' Because they are my destiny. They are yours."

Serious brown eyes looking up at her. "And that, my princess, is how I know so much. That is how I knew you had not died with your family, how I knew you would return to Eiattu.

"Because it is your destiny to reclaim the throne ... and it is my destiny to be at your side when you do so."

She stares at him, eyebrows furrowed and mouth open.

No, no he can't be right--

"I do love you... And I will marry you."

The words ring for a moment before he goes on.

"And I can see in your eyes that truth is dawning on you."

He is an unbelievable pain in the ass.

"Doesn't it matter that I don't love you?" she asks, hauling him to his feet.

"I would prefer it, of course, but--"

The thirty black-armored soldiers with force pikes swinging out of the trees make a nice interruption.

"COME QUIETLY, PRINCESS, AND YOU WILL NOT BE HARMED!"

Plourr's head snaps up.

"Quietly, huh? I don't think so."

Her hands curl into fists as boots hit the ground all around.

They move in, surrounding the pair.

Plourr doesn't wait for a cue; she just reaches out and grabs the nearest soldier. Something -- something that isn't armor -- cracks as she hurls the man into three of his compatriots.

And then she's moving, kicking and shoving and always returning to pounding with elbows and fists, scarf flying behind her.

thud in the next room and you listen to the weeping abruptly turn to screaming.

you wrap your fist around a rock and just punch as hard as you can and the blood sprays and he won't move, harran won't move--

she's gonna grow up big and beat the hell out of those sons of sith harlots, see how they like it-- kill them kill them good

don't you ever touch me again. ever!

The burn of a force pike against her shoulder.

She's screaming words, she thinks, but damned if she knows what; her throat is raw and there are battered bodies and armor littering the ground and she's holding a soldier over her head, jaw clenched so hard she can feel her temple throb.

Rial is busy himself, literally up to his elbows in armored special operatives, fighting and trying to keep his eye on the princess in the process, but he loses sight of her.

He can hear her, though.

"Is this quiet enough for you?!" seems to be her favorite snarl, though there are also plenty of obscenities coming from her direction, too. But it's the flying soldiers that are the dead giveaway.

He sees the force pike strike, hears her cry.

"Princess!" and he's blindly trying to struggle to her but he can't get there--

and she's throwing a soldier and turning into a screaming destructive blur, and he is left to watch armor shatter under her hands and mop up what (or who) she leaves behind.

The mad light fades from her eyes and she looks out over the sprawled, unmoving bodies. "Rial-- are you alright?" she asks, fists still up.

Standing back to back with her, he slowly lowers his hands. "Just fine, my princess. How about you?"

Instead of answering, she turns around to look at him. His tunic is slashed, but otherwise, there's not a mark on him.

He faced down thirty soldiers at her side, bare-handed, and he's entirely unscathed.

Damn this count and making her like him.

Rial looks right back.

Her face has been cut and the sleeve of her tunic smokes. Her hands are battered, bloody messes.

And he thinks she's absolutely beautiful.

She is about to tell him to stop looking at her like that-- When there are running footsteps approaching, and they both spin in time to see the two Rogues sprint out of the woods.

Plourr is relieved.

* * *

Time passes.

Plourr tells the three men how she knows that the man leading the People's Liberation Battalion is not her brother. They take a closer look at the soldiers and discover that they were sent by the nobles-- of course.

And then the TIE fighters howl past overhead. Clouds of smoke rise over the skyline in the distance.

"They're storming the citadel! Impostor or no impostor, he's not going to burn down my city!"

And she's off running.

Her city.

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[OOM] War

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