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Hobgoblin
Mar 19th, 2009, 08:26:08 PM
The planet Corstris played home to many things. Beautiful deciduous forests, teeming wildlife, oceans so blue and gentle that made drifting in their vastness an experience of complete relaxation.

That was not the reason the Jedi ultimately settled there after years of the Order making a spaceship convoy their home. Corstris was just enough out of the way that it drew little notice from prying eyes. It was just close enough to Republic space that military help could be depended on. And it was just proximate to about a dozen mid-Rim worlds that could supply needed trade goods within a few days trip. All solid, practical reasons to establish a permanent settlement there.

But none of those reasons had anything to do with why the planet was home. For Hobgoblin, now a recognized Jedi Master of the Jedi Order and member of the Jedi Council, the planet was home because there was much to love about it, it's natural beauty high on the list of selling points.

Today, Hob would add to that beauty.

He had left the settlement and taken a hike up the path, to a meditation grove various Jedi regularly visited. The grove itself lay not too far inside a nearby forest and was large enough that the resulting break in the tree canopy allowed the sun to stream in. A small brook cut through the west part of the grove and the center of it had three large granite stones standing upright in an unsculpted monument. The Force was strong here, strongest at the center of the three stones, and it was to that point Hob went first. He sat crosslegged in the grassy earth, closed his eyes, and drew in a satisfied sigh.

The sun was high, the birds chirped, and Hob meditated on the small object he held in one closed hand.

Some time had passed, when a footstep caught his ear. In the Force, Hob sensed another being who exuded hesitancy. "Come!" he said aloud, butt-scootching over a little to ensure the newcomer had space. "Room there is, for two!"

Ilias Nytrau
Apr 2nd, 2009, 10:59:08 AM
Of all things, one would figure, true peace should be easy to find in this place. He was finding the truth and falsehood of how peace is found in each moment, a beam of sunlight filtering down through the dense foliage about as he passed through the underbrush below the high treetops. Beauty there was in this place, a foothold it had in the well of the Force, yet sometimes he could find no peace here, not as of late. A voice broke the serene quiet under which laid the trinkling sounds of a small stream, communications of the local wildlife and his own scrinching and crunching footfalls.

He stopped, the familiar friend of a voice giving him such pause. There were days such as this one that he felt old, very old beyond his years (as if he could properly apply such a phrase to himself anymore) and then he looked on his friend and all his quirks and other qualities, remembering that no matter how ancient he might feel, he would never catch up to the short being that called for his company just now. The halfbreed's head turned, pale so pale eyes looking on the caller with a blankness in them before turning to a faint warmth, dragging a weak attempt at a smile along with them.

"Good..." His voice cracked out in a multitude of tones of the otherwise. He dropped his gaze to the vast forest floor and loudly, gratingly cleared his throat and looked up again on the leathery green fellow scootching over and beckoning him over.

"...good day to you, Hob." The taller, infinitely younger-looking man supplied, finally, his voice deep with a twinge of hesitance and other things, but absent of the strange tones given at first. Another small attempt at a smile - framed by stubble that lifted the probability of others assuming eccentricity in his face - garnished his lips and Solic (as that was his given name by the Elders) approached the leathery green sort-of man to cast a long shadow over him when he stopped. Then the lightly scruffed halfbreed lifted his eyes and squinted through the trees. "Another glorious day. It never fails."

And then Ilias (as those that always knew him still called him often) turned and lowered himself to the earth, hunching over drawn-up knees when he sat, arms looped around and hands grasping wrists out front. It felt awkward, as he'd intended to roll about in his own misgivings and touches of restlessness for the entirety of the day, but oddly, this could not be avoided. The Balance, the Force it seems, had other plans for him. With reluctance, he now saw as much.

Hobgoblin
Apr 2nd, 2009, 08:34:36 PM
Hob quirked a closed eyebrow; his companion clearly did not believe the words he'd said. Yet it was not Hob's wont to force an individual to speak on their troubles.

"Glorious? Hm." Hob turned the words over in his head. "Perhaps. Perhaps not. A little overstated, glorious may be. What the day is, it is."

The small green being frowned pensively. "To be here, sacrificed much was. And yet, had Hob no home - had the Jedi no home - far less would we be. To truly grow, one must put down roots. Affect the galaxy, our growth does. Grow we must."

There was a pause during which neither Jedi spoke. The wind blew through the clearing, rustling the trees and gently caressing the grass. Home was a comfort in many ways.

Finally Hob broke the silence again. "Many have I met who are now long gone. Miss them I do."

Ilias Nytrau
Apr 21st, 2009, 09:53:18 PM
He'd nodded - a silent agreement, if ever there was one. The younger and taller of the two masters pursed his lips a moment, then that moment faded. Would it be so bad to say this peace and quiet made him restless? The halfbreed was not the man he once was... no. Oft times he wondered if there was much of the man left. The Beast within, it mewled most days, cried stronger on others.

"We are what we are." Solic admitted. "It is... not any fault of our own that those around us live and die and we still remain, outliving empires. I am merely a product of my genetic makeup, of careless breeding."

He of all people should have known how fleeting life is.

"What I am, what they were is nothing we can change. Who we are..."

The Jedi stopped there. That path was no good and should not be trundled on. "I should be grateful, Hob."

For what? He wondered. For what, indeed?

Hobgoblin
May 2nd, 2009, 07:13:11 PM
"Hm!" Hob smiled. "To speak as you have, means undecided is your gratitude."

To be fair, Hob understood the other's perspective far better than most ever could. In his life span, Hob had seen an entire system of government, war, violent upheaval, and in the end a peaceful calm all pass over the galaxy. Trillions of lives caught up in lifespans a fraction of his own, all eking out their own niche in a universe far too big for them to make a permanent difference.

"Such is nature," Hob said, gazing around the clearing. "It cares not what we sentients do. Eternally moving, it is and it is only those who live that seek to defy it."

The small goblin plucked a small weed out of the dirt with his free hand and gently tossed it aside. "Accepted this, I have. Perhaps the perspective carried by my people, in my very bones is. Not intended was your long life, yes? Forced upon you?"

The goblin regarded his closed hand and what it held. "And yet, from before you were born were the seeds of your extended life sewn. As each day passes, more and more is our future set. Change your past, you cannot, only shape your future."

Hob fell silent, looking at Ilias. "Why so distressed, are you?" he asked.

Ilias Nytrau
May 24th, 2009, 08:56:14 PM
"The future, yes..."

He examined the lines in his palms, the telling difference of his nailbeds from those of normal human stock. The memories of years long lost to the sands of time a collection countless times larger than the average. Finding out many years ago just what he was and how long he could ultimately expect to live was no comfort once time began to claim those that had been his life at the most needing of times.

"No man expects to outlive all those he loved and cared for less than love. I will not say hate for I simply do not. No parent expects to bury their own child. Truth, he was not my own flesh and blood, but what little does physical likeness matter? A bond is a bond and passing cuts it from any tangible way." The ageless master sighed, picking at the grass himself and feeling the breeze, but it provided little solace. "I have not grieved such and for as long since the passing of his mother."

A small, trying smile scratched its way to the surface, faltered and fell back into nothing.

"I do not place any dislike to what I am, my friend. That simply cannot be helped. There is the enduring part of me that will always be a man that feels. That part which is neither Jedi nor creature, but simply something that I have never been, never fully grasped. Such sentimentality has never been something a Jedi should embrace. That is so far as the teachings did dictate when I was a much younger man, before I ever tasted war." He shifted his jaw, side to side and picked at the grass some more, tossing a blade occasionally. "We cannot stop death anymore than we can stop darkness."

Hobgoblin
Jun 6th, 2009, 02:37:52 PM
"Disagree, I do," Hob said. "We stop death by growing new life. We stop darkness by kindling new light. For each snuffed flame of life, another one must be lit by the flames still burning."

"Some have said," the goblin stared again at his closed hand. "That never will darkness be defeated. Harmony among all, impossible is, until only one being is the all. At this, Hob laughs. Hm! Hehe!"

He leaned closer to Ilias, as though sharing a some secret universal truth. "Never was the defeat of darkness the goal! Always, the goal has been the opposite, the growth of new life in the illumination of knowledge, of the spreading of history that has gone before. For as much as we have seen of troubled times, the universe will not pause in her quest to continue to grow and peace will find its way."

"But," said Hob. "Growth cannot truly be without a full heart of caring! In this, I do not agree with the old ways of the Jedi who have gone before. They sought to distance from attachment. To love all unconditionally. Phooey, says Hob! It is our bonds with each other that make life worth living! To attach to none is to cut off the best parts of oneself."

Hob smiled at Ilias. "To know the woman and her child, lucky you were. Though mourn the loss, you do, carry them with you always, you will."

Ilias Nytrau
Jul 12th, 2009, 10:52:23 PM
A wistful look now coming to his face, Solic dropped his head back against the strong structure of the tree under which he and the much shorter master sat. One corner of the mouth of his weary face tugged upward, not in happiness, but in... something. Something that may have been a hint of resolution.

"I am indeed quite thankful for having had them in my life. My mourning for the woman long ago gave way to something that forged a connection between myself and the boy... and I would have had no reason to return from the place of my heritage those many years ago, were it not for the boy. It seems I have been right where I should be, all along." The younger Jedi rubbed at the rough stubble that had formed on his face from inattention in recent days. "If anything, there are others who would heartily agree with my placement."

At this, the descendant of predators laughed.

"I should not forsake them for my own wallowing for too much longer. Time will not wait, not even for such a man as I."

Hobgoblin
Jul 26th, 2009, 04:09:18 PM
"Wait awhile yet, it will." Hob stood, brushing off twigs, roots, and dirt from his robes. "Come. Before moving on, something there is that Hob wishes to do."

The Jedi Master wandered over to the stream that cut through the meditation grove. One finger gently drew a line in the dirt; from the streambank to a small dip in the ground, the claw-tipped finger traced a line. A tiny trickle of water followed, moistening the ground nearby.

Hob opened his hand; in the center sat a small, perfectly rounded seed. "For each, snuffed out," he murmured. "A new flame started. I name you Wyl."

With a soft poke, Hob buried the seed in the soil of the grove. He and Ilias just stood, staring at the place where the seed now lay. "Know you," Hob said conversationally. "Have another seed, I do."

Ilias Nytrau
Oct 10th, 2009, 01:45:45 PM
Solic watched the gesture, the planting of a hope of life in the dirt. The dedication to memories that would now only be settled in the past, remaining there now and always. The path diverged from this line, now, one less of a presence. For everything that was subtracted from his life, there was exponentially more made in addition. More life. Growth, in these days, was finally outstripping loss.

The absence of war still managed to make him a mote unsettled, however. It had been a constant in his life for more years than it hadn't. He chose not to dwell on the fact and be content in present circumstances which were, in all honestly, a ryshcate walk.

At the mention of another seed, his eyes slipped sideways to the man of much smaller stature. A small, almost insignificant smile added a touch of softness to his oft-times concerned visage. He looked away, off into the forests, again.

"You know me all too well." He rumbled, mild bemusement in it before fading again to seriousness. "Another seed, another representation? A life in remembrance of life? Preferable to the opposite, my friend."

Hobgoblin
Oct 25th, 2009, 09:32:42 AM
"Sometimes, do I wonder," Hob mused. "Whether all life is but remembrance of the life which came before it. Once traced, end the path does at a single being. Would that being appreciate what it began? Would it care? Would honored, feel it? Or would know it even what honor is?"

"Would it know war? Fear? Anger? Love? These things that we all are: came they from our originator? Or did we create them? Surpassed the original, have we, in our capacity for all things? In becoming more ourselves, do we become less in some other way?"

Hob tilted his head with a sad smile. "Weighty questions. Leave the pondering for another time, I will. Too much living to do, there is yet."

The Hobgoblin reached up and took Solic's hand in his own, patting the back of it in a friendly gesture. "Remember always the love you share. Remember always, loved you are," Hob said. The hands slid away, leaving a tiny, brown seed resting in Solic's palm.

Stooping, Hob began to amble back down the path from which he'd come.

Ilias Nytrau
Jan 2nd, 2010, 11:16:45 AM
Solic stared at the seed in his palm. It was so tiny in his large hand and from it would come something that would grow to be much grander in stature than himself. He looked up from examining the seed, pushing it around his palm with the thumb of that hand, to watch Hob's slow and steady retreat. A fond smile crept onto the face of the halfbreed. Oddly, it was a comfort that he wasn't alone in living this long existence. He tried not to dwell on the thought of when that might change again.

Looking back to the seed, Ilias moved a short distance away from where his friend had planted the last seed and made to plant this one in much similar way. They would need room to grow. Everything did.

"I could never forget. Forgiven, I have, but forgotten, never." He said as he formed the earth for the seed, cutting irrigation for the hole in the ground before he placed the small thing there, then sealing the earth over the seed and patting it lightly down. It was satisfying, this act. The life of this seed would grow to become something as grand as the one for whom it was planted. "Live with the strength of your namesake, Oa Umi'u."

The task finished, Solic stood and looked after the direction that Hobgoblin had taken, brushing his hands of residual dirt on each other. Then he started off after his friend.