The flimsiplast bag expanded as he breathed into it, then crumpled as he inhaled again.
Frill, but he hated coming out this far himself. Damn Foxen. Damn his pickiness. Damn him not being here to be a silent terrifying shadow where he could at least hide comfortably.
A wave of queasiness washed over the Rodian. Oh, spaceflight was horrible. He could have been home with his voorpak right now.
But no, nooooo, sending one of the runners wasn’t good enough for the precious ‘not-fiance-not-boyfriend-not-anything’s drupe fruits. Every delivery had to be fetched by hand.
He should just move here. That was it. Then he’d never need to board another ship again, not with how Foxen paid.
But his favorite diner…
Oh, no, no food thoughts now, no.
Eventually, they descended. Omwat took forever to land on because even the main spaceport in Omwat City was real strict about incoming vessels, and they were the friendly ones with open trade. Heeks imagined living in one of those funny hexagonal comb buildings and breathed into his bag, swallowing convulsively.
Immediately he was awash in the typical mix of foreign and Basic chatter, heavier on the former than the later around here. He stood out like a green sore thumb. Sure, there were other aliens disembarking and already at the port along with a minimal amount of droids, but not any significant ratio compared to the many types of Omwati. His antennae buzzed as he filtered through the crowd, made a brief stop to say goodbye to lunch the wrong way, then collected himself and his pass for the port and headed to find his meeting place. The letter he carried burned a hole in his jacket’s innermost pocket, zipped right over his heart.
The Omwati Force Order’s Phrontistery Omwat’s Capital City
“Myna!”
The tentative yet eager voice rang through the domed adobe chamber, echoing alongside the ornate bells hanging from a treelike sculpture at its center. Several heads turned to look at the smallest and youngest of the fledglings. The adolescent boy smiled sheepishly at the attention, but straightened up as his teacher turned from the teen she spoke quietly with to heed his call. “I…” He cleared his throat before continuing. “My grandpa, uhm, passed last summer and I made this chime…Could I?”
Inid Low paused, then smiled softly. Fixing her shawl out of the way and over her shoulder, the Linwirron crouched beside them, holding out a blue-grey hand for the wind-bell. The child handed it over and waited with bated breath for her thoughts. She turned it over in her palm, long nimble fingers tracing the crude yet thoughtfully etched shapes. A fish for a fishing enthusiast, a hydrospanner for a mechanic or an engineer. Several holes circled the circumference for each child of the elder’s, and then several more for the children of his children. The boy’s mother helped him poke those markings. She knew that like she knew the clapper was in the shape of a flower his grandfather gave his wife every anniversary, with how vibrantly open the youth’s thoughts radiated between them — internally dictating every symbol and decision he had made and desiring it known.
“This is lovely, Philik. Your grandfather would be honored to have such remembrance. Come, let us hang it up on the branches so that when you come to commune and meditate, you may think of him.” .
Philik beamed with pride and relief at the approval. He took the chime back and scurried towards the Arbor of Souls. The monument was a mere small shrine compared to the garden deeper into the city. Yet crucial in teaching the importance of history, remembering and honoring those lost, connecting as a community and spiritually. It played a role in aiding the children in learning and processing grief, like young Philik here and…she sighed heavily, brushing aside heavy memories and rising to follow the Fledgling.
“Heryn Inid Low!”
The wisen woman paused and turned her lilac eyes towards the chamber’s entrance. An athletic young man with downy white and black feathers, a dark azure face, and wide lean shoulders stood there at attention. She quickly recognized him without needing to see the Linwirron symbol fixed on a Sentinel’s garb. He was one of her best apprentices and a skilled leader to his team. A quick look to the Warbler aiding with the fledglings signaled for them to assist Philik and take over the session. Once that matter was settled, Inid Low moved to meet the Force User, gesturing to step into the hall outside.
“What is it, Pathu Tië?” the elder warbler asked swiftly, gaze boring into his.
Pat cleared his throat and the flash of a sympathetic knowing look wasn’t missed, respect still flitting in his voice as it always did when addressing his superior. “The Port Authorities contacted us. A Rodian man matching the reports’ descriptions has made reentrance.” A hand signalled to walk with her, the pair briskly strolling down a clay molded hallway filled with sunlight and planted ledges. “They did not detain him as requested.”
“So he will be at the market then, if the pattern holds true,” Inid Low uttered, more to herself than him. “Do you have your speeder?”
“Yes, ser.”
“Let us go then,” Inid Low uttered with finality, “I feel a meeting is overdue.” .
The young man nodded but paused, glancing back towards the Arbor of Souls chamber. Inid Low herself drew to a halt, exhaling knowingly as the air quivered with a hesitant thought behind her.
“It has been nearly two years since we heard from Flyndt…should we…? Custom states recognition—”
“No.” She didn’t glance over her shoulder, her fist clenching before her till knuckles whitened around a silver and leather woven ring. “No bell shall be hung until his fate has been proven, Pathu Tië.” The elder willed her hand to relax, walking away and adding, “He resigned, customs don’t apply to him.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The trip was quiet. The modified speeder was slim, capable of carrying two individuals and fitted with a posterior cart fit for two more. It was well suited for travel through the winding tight corridors of the old city’s streets, weaving through clusters of pedestrians and the occasional pet or livestock, plants and other transports. The shadows of the adobe homes squished side by side, stacked on top of each other or even over the road, fell across the pair as they traverse from the heart of it all.
To outsiders, the web of roads and footpaths looked chaotic and nonsensical, some even equating the clustered city to the look of honeycomb cells. Cells that hugged through a savannah forest, around the lake that was their life’s blood and quite literally up the bluff that sheltered the city from the harsh sun and strong winds. But to the Omwati that long called this home there was a pattern to the madness, efficiency and protection. A long living intent to minimize how much space they took up of the land they cherished. An intent that only broke once, reflected by the wider, grander and urgently built facilities and urbanscapes of the newer sectors of the city decades ago. The stark contrast between them mirrored the sacrifice of their beliefs and a desperation only known by a people driven to great lengths to reclaim their own. .
A desperation that still gripped at grieving hearts.
Inid Low ran a hand through her short downy feathers. White stringy plumes against the terra grey fluff like mist on a shadowy lake while longer near-black occipital plumes rustled in the wind in stark comparison. She exhaled and focused back on the present task. Rodian Male. Frequent visitor at the market. Not just any market, but the one that converged at the edge of the city just within the confines of the old district. Multiple cultures converged here, mingling in craft and harvest, sharing news and reuniting with old connections. It wasn’t a place much frequented by visitors to the planet unless they were searching for authentic locales and wares. There were plenty of stores and shops to nab anyone else’s attention in the capital district. Yet this man sought one thing.
Koskotos.
It was a drupe that grew from low creeping ground bushes on the grass steppes of the north. The several varieties had been cultivated and grown in greenhouse, the stone fruit offered as a delicacy treat in restaurants and used to manufacture oils and creams for hygienic care. However, there was not a mass production of it, limiting how much raw fruit could be found in the main markets. Yet members of the Han’duwil Nation that semi-annually lived in the city than the steppes they called home, would bring back not just artisan crafts but produce and other foodstuffs. .
It was within the heart of the market that blanketed the sides of a canal snug within the adobe buildings and balconies that, after parting from Pat, Inid Low approached a section of stalls whose wares she was so intimately familiar with. She scanned through the oscillating crowd shuffling past carved wooden boxes and furniture, metal worked tools and bowls, woven rugs, scarves and blankets. Before her gaze fell on her target stopped between crates full of dried cheese, meat, bottles of fermented crop milk. Casually, she approached the booth and halted just shy of a meter beside the foreigner. She picked up one of the green-yellow skinned drupes.
“The Khaw Koskotos are well ripe, huge this season,” she uttered casually, seemingly to the middle-aged woman at the booth whose striped feathers were tied back beneath a scarf – yet, she spoke in Basic.
The Rodian, though he didn’t speak up, was listening. It was hard not to when there wasn’t a lot of chatter going on around he didn’t understand, and then came the Basic. Plus, it was valuable commentary.
While he was fairly confident in his ability to pick out good koskotos at this point, this was Foxen’s whatever the hell he was talking about, and Foxen wouldn’t tolerate a single imperfection. If this lady said those fruits over there were huge and ripe, then, well…
He watched for which ones she was looking at or would reach for, attempting subtlety, but when she didn’t move immediately, he sighed to himself and put on his game face.
“Which ones are you eyeing? Just in case I have to fight you for them.” He winked abd gestured to his spindly, visibly unnamed self, an obvious joke that hopefully wouldn’t land flat. You could never tell with some cultures, and these birds were insular as bloody all get out.
The woman glanced to her right and at the Rodian fella. She chuffed lightly and raised the koskoto in her hands in gesture. “This one at the moment, though many here are prime for choosing. Surely be plenty enough for both without haggle or conflict.”
Inid Low set the drupe down and pointed out a few more that resembled a similar ripe sheen. Picking up a couple others, the Omwati briefly explained the signs of the less ripe. She handed one over to him for examination and then rested her hand back on the stall’s counter.
“We do not get many foreigners in this market, not unless they are peregrines, er, living here. Tell me, are you a resident and if so, what brought you to stay in our city?” Inid Low inquired, offering a small smile.
While normally Heeks avoided anything resembling a question that could possibly in literally any way shape or form tie back to his vigorously paranoid employer, the bird had just spent a good few minutes being helpful, and it was a simple enough answer to finagle into anonymity. Plus, he was going to need more than just Flynn’s bird-brained directions to the meeting place for his letter drop, and convincing a local to bring him was his best bet with a crowd as tough to crack as these Omwatis.
So the Rodian smiled his best smile back and replied, “Per-whats? No, ma'am, I’m just a visitor, though the thought has occurred to me to try moving to your lovely city. It’d be more convenient at this point with how often my work has me here. I don’t know about you, but spaceflight makes me sick!”
True and pitiable, a surefire combination to non-threatening, which was his preference whenever he couldn’t just not be there.
The tall Omwati woman’s smile twitched at the corners and Heeks felt a faint, fleeting wave of chill through his mind. She detected no deceit, though nothing was revealed much in his response. Inid low shifted naturally to face him, keeping one hand resting on the stall. Her lilac eyes offered a passive gaze while she spoke.
“Then you would be a peregrine,” she repeated for him. Her smile eased into a brief solemn and thoughtful expression as she explained. “That is the term many use for outsiders who settle here, though not all intend it to be welcoming. They have a reason for that.”
The woman paused for a few seconds before clasping her hands together before her. “So, you are a produce merchant? And you come here for Koskoto? Mm, must be selling it at a high price. It is not something one can buy in great quantities.”