Log:You Can't Paint a Togruta Blue and Call Him a Twi'lek

Rax Vaelus makes an apology to Maz and favors are exchanged.

OOC Date: Feb. 1st, 2016
Location: Maz Kanata's Castle
Participants: Maz Kanata, Rax Vaelus

A hooded figure drifts into the Castle, passing by lounging pirates, smugglers, traders, and drifters. He's not quite monk chic--he's got a modern maroon shirt on under the close-fitting black and grey robes, and his pants are modern as well, if loose and movable. The hooded outer robe he wears is also black, and casts deep shadows about his face as he makes his way further into the castle, but a blaster pistol appears every now and then on his hip, holstered and peace bound. His trademark sword is absent.

Looking for Maz Kanata, Rax Vaelus waves off a woman looking for some company--either freely or for pay, Rax doesn't bother to find out. He's here on a mission. Maz Kanata is no where to be seen. However, the ugly hulking Cookee, Maz's trusted cook sees him and yells at him in Alien garbled gibberish. It's gutteral and doesn't sound good. He whips his bloody and greasy hands on his apron and slams a meat cleaver into the bar top. He yells again, which gets the attention of everyone in the place. Some seem to be a bit grabby of their guns and a few leave out the front door.

The hood turns slowly toward Cookee. A single cerulean eye, bright as lightning, lands on the shouting, yelling alien... But Rax Vaelus just stands there, probably still unknown to most who would recognize him thanks to the hood. His gaze is impassive, made of stone, as he simply...waits. If they are threats, he can't understand them. If they are commands to leave, no gestures accompany them. As people slowly go for their weapons, Rax does not, simply standing there in a widening empty circle.

Eventually, once it seems there will be no end to the tirade, Rax simply announces, "I am here to see Maz. Tell her I bring an apology. ...And a gift." Only one eye is still visible to the angry cook, Rax not having moved an inch.

Cookee points at the door and gruffs. Lot of noise. However, there is a pinch on Rax's elbow almost immediately. "You have some nerve showing your face in here again, boy." If he looks down there is Maz pinching his elbow and tugging with a serious look. "What part of you are never to show your face here again, didn't you understand? The face part? Or the never part?" She looks like a fed up distant Aunt, scolding a child. Even though she's so short herself.

Looking down at the touch, Rax smiles faintly, "I am told I have quite a lot of nerve quite often..." Turning toward the Castle's owner and proprietor, Rax slowly kneels down, to be more eye-level with the woman...and also to produce his hands from under his cloak. Cradled against one arm is a bottle of very rare Corellian brandy. In the other is a rare flower from the mountainous wilds of Dantooine, near the old Jedi Enclave. It's growing in a sealed terrarium, with a few other native plants. "And if you must know...It was actually the 'show' that threw me off. Did you mean, I should not entertain while here, or I should conceal my visage behind colorful animal masks if I wish to seek audience, my lady?"

His words are soft and warm, spoken with the gentleness of one who is not above poking fun at dire situations...and one who is also sincerely sorry. The lightning eyes that regard her have changed greatly since last he was here.

Maz Kanata goggles eyes narrow when he pulls a bottle of brandy and the flower. "I like them young and spry, but you are a few hundred years too late on that front, child." She pinches his hip for good measure. "I menat you are not welcome within the walls of my Castle. Who the hell do you think you are pulling a weapon in my place, while I am in attendance. You take it outside. Easier to clean up the blood after. Assuming you killed the other gentlemen because no one came back afterwards." She glances back at the flower and snatches the terrarium from his grasp to admire it, but trying not to look pleased about it. She waves for Cookee to at least go back to cooking.

Rax Vaelus smiles a bit when she takes the flower, letting her pinch away. She's not yelling, so that's a good sign. But the smile doesn't last long, and slowly fades to a serious look. "A lot of bad things happened just before that... I wish I could say I wasn't myself that day... But I'm almost certain that the other gentleman was under the influence of something...very very bad."

Still wearing his hood, he ducks his head before the short, goggled woman. "I meant to return several weeks ago, to present my apologies, but..." He keeps his head bowed, "...A lot has happened, since that day." He slowly lifts his head. "I need your help, my lady. I have been to Ilum." The last part is spoken very quietly. Lifting his hood off, he raises his head slowly, to look her in the eyes.

IF Maz Kanata can sense such things she doesn't allude to it. She mulls it over a bit. She motions him to a backroom of hers. She holds up the terrarium back to her room. She holds the door open and gives Cookee a stern look and closes the door. She sits at her desk and puts the terrarium on a shelf. "Why do you think I would ever help you? After what you happened. I can care not of the infulence you were under." She crosses her arms and takes a little smoke for herself on a long wick cigerette.

Sliding into a chair on the opposite side of the desk, Rax gathers the excess cloak into his lap, "...That's the problem. I wasn't the one under the influence." Reaching into his interior robes, Rax slowly withdraws a chrome, gold, and black lightsaber, laying it tenderly upon the desk between them. "When I was fifteen, I had just escaped an Imperial prison. My father's ship was taken and destroyed, and I was sentenced to life imprisonment. To escape, I dove into a montain of trash. I waited there for...hours. Days. But, as I was slowly dying in the refuse, a glint of light caught my eye. I reached for it...and drew forth a mummified hand, which lead to a mummified face. Holding that."

He nods slowly to the lightsaber. "I have never known her name. I do not know who she was, or where she came from, or whether she had been buried under that mountain of trash for decades or millennia. But her arm was outstretched, reaching to me." His eyes close, "I took the weapon...and used it to carve a bloody swath of destruction across the stars. At its tip, I took wealth, treasures, and fame." His eyes open. "With it, I have shed the blood of the innocent."

He glances down at it, "...and then it broke. I was lost. I didn't know what to do with myself. I lost my ship, my crew, my wealth... And it did not matter. Only an empty space in my soul, that I have never been able to fill." He shrugs, shaking his head, "I went to Serenno with Ax--the man I attacked--to find a new crystal in the lightsaber of a man named Kylo Ren. But a girl called out to us. Selino Dooku. A Jedi. She asked us for help. I cared not. But...when we got there, and I had carved my way to them...she reached out to me as he choked her... And I just stood there and watched her die."

He sighs, "My soul shattered that day...as surely as the crystal that was in this lightsaber."

Maz Kanata grimaces at how he came upon the black lightsaber. She refuses to touch it. She leans forward on her desk to gain a better look. She looks back at him, with a stern face. She doesn't look too happy but she urges him to continue his story in her utter silence.

When she urges him to continue with her silence, Rax nods slowly. "We stole Kylo Ren's vessel--the Interceptor. Aboard was a black and red cube that glowed with what could only be described as...evil." He sighs deeply, "Ax went insane. He claimed someone was in the room with us, that there was a dark presence. Then he tried to claim the box. His own wife and a few others had to shoot him to restrain him. I took the Infiltrator to Tatooine while they came here to recouperate."

Rax gestures aside, "Ren was waiting for me on Tatooine as I attempted to sell the ship. All he wanted was the cube, and the old man who took it meant nothing to me, so I told him in exchange for my life. Then I came to warn him...but I encountered Ax first. He claimed he would kill me, so, I decided to shoot first." He shakes his head, "You already know how that went. But after I left...the fact that no one cared about my side of the story troubled me. Ax began to tell everyone he could that I had sold each of them out--people I had never even met, people who were not even there. His madness was complete. Eventually he put out a bounty on me and I turned myself in, hoping to...reach him? Reason with him? I don't know. He turned me over to the man I betrayed, but he didn't care and let me go."

Rax shrugs, "Since then...I have been traveling the galaxy, trying to find... I don't know..."

He looks aside, his voice quiet, and his cerulean eyes tired, "...Redemption? A good death? An answer for why all this had to happen? I keep seeing...that girl. As she reaches out...and then she's dead."

His eyes close. "I'd been to Bissimilli, and there I found a crashed Jedi Starfighter. It lead me to Ilum, where the Wall of Crystal shed a single tear...and from it, a Mandalorian reforged the broken shards of that lightsaber into something new. She said it was my blade now, and mine alone."

His eyes open, and he finally looks across the desk at the woman, "On Dantooine, I fought a huge, mutant Kath Hound, after being sucked into an otherworld by the Force, where I found this..." He produces a fang necklace, which he holds out. "The Kath Hound was vicious and bloodthirsty and lived for the hunt. As I had. And, using the meditation techniques a woman taught me here, on this world, I defeated it without emotion."

"Yet...still I am empty, Maz. And I do not know what to do. How does one reforge a broken soul, stained with darkness?"

Maz Kanata simply takes off her goggles and sets them down and she steeples her fingers listening and in thought. "So much in a short time." She rubs the point between her eyes and flicks the ash of her cigarette. "I cannot give you the answers you seek. I would suggest start with 'empathy.' But that is harder to come by for most." She turns in her chair to look at the flower given to her. "It'll tear you up inside.And it's worse than dying."

Rax Vaelus nods slowly, "Well... Unlocking the secrets of the universe is a bit of a tall order, I suppose... But there are a few other things I was hoping you might be able to help me with." He gestures to the chrome, gold, and black saber, "For instance, I cannot read the inscription upon the blade. A man on Coruscant could, but he would not tell me what it said. Only that it contained the secret of the blade's history." He shrugs a bit, "And, well... I know nothing of the Force, after all my searching. Nothing. I've seen it freeze plasma in mid air, and it held me in place as easily as gravity... Yet I know nothing about it."

Maz Kanata turns again and slips her goggles back down to read it. She refuses to handle it. And rotates it with her cigarette holder. She takes a peek. "IF you are slowly being consumed with darkness. It's probably best not to say if I know. However.. since you seem to know a lot about the macabre. I have a request. Maybe a little trade is in order?" She raises her gaze in thought.

Rax Vaelus flashes what was probably supposed to be a mock-hurt grin, but comes across with a lot more hurt and a lot less grin, looking more like a grimace by the end, "Well, the whole point of this journey was to confront my dark past and either escape it or overcome it... I'd like to think I've made at least a little progress." Rubbing the back of his neck, Rax looks awkwardly off to the side, remaining silent for a moment. Eventually, however, he does nod, turning back to her, "Sure, what is it I can do for you?" The eagerness has gone out of him though. Her comment seems to have wounded him.

His expression of remorse gives her some hope. Maz gestures to the flower on her shelf. "I haven't seen one of these in a -long- time. I appreciate your apology." She pauses and watches him. "Since you seem to be such a purveyor of such items. I had something taken from me a week or so ago. And I need someone to track it down for me. My apprentice was able to stop one of them. However, we haven't been able to get much information from them. I need someone to bring it back to me. In the wrong hands it could do a lot of harm, than good."

Wrested from his melancholy somewhat, Rax nods slowly, listening as she lays out the situation. "You are very welcome... And...Apprentice? And what is the item? Do you know the species or gender of the thief that escaped? Where was it being kept and how did they get to it?" He spreads his hands, back into Bounty Hunter mode as he gathers clues and evidence, "If they were using expensive tools, it may mean they had a wealthy backer. If not, they may simply be very good. Or very lucky."

Maz Kanata sighs. "Well I am known to be a little bit of a pack rat." She chuckles. "Not like my basement is locked, just spooky and keeps the riff raff out. My apprentice was sweeping when this person came and swiped it. She was able to subdue them however he was workign with another and it's partner got away." She hops down from her chair. "Come. I'll show you." And she ushers him from the backroom, to a passage to the basement. Long ways of stairs to a dark room. She brings a torch along. Maz has since stopped having the creature tied down, but it was blue and wrapped in cloack huddled in a cot. "This. He won't tell me a thing. Oath of secrecy."

Following along behind, Rax is silent until they reach the blue figure. "Oath of secrecy, huh? Probably won't crack under the usual interrogation methods..." He eyes the blue creature, "Hey. Hey!" He really just wants a good look at its face, but if it responds, all the better. "What did you take, huh? Why's it so important to you?"

The humanoid alien almost appears to be a twi'lek. When the creature looks up, it does appear to be a twi'lek with lekku but something looks a bit off about it. It growls at Rax. "You cannot take what is free." It hisses. And Maz just sits and smokes. "Almost a full week without food and it still won't talk." She upcurls her nostrils "And it desperately needs a bath."

His easy, lazy smile slowly fades, and Rax is left with a grim, dark, serious expression. "No one deserves to live in a cage, friend. Tell the lady what she wants to hear, and you walk out of here. Why waste another day in this fetid waste?" He nods upwards, "The wind is calling." "I will be a martyr to my cause." It bundles back up in it's cloaks on the cot. "My God will reward me in death." Maz just sits on the bottom steps and watches. She jingles her keys. "You want to brave it and go in?" She smirks some. "He's been here a bit over a week. Nothing. Except religious nonsense. No where they are going.. etc."

Rax Vaelus nods to Maz, tossing his head toward the door, "Sure, open it up." Once inside, Rax leans on the wall, looking down at the huddled rags, assuming he's not attacked immediately. "Rewards in death, huh?" Rax nods slowly, turning his back to the wall after a few moments and folding his arms, bringing his robes around him as he does. He's silent for a long while before asking without looking at the man, "...What happened to make you throw away this life for the promises of another?" His lightning-colored eyes shift aside, looking down at the blue creature. "What was the pain that lead you to seek comfort and fulfillment beyond the veil?" Maz let's him in but closes the door so the prisoner doesn't get out. The twi'lek's proportions are all wrong when he gets closer. Even the blue looks patchy on it's skin. Something is wrong and off. "Our God will protect us from the darkness. No more scarafice maybe mine will be the last." He growls. "It belongs to us now. No effort to get it back. The deed is done."

Rax does not respond immediately. Instead, after the silence has become uncomfortable and the fire has faded from the man's words. "...You didn't answer my question. Who were you very you met this cult? Where did you come from? What was your life like?" He looks down at the man, sidelong, still leaning against the wall, arms still folded.

The creature rolls over on the cot away from him. "Done talking. No speak. Nothing to say." It grumbles and just goes silent. "Leave me to starve." He suggests.

Rax shakes his head slowly, "No, I'm afraid that time has passed. Now you will listen to me." He turns, and kneels near the figure, "You were not always like this. Once, you had hope." Rax looks up and lifts his hand, "You looked at the stars and felt joy. You drank cool water and were fulfilled. You were free of pain; free of sorrow. ...And you can be again."

Rax's voice lowers into a whisper, "Who were you. What was your name? Who did you love?"

Maz Kanata sits up and gruffs at him in a snort. "I am Tosi Se, Father of Ahoma Za. Son of Aboto Laan. I lived a slave to the land. I will die free. There is no rain, only death. God will be pleased by it's rightful place and it will rain again." If Rax got a better view he can see that this is no Twi'lek but another alien painted to look blue. Maz listens from the hall, but she is so short it's like she's not there.

"Tosi Se."

Rax is now eye-level with the blue-painted creature. "Water summons wind, as you have summoned me. You sought to bring rain to a desolate place. A place blighted by drought. That is noble. Worthy." His voice lowers to a whisper, "You should be rewarded. Where is this place you sought to rejuvinate?"

The male brings back his hood, to show it really is a Togruta painted blue to hide what he is. The illusion is pretty convincing. "I cannot say. If it does not rain. They will take my Ahoma Za." He bows his head. "God will make it rain." He shakes his head. "I will be stoned if I return a traitor. A failure."

The copper-haired human nods slowly, "There is more than one way to make the rains fall, Tosi Se. If your son is in danger, then the people you serve are faithless and accursed." Rax holds up a finger, "But hope is not lost. Perhaps your god sent me to you, to deliver you from the darkness you endure." He clenches his fist, "Allow me to go in your place. They shall know not from whence I came. If your son is in danger, I can rescue him." Rax slowly unclenches his fist into a reaching hand, offering it out to the Togruta. "Tosi Se, you will see your son again. I swear it. Let us bring an end to the darkness."

Tosi Se clears his throat. "Daughter. She is my daughter." He looks down dishearted. "But it will not rain. The ..." He stops. He looks skeptical. "But there is no where to go. We'd be homeless. No home to call our own." He thinks about it, there is almost hope but not quite.

Rax Vaelus huhs, "My apology, I've only met a small handful of your kind in my travels." He flashes a disarming grin, "And the one I know well will be most disappointed in me that I misidentified your daughter." He considers, "She is a refugee too, her home destroyed. She settled on Nar Shaddaa--I showed her where she could find medical care, and she carves figurines for a living..."

He shrugs, shaking his head as he grows serious once more. "But, as I said, there is more than one way to make it rain. Have you ever heard of the Ithorians? They are terraformers--worldshapers without peer."

The painted blue male Togurta is tired and hungry and well worried about his own. He gives Rax the corrdinates. "We took the artifact there. At least my partner should have."