After a moment more of investigating the unseen, Sirejj snapped back to the present as a bird flew overhead and scolded, unhappy about either his presence or something else in the jungle.

Enough of that business. He moved on again, intentionally setting his thoughts towards one thing; a timely escape. As much as he was confident he would survive this jungle, it would not be wise to tempt fate or allow himself to be distracted. He soon picked up his pace, sometimes shifting into a jog where he could. Encountering a dense patch of undergrowth, he swiftly scrambled up the trunk of a tree and travelled through the branches, careful to avoid any full troops of primates. Startling one or two wasn't something he was worried about, but angering the mob would cause quite the disturbance and it was sure to attract unwanted company.

Doing so, Sirejj began to slip back into his natural state. The feeling of the moss covered boughs under his hands and the soft ground under his booted soles was the most natural thing to him. He said nothing. His movements matched that of the flora and fauna around him. Every stray scent and rush of wind he caught. It might rain soon, he supposed. It was dreadfully damp. He would shelter under the canopy somewhere off the ground if it rained, or keep travelling through the night depending on the weather.

If and when Tarkin decided to join him, Sirejj judged that he could put distance between them after sunset. Tarkin, for all his wiles, could not see in the dark, nor could he see through the Force. Sirejj had no intention of making the game a fair one.

The climb to the rocky outcrop where Tarkin could survey the landscape was a strenuous one. It had been an easy trek when he was younger, but he found his pace lagging as the incline sharpened. The problem was exacerbated by his lack of sleep; he could feel his eyes trembling in their sockets, which made it difficult to focus on where he was going. He meandered up the slope, arms limp at his sides. The adrenaline from his arrival had long since faded, spent on the climb up to the Plateau. Now all he could think of was sleeping.

This was undeniably the most disappointing trip to the Carrion Tarkin had ever made. He couldn't remember ever being this tired, this unmotivated. He felt ill besides; it seemed that Garoche was around every corner, peering at him from behind every tree. Memories flitted through his mind, and at the forefront was Jova's scolding voice. He'd told him that Vader had been wrong to kill the boy, that it was an internal affair: a matter to be solved by the family...but Vader's instincts had been correct, and how was Tarkin to have known Garoche had betrayed them? It had been out of his control...

The shadows lengthened as Tarkin, panting, neared the top of the hill. His limbs were shaking with exhaustion, and he slumped into a half-kneeling, half-sitting position at the cusp of the cliff. He rubbed his eyes, worked the crust out from the corners, and squinted out at the sprawling jungle ahead of him.

One could see everything from here--lakes, hills, grasslands, woods, and the clustering mountains in the distance where he knew Raven's Peak overlooked Eriadu City. A volcano spat testily just on the horizon line, not yet ready to blow but definitely thinking about it. About eighteen kilometers west lay the Carrion Spike itself, too small to make out but still there. He knew it was there, and his heart stirred as he looked in its direction. A gust of wind blew his hair out of its careful arrangement as he looked north toward rising smoke: that was the site of the crash. About four days' walk from here if one moved at a fair clip. Tarkin could do that easily--normally. As things stood he wouldn't be surprised if it took him six days. He'd need to rest and perhaps contact Jova.

Tarkin rose and went a ways back down the hill to a spot he'd made note of earlier: A little grove of trees raised up on an old mound--likely a man-made cairn and perfect to sleep on if one didn't mind sleeping atop the ancient dead. If it rained the space wouldn't flood, and there were plenty of broad-boughed trees with massive leaves to make a sleeping pallet. He set up camp--a little slower than he'd have liked--and settled down by a small fire on his fresh-made pallet and his pack under his head. His eyes blinked once, twice, and then he was out.

That night proved a slight challenge to Sirejj. A light rain started just after dusk. Not enough to fully drive the biting insects away, but enough to drip down into his eyes and make everything around him sticky and damp.

He travelled on in the dark, mostly staying low to the ground instead of risking a fall on the slippery branches. He didn't quite know how far he travelled, but he kept his bearings fairly well checking his compass and ensuring he was headed the right direction. This terrain, while similar to his homeworld, was unfamiliar. Even in the deep woods there were washouts and impassable briar patches he had to find his way around or above.

He'd waited till nightfall to snatch a roosting bird from its perch for food. He left what he did not eat in the crook of a tree branch for the scavengers to find in the morning and less trace of him to be left on the ground. His tracks, though minimal and covered well by him, could still be visible to a very skilled tracker. The less he left directly on the trail, the better.

It was well into the night when he stopped to rest. He began to feel the tiredness set in and knew that he still had time on his side- he hoped. Even if Tarkin had guessed his direction, it would still take him time to actually track him down. Sirejj located a tall tree with wide branches that were wound close enough together that he could safely rest there.

The wild things did not escape his mind. As he moved, he had to pay close attention to doing so as silently as possible. In the distance he heard the hunting sounds of creatures far larger than himself, and he had no intention of crossing paths with them. The trees should provide him some safety from the larger hunters, and he would wake up if danger approached, but he suspected he would not rest well. Enough to keep him going, but sound sleep would have to wait until he was no longer in the wilderness.

The world was tinted red when Tarkin opened his eyes, a familiar landscape washed out with crimson. He was in a stately cathedral with high vaulted ceilings and stained glass windows that shone patterns down on the stone floor. In the light crouched his brown-eyed son and a brown-eyed child no more than two, their faces taut with fear. Garoche clung to the toddler, murmuring words of comfort not in Basic, but in Atoan. In the shadows, a pale shape whispered the same from behind a benevolent mask whose smile was etched in cold hard porcelain. Somewhere below them, the pulse of a massive heart shook the ground on which they stood.

"Don't hurt them," Garoche said, looking up at his father suddenly. "Don't hurt us."

"You have committed treason," Tarkin rumbled in a voice far deeper, far harsher than the thin bastardized Core accent he usually spoke in. This voice came from within his chest, a sonorous hum that startled some faraway part of himself. "There is no forgiveness for such a crime. No mercy."

"Please." The tremor in his son's words only angered him further--a temper unlike anything Tarkin had ever known was brewing, a desire for raw destruction he had never dreamed himself capable of. Visceral hate pressed at his insides, and he raised a black-gloved hand.

"No," he growled, and clenched his hand into a tight fist.

The ceiling cracked, and Garoche pressed the child against his chest to shield it. A shriek arose from the masked figure, who threw itself toward Garoche. Satisfaction eased Tarkin's rage as stone buried the trio, and he stepped forward to finish what he'd started just as a piece of the ceiling came crashing down on his head.

--

Tarkin lay half-conscious for days, listening to the whimpering of some survivor nearby--the cries were like that of a child sometimes, but other times they were the moans of a wounded animal, and he could not tell if it was his son's pain he was hearing, or his granddaughter's. He writhed against the rubble pinning him but could not free himself, and the thoughts of snapping their necks and finishing the job tormented him until one night the whimpering ceased, and so too did the beat of the heart below. That distant part of himself that had been so surprised by the sound of his own voice shifted and stirred, grief stabbing through him and causing him to grit his teeth within his heavy helm. He should not feel this way! He should not feel this way...

--

Tarkin had lost track of day and night by the time the stone was dragged away from him. His eyes squinted against the light, strangely no longer red-washed, and he saw his father standing over him with a rifle in his hands. He was younger than when he'd last seem him, and healthier too-there were no IVs, no yellowish pallor. Muralph Tarkin looked just as he had on the day he'd sent his son away with Jova all those years ago.

"Do it," said Jova from somewhere out of Tarkin's line of vision. Father raised the rifle--Tarkin saw now it was the same one he used to put down the kennel dogs, the ones who got bitten by mad animals and went mad themselves until they could not tell who was their master and who was their enemy. Tarkin tried to sit up, but his legs were still pinned. The world around him was hot--when had it gotten so hot?--and he could smell the hairs on the back of his neck burning.

"No." Thalassa pushed her way forward. She was young as well, in her early twenties but dressed in the gown she'd worn to Garoche's funeral. "Let me do it." The voice that came from her lips was not hers but the dry rasp of Emperor Palpatine.

She met his eyes as Father passed her the gun, the sweltering heat making the air shiver, and she raised it expertly to take aim at his head. Tarkin opened his mouth to protest, but suddenly it was thick and cottony--as if he'd taken a very potent relaxant--and a sudden rush of vertigo overcame him as she pulled the trigger. The heat of the bubbling magma around the tiny island rushed up to meet him as the blaster bolt met his head--

Sweat and rain soaked his clothes as he surged off the pallet and to his feet, shaking uncontrollably as he scrambled away from his sleeping space with a shout. His shirt clung to him as his chest heaved and he yanked at the clasps to give himself space to breathe, stumbling and sliding down the mound until he was standing pressed against a tree to feel its rough bark scrape his back. He remained rigid for several minutes, waiting as the adrenaline faded and his breathing evened out. A drop of water slipped from his nose to the ground, and Tarkin let out a long, heavy sigh as he sank to the forest floor.

He'd neglected to put up a tarp, he realized now--he'd known it was going to rain and he had forgotten to give himself proper cover. Damn it, he'd even picked this spot with the rain in mind! What was happening to him?
Tarkin looked around abashedly, as if someone might have caught him shirking such a basic precaution, but there was no sound but the rain and the faint hoots of a nocturnal bird. Everything here had hunkered down to wait out the weather.

He got to his feet with a small groan after a minute and made his way back up the mound; his body felt loose and stretched-out, all the tension in his muscles gone as quickly as it had come. That had been...he'd never had such an intense dream. He'd never physically fled the intangible before. It didn't bear thinking about, but the depth of his immersion in it was not at all how his dreams usually went. They were generally abstract and fragmented, bits and pieces of his past getting jumbled together but never affecting him as much as this--probably because he was a light sleeper. In a healthier state he would have been woken by the rain and remembered to set up a tarp, but he must have needed sleep so badly that he'd fully succumbed.

Tarkin dismantled his pallet and dug into his pack for some nuts and berries, nibbling on them half-heartedly as he looked out at the dim wall of trees. There'd be no more sleeping tonight, but no traveling either--it was too dark for him to see and there were some things that liked to hunt in the rain. He'd take no chances.

The night passed with little incident. The rain began shortly after midnight, and Sirejj had felt it coming in the wind. He decided then that he'd take shelter now and move on at daylight.

He'd found a tree that suited him. It stood somewhat apart from others so that only the highest branches interlocked with the canopy above. It would likely not be part of a traveling route for primates and so would offer him some undisturbed rest. He secured his staff and began to climb, moving up and up until he reached a cradle of branches that suited him. The wide leaves provided shelter, but he would get wet if it decided to downpour. At least the incoming weather had pushed the insects back into to the soggy ground - he would have to find a way to keep them from pestering him. They'd be out again in full force once the rain stopped. His hands and face were flecked with tiny bite marks. But he'd had food and water and now had discovered shelter for the night, which was more than he could ask for considering it was his first night alone on The Carrion. If he did this well each night until he reached civilization, he would be more than lucky.

After setting himself up in the tree he forced his mind to clear of the events of the past few days and managed to sleep, only sometimes waking to a loud nocturnal sound. His senses told him nothing dangerous was immediately nearby and so he rested in relative peace till morning.

Spoiler

next event on the carrion timeline Jova's trap, right? wanna skip a lil closer to that? would be a few days I'd think. unless i forgot something else lol

It stormed again on the fourth day, clouds deepening the green of the foliage and drenching the jungle in shadow. Tarkin moved carefully through the broadened umbrage, his footfalls masked by the sound of the rain-battered leaves. There were other things on the prowl around him; he'd heard the plaintive yowl of a lone urtog the day before last--he was not the target, but whatever it was hunting couldn't be far off.

Only a poncho and his waterproof boots stood between him and the monsoon; his trousers and head were soaked through. Not much he could do about that, but it could be worse. At least it wasn't cold. In fact, a warm wind was blowing through the area as he slushed his way up another hill to his next vantage point.

Tarkin was still tired. His mind was still frayed, and his steps were still heavy. He'd slept poorly each night, fearing another vivid nightmare, but none had come. Instead he found himself waking sporadically, sitting up and tossing and turning until he fell back asleep with the eerie feeling of someone watching him. His body trembled with exhaustion; a part of him wondered if it wouldn't be wise to find a cave or Jova's cabin and curl up for a week, just to get himself fit enough to face Sirejj. This was a Force-sensitive, after all, and he was in no shape to take him head-on at the moment.

But no, there was no time for that. Who knew what direction the Zabrak would be moving in now? Tarkin needed to keep moving, and he needed someone else hunting too--which is what brought him to this hill.

Tarkin rested against a tree, peering out at the misty landscape, and took a tough organic mass from underneath his poncho. It was a gorey little tube of flesh stretched over rigid cartilage, bits of viscera still clinging to the exterior--the creature to whom it had belonged had died very recently. Indescribably fine pink frills lined the inside. They quivered as he held it under one of the tree leaves, letting water moisten the tube's walls for just a moment before he brought the whole thing to his mouth. He straightened, adjusted his embouchure, drew air into his lungs, and blew.

Birds scattered from the jungle below as an ethereal wail emanated from the tube, mournful and quavering yet loud enough to set Tarkin's ears ringing. He winced ever so slightly, giving the noise a moment to reverberate off the distant mountains, then blew again. Then he lowered the tube--a yvishi trachea, and waited.
He didn't have to wait long. About thirty seconds later, he heard a long bellow from the west. A horn, by the sound of it, though Tarkin wasn't sure which animal Jova had taken it from.

Tarkin responded with two blasts in short succession--directions in answer to a question. There was one more burst of noise from Jova (confirmation) and then nothing. Tarkin lingered under the tree for a few moments to ensure he wouldn't miss further communication, but when the silence persisted he slipped the trachea back under his poncho and stole back down the hill.

He knew where Jova was, now, and Jova knew where to look for Sirejj. Between them, he thought, they should be able to corner him.

Sirejj was kneeling by a stream of running water with his hand cupped to his mouth when he heard from far off, a foreign cry of some creature. He froze, becoming almost invisible in the foliage as his stripes blended in with his surroundings, and listened.

A second sound answered from a slightly closer distance. This one was distinctly the blast of a hunting horn. He shifted his staff from his back to his right hand and remained crouched, isolating the sound and estimating how far away it might be. The first sound called twice again, and was answered once more before the woods returned to their former ambiance. He reached down and finished filling his small container of water.

Two of them. Sirejj mused. So Tarkin's relation was still out there milling about somewhere. He wasn't sure who had made what sound. The second blast was closer to the path he was on than the first had been, but the jungle was massive and there were many hidden routes. Perhaps Tarkin had traveled faster than he'd anticipated?

Sirejj muttered something to himself and tightened the cap on the flask before tucking it away and moving on. He'd lost a little weight but was otherwise in decent health- he'd watched closely and discovered a plant that the insects hated, but also one that wasn't toxic if touched. It made his journey far more bearable, for not only did it mask his scent, but it repelled the bothersome flies that had driven him nearly mad the first day.

He'd long since taken his shirt and shoved it into one of his pockets to wear only at night. The fabric was not the sturdy canvas that was intended to hold up in the woodlands, but instead a lighter textile. While more comfortable, it did little more than snag and leave traces in his path that might allow one to track him more easily. His skin was tough and resistant to the thorns and briars. He was quite literally bred for this sort of living.

Rest had not been all that difficult, but he had been cutting his nights as short as he could get away with so that he could take advantage of his natural senses and travel in the dark. Recently he had crossed paths with various large creatures, both hostile and neutral during his nighttime travel. He'd so far managed to avoid them both, but more than once he'd watched a huge, powerful catlike creature prowl across his path and sniff the air before moving on. The deeper he moved into the jungle, the darker and more dangerous it became.

The depths of Eriadu's jungles were just like that of his homeworld, but it had been a long time since he'd been back home. At places, the woods were impassable even for him. Most of the time he could travel by treetop, but sometimes the vines and thorns were so thick and the tree branches so tightly woven that not even the medium-sized primates habited here. He kept being forced to change his path slightly, and it frustrated him. As much as he hated to admit it, the horns had lit a fire under him to quicken his pace. One Tarkin he could take, but he knew very little about the other. Tarkin had spoken as if he was older than himself, but Sirejj wasn't sure. He could have backup with him or other resources that would make his hunting easier.

Reaching again a wall of thorns he stepped forward and touched one of them, snapping the thorn off between his thumb and forefinger. He rubbed it, watching the sap bleed from it onto his hands. He shifted it to the hand that held the staff and gripped them together he tapped the staff into the soft earth and listened intently, mumbling some words under his breath an an indiscernible language. Seeming to see an answer, he turned away from the briars and kept moving, following the invisible path. He diverted around the thorns and kept heading Westward.

Tarkin pressed on down the hill, following a gorge that cut like a wound into the landscape. It would take him as far as the Rucca River, the largest body of running water in the Carrion, which he could use as a waypoint. The smoke from the crash had faded with the rain but he hadn't diverted his path, moving at a slight westward diagonal. He had no way of knowing where Sirejj was going, but at the very least he could aim to convene with Jova and track the Zabrak from the crash site. It was unlikely there'd be much to track with the rain coming down as hard as it was, but then again the rain allowed for footprints to form. Branches would break, too--foliage stepped on or pushed out of the way might indicate a direction. Tarkin just had to get there and see for himself.

He blinked a couple times, rain and fatigue blurring his vision, and he raised a hand to swipe at his face. He could push a bit more, he thought--he'd projected a six day journey and so far it was on track--but physically he was close to his limit. Proud as Tarkin was of his endurance, he knew when it was time to stop, and that time was coming up fast.

A figure shifted into his periphery. Tarkin turned, tensing up and reaching for his knife, but there was nothing there. He came to a full stop, glaring out into the darkness as he listened for a sound, any indication that he was not alone. But no, there were only the chirps of frogs and the tapping rain. He was by himself. Of course he was--there were only two other people on the Carrion. He knew where one of them was, and the other was far, far away.
Tarkin huffed at himself, slicking back his dripping hair, and went on his way, casting a glance over his shoulder even as he dismissed the figure as another symptom of sleep deprivation.

The constant rain made traveling above ground dangerous. The wood was slippery and many times Sirejj had nearly lost footing in the branches above. It did well to hide any tracks, but this weather was going to force him to travel on the ground.

He noticed the creatures were quieter when the rain became heavy. Most tucked away under shelter, but many hunters still roamed, using the rain to mask their scent and sound. Sirejj found he could only hear the rain on the plant life around him, aside from the occasional screech or howl.

From time to time, he'd stop and listen, touch the ground with his staff, and pause as if to calibrate his sense of direction. His thoughts were constantly moving, but he hadn't said a word for days. His own voice had begun to sound foreign here. His movements now blended in with the woods around him and his footsteps (even without the rain) were silent and left hardly a trace. He'd been cautious to cover his tracks or leave none at all, but his inability to use the treetops for the time being made that task more tedious.

A rustling sounded from a cluster of bushes slightly behind him off the narrow path he was following. Sirejj immediately crouched, his sharp green eyes filtering through the unending greenery to find see what had made the sound. His initial alarm vanished when his senses told him nothing large was stalking him.

With a small screech, a creature hardly larger than a mouse droid tumbled into the path. It was a felinistic quadruped with tall, pointed ears and a bottle-brush tail. Its coat was mottled brown and black, mimicking the shadows of the forest. It scampered beneath the foliage on the other side of the path, not seeming to notice Sirejj in the slightest.

Sirejj made a move to get up and move on with indifference, but another movement appeared as a larger creature, presumably a parent, emerged much more gracefully from the thicket. He stood still, half crouched, and watched it make its way to where the smaller beast was hiding and pick it up by the scruff of its neck and leap away into the dark maze of roots and thorns.

After they'd gone he quietly continued on his way in case the two animals had been running from a larger one. It seemed an odd time to relocate young in the middle of the day unless there was a threat of a hunter. He touched the cat's tooth he wore around his neck- he'd have to be rid of it sometime. He wondered if it had any effect on the random appearances of Garoche he'd seen. Whether they were memories from the ground itself or something he'd failed to clear from his own mind, he wasn't sure.

He pitied the younger Tarkin- his fate had been more than unfair, but so was the way of life. He had not inherited the wiles of his elders. Tarkin had been right about him being soft, but the judgement that had been passed upon him was nonetheless cruel.

A thought Sirejj had been avoiding for some time now followed him in the silence. Something about Garoche's story felt familiar, and perhaps that was why he'd earned his pity. Tarkin had seen what Garoche had seen, but Sirejj had felt the loneliness, the anger, and the heartbreak the younger Tarkin had experienced in his short life. The empty search for purpose that only ended in loss. Somewhere in Sirejj's mind he had vague memories of such feelings, but he had long since wrestled them into place. Only now after all these years did they attempt to resurface.

Perhaps that was why he was angry on the boy's behalf. Tarkin's coldness had struck a sinew deep within Sirejj's chest as the abandonment and pain the Garoche had suffered was still left unresolved. It likely never would be, but Tarkin with a spear through his chest might help him forget it.

He pulled his mind back to the task before him, realizing yet again he'd allowed the events of the past year to occupy his thoughts. He had more pertinent matters here. Reminiscing could wait.

In a few hours the banks of the Rucca came into view, and with them the furious torrent of the river itself. Already swollen by the rains, it had crept greedily up the gorge it had carved out for itself and lapped at the stones halfway up the cliff face. Tarkin gave it only a cursory look before turning and walking along with the river at his left shoulder. There were fewer trees over the river; floodplains laid the sky bare for him to see and now nothing shielded him from the rain--not that the trees had given him much cover before. Tarkin slogged along, whistling to himself now that he was out in the open and could see any adversaries that might decide he was food. Caution was less urgent here by the river.

The song was old--older than him and probably older than Jova, who naturally had been the one to teach it to him. It had the jaunt of a drinking song, some sort of ditty that his ancestors might have enjoyed around a campfire in the early colonial days. The words were lost, now--all Jova had to give him were the chords played on a makeshift string instrument, which Tarkin himself had never learned to play. He could whistle, though, and quite well at that. The notes pierced through the sounds of the storm until a bolt of lighting crackled out toward some unfortunate tree in the distance. The rumble of thunder that followed shook the ground beneath his feet a few seconds later.

"A perfect week for this, if ever there was one," Tarkin muttered to himself, rubbing his eyes with a thumb and forefinger. Sirejj couldn't have picked a better time to get himself lost in the Carrion. He hoped the Zabrak was suffering, that some creature had found him and was toying with him before they ate him. It would certainly save him the trouble. Then again, this trek would be rendered a waste of time.

The weather only became worse during the day and Sirejj was glad of his decision to avoid the treetops as lightning struck down intermittently. Violent bolts of electricity shot from the clouds and cut through the heart of its target, sometimes splitting the tree down the center. Smaller saplings burst asunder, exploding with such force that the shards of wood became like shrapnel, capable of injuring anyone standing nearby.

Sirejj had donned his jacket, for even in the hot, humid weather the cold rain brought a chill to his bones. It would be nice to find shelter in the thicket and wait it out for a spell, but he knew that the Tarkins would be pressing onwards so long as there was daylight. He had no time to lose.

Turning a corner, he suddenly felt his skin prickle and quickly leaped from the path just as a flash of lightning rent the sky and struck one enormous tree to his right. Sirejj felt the electricity travel through the ground and dissipate. He looked upwards. The tree before him created a gap in the canopy as it stood far taller than the rest around it. The trunk was scarred and split by many lightning strikes over the centuries, for Sirejj guessed the tree outdated himself and any other sentient being on this planet by ages.

Curiosity got the better of him and he approached the tree, which was still steaming from the ball of fire that had cut through its boughs. The branches, though some were broken and dead, were still mostly green and bore fruit and flowers high above his head. It had persisted through the years of storms and fire. It had not only survived, but flourished.

What do you know? Sirejj thought to himself. All living things had the capacity to remember. His earliest training on Dathomir had been to read the signs of the world around him, which had been the first step to drawing his strength from the heart of that world. He reached out his hand and touched the tree, listening to the quiet whispers that hid underneath the battered old bark.

He recoiled swiftly with a muttered curse. The bark of the tree was still hot to the touch. He supposed he deserved it for wasting the time to investigate.

He took off again, this time at a quicker pace. He hadn't gone much faster than a walk for a while, but the woods thinned out a little here and he could sense his path clearly. He picked up a steady trot and continued on his way, following the path he'd cast from before, taking great care not to deviate from it.