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nexus_crossings2020-01-01 02:44 pm
Destination: Tropical
“I’ve been thinking a little about this place lately.”
Roaming around with no place in mind isn’t all that unfamiliar to him these days. If he’s behind honest, the first few months of being the Captain of his own ship had been fun. He appreciated being able to go wherever he wanted, see whatever it was that he wanted to see, play in any sabacc game he heard about, drink the booze of many worlds and meet some new people. In some ways, it was everything he ever wanted and exactly what he’d hoped for.
Something was missing, though. A feeling that gnawed at him regularly without knowing exactly what it was.
”I’m heading to a warm, tropical climate and I think I’m gonna be on the planet for a couple of days. I’m wondering what what everybody in the nexus would pack, if they were going somewhere sunny.”
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"Greetings, Captain Han! You may call me skekGra, if you like." The Heretic isn't as fussy about titles or decorum as the castle Skeksis. "Well, if you're visiting another planet you ought to bring something for entertainment! This is a good place to buy books. I have quite the collection by now."
skekGra recognizes the title given to him. A captain, eh? That's something he also knows a little about.
"So, you're a captain! Like the Sifa Gelfling back home on Thra - they're the best sailors out of all the seven clans. There's also skekSa the Mariner, who's one of my kind. We call her the Captain sometimes."
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“Did you gather most of your books here or from home?” Han said thoughtfully. There was probably wisdom in wanting a diverse knowledge and set of experience (and where could you get more of either than the nexus), but you had to make time for it. Reading more was not usually the first thing he thought of when he had free time.
“She’s a Captain of the sea then.” Han says with a nod. “Tell me skekGra, do they have flying vessels where you come from?”
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Like all Skeksis, skekGra is considerably stronger than he looks - it turn, he's careful not to shake with too hard a grip. Humans are delicate.
"Yes. If one of us were to come here, honestly, she's the least likely to cause trouble - she has no love for the Emperor or his rule. Always had an independent streak." He had pleasant memories of skekSa the Mariner back when he was the Conqueror. "We do have Crystal Skimmers, which the Dousan Gelflings tame and use as mounts, but not flying ships."
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It wasn’t every day he meet a non-human species he had never seen before and a lot of questions spilled to the forefront of his mind. Where did they come from, what type of planet, did they speak basic or was the nexus translating for them and on and on. He had to take it one step at a time or might come off a bit like an interrogation and not a friendly inquiry.
“I’m a Captain of the air. Of sorts.” He didn’t feel the need to specify himself as spacefaring yet.
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skekGra has questions, too - from his point of view, humans are aliens, their culture and history across worlds fascinating to him.
"A captain of the air." skekGra gives an impressed trill. "I've never seen such a thing where I'm from, though..." He scratches his feathery mane, as if considering something. "Though my people used to be able to travel to different planets - not as Skeksis, but as UrSkeks. It's complicated, but I am the dark half of an urSkek. My counterpart urGoh is the light half."
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Though he does look ... not puzzled by the explanation, but intrigued. Since he can’t a fathom a reason why some of his people would be able to travel into space and some of them could not.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever heard of anything like were you come from. My galaxy has hundreds of habitable worlds and moons and sometimes I’m self-centered enough to think we have it all.”
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He has no memories of space travel, and what memories he has of being GraGoh are extremely fragmented, but he figures the other UrSkeks had to have dumped them on Thra somehow.
"We get that a lot." skekGra laughs again. "We don't remember much, but my counterpart urGoh and I were once one being. We were split into two halves: one light, one dark. UrRu are light - peaceful, creative, wise. Skeksis are dark - passionate, ambitious, selfish."
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Han screwed up his little human face in obvious distain for the thought.
“That you’re predestined to act a certain way just because of how you were split? If that were so, then how could it be that you were able to come to your own decision about trying to convince the other dark Skeksis to change?”
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He's wondered the same thing, if Skeksis are doomed to be evil creatures because they are Skeksis. He's trying to do good, and some of the others could probably be better if it wasn't for skekSo's leadership and the toxic poliics of the court, but others like skekSil and skekNa were rotten through and through.
"Skeksis don't have to be evil. We're inclined towards darkness, true, but we still have a choice and can learn better. My fellow Skeksis at the Castle of the Crystal are out of control - it's partly the Emperor and partly their obsession with immortality. We weren't always so bad."
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And Han, liked to think of himself as a pretty good judge of character and getting better all the time. As a smuggler you needed to have a good idea of who you could trust and who was going to turn around and double cross you.
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skekGra doesn't think of himself as good, and part of him is bothered when he's described that way. He's trying to be better, which is more than can be said for most Skeksis, but he'll always have his crimes as the Conqueror with him.
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When he had left the only family he’d ever known, surviving on the streets of Corellia had been surprisingly hard. He had ended up joining a gang just so he would have a place to go and regular meals (even if it was cheap and poorly prepared, that was still better than no food at all). In that time he regularly moved contraband, stole from people, got into fights and lied nearly all the time. And that was just the tip of the iceberg in all the bad things that he had done.
From there he had joined up with the Empire and he dropped bombs on innocent worlds, shot at people who were just trying to defend their homes and forced sentient beings into chains.
These days he tried to do as little harm to people as he could, but he still routinely ended up on the wrong side of the law and in a seemingly endless cycle of backstabbing everyone he knew.
“At least you try.” He says, finally, with a shrug. “Sometimes that’s all you can do.”