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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ankh-Morpork Guard" data-source="post: 2124515" data-attributes="member: 10079">Chapter 181: Search for NothingAkan lay back in the large bed silently. He’d been there for a couple of hours and still hadn’t fallen asleep. It wasn’t a surprise, really, but it was becoming annoying. He’d talked with the Palace some, but eventually it got to the point where he wasn’t being all that polite. So he just lay there thinking. The bed felt bigger than it had the nights before. It also felt colder. And lonely...he’d gotten used to having Sha—    His thoughts were cut off by a familiar sound. Pawing at the door. Or rather, weak scratching. It was low to the ground, and Akan had a pretty good idea of what the source was. He asked the Palace to open the door, which it did. Sitting there, looking as pathetic as possible, was Tobias. He was sniffling and whimpering, and upon seeing the door open, he silently padded in and over to the foot of the bed. As he climbed up onto the bed and padded over closer to Akan, who sat up, the door irised closed silently. Tobias was crying. No, no he wasn’t crying anymore, but he’d definitely been crying not a few minutes earlier.    As the little Alraxian crawled over to sit next to him, Akan asked, “What is it, little guy? Shouldn’t you be with your nanny and the other children?”    Tobias whimpered and plopped down near Akan’s legs. He looked up to Akan with big, pathetic eyes that one of his friends had taught him how to use and mumbled, “Monsters under bed...come to save you...”    It was a lie. An obvious one, at that, but Akan smiled anyway. Reaching down he picked up Tobias and placed him on the pillow next to where Akan had been resting his head, “Oh, really? And you were crying...? Come on, Toby, tell me the truth.”    In response, Tobias rolled over and buried his head in the pillow, curling up like a stereotypical feline and mumbling something about being afraid of monsters. Akan smiled and lay back again with Tobias’s fur covered body at eye level, “Its alright, little guy, no monsters here. Just get some sleep.”    Hours later, Akan awoke. Tobias was still asleep, and was purring softly. It was hard to actually get up with such a calming sound. But, seeing it was near sunrise, even though it was pouring rain, he carefully climbed out of bed and pulled some simple clothes. He then quietly slipped out of the room, making sure to drop by the room Tobias had been supposed to be sleeping in(even though it took a while to find it) and mentioning to the adults there where the little guy was. They weren’t happy that he’d escaped in the night, but they’d get over it.    He then made his way out to the courtyard from before, seeing a figure out in the pouring rain and waving him over. Akan ignore the rain and walked over to the taller Kyren and was handed an object wrapped in heavy cloth. Turning and starting towards a nearby landing pad, Kyren said, “I assume that’s what you wanted. It was trouble enough getting a hold of it. You could have mentioned it was metal.”    Akan followed Kyren, unwrapping the layers of cloth to find the gleaming metal of his lightsaber. Smiling to himself, and glad he’d worn a belt, he found a way to hook the thing on to a comfortable spot just as they reached a small Kanyak. The ship looked almost exactly like Loki, just about half his size. The ramp was down, and as he followed Kyren up, Akan heard a familiar sounding voice.    [Why, Kyren, you’ve made a friend! I had thought that was impossible!]    “Shut up, Hermes,” Kyren growled at the walls as a short couple of steps brought them into a tight, two seated cockpit.    [A little snappy today, Kyren?] the ship asked idly, sounding almost as sarcastic as Akan was used to hearing from himself. [Can’t imagine why...or could you be jealo—]    The ship went silent as Kyren dug his claws into the chair. He then went back to getting Hermes’ systems online, and the ship turned its attention to Akan. [Good to see a new face, Kyren’s been getting boring. Now, if you wouldn’t mind sitting down and shutting up for a while, I’ll get this done faster than he can.]    There was a growl from Kyren as he heard this, but in a matter of moments they were up in orbit around Alraxia. Still sounding annoyed, Kyren grumbled, “Now shut up and keep your eyes open for anything unusual. You’ll know what we’re looking for if you see it. We’re going to be out here a while.”    Akan turned from looking out at the unfamiliar stars to give Kyren a sharp look, “I’m not shutting up. We’re out here because I wanted to get out here, remember? So if anyone’s in charge, I am. I don’t care who’s ship this is and even then, the ship could be in charge for all I care! Whoever you are, you definitely aren’t the person Shadow remembers. You may look like him, but you sure as hell aren’t him. I may not have known you, but she knew you and I’ve got that to go on. And the Kyren she knew was a good friend and someone she could trust,” Akan had purposely put a certain emphasis on the word ‘friend’, though he wasn’t conscious of the why, “ Not some jerk who orders everyone around and looks down on anyone he’s not met before.”    At that, Kyren turned and growled, “Listen, Akan, Marix never had any friends. We worked together. All we ever had were respect and understanding. She never even knew the term friend and sure didn’t know anything about—“ Kyren suddenly cut himself off, though Akan knew exactly where that one had been going.    [He’s always like this.] Hermes suddenly cut in, sounding like he was trying to be helpful. [Just not a morning Alraxian, if you ask me.]Kyren ignored the ship, “A lot has happened since Marix left, and I’m not about to listen to some idiot outsider telling me I should be nicer. Where we’re going, that’ll just get us killed,” and then his voice suddenly lowered as he looked down slightly, “And she never cared how I acted as long as I...I just didn’t get the way.”    Akan raised an eyebrow at that. There was much more to Kyren than he wanted to let anyone else know of, that much was obvious. But he didn’t snap back and continue the argument, instead, Akan used some old Jedi calming techniques and said more quietly, “Listen, I’m sorry...its just that the person you knew is not the person I know. The Marix...the Shadow I know was a good person, even if she didn’t like to admit it. She wasn’t devoid of emotions, though I know she always feared she was,” he sighed, his mind following the thoughts to something he didn’t really want to admit to anyone, but then gave in and said it anyway, “What happened to her here in this place...in this part of the galaxy, whatever you want to call it. It scarred her...deeply. Its probably something she’ll never get over. I...I didn’t want her coming back to that. This is why...she’s...she’s just falling back into the one thing I know she isn’t.”    Silence. Kyren was just looking at him, and obviously didn’t know what to say. After a moment of the awkward silence, Akan sighed and said, “Look, let’s try this again. Marix didn’t have friends, fine. But that shouldn’t stop you and I from getting along, right? Besides, I’ve got a feeling she’ll just be annoyed if we don’t get along and that wouldn’t be a good idea.”Chuckling just slightly, but keeping his voice terse and straight, Kyren nodded, “Alright, fine, we’re friends. Just understand that you really don’t know anything about this place. Its obvious. Chaos, you don’t even know who has her! For now, just please listen to me so you don’t get all of us killed,” and then, very quietly, he added, “Besides, I would have helped you for her anyway...”    Another silence. A couple of minutes passed before Kyren leaned forward and took the control again, taking them out of orbit and near another, though dead looking, planet in the system. As they came to a stop, he said, “I’m honestly not all that sure what we’re looking for. I do know that the training ground for the Cursed is mobile, and never stays in one place. It could be a station or an asteroid or just a large ship. Stay alert and help out Hermes is he asks.”    “What about you?” Akan asked calmly looking over the blank space around the ship.    “I need to rest,” Kyren said, leaning back in the chair and closing his eyes. In a matter of moments, he was asleep, and Akan sat there feeling out of place. But this was something he could do, at least, and he wasn’t tired. Keep eyes open for anything that looked odd. Akan didn’t mention the fact that nearly everything out here looked odd. That probably wouldn’t have helped. Making himself comfortable, he sat back and watched the stars.</blockquote>

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