While disappointing, Ahnk knew he had to go on. He would have liked to do it without attracting attention to himself, and, after those feelings of dread, he would have liked to be able to complete this mission and have an avenue of escape already secured.
Was there a gate on this world? Who was following him? Was he walking into an ambush?
He didn’t know, but with his damaged ship sitting exposed in a patch of grass with a plume of dust still dissipating above it, there was one thing he did know.
They knew he was here.
Ahnk hiked on, shrugging aside feelings of apprehension again as he did so. He pulled on a thick vine, hauling himself over the remnants of what once was a house, or perhaps a school. When he was on the top, he stopped, taking up a seating position.
He removed his leather gloves and shrugged off his backpack. With his bare left hand, he wiped the sweat from his brow, sweat that aggravated his fragile eyes as it dripped down his face. With his right hand, he pulled his canteen from the harness in his pack, and took a long sip. Not satisfied, he then turned it upside-down overhead, dampening his hair and clearing the offending sweat from his face. He laughed as he failed to recollect a time when, as a Sith, he had sat, humbled by sweat.
He went to wipe sweat from his face again when he realized he was crying.
He couldn’t pin down why, exactly. Something about being on a ludicrous chase through an overgrown set of ruins for something that might never have even been there, to stop an entire race from destroying the galaxy. He chuckled again. They were tears of ludicrous irony then. He smiled, taking another sip of water before replacing the canteen in his pack.
And then he felt something tingling in the back of his head. It was the force, once again, providing him a sixth sense of impending danger. Far less vague this time, he instead could pinpoint one force user, and a familiar one at that.
“Vonta…”
His face shriveled up in confusion.
“Vonta Horn?”
He kicked his feet off the edge of the building, and allowed the momentum to carry him to the ground. He landed with a sigh from the ground below, as long eroded masonry finally shuddered and collapsed into dust. He quickly checked to ensure that his lightsaber was indeed on his person. He didn’t know why Vonta was here, or if Vonta was tied to the darkness he had felt… but he did know that it was better to be prepared, then to be killed.
Again.
OS: In a world of bon-bons, you are a twinkie.
Ahnk: God damn you, I am Count Chocula and you know it.
I'm not spending my anniversary night thumping my head against the wall. - Damalis, on Moderating TRF
Then tell him you want it harder, damnit! - Ahnk, on Damalis