The Rebel Faction

Rain was not something Lahout enjoyed very much. His home world of Vandelhiem received very little extraneous moisture such as this, he was of the opinion that water should be mined out of the ground like any other element.

Apparently, this planet held a different belief.

He had taken shelter from the rain under some low-lying bushes. Or rather, he had attempted to do as such. Within moments of entering the shrub, water had begun to soak into his clothing. Muttering about how backwards this planet was, the Mar'hute Seeker vermiculated the air around him into a semi-hardened mass for shelter. The chances that there was another user - or what this galaxy called a 'Jedi' - within a close enough contiguity to feel the usage was low.

Once the rain ceased, thank heaven, Lahout released the air to go about its business. He resumed his former pace across the forest floor in an easterly direction, toward what his senses told him was a large establishment of living beings.

"And then there were two..." he commented to himself. His black eyes looked into the distance at what his other sense told him was a body - a living body at that. At this distance, it was hard to tell.

A score of minutes later and he stood a few feet from the body.

"In a nasty fight there," he said again, under his breath. "One oughtn't not get into fights that get one abandoned for dead..."

It was obvious by the bloody face, and the broken nose -twisted to an odd angle that this person had been on the receiving end of a bludgeon. A staff of sorts was entangled with the body and its left arm, causing Lahout to guess that additional injuries were probable.

"Never enter a fight unless you're going to win..." continued Lahout to himself as he knelt, and grasped the face by its chin for further examination. The man was unconscious, and it was impossible to tell from a casual glance how grievous any internal injuries may be.

"Unless, of course, you plan on loosing," he concluded to himself as he deliberated about what to do.

"You are, in the middle of a forest on a planet forsaken by any deity you happen to believe in," replied Lahout. He squinted slightly, and looked deeper into the man.

A user. A user who had been beaten rather badly, the opponent must have been very well informed, or simply very capable.

"I am Lahout," he continued after completing his brief probe. "I wouldn't move very much, you have a broken arm, and perhaps additional injuries..." He trailed off there, and carefully began to straiten the man out, starting with removing that staff from the tangle of limbs.

Lahout stopped in his work to glance at the man with a raised eyebrow.

"You Jedi do, or at least, that is what I have heard."

He straightened the man's legs out, and felt them carefully, no broken bones there thank heaven. He stood now, and looked distastefully at the wet, sodden mass that was his pant legs. It would take hours to get them dry.

A Jedi who disliked his fellow Jedi, this was something Lahout had not seen before. Sure, there were 'light' Jedi, and 'dark' Jedi, and they killed each other, but in the end Jedi from one side stuck with the Jedi from their side.

"You could, if you wish, think that Jedi," replied Lahout with a slight shrug of his shoulders. "What I am doing here is not something I will divulge to one whom I know nothing of, one of whose name I do not know. If you desire no assistance to the nearest inhabited town, which is approximately thirty kilometers to the south, I will continue on my way."

Lahout smiled somewhat grimly, and turned to squint at the sun. The rays of light seemed to diffuse on his monochrome gray skin, and vanish completely when they touched his coal black hair.

"Apology accepted," said Lahout. He continued, "My story is somewhat longer than yours, Vega Van-Derveld, but I see no need to make it long. I am a Seeker of the Craftsman clan of the Mar'hute from the planet that is commonly called Vandelhiem here, in this terminally ignorant galaxy. This planet is just one of the many I have passed through in my search."

Motioning toward the south, Lahout made clear his intentions to continue with the journey that had been interrupted. "You are able to walk, yes?" he asked.