![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Posting the other half of Nomad, my favorite four-issue standalone.
I think one of the reasons I love it so much is because while, in a sense, it's your standard gritty revenge fare, in another it's so totally not. It's about redemption, in a way.
"Then we do our job." The two of them rocket over a high-altitude battle.
In the present, Darca sits up gasping while an alien shouts at him to wake up. The alien's named Tooth and is a bit rude, but gave him a place to sleep and showed him where the ship he'd been looking for was. It had been abandoned for a week, also mentioning that he and his folks are trying to find somewhere to live. Darca ignores him and remarks that it doesn't make sense; why would he land it here in the middle of a desert? He wanders off, in the narration saying that he reached Molavar four days ago, to rumors of a mass murder in a cantina. Darca had talked with traffic controllers and found that a ship had ignored docking commands to fly out into the desert, and when he checked the registration...
He finds tracks and thinks that Lycan's got at least five days head start. Darca has four days of food in his pack, but tells himself not to think about it. He's come too far, and Lycan's too dangerous. Elsewhere, an old woman works on moisture vaporators with a protocol droid in hot pink, affectionately insulting her husband for buying cheap parts and modifying them instead of getting new things. Lycan approaches them.
There's a caption saying Three Days Later. Darca is hiking through rocky terrain when he steps on something that goes "Click!". Someone tells him not to move, he's on a mine. The minelayer says that this is his land and wants to know what Darca wants here and what weapons he has. Darca shows him the blaster which doesn't work, and the lightsaber, which surprises the speaker.
The old man comes out from behind his rock to say what are the odds, two Jedi in three days. Later, Darca's in the guy's home soaking his feet in a pan of something that apparently stings. The old guy, Byrom, says it'll teach Darca not to come walking out here on his own. He must be crazy. Darca says "You're the one who's just taken in a total stranger." Byrom says Jedi tend to be trustworthy, and Darca doesn't look like Sith to him. Surprised, Darca asks if he's met Jedi. Byrom has, and fought with and against them; he hasn't always lived here. "I've seen the 'important' parts of this galaxy as defined by the lawmakers and the warmongers. So yes, I know a Jedi when I see one." Looking down, Darca asks if he's seen another Jedi in the last few days, and Byrom says it's one of the reasons why they put mines out. It wasn't a happy encounter. Offscreen, someone asks if he's understating things again.
But then he shrieks and clutches his head, babbling about the pain, and Ensa drops to the ground and flees on a speeder. "I may not be as well-traveled as Byrom here, but I recognize evil when I see it." They'd tried to find him, but couldn't find a trace. Must have headed for the mountains. Darca is asked what his business is with him, and says it's personal. There's a blue flashback of him standing in front of a house with an open, empty doorway. Byrom strides out saying "I wasn't aware that Jedi had personal reasons" and says that Ensa can show him a room; he can stay or go as soon as he wants, it doesn't mean a thing to him. He has other problems to handle. Ensa smiles at Darca, saying that Byrom likes him.
Outside, an alien of the same species as Tooth comes, mounted and with reinforcements, to demand the protection money. He makes a veiled threat to Ensa, which infuriates Byrom, and then says "You know I have a sensitive nature. Poetry, art... I love these things. Maybe one day I'll read you my poetry, eh? But for now, I'll settle for taking your money." Byrom gives it to him and is then told that next month he'll want a thousand, which is also outrageous, and the thug makes another veiled threat, saying that his wife works part of the land all alone, and in this galaxy anything can happen. From offscreen, someone says "Except you getting a date, I'd imagine."
It's Darca, who wants the thug to give the money back. Byrom wants him to stay out of this. The thug shoots at Darca, who deflects it with his lightsaber, and Byrom sets off the mines.
The mines go off spectacularly, making the thug's mount rear up and throw him.
Sleeth's mother Magon is a gangster boss with a small army, more than Byrom could fight even if he wanted to. He doesn't - he's seen and done enough killing in his life. "I fought so many wars I can't even name them all. Eventually I couldn't even remember why I was fighting in the first place. You spill blood and it doesn't just stop. It keeps on running. Right and wrong? Revenge? Defense? Greed? I've heard all the arguments. But you take away a man's future and past, all he's done and could be, nothing justifies that. Took me a long time to realize..." They'll defend themselves, but they came there to avoid bloodshed, to live a different life.
A few days later, and Sleeth's mother Magon shows up with her army and her son. She talks to Byrom about how he was "picking on my poor little boy", and when he protests she says "Shush, you incompetent little afterthought. This is mother's business now." Both Byrom and Ensa point rifles at her, and Magon says she has all these men, and the two of them are really going to turn them back? Alone? Offscreen, someone says "They're not alone."
Aww. Start of Chapter Four.
Darca runs, clutching his bloody side. Someone tells him run, that's right. It won't do him any good. He goes for a cave, saying "If I can just -" "- Make it to cover? To tightly strap those two broken ribs. To reassess your tactics. Yes. A good idea." Lycan follows him into the cave, saying he's disappointed. He'd expected more from a fellow master of the Force.
Darca tries to get further away. He's too powerful, too fast, and it hurts to breathe, but Darca just needs a few minutes and he'll be - Coming out in a big chamber with crystals and a little hole in the ceiling, he says "Trapped."
Rocks fly at Darca and he tries to block them all with his lightsaber, but one hits the side of his head, another gets his injured ribs. The whole time, Lycan narrates. "Everyone wonders how their life will end. Where and when it will occur. The close of waking days. The moment they will face their demons. Their acts and decisions. This is yours, my friend. The termination of all you know."
Doubled over, Darca gasps that he still knows some things. "I know that, right now, you don't have a clue what you're doing out here... or who you are. Despite your power, you're lost, weak, and clueless." Lycan snaps at him and makes a statue hit him. Still defiant, Darca tries to grab his lightsaber, saying that he touched a nerve, did he? Lycan uses the Force to take the lightsaber, saying "You are the hero here? Is that it? The good man valiantly attempting to stop... what? A great evil? Tell me then, hero..."
In a big splash page, holding two lightsabers and with a little orbit of jagged rocks, he says, "And who we both are."
Blue flashback page of a boy at the side of his bed saying "Dad... time to wake up." And then a caption saying "Hours Earlier." Darca sits up, alone on a rock, thinking it was just another dream. They're coming more frequently now, as he gets closer to him. Darca travels, finds his tracks and a big puma thing which he has to kill and eat, and thinks that Lycan's wandering aimlessly. There's nothing here. He's either looking for something or insane.
Finally he catches sight of him, in the distance, and thinks that he should feel elation, but... nothing. He's waited for the moment. Dreamed of it. Planned it a thousand times. It's driven him for so long, and it's the only thing - all he has left. Darca lines up a shot with a sniperish blaster, knowing that one perfect shot.... Lycan turns in his direction. "And I'd finally be free."
Darca stops, thinking he's not going to beat him with a blaster. He needs a plan. So he runs away. Down below, from Lycan's POV he couldn't have seen Darca. But he knew he was there.
Darca gets a good few hours away and ahead of him, looking for something. He finds it, does some work, and then settles to wait. "And it's strange, but in that moment that should be filled with tension, anger, and excitement... somehow, I drift off.... and I remember." Gray flashback panels to earlier comics - telling the two people from the first comic that they're living a short life of hate and revenge, ignoring what's important. Hearing Ament say that he's ill inside, broken. Ensa saying he reminds her of Byrom a long time ago; angry, guilty, struggling with himself. If he carries it long enough it'll turn him into what he's chasing. He can let it all go.
Then Lycan arrives, and Darca gets up saying that he's been waiting. Lycan leaps into the air and hurls rocks at Darca, getting one under his lightsaber blade and hitting his side.
Lycan says that despite the lightsaber, Darca's clearly not a Jedi, yet Darca knows him - and hates him with a Sith's passion. Tell him why. And Darca does - he says he was a mercenary who didn't care about sides, going wherever the money took him. And then he met Teril, and everything changed.
One page of him cradling his son's body. "And you took him from me."
There's one more flashback panel, of Darca walking away with his home burning behind him. It took him two days to bury his son and burn down a life that no longer existed, and then he packed what he needed and followed. Lycan, learning his name again, finds himself remembering, and exults in knowing who he is. Darca tells him that he's killed too many people. He's too dangerous. Darca can't let him leave the cave alive. Lycan says he's misread the situation; he is not the victor.
Lycan tells him he's failed, but Lycan is reborn thanks to him and his hatred. For that, he owes Darca a quick death, and raises one lightsaber, asking if Darca has anything interesting left to say. Under his arm, Darca sees a ghostly apparition of his son, but doesn't get too distracted. "Only 'thank you', Lycan - thank you for following me into the cave... the cave where I laid mines before you arrived." He sets them off.
And of course they explode. Darca hauls himself upright.
Darca stumbles back to Ensa and Byrom's farm, now surrounded by camps of Tooth's people, and smiles while they greet him. There's no dialogue, but the narration goes on. "There are places in the galaxy that are grand and important. The majority of us, we never see those places. But we have our own stories... And sometimes, even when they seem blackened and burnt... when they appear to hold no light, hope, or chance of redemption... when there appears to be no possible outcome but an ending... they continue. Lycan said to me, 'Men are not driven by altruism.' I'll prove him wrong."
Requested tag: title: star wars
I think one of the reasons I love it so much is because while, in a sense, it's your standard gritty revenge fare, in another it's so totally not. It's about redemption, in a way.
"Then we do our job." The two of them rocket over a high-altitude battle.
In the present, Darca sits up gasping while an alien shouts at him to wake up. The alien's named Tooth and is a bit rude, but gave him a place to sleep and showed him where the ship he'd been looking for was. It had been abandoned for a week, also mentioning that he and his folks are trying to find somewhere to live. Darca ignores him and remarks that it doesn't make sense; why would he land it here in the middle of a desert? He wanders off, in the narration saying that he reached Molavar four days ago, to rumors of a mass murder in a cantina. Darca had talked with traffic controllers and found that a ship had ignored docking commands to fly out into the desert, and when he checked the registration...
He finds tracks and thinks that Lycan's got at least five days head start. Darca has four days of food in his pack, but tells himself not to think about it. He's come too far, and Lycan's too dangerous. Elsewhere, an old woman works on moisture vaporators with a protocol droid in hot pink, affectionately insulting her husband for buying cheap parts and modifying them instead of getting new things. Lycan approaches them.
There's a caption saying Three Days Later. Darca is hiking through rocky terrain when he steps on something that goes "Click!". Someone tells him not to move, he's on a mine. The minelayer says that this is his land and wants to know what Darca wants here and what weapons he has. Darca shows him the blaster which doesn't work, and the lightsaber, which surprises the speaker.
The old man comes out from behind his rock to say what are the odds, two Jedi in three days. Later, Darca's in the guy's home soaking his feet in a pan of something that apparently stings. The old guy, Byrom, says it'll teach Darca not to come walking out here on his own. He must be crazy. Darca says "You're the one who's just taken in a total stranger." Byrom says Jedi tend to be trustworthy, and Darca doesn't look like Sith to him. Surprised, Darca asks if he's met Jedi. Byrom has, and fought with and against them; he hasn't always lived here. "I've seen the 'important' parts of this galaxy as defined by the lawmakers and the warmongers. So yes, I know a Jedi when I see one." Looking down, Darca asks if he's seen another Jedi in the last few days, and Byrom says it's one of the reasons why they put mines out. It wasn't a happy encounter. Offscreen, someone asks if he's understating things again.
But then he shrieks and clutches his head, babbling about the pain, and Ensa drops to the ground and flees on a speeder. "I may not be as well-traveled as Byrom here, but I recognize evil when I see it." They'd tried to find him, but couldn't find a trace. Must have headed for the mountains. Darca is asked what his business is with him, and says it's personal. There's a blue flashback of him standing in front of a house with an open, empty doorway. Byrom strides out saying "I wasn't aware that Jedi had personal reasons" and says that Ensa can show him a room; he can stay or go as soon as he wants, it doesn't mean a thing to him. He has other problems to handle. Ensa smiles at Darca, saying that Byrom likes him.
Outside, an alien of the same species as Tooth comes, mounted and with reinforcements, to demand the protection money. He makes a veiled threat to Ensa, which infuriates Byrom, and then says "You know I have a sensitive nature. Poetry, art... I love these things. Maybe one day I'll read you my poetry, eh? But for now, I'll settle for taking your money." Byrom gives it to him and is then told that next month he'll want a thousand, which is also outrageous, and the thug makes another veiled threat, saying that his wife works part of the land all alone, and in this galaxy anything can happen. From offscreen, someone says "Except you getting a date, I'd imagine."
It's Darca, who wants the thug to give the money back. Byrom wants him to stay out of this. The thug shoots at Darca, who deflects it with his lightsaber, and Byrom sets off the mines.
The mines go off spectacularly, making the thug's mount rear up and throw him.
Sleeth's mother Magon is a gangster boss with a small army, more than Byrom could fight even if he wanted to. He doesn't - he's seen and done enough killing in his life. "I fought so many wars I can't even name them all. Eventually I couldn't even remember why I was fighting in the first place. You spill blood and it doesn't just stop. It keeps on running. Right and wrong? Revenge? Defense? Greed? I've heard all the arguments. But you take away a man's future and past, all he's done and could be, nothing justifies that. Took me a long time to realize..." They'll defend themselves, but they came there to avoid bloodshed, to live a different life.
A few days later, and Sleeth's mother Magon shows up with her army and her son. She talks to Byrom about how he was "picking on my poor little boy", and when he protests she says "Shush, you incompetent little afterthought. This is mother's business now." Both Byrom and Ensa point rifles at her, and Magon says she has all these men, and the two of them are really going to turn them back? Alone? Offscreen, someone says "They're not alone."
Aww. Start of Chapter Four.
Darca runs, clutching his bloody side. Someone tells him run, that's right. It won't do him any good. He goes for a cave, saying "If I can just -" "- Make it to cover? To tightly strap those two broken ribs. To reassess your tactics. Yes. A good idea." Lycan follows him into the cave, saying he's disappointed. He'd expected more from a fellow master of the Force.
Darca tries to get further away. He's too powerful, too fast, and it hurts to breathe, but Darca just needs a few minutes and he'll be - Coming out in a big chamber with crystals and a little hole in the ceiling, he says "Trapped."
Rocks fly at Darca and he tries to block them all with his lightsaber, but one hits the side of his head, another gets his injured ribs. The whole time, Lycan narrates. "Everyone wonders how their life will end. Where and when it will occur. The close of waking days. The moment they will face their demons. Their acts and decisions. This is yours, my friend. The termination of all you know."
Doubled over, Darca gasps that he still knows some things. "I know that, right now, you don't have a clue what you're doing out here... or who you are. Despite your power, you're lost, weak, and clueless." Lycan snaps at him and makes a statue hit him. Still defiant, Darca tries to grab his lightsaber, saying that he touched a nerve, did he? Lycan uses the Force to take the lightsaber, saying "You are the hero here? Is that it? The good man valiantly attempting to stop... what? A great evil? Tell me then, hero..."
In a big splash page, holding two lightsabers and with a little orbit of jagged rocks, he says, "And who we both are."
Blue flashback page of a boy at the side of his bed saying "Dad... time to wake up." And then a caption saying "Hours Earlier." Darca sits up, alone on a rock, thinking it was just another dream. They're coming more frequently now, as he gets closer to him. Darca travels, finds his tracks and a big puma thing which he has to kill and eat, and thinks that Lycan's wandering aimlessly. There's nothing here. He's either looking for something or insane.
Finally he catches sight of him, in the distance, and thinks that he should feel elation, but... nothing. He's waited for the moment. Dreamed of it. Planned it a thousand times. It's driven him for so long, and it's the only thing - all he has left. Darca lines up a shot with a sniperish blaster, knowing that one perfect shot.... Lycan turns in his direction. "And I'd finally be free."
Darca stops, thinking he's not going to beat him with a blaster. He needs a plan. So he runs away. Down below, from Lycan's POV he couldn't have seen Darca. But he knew he was there.
Darca gets a good few hours away and ahead of him, looking for something. He finds it, does some work, and then settles to wait. "And it's strange, but in that moment that should be filled with tension, anger, and excitement... somehow, I drift off.... and I remember." Gray flashback panels to earlier comics - telling the two people from the first comic that they're living a short life of hate and revenge, ignoring what's important. Hearing Ament say that he's ill inside, broken. Ensa saying he reminds her of Byrom a long time ago; angry, guilty, struggling with himself. If he carries it long enough it'll turn him into what he's chasing. He can let it all go.
Then Lycan arrives, and Darca gets up saying that he's been waiting. Lycan leaps into the air and hurls rocks at Darca, getting one under his lightsaber blade and hitting his side.
Lycan says that despite the lightsaber, Darca's clearly not a Jedi, yet Darca knows him - and hates him with a Sith's passion. Tell him why. And Darca does - he says he was a mercenary who didn't care about sides, going wherever the money took him. And then he met Teril, and everything changed.
One page of him cradling his son's body. "And you took him from me."
There's one more flashback panel, of Darca walking away with his home burning behind him. It took him two days to bury his son and burn down a life that no longer existed, and then he packed what he needed and followed. Lycan, learning his name again, finds himself remembering, and exults in knowing who he is. Darca tells him that he's killed too many people. He's too dangerous. Darca can't let him leave the cave alive. Lycan says he's misread the situation; he is not the victor.
Lycan tells him he's failed, but Lycan is reborn thanks to him and his hatred. For that, he owes Darca a quick death, and raises one lightsaber, asking if Darca has anything interesting left to say. Under his arm, Darca sees a ghostly apparition of his son, but doesn't get too distracted. "Only 'thank you', Lycan - thank you for following me into the cave... the cave where I laid mines before you arrived." He sets them off.
And of course they explode. Darca hauls himself upright.
Darca stumbles back to Ensa and Byrom's farm, now surrounded by camps of Tooth's people, and smiles while they greet him. There's no dialogue, but the narration goes on. "There are places in the galaxy that are grand and important. The majority of us, we never see those places. But we have our own stories... And sometimes, even when they seem blackened and burnt... when they appear to hold no light, hope, or chance of redemption... when there appears to be no possible outcome but an ending... they continue. Lycan said to me, 'Men are not driven by altruism.' I'll prove him wrong."
Requested tag: title: star wars
