DOOM!

I know this one is kind of short, but yeah. O_O Short is good sometimes, or something. And I'm rambling because it's late and I need sleep. XD



part IV: THE GRAND HALL

The west corridor was where the two had entered, a ridiculously long hallway that snaked around the back of the kitchen and the dining hall. The ceilings were at least fifteen times their height, the windows along the top allowed sunlight to stream into the seemingly abandoned corridor, sun motes floating down from above.

Jacen reached out and ran a hand along a dusty tapestry that hung down the wall, suspended from a rafter near the ceiling. Tapestries with different designs alternated up and down the hall, on the wall opposite the doors they entered from. He stopped in the middle, his boots planted in the faded carpet.

"This place looks forgotten," Jacen murmured.

Tenel Ka was still standing by the open door, leading out to the courtyard. Her body was relaxed and leaning against the frame. She was still skeptical about this whole thing, but after all that had happened, she felt she had reason to be here. But she already knew at this point that it wouldn't just be an easy jaunt through an old building or two, like Gadell said.

"It'll give you guys something to do." He had said.

She could feel a slight scowl appearing on her face. Thanks, Gadell.

Reaching back and pushing off of the door frame, she watched as Jacen paced up and down the hall, visually taking in everything. He had that expression of wonder on his face, the same one he would get when he found a new pet or when he learned some new ability with his Force powers. Tenel Ka looked past his form to the left end of the corridor, the one they were closer to, where another pair of double doors stood. A single door occupied on the wall to the left of it, that end of the hall shrouded by the lack of windows. Peering in the other direction, she had to squint a tad to make out what was down there; it looked like it was an archway to another hallway or room. Her eyes roamed back down the corridor, running along the floor and the walls. The carpet was a faded shade of red; the walls, a dark mahogany. She noted earlier that the outside of the Manor seemed to be made of a mix of duracrete and pure stone, which led her to stare at the wooden walls longer.

"I wonder who built this place..." Jacen was still mumbling to himself, head tilted back, eyes trailing across the criss-crossing beams of the ceiling.

Tenel Ka had wondered that herself, especially after Jacen told her that the Raoull's had only lived here for a few years before the war with the Yuuzhan Vong. Her eyes finally tore away from the wooden walls and moved back to Jacen, who was staring back at her, eyebrows furrowed. "Which way, your Majesty?

Passing Jacen without a reply, she began meandering to the far end of the hallway, towards the archway. He followed her, letting his feet fall into the boot prints she had made in the carpet on the way. His breath caught in throat when he got there.

The ceilings in the room beyond the hall they occupied were a bit taller than the ones in the corridor, if that was even possible -- and the room was huge. It was a hall, the main hall most likely. A massive set of stairs spilled out onto the center of the floor, leading up to the second level of the chateau; the banisters and railings made out of stone. Jacen had wandered into the hall by now, passing Tenel Ka who was still staring in awe from the archway. This was nothing like the Fountain Palace.

A set of double doors towered over the main wall of the chamber, along the north wall. They looked almost unnaturally large as Jacen drifted past them, running his hand over them. Tenel Ka's eyes roamed to the east wall, that Jacen was ambling towards now. It was ceiling to floor transparisteel. This made Tenel Ka finally step out of the archway and into the main hall, where she padded across the laid out carpets towards that wall.

She stood by Jacen as they both looked through the clear surface. Everything was green. It was an atrium of some sort, or a conservatory. Plants set out almost everywhere in that room -- plants they'd never seen before. Vines snaking across parts of the transparisteel on the opposite side, the surface partially fogged from the heat and steam in there. Jacen could see flowers popping up in random places, a splash of red here, a spritzing of blue there -- all in a massive sea of green. He took his face away from where it was childishly mashed up against the window and peered around the main hall once more. There didn't seem to be an entrance from where they were.

Tenel Ka noticed Jacen pull away and tore her own gaze from the only other life they'd discovered on this part of the planet. "...beautiful." She mumbled. "But how is it surviving? If there is no one to take care of it..."

Solo had been wondering that himself. The main hall and the corridor they had been in before hadn't been kept up at all. Dust everywhere, locked doors, faded carpets and walls. It was dead. But this...

He turned back to it, the brightness of the colors catching him off guard once more. "Incredible." He knew there was no way that place could look that perfect unless someone or something was keeping it that way. "But I have no idea how it's still so... alive." He paused. "There must be someone still here."

Suddenly moving away from the transparisteel, Jacen stumbled to the middle of the main hall, throwing his head back. The ceiling at that spot was the highest he'd seen it yet, stretching up the staircase to the absolute peak of the manor. It was made out of different colors of glass, all forming a pattern of some sort. The sunlight caught it at an angle that shot the streams of tinted light down, which bled across his face. He stood there, head back, inhaling deeply -- he was going to yell.

"Jacen, no!" Tenel Ka had gone pale and Jacen noticed this when she scolded him about yelling. "There could be things here we do not want to run across. We do not know what is here. We cannot let anything that might be here know about our presence unless we know if they are hostile or not."

He sighed out the breath, nodding. Part of him knew that yelling probably would've been a bad idea, but this was troubling him. There had to be someone here. And that atrium proved it. Deciding it would be better to do more exploring, he began wandering around the main hall again, peeking into the offshoots and hallways that led away from the chamber.

Out of breath, Tenel Ka was relieved Jacen hadn't noticed how shook up she suddenly was. She told herself it was probably the stress from the bounty or maybe just stress from work or exhaustion... or something. But she wasn't about to tell Jacen what caused it.

As he was moving to the center of the hall to call out a shout or two, Tenel Ka was silently staring into the atrium. She could faintly see herself in the transparisteel, tired eyes, braided hair and all -- but as she backed away from it, it had changed.

It tore itself away from her body and balled it's right hand into a fist, slamming it as hard as possible into the clear surface, silently screaming and shouting about something.

Jacen's sharp intake of breath as he was preparing to yell caused Tenel Ka to snap her attention away from her estranged reflection and call out to him.

She could still feel her heart pounding in her chest. And as she looked back to her reflection, it was the same look of muted shock she could feel on her own face. With once last glance to Jacen, who was speaking in low tones to himself again, Tenel Ka shook her head slightly.

No. No, there was no way she was telling him that. He was already stumped from the problem with her eyes, puzzled about her opening the side doors -- he was just as confused as she was. This just added onto the web of questions that was weaving tangles in her mind. She wasn't going to tell Jacen about this because one of them needed to have their head on straight.

Between the two, while she was usually the grounded one -- she knew it would be the other way around for now.

"Tenel Ka," Jacen called out to her, his voice echoing in the grand hall.

Her mind snapped to attention and her eyes quickly sought out his. She tried to act as collected as possible, the color seeping back into her skin. "Hm?"

"It'll be getting late soon. We should plan on what we'll be doing tonight." He jerked his thumb back in the direction of the corridor they came from. "You slept on the way here. How were the bunks?"

"Discomforting." She shook her head a little. "I did not get much rest."

Jacen turned and reached back to the main doorway, pushing down the levers on the front of the door and pulling them inward with all his strength. To his surprise they opened, revealing a view of a front porch and a path that led downhill into a town.

"Maybe there's an Inn down there or something."

"Are you kidding, Solo?" Tenel Ka stepped up beside him, swallowing a mouthful of dead air. "This place is deserted. Look at that. It looks... forsaken. No one came back here after the war. Not to this side of the planet."

A defeated expression crossed his face, his eyes narrowing. He knew she was right. Letting his eyes follow the path down, he opened himself up fully to the Force, allowing his presence to move throughout the city.

It was empty. Lifeless.

Pursing his lips, Jacen let a sigh escape as he stepped back, grabbing the two doors. He grunted, pushing them both shut once more, flipping the levers back up. With his back to the doors, he glanced to the stairs. "Well, what about in here. This place is enormous. There has to be somewhere we could camp, right?"

Shrugging, Tenel Ka nodded, albeit a little hesitantly. Did they really want to sleep in this place?

I can handle it. She told herself. Tenel Ka knew she was a little shaken up at the few things that had happened, but she blamed it on stress.

"Well, let's go get some provisions from the ship. Dinner. All that good stuff -- then we'll head to the second floor." He began heading back towards the forgotten corridor, towards the side entrance, Tenel Ka hesitantly following him.

She tossed a sideways glance to the atrium glass once more, her eyes wide and frightened in the reflection that it gave back to her. She thought the reflection had broken away from her again and was giving her that look for a reason -- until she realized her own eyes were really that wide and nervous. Scowling outwardly, she told herself to calm down and stop this instant.

It was stress.


Weee! Alright, bed time before I get all rambly again. XD