EAST OF EDEN ( anakin s. ) ✔️

005 | An Oasis Away..

━━━━━━ ༻ 🌄 ༺ ━━━━━━
" an oasis away "
...
━━━ ༻ CHAPTER FIVE ༺ ━━━

          THE ANOPIAN HOVERS WERE comparable with a sauna at best and an oven at their worst.

Transiting only through the Anopian desert as all other regions were too unpredictable to be traversed by this means, these refurbished vehicles were nothing but cells of iron with minimal ventilation and a constant build up to the sensation that its rudimentary cooling system was broken and they were in fact being cooked alive. Piloted by a relic of a droid, some sort of model reassembling the ancient Tythonian War Droids, the hover was rumbling through the constant speed of about ninety miles per hour, though Anakin could swear this journey took an unholy amount of time regardless of it.

Facts argued that crawling their way through miles upon miles of dunes in broad daylight with a possibility of sand serpents attacking them at any point was a much worse fate than sitting across from each other on this simmering transport, trying to meditate their way through a journey of noises that threatened their imagination to picture the hover falling apart. The heat was unbearable even as both Anakin and Eden employed their best attempts at slowing down their perception of senses.

No matter how entertaining it might have been to gain this incomprehensible sense of each other's Force in a little unseen game, the sweat made their clothes stuck to their skin uncomfortably, thus turning the whole endeavor into a challenge neither of them should have faced with no hours of sleep behind.

Actual steam released from the hover vehicle once they arrived upon their destination. Once dropped off, the droid closed itself back in and continued on its route. The way Eden has explained it to him, that vehicle had to be in almost continuous motion during the day if it was on the field, or the circuits faced the large possibility of being fried. They'd have to catch the same hover later that night to head to the next location on the itinerary approved by Emissary Lanshee.

After a long yawn excusing her excessive squinting, Eden stopped in the shade of a cave's mouth breathing cold air from beneath the desert right into their faces, luring them in, away from the heat of Endia making the Anopian desert boil. The entrance was marked on the entirety of the upper monolith formation with circular hieroglyphs shining from particular angles like threads of gold. Two statues guarded the cave on both sides, depicting an alien species Anakin did not really recognize.

Eden turned around once they were both in the shadow of the cavernous monolith and pointed at the two statues, "Lua and Jao, the last of the Qiq'od, supposedly a wholly Force sentient species dating back to before the foundations of the Jedi Order. There is little evidence to prove the reasons for their arrival on Anope or how exactly they came to build the temple we are about to enter, however it is common knowledge around here that their Force ghosts linger on as echoes inside these walls, keeping the temple alive and fertile, in the very heart of the desert."

Anakin looked up at both the statues, one at a time, taking in the lean, elongated features of the four-eyed beings depicted. Even once he followed after Eden inside the cave he tried to observe as much as possible of the path, because there were mesmerizing things to behold, things he shouldn't dare overlook despite fatigue clinging to his eyelashes and making them heavier than usual. Part of him could not deny: he was shocked Eden had enough energy to still talk so much.

Not that he would complain; her voice was soothing, the sort of voice he would like to have read to him all those stupid training scrolls and Jedi records. If more of the archives used her voice as a sample, he was sure most padawans would find themselves learning faster. But then again, did he really want to share the blessing of hearing her speak? Especially while he couldn't even tell what about her voice made it so pacifying to listen to? Maybe it was the relaxed tone that never ones dipped into utter boredom in presenting anything. Or maybe it had something to do with just her presence, still of a stronger radiance even as they walked further into the cave and Anakin begun feeling the tug of an energy center ahead and deeper beneath the desert.