Crude Matter Rough Draft 10

[klcthebookworm]

So I ended up working on this story two different days during the week. And I was so disheartened by the progress from the weekend plus the first day, I decided to try out a zero draft on my second working day.

Zero draft is a concept I heard on an old Writer's Well podcast episode. The hosts were talking about cowriting when one parter was good at creating a summary of what is going to happen in the novel and the second partner was good at revising that summary into narrative. So I decided to try it out on my second days of writing Crude Matter, creating a summary in the main text and then go back to make it narrative.

What I found was I hit a spot and fell back to narrative writing. So here's my progress from last week. And this weekend, my plan is to go back to zero draft when the words dry up.

Jade’s Fire swooped gently over Anzat’s grasslands and the comm system chimed that Mara’s prey was in voice broadcast range. She toggled it on. “I got your text comm and my ETA is fifteen minutes, Skywalker. Anything I need to be alert for on the ground?”

For a moment, she wondered if he would respond. The way the text comm had been phrased she thought it had been sent through his astromech droid. The landing beacon that she was flying toward was bound to be the droid’s work. The Force wasn’t giving her a warning, but that didn’t mean she’d find a conscious Luke Skywalker.

“Hello, Mara.” His voice had a different pitch, lighter somehow. Definitely breathier.

She frowned at the speaker. Maybe she needed to run a diagnostic.

Skywalker continued unaware of her mechanical distraction. “You can set down next to my X-Wing; there’s plenty of room right outside the temple and the ground is seismically inert. The water source is easily avoidable. Just follow Artoo’s beacon.”

“I am. I just wanted to make sure you were coherent for this extraction that I cleared my schedule for.”

“I don’t need an extraction.” He still sounded off, but the trying-to-not-sulk came over the comm clearly. “The X-Wing is fine and I can fly it.” There was a pause before he hesitantly said, “You didn’t need to come, not if it damages your business. I don’t know if Artoo made it clear this isn’t an emergency.”

Mara smirked. “So I’m not going to make the extraction fee I was going to charge you?” There was a regrouping thoughts sputter on the other end of the comm. “It’s fine, Skywalker. All I have right now is a surprise delivery as a favor, and I still have a week before it’s due. Plenty of time to help you out with whatever Force conundrum you have found now.”

“I’ll be waiting in my camp. Skywalker out.”

Jade signed off as well and gazed out at the new features on the landscape as she approached them. The yellow-green grass parted for a curved blue ribbon of water that she passed over. Blue mountains rose in the distance, but the beacon was leading to what was once a building built of carved stone or pourstone bricks. Walls had crumbled around the perimeter, but a domed tower still stood in the center with a roof that looked like dark gray and green. The creek tumbled down the outcrop the ruin was built on and curved around behind it.

The white cocoon-shaped structure as long and as tall as the X-Wing was staked out between the snub-fighter and the creek where no shadows would fall on the tent’s black solar collection tubes snaking over its surface. The flat plain before the ruin still had plenty of room for her larger ship. She set down with her entry ramp aimed at Skywalker’s camp and her viewport at the ruins. The once graceful arches that had marked the entrance had fallen into a heap of stone leaving a hole into the interior at the top of the pile.

She hoped whatever Luke had found on this trip to need help with did not include rock climbing and exploring in ancient ruins. He probably pulled the artifact out already. From the closer angle, she now saw that the green of the roof were actually massive fronds growing through slits in the roof and spreading out to catch as much sunlight as possible. The much plant life did not bode well for the structural integrity of the ruins; the roots were probably tearing the place apart from the inside. She’d point that out if the Jedi Master wanted to go back inside.

The sun was heading down to the horizon as she stepped out on the grassy turf. The springy stems didn’t impede her progress. Luke’s steady presence in the Force was ahead in the tent. She didn’t have to duck to walk under the X-Wing, so she took the most direct route to the large white temporary structure by going under the starfighter. The door was slid up to remain open, so he had to have heard her land. Why wasn’t he meeting her at the doorway? She swept his camp with her Force senses and only felt the two of them. So he wasn’t busy with someone else, unless it was his droid.

She raised her voice before she reached the tent’s doorway. “Did anyone tell you that Anzat was under Imperial interdiction before you decided to come here?” She strode into the main room of tent. The saved solar energy powered the lights at the apex of the roof illuminating the whole room. So she didn’t miss, couldn’t miss the female human who faced the tiny kitchen against the back wall of the tent.

“So was Dathomir,” she said with Luke’s amused chuckle as she continued chopping something. But the voice was higher and breathier than the one in Mara’s memory despite the similarities.

Mara’s gaze traveled over the person present. The clothes were something Luke would wear on one of his expeditions, stained and mended gray trousers (that Mara half suspected were part of a Rebel Alliance uniform he had never discarded) and a black undertunic. But the seams of the trousers strained at the hips to remain on a much curvier lower half and the undertunic’s armhole was exposing nearly all her ribs under her arms. Luke’s lightsaber hung from the belt cinching the trousers around her waist.

And she radiated Luke’s steady presence in the Force in a way that should not be possible, in a way that was making Mara’s head dizzy.

Something moved to Mara’s left and she jerked to see the blue and white astromech droid. It offered her a low whistle.

“And that turned out all right.” She picked up the cutting board and slid the chopped pieces into a pot on the cook top. “But I don’t think I’ll recommend lifting it for Anzat.” She set the utensils down on the sliver of counter space the camp kitchen provided and turned to face -Mara.

The blunt haircut was growing shaggy around a rounder face. The forehead shifted flatter, the cheekbones more prominent, the lips much plumper. But the chin still had a cleft even though it was shortened. And the blue eyes were still the same ones she knew despite how the eyebrows had shifted and arched over them. She’d know those eyes no matter what face they resided in.

Her poise was sucked out the airlock though. In fact, she was fairly certain she was doing a nearly accurate impression of a Mon Calamari. “What the hells, Skywalker? A full body mod?”

She never would have put credits on that idea; he had never emoted unhappiness with his body. And she felt oddly hurt that he had never shared that he had been or that he had made this decision with her. Even though there was no real reason why he should.

Skywalker’s grin and self was full of relief. “You can tell it’s me!”

“You haven’t changed in the Force.” An idea struck her and her temper rose to match it. “Was this some Sithspit test?” A way to mock and goad her for refusing further training, how dare he! Or she!

Skywalker raised her hands in placation. They still sported the same calluses. “Not of you! I still feel like me despite the anatomical changes of the flesh, this crude matter. But I didn’t know if I could trust my perception or if it had been altered too. I didn’t want alarm my students and Leia’s too busy.”

She felt the evasion in that statement. “You didn’t want her yelling at you for doing something stupid.”

“I’d rather her save those for when it is actually a galactic incident.” Skywalker waved a hand at her chest and Mara tried not to notice that Skywalker’s mammaries were larger than her own. “This is just personal.”

Mara sat down on a nearby stool. “She has explained you are a public figure. How do you think it won’t be a galactic incident when HoloNet finds out you have a different gender now?”

Skywalker blinked. “Okay. That’s why I commed you. You can help me figure out what to say if we can’t reverse this.”

“I don’t have a surgical center in my ship.”

“I didn’t change my matter medically.” Skywalker turned to the travel conservator and stooped to pull out the next ingredient. “It was the temple.” She nodded her head at the wall in the direction of the ruins.

Mara glanced over at the droid, but it didn’t offer any commentary as Skywalker went back to cooking. “You found a Force artifact that changes people’s bodies?”

“It wasn’t the Force directly, but the indirect touches with life itself that should be studied.” He stirred the savory contents of his pot before opening the package. “Cilghal will want to study this effect, if the [government body that covers safety/interdictions/quarantines/medical thingys] will lift the interdiction enough for that to happen. The ramifications are fascinating.”

Her head was beginning to pound, the way it usually did when Skywalker was determined to ignore the practical in favor of Force mysticism. She supposed it was comforting that hadn’t changed about the Jedi Master. She curled her hands into fists on her thighs rather than start rubbing her temples. “The ramifications are going to be bad if I grow a dick from landing on this planet.”

“We are more than our crude matter.” She finished pouring the meat chunks into the sizzling pot and started stirring harder. The packaging floated to the garbage container. “You would still be you, like I’m still me in how it counts.”

“Skywalker, tell me what you did to yourself or I’m comming your sister!”

She had the satisfaction of seeing Skywalker’s shoulders flinch. “It’s the plants in the temple. The reference I found said the temple had been dedicated to the study of the divergent before the native sentients that lived here died out and the Old Republic put Anzat under interdiction.”

“And that sounded like a Jedi temple to you?” Mara was proud as to how calm she made her voice. Her hands relaxed.

“If you’re really interested, I have a datapad file full of the different descriptions of Jedi and Force temples from different sources. It didn’t sound that unsimilar.” She added some water to the pan, increasing the sizzle and steam. “So I planned this trip, went into the ruins, the connection to the Force was so strong, and I was distracted and then one of the plant pods closed around me.”

Mara twitched. She remembered a bog plant in the gardens of the Imperial Palace that ate insects. “You didn’t cut your way out?”

“I didn’t want to. I’m not sure if that is a message through the Force via the plant or a chemical reaction from the sap inside. I kept samples after I got out and cleaned up.”

“And it spat you out as a female?”

“Basically.” Skywalker turned off the heat source. “Which is pretty divergent from how I had been my whole life, but I’m still me.”

“So you think the natives built a whole religion around plants that can change a person’s biological sex?” Mara frowned. There was a Fringe rumor that Ewoks will prostrate themselves in front of protocol droids, so there were stranger things to build a religion around.

“It is a profound enough phenomena to start one.” Skywalker turned from the cooktop and grinned at Mara. “Now can I offer you a trade, Trader Jade?” Mara narrowed her green eyes at Skywalker, but that didn’t dint her grin. “Hot meal for a hot shower?”

Mara blinked. “Are you serious?”

“That water is cold!” She pointed to the creek beyond the tent wall. “And it’s not a ration bar.”

It did smell good. And she guessed that Skywalker had decontaminated enough to be trusted on the Jade’s Fire. But was a hot meal worth letting Skywalker into her cabin? Well, Skywalker did finally explain what had happened. Mara could afford to be generous over that. “Fine, you have a deal.”

Skywalker’s grin returned before she turned back and divided the contents of the pan onto two plates. Mara accepted her plate and waited until Skywalker settled on the other stool before eating. It was a good meal, but her need to tease Skywalker still lingered. “If you would just invest in a decent ship instead of a decommissioned X-Wing and Lambda shuttles, you’d have a shower when you wanted one.”

“Artoo and I do just fine with the X-Wing. We don’t need anything bigger.”

“But if you had a real ship, you wouldn’t need a tent.”

“Hey! This is a nice tent. Jaina, Jacen, and Anakin gifted it to me.”

Mara tilted her head. “Why didn’t they get you one with a sonic shower compartment?”

She looked ruefully down at her plate. “They did. It didn’t fit in the X-Wing’s cargo compartment.”

Mara snorted with amusement. She couldn’t help it. The remainder of the meal lapsed into a companionable silence, the way it typically did when she was with Luke. And her contentment stayed in place until a glace at Skywalker’s different form would jar it out of place. It was an accident and if she wasn’t wailing about it, it wasn’t Mara’s place to instead.

They move over to Jade’s Fire. Luke is surprised that she’s down to only one cabin. “I needed the room for a delivery,” Mara explained. “And I haven’t had passengers since.” Luke offered to help her reinstall the interior walls and offered to not invade Mara’s space. Mara upholds her end of the deal. Luke goes into the shower and Mara deals with her feelings or doesn’t deal with her feelings. What do I do with the free time?

Luke emerges from Mara’s cabin and Mara cannot keep her hands off her. Luke enthusiastically responds and they tumble onto Mara’s bed for sex. Luke often uses the line: “We are more than this crude matter.”

The aphrodisiac wears off and Mara’s alarmed because it was not her intention to sleep with a female. Or with Luke and that’s tinged with disappointment that it’s not Luke she fantasized about those few times that totally don’t mean anything because of all the reasons I can’t bother listing right now. “What did you do?”

“If that’s an implication that I used the Force to withdraw your consent, I didn’t do that.” Skywalker slid out of the bed and snatched the black undertunic off the floor. “You tore this off of me, Mara.” She shook the fabric at her.

Mara couldn’t deny that she had. “I do not accost people when they leave a ‘fresher. And I had no intentions of doing it before you went into the ‘fresher.” A niggling suspicion was slithering through her brain. “Did you mess with any of my toiletries?”

Skywalker slid on her pants. “I tried on your perfume.”

“My perfume?” But Mara didn’t own any perfume. So had Skywalker…?

“Leia always said her nose was better than Han or mine, so I sniffed all the bottles to see if there’s a difference now. It smelled so good; I didn’t use much of it.”

“Oh no!” Mara twisted the sheet tighter under her arm and marched into the fresher. The clear and sapphire vial now sat front and center on the spill-proof shielded shelf in the wall. She plucked it from the cleansers and hair treatment bottles surrounding it. The small, curved vial fit into her hand and she could see the level of liquid was still near the applicator top. “This isn’t perfume; it’s Rhododendron essential oil.”