seen from France
seen from United Kingdom
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from Germany
seen from China
seen from Egypt
seen from United Kingdom
seen from Nigeria
seen from China
seen from Cambodia
seen from United States
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[Last line meme]
"Rules: In a new post, show the last line you wrote and tag as many people as there are words."
No tags and I wasn't tagged, I just wanted to play Lol~ --but that means I can do two lines:
“Trying to remember how to be.. someone who.... —is still here. You know..?
.. I’m not dead yet…. Overdue on acting like I’m alive.”
8')
So, let’s say: The character who holds every personal thought locked inside out of fear, hides and disguises themself for a living out of necessity, and doesn’t really believe they even know who they are. . .
What If: They are obligated to spend weeks (in VERY close quarters) with a stranger who Knows when they are being lied to. . .
And also: They have Very important secrets to keep, the whole time.
! 😊
[Just a thought...]
Spy & spy: Kallir & Liran
This one was a gift for @a-muirehen. . . Something I drafted a Very, very long time ago.
Headcanon: these two are friends in hard times (before Kallir has anyone like Keran or the bounty hunter crew of Mjau, Mako & co.)
. . . In spite of the focus on the Imperial sci-fi dystopia (taking their lunch break from work at the Citadel), and the backstories of the hard life they have lived and are living, I was really shooting for something Soft for them. (To make us cry.)
-
The two are side-by-side as they walk: young zabraks in uniform. One with red hair, the other a red skin tone nearly as candy-bright. Both have small, pointed horns poking out from the bangs overhanging their foreheads. Both their faces are masked in tattoos of curves and jagged lines—different, but not dissimilar, designs that particularly darken the area around their eyes.
The route they follow during the midday meal break aims toward a fountain plaza, where there are somewhat less microphones than in every inch of the highly-monitored workplace they’ve left behind.
Surveillance of citizens in open spaces is the domain of observation droids on patrols throughout Kaas City. Both the men, by the nature of their profession, have a knack for recognizing the hovering shape of one at a distance and avoiding them on instinct.
In spite of relative privacy, Kallir feels acutely self-conscious to voice his offer: “You should stay a night at my apartment, sometime.”
—Not first because Liran will be in a position of figuring out how to decline politely if he’d rather not, but because the field operative isn’t sure how this suggestion might be interpreted at all.
The redhead falters to explain, lifting his eyes from the stonework bordering the fountain-statue they’ve been ambling toward. “I don’t usually have anyone visit me,” he starts, shifting focus toward a side-road entirely the opposite direction from his walking companion. “Someone for company— not any particular...” Kallir trails off.
He finally stumbles to the bluntest form of clarification: “I’m not trying to hit on you, of course.”
Curving wide to circle past a monolith of carved rock, the pair keeps a constant distance from anything that might become an obstacle to their habit of weaving away from other pedestrians.
The two of them rarely—almost never—have had to negotiate the fine points their interpersonal relationship, or what it might be called; the status of it has simply shifted at an intermittent pace. From a rapport in the workplace, to slowly becoming comfortable enough to discuss the trials of their respective personal lives.
Neither was outgoing; it was in their personalities to keep to themselves, most of the time. But in their circumstances, it was difficult to hold onto even the few people who had been close to them. Impossible, sometimes.
“Going to sleep and waking up— Every so often, I think about how those hours of the day might be easier with a friend nearby.” Kallir studies Liran’s face for only a moment, trying to discreetly interpret an answer in his expression.
Liran, slowing awkwardly, is falling a step behind him despite his longer stride. From past observation, he’s been the one with a driving urge to walk fast, regardless of where they’re going or why.
Kallir, who is shorter than most (including Liran), has the instinct to mirror his environment: adjusting to whatever pace is least likely to draw attention to him in a crowd—or in exposed spaces such as this.
Out here, of course, it doesn’t matter much; it’s perfectly unremarkable to see two obvious Intelligence agents wander a lap around the fountain outside their headquarters, taking in the fresh air and the pre-storm tang of atmosphere.
“—Just a thought.” For a moment Kallir’s face is a clumsy smile, implying an apology yet appreciative all the same.
Time for: “this-never-happened but it COULD have” AU content from a spree I went on a while ago. . .
~Starring~ Liio & Zahied, from the perspective of Kallir
Based on: “I would love to see my pathetic (affectionate) & morally flawed but Mostly well-intentioned men hanging out with each other”
-
“Give him some space. You can lower your rifle, Agent.”
Coming from a Sith—more than capable of killing without a weapon—the tone didn’t sound particularly merciful to Kallir. The agent obeyed without pause.
He had been standing his ground against a taller man, with a smaller gun. A human. Brow thick and furrowed, short beard sparse at gaunt cheeks, and a ponytail of long, dark hair sharply marked by white strands, which made his scarred face look twice as old as it may have in more compassionate lighting.
The private side room of this Dromund Kaas cantina had a cold, dramatic ambiance: weak, colorless lights low along the walls cast the features of all three of them in shadows like silhouettes, dark-edged and desaturated.
The luminous base of a large holo-projector in the table at the man’s back outlined him in an ethereal blue, making some details clearer and others more difficult to read. There was a pock-marked, uneven texture to the skin on the right side of his face and neck, a long-healed but vicious-looking mark of another old wound pulled together in a jagged shape across the left of his forehead, and dark circles under his unflinching, dark eyes.
Kallir’s eyes were trained to gather all available information, and they adapted easily to environments darker than this.
He observed the subtle displeasure hinted at by a tighter frown. The way the stranger’s glance abandoned him for just an instant once he’d left himself open to be fired upon—no longer poised to return the favour—with his own two-handed blaster rifle aimed toward the ground.
The agent held this stance in silence, less troubled by the mundane barrel of a pistol than the approaching Sith’s vermillion eyes. The color was vivid in an uncanny degree, with a waver of orange like a heat-aura at the edges.
Circling the table, watching the human and ignoring Kallir for the time being: a young pureblooded red sith, his handsome face pierced with gold down the ridges of either side. Not much older than the agent himself, potentially.
He moved with confidence, but had chosen less ostentatious clothing than what some Sith Lords used to signal their self-importance. A front-fastening shirt with starched lapels and half-rolled sleeves would be appropriate for anyone in this setting—though Kallir did have the fashion-fluency to recognize a kind of simplicity that wasn’t based on a limited budget. At least one of the rings on those sharp-nailed red fingers looked like something a museum would display in a place of prestige on a bed of velvet; a specimen of exceptional skill from artisans of a fabled, glorious past, when every noble family had been so visibly been a product of the ‘true’ sith lineage.
At the stranger’s waist, a pair of twin lightsabers hung clipped to the left and right of his belt. Both were wear-marked, with the appearance of being well-maintained.
This wasn’t a warrior only of words and subterfuge. If he were, Kallir reasoned that he would be more likely to recognize him. He didn’t.
Though it was easy to judge by the few words the Sith had spoken that he didn’t have the accent of Kaas City—possibly not even the broader region of the Dromund sector. When it came to noteworthy individuals outside of his local sphere, Kallir usually had a chance to consult their file in the archives ahead of time.
The human was decidedly not local, which had been a point of relevance: he wasn’t Imperial at all.
That fact was something Kallir had been made aware of before a face-to-face meeting, when he’d been directed to locate this potential spy. He couldn’t guess what information an unknown Sith might have about the situation. The range of potential scenarios was as broad as it was unnerving.
But he’d marked Kallir for an operative of Intelligence, and the hierarchy of their relative stations was clear: whatever a Sith Lord wanted with an infiltrator at the heart of the Empire still took priority over his own assignment.
“You’re from the Republic,” the Sith confronted the foreigner with confident interest, confirming one piece of shared knowledge.
The focus of both their attention, resigned to admit that much, answered without so much as wavering his aim or turning his eyes again: “Yes. Who’s asking?”
Being still pointedly targeted by the human’s stare (as much as his blaster) the zabrak agent felt this question equally addressed to him as to his superior. He said nothing. Nor did he break eye contact, keeping his back toward the door, standing as neutral as a soldier at his station.
Kallir assumed the Sith wouldn’t have any concerns about someone making a run for the exit when it’d be so easy to stop them with one gesture and a thought. Blocking the way might have a psychological impact on the human, though—if he can be immediately persuaded they’ve trapped him here, he might stay engaged in the confrontation without wasting time.
The Sith, in fact, acted unconcerned with any aspect of the scenario outside of the conversation he had initiated. He did cross his arms at his chest in a casual, habitual gesture of challenge—as if to warn the tall, dark stranger against escalating aggression. It should be easy to see who among them would be the clear winner if it came to violence.
Kallir didn’t envy the position the human was in. But then: the immediate disadvantage would be his, as the most likely to be shot first.
No one held a blaster in quite the way this man did unless they were well-versed in firing one. As one professional evaluating another, Kallir was confident they were dealing with someone who had experience—and had used the skill to deadly effect, often enough.
Not one to be distracted entirely with contemplating his potential imminent death, Kallir took his observations while continuing to take in the words of the exchange. . .
-
[& We Won't Always Be So Lucky, But We Were Once]
Young Zahied, recovering from being injured in the field, has very bad new memories but a very good husband at his side.
(Follows after the scenes in these doodles)
This is possibly the longest fic I've shared here.
I. . . I told myself I'd write a cute scene of the domestic couple dynamics between him & his husband, w/ fish-kissing.
In spite of that goal, it immediately veered SUPER dark before I got it turned around.
GENERAL Content Warning: very bad memories = flashback to overly realistic violence in the intro of the fic.
(Specific content warning under the read-more)
- Specific content warnings -
Violence: grievous facial injury from the firsthand perspective, with secondhand, traumatized-military-person perspective of other soldiers' nearby deaths (and the bad-brain time of ensuing, unmanaged survivor's guilt). It’s not that gory, but again: the mood is Dark.
Shipping intimacy: yes, the kissing & mush does take over. On to a 'fade to black' at the end, with explicit follow-up 100% implied—but nothing more. (Giving them -some- privacy. Lol)
ANYWAY...!
What a life he had, barely 30 yrs old (if even. My timelines are indistinct; he might be under 30).
---
It’d been three weeks since the ambush that had him sent home from the front.
Three weeks since a separatist grenade had been lobbed into that small, grey building the Republic used as a watchpost. The spray of plasma and superheated shrapnel in an enclosed space was more than a match for the standard, light-duty armor of three guards.
His colleagues who took the brunt of the blast hadn’t survived: neither the woman at the door, who tried to call for them to take cover, nor the man in the chair next to his. He, like Zahied, had removed his helmet for their meal break.
Zahied was the lucky one.
His ears still rang sometimes, and occasionally his right eye showed strobing spots in his vision. White pulses and persistent shadows. His reflex to raise his arm may have helped him keep from being blinded altogether. The body of the other soldier at the table had also sheltered him from some of the heat and debris of the blast.
At the time, he had only known the panic of liquid fire coating the side of his face. His arm was smoking—burning. The soldiers with him: both were burning. One moving along the floor, the other collapsed—barely twitching. Bleeding out. The floor was burning.
Blasters fired from the street. Body halfway out the door, the crawling soldier finally lay still. Zahied didn’t recall his own escape as clearly as he remembered her bolt-scorched helmet and the outline of that doorway.
He knew he had staggered to the back room; he shut the door between him and the flames. Already they had faded from piercing blue to molten yellow. Every surface fuel had touched, the sizzling and sparking tested for something to feed on. The smoke had the smell of a battlefield: chemical fumes and charred flesh.
He had put out the fire on his arm with his bare hand, apparently. His palm was blistered and bloodied. He didn’t chance the back door (in his mind’s eye was a helmet, and the echo of a gunshot).
It wasn’t long—it hadn’t felt like enough time to think of what else to do—before he heard the sounds of a skirmish flowing in the other direction, replaced by voices shouting in concern. He answered. Geared-up troopers rushed inside, getting him clear of the building before they brought in fire extinguishers.
He had walked himself to medical. There was nothing wrong with his legs. Nothing badly wrong with him, overall—though the injuries had looked messy, on the... face... of it.
It didn’t feel fair to feel sorry for himself, when he’d survived. But he remembered thinking about the photos from his wedding. It was good they made time to get married before this happened.
Half his face still looked like it’d been turned inside-out; the color and texture of someone’s guts, much pinker and paler than his cheek should be. It was healing fine. The bandages were mostly gone. That was why he, and everyone else, could have a good look at the raw, ragged patches that were still too glossy and surrounded by uncomfortable swelling.
He’d started taking less painkillers. That’s why he was awake now.
Lying on the pullout bed in the living room, reflecting on all that led here. Wondering, again, what the rest of his unit had been dealing with while he had been in the care of med droids and his anxious husband.
He smiled a little to think of Nathuur, who had heard the news ahead yet still turned weepy-eyed the instant he caught sight of him swathed in bandages at the hospital. They had both cried, of course. It was a grim cause for a reunion, and there’d been a lot of emotions to process.
Those kept him awake, too.
He was full of relief to be home: to be with his husband, to be safe, to be alive and (relatively) healthy. He was guilty to be home. To be safe.
Alive and well—far from the dangers that had marked him.
This didn’t feel like the place he should be. He wasn’t badly injured. It was fortunate, but it made a bad excuse for three weeks of rest.
The separatist attacks had been growing more frequent and aggressive before the one he was caught up in. What about now? No one could offer much of an update. He had a holo-call or a note here and there, wishing him well—(there was a potted plant from the gunner girlfriends sitting on the windowsill; they’d been guests at the wedding, not so long ago)—but of course security concerns limited the details.
Besides: no one wanted to see him preoccupied about work. Not-knowing might not do much to stop him from worrying, but they must have hoped it would help. He didn’t fault them for trying.
“You’re awake, Lover-guy?” A familiar voice, muffled-sounding, with a bit of a rasp and a distinctive squeaky pitch, spoke quietly out of the dark.
Nathuur.
It was impressive that he hadn’t heard his selkath husband coming down the hall. His feet were huge, his legs weren’t long, and the massive, fluffy slippers he wore around the house never did much to make him quieter.
Either being hit by an explosive did more damage to his hearing than he knew, or Zahied must have been very lost in his thoughts.
He could hardly make out the shape of his husband’s silhouette (the pattern of glow-in-the-dark spaceships and planet designs on his pyjamas gave a hint), but he knew Nath’s vision was better. He’d see the in-house patient sit up against the back of the couch, adjusting in his bedcovers.
He might be able to see Zahied’s half-smile. “I’m awake. Why are /you/ up?”
“Snacks.” The shuffle of comfy slippers approached his bedside first, instead of carrying on to their kitchen. “I get hungry with a baby on the way.”
Zahied laughed readily, no matter how many times Nathuur made fun of stereotypes of ‘the human experience’. “You’re going to miss messing with people about that when it hatches.”
“I really am...” He sounded like he was smiling, too, as he sat himself on the edge of the mattress, then left his slippers behind to pull his feet up. “The faces people make when they’re thinking really hard about questions they know they shouldn’t ask—Ha.”
As Nathuur shifted closer to him, Zahied made space for them to be side-by-side, moving carefully into position to put an arm around his shoulders and pull him into an embrace. “You’ll find something else to short-circuit them.”
Nath, conspiratorial in his chuckling, gently bumped Zahied’s chin with the dome of his head. “Can you believe we could turn into parents any day now?”
Short, thick arms wrapped around his torso, but the pressure in Zahied’s chest felt like it was coming from something else.
He hated the idea of crying again, just now. To avoid it, he’d have to start thinking of something other than his emotions about being reunited like this: holding his favourite person in this galaxy again. Being held.
Thinking of the near arrival of their firstborn wasn’t /less/ likely to make him well-up in tears, but at least there was elation and excitement he could focus on. Some nervousness.
Instead of turning his face to Nathuur in the dark, he stared towards the window to his right, where light from the street filtered in as soft yellow lines at the edges of the frame and between the shutters. “I can’t believe it.” He patted his hand on Nath’s shoulder. “No one else will, either, when they see me taking a baby selkath on a walk.”
“That would be close-minded of them.” Nathuur laughed again.
Zahied smiled again, making his beard and mustache feel crooked while he was avoiding too much movement on the scabby, pock-marked side of his face.
They could feel each other breathing. He got the impression Nathuur might be listening to the beat of his heart. And then his husband drew away enough to look him over again.
“Zahied—”
He heard the start of a question, but it was too much to resist kissing him on the flat of his nose, amid the patches and flecks of color that became a larger, bolder pattern further up his forehead.
Nathuur’s nose wrinkled (...which was also adorable), but the twitching of his whiskers suggested he was still smiling.
“—ah. You know that tickles.”
“I’m sure it does.”
He couldn’t help but laugh longer when his husband’s reprisal was to nose under his ear, taking nibbling bites at the side of his neck. It was a successful tactic to make Zahied squirm. “What were you going to ask—?”
Nathuur set his chin to rest on his human spouse’s shoulder, stuck with a face full of his loose, long hair. Not bothered by it, apparently.
“Do you really want to go back?”
They both knew the answer. They’d been over the question many times—though he never resented that Nathuur would ask again. There had been times his dedication wavered. This was one of them.
“Yes,” he said, nonetheless.
“OK.”
Nathuur never resented the cause he’d chosen. When they met, he was already a soldier of the Senate: trying to protect the peace and the people of the Republic.
Zahied had never needed enthusiasm or support for his career from the kind and gentle-hearted man he loved—the acknowledgement of the choice was enough.
And his acceptance: Nathuur didn’t look for an apology when the answer hadn’t changed.
What he DID look for was a nuzzle against Zahied’s face (thankfully there was still one side safe to rub against), which was accompanied by the quiet, trilling sound of Nathuur consoling him (or himself...).
Those kind of noises always sounded not-quite-right out of water. It was usually the selkath who had to make accommodations in their inter-species partnership, favoring the one who couldn’t survive an airless environment. Zahied just had to compromise with humid conditions in shared accommodations—which was why he had to sleep on the guest bed while his skin was healing: it was too damp in their room.
“I’ll miss you,” the soldier admitted, which was something they also knew.
“It’ll freak me out if you get hurt again.” Nathuur met his hand to hold it, looking him in the eye again. His attitude had the sadness, and the relief, of seeing him go through something bad which could’ve been much worse. “—I love you.”
“Same here.” Zahied squeezed the hand in his. For the sake of stroking the top of Nathuur’s glossy-soft head, he lifted his right arm. The motion still brought twinges of pain where he felt thin skin and new scar tissue stretched too tight—but with Nath smiling at him like that, it was easy to tune out anything else.
Zahied mirrored the warmth in his expression, returning a softer smile.
Those were his truths: he loved him—he’d miss him—he needed to go back.
If he couldn’t always be with him, at least they had each other now.
He kissed Nathuur again lightly—this time on the ridge of his brow. One finger of his right hand followed the same line above his eye, then skimmed down to the tendril twitching again on the left side of that teal-toned face.
“Are you still hungry—?”
Nathuur raised his eyes again, which had just started to get sleepy-looking a moment ago. He caught Zahied’s slow tone, and he recognized the coaxing of the finger and thumb teasing his whisker.
“I’ll put it off.”
Nathuur palmed his chest, with Zahied laughing faintly. He made the hasty motions to unbutton his own baggy, well-worn sleep shirt, welcoming familiar hands: long-fingered and extremely strong; unfailingly gentle.
He could immediately get lost in having Nathuur’s hands move over his skin, but before he did he wanted to stroke his own fingers against the bony ridge at the back of his husband’s head, watching him slowly close his eyes. He drew the touch forward after that, running fingertips toward the front of Nathuur’s throat, then underneath his jaw while he kissed him on the mouth. “—This is the medicine I needed: cute face to kiss.”
“I’m here to help.” Nathuur struck a coy pose with a tilt of his head, then re-examined Zahied while he copied the gesture of petting at his neck. “YOUR face is a mess, but it's still sexy. Maybe more sexy. You look like you fought a huge, ferocious squid or something.”
“Hell—is that what they’re into on Manaan? I need to read more selkath romance novels.”
“Who ISN’T kinda weak for the brave warrior type?”
“Oh?”
“—haha, I got you blushing.”
Nathuur was right, whether he could actually /see/ the flush of Zahied’s face or if he was only guessing. “I’m personally more attracted to the friendly, charismatic kind of guy,” he argued, “And great Dad material, you know? The ones who take care of people.”
The subject of his flattery was probably not blushing, though he enjoyed it. Nathuur started playing with Zahied’s hair between his fingers, chuckling at his comeback—and at the way he shivered. “A homebody? Sounds boring.”
“Not when they take you to bed,” Zahied sighed, letting his eyes fall closed. “They really know how to—Mm!”
Nathuur, with another laugh—more like a giggle—had begun to drag him insistently down the bed. When he had him flat on his back again, his chosen ‘homebody’ descended to more nibbling and teasing, flicking licks of his tongue up and across Zahied’s neck and throat, then at his upper lip.
A little breathless, his next plea came as a soft moan. Wordless anticipation. The awareness of everything he had missed about being back in loving arms, and how desperate his desire was now that they finally had a chance to engage in long-delayed intimacy.
Nathuur found his left hand and nipped gently at his fingertips, then brought Zahied’s inner wrist to his mouth for kissing, cupping the human’s shorter, five-fingered hand between his palms: big and smooth.
In turn, Zahied kissed the knuckle of Nathuur’s middle finger (the only one between thumb and 'pinky'). He smiled again, flush-faced. “Lick anything except the side of my face or this other arm, along here, and I think we’re good.”
“Anything and everything?” Nathuur teased, eyes raised to his face before skimming over the rest of him.
Zahied stretched out playfully, making another breathless sound as they exchanged a grin. “Whatever you want. All yours.”
He felt Nath’s hand move to lay on the top of his head, and felt as the tip of his tongue delicately touched to the bridge of his nose. A very light, slightly clumsy kiss found approximately the same spot.
There was a bandage there, but Zahied didn’t feel the cut underneath it enough to flinch, not even with selkath mouth-shape-related awkwardness as a hazard. He was too full of warmth, preoccupied with Nathuur’s presence: his husband’s hip warm against his side, his chest over Zahied’s. Those goofy, soft-feeling pyjamas meeting his bare skin where Nath leaned close. He snuck his fingers to the edge of the shirt and started to unbutton from the bottom up.
Nathuur sat back to let him, beaming down at him.
Zahied lowered his eyes, shyly dodging his gaze. “How’d I get lucky enough to have you,” he murmured, unavoidably aware of how close they had come to never having had this moment—to him never making it back to the family they would have together, soon.
“Haha. Yeah, the love lottery.”
He cracked a grin that did hurt the still-healing side of his face.
Nathuur stroked fingertips at his forehead, feeling through the hair at the edges of his hairline, looking proud of himself.
“That’s one way to make it sound cheesy as hell.” Zahied finished freeing the last button, petting down the loose fabric at Nathuur’s chest once more before letting him wiggle his shoulders free.
“OK—“ Holding the shirt over an arm, Nathuur climbed down from Zahied’s temporary bed. “If you’re thinking like I’m thinking, you should probably come with me.”
“But I was so warm here, and so /dry/,” he protested insincerely, teasing Nathuur while eagerly moving to follow him at the same time.
“You’re gonna need a whole shower anyway, with what I’ve got in mind.”
“Oh—the licking.”
Nath’s laughter led toward the hall, where he flicked the light switch to help them both find their way. “Well, yeah. And lube. You’ve got nothing below the waist that’s bandaged-up, so...”
Excitement hit like a buzz at the base of his neck, flooding warmth to his face. Now he was sure that Nathuur could have seen him blush, even if his complexion camouflaged it, and—as he realized in a passing thought—even if his right cheek was going to be red all over for a while, until it fully healed.
He finished taking his own shirt off carefully: the unhurt side first, then the patched one.
When they reached the door of the bedroom Nathuur turned and opened his arms to Zahied, who leaned into them and met his shorter husband for a hug that would let him rest his head against his heart again.
Nathuur tilted his face up to bump his nose softly at Zahied’s bearded chin like a prompt.
Zahied answered with a small, fond laugh, and by running his hand along Nathuur’s shoulder to the central ridge along the back of his neck.
In the area beneath the base of his skull and his jaw, the skin of a selkath was a texture unlike a human’s: it was finely wrinkled, loose and thin—and sensitive to being stroked gently.
While Nath relaxed, leaning his weight into the hug, Zahied’s other hand sought the button by the door, opening the hatch to the climate-controlled space of their room. “You’re right. Should be worth it.”
~ Imaginary future! ~
While the rest of his bounty hunter gang (including his Sith boyfriend) pursue a lead on their latest target, Malith—who has abandoned the name ‘Kallir’ some time ago—is left in charge of his & Mako’s side business maintaining cybernetic implants.
Veteran Imperial Agent Severine (visiting from @cipherr‘s separate story-verse) has her own approach to booking an emergency appointment...
[Cipherr keeps saying she’s too intimidated to write her own sharp-witted femme fatale, so apparently I felt called to do it for her!!! Also I get very excited about the future where pumpkin spy is a doctor, not a spy. Just an honest freelancer, picking up new skills, never having to hurt anybody again (unless they threaten his found family)]
---
Before becoming aware of any sound behind him, the ineffable sense of something /wrong/ strikes the zabrak medic, freezing his steps.
Inside the electronics workshop, the lamp above his own desk illuminates unfamiliar clutter: medical supplies that would belong on the shelves along the wall of the room. Empty packaging, abandoned.
He’s had a long time to fall out of the habit of surreptitiously looking both ways when entering a room and, more careless than that: his eyes were on the holo-comm in his hand. His thoughts were miles off, somewhere in the trackless expanse of the Dune Sea. They’ve come back at a bolt, crashing into the awareness of threatening circumstances, and the adrenaline rapidly accelerating his pulse.
“I’ve heard good things about your work.”
However conversational her approach, he is not reassured to hear the woman’s voice. Her accent is not local to sun-scalded Tatooine. It’s much nearer to his own. Not only in the fashion of the Imperial core worlds, but specifically familiar:
Dromund Kaas.
The Ministry of Intelligence.
And—in spite of her effortless tone of authority working to smooth-over her shortness of breath—she sounds unsteady. Unnervingly near to desperation.
The ex-operative dares to pause before responding, acutely aware of his own motionless hands, and the effort to restrain any gesture that might imply a threat.
When he does answer, he affects the same neutral caution his posture is meant to communicate: “—I try not to have a reputation.”
He’s kept a close grasp of the portable comm, anxious fingers wrapped more firmly around the small disc than before.
After the stranger activates the main lights overhead, his left hand hovers to shoulder height, assuring her of its emptiness by the display of slowly-splayed fingers. A careful glance in that direction tells him she has no objection to being seen, or to his turning to face her.
She’s taller than him, though not by much. Deep, gem-blue complexion. Featureless red eyes that emit an eerie glow. Blue hair in ringlets that remain exquisitely styled, despite the distinctly worse-for-wear condition of the rest of her.
From a trail down her arm, a minute splash of blood hits the floor beneath the upraised blaster pistol. Pointed at him.
Not that the sight of a weapon is shocking to him—nor gruesome injuries.
A chiss stranger, though? Uncommon in his new life as entrepreneur and support crew to a group of freelance bounty hunters. A person capable of entering the temporary accommodations shared by him and his associates, without tripping any of the alarms he had personally installed? They’d never had the misfortune of such a visit. Someone is very good with security systems.
Advancing age has sharpened the woman’s features and barely started to mark soft lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth. A very pretty face, he can tell—apart from the raw-edged scrapes where patches of her skin are scuffed or missing.
Seeing her chilly smile, he registers the subtle detail that her lipstick hasn’t been entirely wiped off by whatever ordeal she must have endured.
“You know that’s not something you can control.” The way she leans on the wall behind her, it’s clear the hand propped against the rough clay is necessary to maintain her willfully blasé posture. “—As one skilled professional to another.”
He says nothing. The layers of implication are clear to him: she’s aware of a history prior to his current career. And he’s right about her accent.
“You shouldn’t be too impressed I managed to find you, though; I’m here because you were the nearest option, and the /easiest/ to locate in a pinch.”
Not what he’d like to hear, but he can recognize the evidence speaking for itself, facing him from the trigger end of a blaster barrel. He hasn’t fallen nearly as far off the map as he intended. Not if someone with Imperial Intelligence contacts can simply walk in on him here, of all places.
Still, it could be worse than a lone agent, badly injured and merely /threatening/ violence.
It will be worse, if he mismanages the current situation.
“I can stop you losing more blood,” the medic hazards a guess at the most obvious reason she might have come to him. He hesitates on the way to drawing his comm disc toward a pocket, seeing something in her gaze he interprets as a warning.
Rather than vocalize a demand, the woman peels herself away from the wall and delicately pries the device from him using thumb and finger of her free hand.
“I’d be grateful if you would.” Tucking the communicator in a pouch at her belt, she switches her small blaster to her opposite hand. This way, as they walk toward the tilted chair to one side of his work area, she keeps the sidearm casually readied between them. “There is a complicating factor, you’ll notice.”
When she extricates herself expertly from her jacket (without holstering her weapon, somehow)—he does. The wound that had soaked her sleeve is deep, and wide enough that he sees a glistening line of incongruous silver framed in the mangled flesh.
“Cybernetics,” he acknowledges, abruptly recognizing the impact required to damage combat-grade limb structures and, in the same realization, becoming aware of how many adrenals she may have shot herself with in order to be as lucid as she is. “You should sit down; please.”
She seems entertained by his manners, laughing low in her throat as she complies with the politely-phrased suggestion.
“The dossiers said you were quite tractable, up until your— unauthorized departure. I won’t need to keep pointing this at you, will I?”
“No,” he answers, sounding curt for the first time.
Even the gesture of disarming looks so natural, he imagines she could reach that leg holster in her sleep. Speaking of which, she might be well on her way to passing out.
If she were trying to improve his opinion of her before it happens she chose the wrong thing to say.
Given the option, he would rather operate with a gun to his head than acknowledge the reference to his undissolved Intelligence file. Records which begin before his oldest memories as a child. The visceral recall of the days when biting his tongue was a way of life is making his mouth go dry.
One of her dark, crisp eyebrows seems to take a mocking angle, making it clear she’s taking note of the subtle, acrimonious attitude and his silent struggle to contain it—without apologizing for himself. Rather than comment, she takes off her shirt.
---
He’d gotten what details he could out of her before the drugs began to wear off. She had summarized her own well-informed theories of how to address the critical damage, and provided him with a set of partially redacted schematics. After that—with brow furrowed and breaking a cold sweat, nails dug in her palms, and tolerating a violent tic of her clenching jaw—she kept her good eye open through stubborn force of will.
Masochistic, really—but. The things Imperial Intelligence wouldn’t hesitate to do once they had you asleep... He wasn’t surprised she would decline sedation.
Attempting to maintain topical anesthesia promised to pose some challenges, thanks to the integration of biological and synthetic nervous systems. The best method he could offer was to limit the scope of his work: one injury site at a time, numbing each area as best he could until moving to the next.
The work would go slowly, and it would take time.
He was far from a master technician. He’d logged enough maintenance work on his own to become proficient in basic repairs, but his mentor, Mako, would normally supervise anything as complex as this.
To the benefit of the augmented chiss woman, who needed of someone capable of working with an ocular implant, neurological interfacing had already been the primary focus of his mentorship.
Hers was sophisticated equipment (so was Keran’s, which he’d been studying so diligently). As a former agent as well as an apprenticed tech, he knew enough to guess this might have once been a peak of Imperial engineering—which had gone a long time without being entirely updated. Here and there, a newer piece had been installed to supplant the old; the kind of large-scale replacements of hardware she was likely to require in the not-far-distant future.
Not what she’d be getting now from a transient, “bare bones” shop with no advance notice to source those kinds of parts.
Before her biological systems began to endure too much strain, he would do what he could for her.
---
Repairs alone meant /hours/ of a glaring operating lamp; pulling scrambled bits apart, making the necessary realignments to delicate structures and circuitry, directing her through several changes in her position in the chair, keeping an eye on any medical intervention required along the way, giving himself a sore neck and shoulders from the tension of leaning over to work on HER neck, and—every now and then—occasional breaks to consult diagrams, manuals, and change out his tools.
Exhausting as the job was as surgeon, it hadn’t been on his own account that he hastily called it done. He had responded to the high-pitched alerts from his equipment when her vitals began to broadcast firm warnings across the small monitor screen.
His experience providing first-aid and medical care far outstripped his practice as cybernetics tech, putting him on much firmer footing for the final biological interventions: closing incisions and dressing her wounds in kolto and bandages.
For one brief moment, seated forward in the chair again, she made a gesture as if she would pick up a bandage and get to work herself. He recognized the self-sufficiency instinct. While she found herself preemptively thwarted by the absolute fatigue of her body, he pretended not to look past his work layering gauze over her cybernetic eye, affixing a gel-coated patch against her cheek. Restoring her binocular vision hadn’t been a priority; in order to save her the (literal) headaches caused by loose connections and faulty feedback, it was easiest to disable it for now.
“So—you’ll help to wipe any data you can access? Anything the Ministry has about Keran and I since we left, for a start.”
“Mm.” Nodding her head would be a poor choice. Unsurprisingly, she’s not ready for words either, though she makes a credible effort to seem nonchalant.
“I’ve just gone through a lot of effort,” the med-tech points out, waiting for her attention to be sure she’s heard him.
She has a bleary-eyed expression on the half of her face that he can still see; watching him take a step back from the chair to evaluate the condition of his project— his patient, rather.
Maybe she’s not sure why he expects her to care.
“You should know I don’t intend to tear it all apart again.” Best not to dwell on that imagery, but he hopes she understands it as intended: a rational reassurance.
He moves on, leaving the mess of the operating area as something to deal with after he’s gone on a walk and had something to eat. A relaxing cup of tea to drink, maybe.
“—Wherever you might think is safer for you to go, I advise you to stay. It’d be better for you to sleep immediately.”
There’s a long, lagging moment for her mind to catch up and process. Then she manages a dry laugh, while moving as little as possible. Her voice, which had been crisp and articulate, is coarse and indistinct now. “When I have proper access to resources—” Such wordiness requires a breathy pause, “I may even pay you, doctor.”
Faced away at the sanitizing station, gloves removed and hands finally clean, he rakes orange fingers up the back of his stiff red hair. “And won’t return to shoot me, I hope.”
“It shouldn’t come to that.” She sounds rather self-possessed, regardless of her condition, and he catches her smirking as he looks over his shoulder to gauge the credibility of her response. “—Not if your quick fix holds up.”
This isn’t an encounter to simply walk away from, he knows.
Many consider their “inner workings” a closely-guarded secret. Whatever this woman’s allegiances, and whatever role she occupies, there’s no doubt in his mind that she’ll keep track of him from this point forward.
“Ah—we’ll see.”
[”Come home to me”]
In a far future: Lucianna & Tarskal are still each other’s number one priority. Partners for life.
(This is a collaborative RP adaptation! A glimpse of our Ship in their natural state... Part 1 mostly has a bunch of ~romantic~ mushiness. Just a few hints of the sub-surface drama. The prose-formatting of part 2 is in the works.)
Late mornings on Odessen are cool this time of year.
The sun is high in the sky, but the rugged terrain and tall, densely packed trees block much of it out here. Standing tall and at ease despite his massive metal armor, a wide-shouldered, broad-chested man waits on a shuttle pad outside of a cluster of freestanding family quarters. His cape stirs in the slight breeze, rippling against the hem of his thick robe. At his right elbow, a slight sith woman with a lightsaber on each hip is overseeing a couple of cargo droids as they load the small craft.
Lord Tarskal--once the emperor’s Wrath in younger days, now a mere general in the outlander’s Alliance--watches for his family to emerge for their goodbyes.
The relative peace is shattered by the sound of small, pounding footsteps on metal, prompting a grin to wrinkle the corners of his eyes. A young girl bursts outside and races towards him, arms outstretched. He responds in kind, catching her to his chest in a bear hug, then fully lifting Katiya off her feet.
“Come back soon!” His daughter punctuates this with a kiss on the cheek and a tight squeeze around his neck.
“Yes Tiya, sweetie. I know you’ll miss me too much.” His foolish smirk still on his face, Tarskal’s eyes drift over her shoulder, fixing upon his wife as she emerges through the sliding double doors.
Lucianna’s simple black robes are pulled snug around her against the chill in the air, her red hair hanging loose around her shoulders. A smile curves her lips as she watches him with their youngest child.
Their teenage son reluctantly follows a few steps behind. “Don’t strain yourself,” Tyren comments, observing the careful way Tarskal sets Katiya down again beside him. The unspoken “old man” after his remark is implicit in the silence, communicated through tone and the vaguely insolent look on the young clone’s face. Tarskal is in a mood to allow it. He makes no response beyond a chuckle, fondly petting the back of his little girl’s head and ruffling her hair, until Tyren lifts an arm in invitation to his kid sister. She scampers back to him, tucking in like an eager duckling under her guardian’s wing.
Cianna had stepped aside to let Tiya pass, now she takes Tarskal’s hand in hers as she stops before him. Her amber eyes shift to Marixah, standing politely apart from them. “Keep him out of trouble.”
“Of course, my lord.” Her husband’s apprentice nods politely; the dip of her head isn’t enough to hide her smirk. Taking in the pair of them, she clears her throat. “Master, I’ll see to the pre-flight check.” Marixah bows respectfully to Cianna before retreating into the shuttle.
“Bye, children.” Satisfied with the moment he’s shared with them, Tarskal lets his voice carry the strong hint of dismissal to his offspring. His attention is on Cianna now. So too his relaxed, smiling gaze.
Never sorry to escape his father’s grating presence, Tyren uses the half-hug grip to usher his sister along. “Come on, Tiya.” The girl’s earnest farewells follow behind them as he leads her back inside.
A beat of silence passes between wife and husband. They’ve been quarrelling about the finer details of childrearing for days now. First it was Tyren: Cianna caught Tarskal berating him after a sparring session. She had told him off for being too harsh with their son. For once he hadn’t argued, but his private confessions to her were of high expectations of himself as a teacher and their son as a pupil, not his ideas to resolve the issues or revise his behaviour. After all that, yesterday’s incident: Katiya had appeared out of nowhere to sweep-kick Malavai Quinn to the ground so hard he nearly bit clear through his tongue. There’s no love lost between Cianna and Quinn, as everyone knows. She’d likely have celebrated if Tiya had murdered him. It’s just that she had made it explicitly clear years ago that Tarskal’s pet traitor isn’t allowed anywhere near her children or her home, so the opportunity never should have presented itself.
Tarskal can feel Cianna’s lingering frustration bubbling below the surface, and she’s aggravated in turn by the untroubled nothing that so often emanates from him.
And yet this may be the last time they’re alone for a while. Cianna lets out a slow breath as her fingers tighten around his. She steps into him, inhaling deeply, and wraps her other arm around his shoulders. “I’ll miss you,” she murmurs into the crook of his neck.
Tarskal’s heavy arm slides around her waist and pulls her in close. He turns his face for his lips touch her temple softly, then press to the edge of her hair near to her ear. “You always get significantly more work done.”
“Without my favourite distraction.” Cianna laughs quietly and nuzzles his cheek. “Come home to me.”
He slides a glove off, cupping the left side of her face in the warmth of his palm. “Yes, darling.” He isn’t teasing or patronizing her. They make these lovers’ contracts all the time, and Cianna knows he is merely accepting the terms. He seals it with the long kiss that follows, her chin aimed by his touch and held gently throughout.
Cianna fists her fingers in his shirt and stretches up onto her toes to fiercely return the affection. Her tongue brushes his lips, she presses her body close; she holds tight and savors his taste, breathing herself into him as if she could ever be enough to fill him up.
When she stops for air, dropping back to the flats of her feet, she reaches up to touch his jaw. “Goodbye, my love.” The storm brewing behind her eyes seems smaller now, broken by her undeniable affection for him.
His thumb strokes her cheek as he smiles at her. “Goodbye, wife. I’ll speak with you if there’s a secure opportunity.” Tarskal leaves her a last peck on the lips, at last removing his arm from her waist. His intimately familiar, sentimental gaze is how he looks at his best friend. “Take care, Cianna.”
She reluctantly lets go. Her fingers brush his forearm, and Cianna steps back, folding her hands in front of her. She watches him turn away, heavy cape flowing from his bold stride, vanishing through the shuttle hatch in his flourish of stately drama, and sighs.
The door seals behind him as soon as he boards.
In the cockpit, Tarskal grips the back of a chair next to Marixah as his apprentice begins their ascent, then drops himself gracelessly into it. “Thank fuck…”
Marixah doesn’t look up from the controls. “Eager to be on your way, my lord?”
Leaving Odessen [Part II]
(Continued directly from the last writing post!!!)
“Thank fuck…”
Marixah doesn’t look up from the controls. “Eager to be on your way, my lord?”
Pulling both his gloves off, Tarskal pinches the bridge of his nose for a moment and then slides his whole palm down his face. “On each others’ nerves again.” He finishes the movement with a distracted scratching of his beard. “Another day of that and it would not end well.”
The young woman never offers any commentary on his relationship with his wife and children. His longtime apprentice certainly spends enough time around his family to have formed many opinions, but whether she agrees or disagrees with his version of events she never says. Tarskal has come to expect this sphinx-like reticence from her. Instead, she follows with another question to smoothly change the subject. “Katiya has come a long way these past few months. Will she be sent to Korriban like her brother?”
Her mentor is appraising her expression, watching the red sith from the corner of his eye. “Possibly. Certainly not before she has a real grasp of the significance of discipline. We’ll have to see what the next year brings.”
They finally break the treeline, Marixah piloting the shuttle towards the central command base of the Alliance. “The academy has changed since you or I attended it, my lord. As I’m sure you know. The training is more grueling, and the punishments for failure more harsh.” She might as well be commenting on the sun in the sky.
Tarskal shrugs, replying mildly, “No worse than what she’ll face in the unsheltered expanse of the galaxy, Apprentice. She’ll want to go. And I hardly think this campaign headquarters will be a better fit for her future.”
“As you say. It would be my honour to help her prepare. Even if only by allowing her to crack my husband’s head open.” Marixah flashes a smirk at him in referencing Quinn’s recent trauma-by-child.
Her master’s grin in response is unusually mechanical, and the laugh she would have expected doesn’t follow. He isn’t even looking her way. Instead he watches the jumble of rich, green mountains and fresh blue sky out the cockpit window, recalling instead the brittle air of Korriban, smoky with malice and the thrill of ambitious, vicious youth.
“Such contributions are appreciated,” he says finally, inviting a period of silence between them.
It’s not long before the shuttle’s console beeps. Marixah looks down to see the holo light flickering. “Priority call coming in from the commander for you, my lord.”
Tarskal’s jaw sets. He slowly slides his gloves back on, flexing his fingers as they reach the tips. Let her wait for a few extra seconds. These days the barest glimpse of her has been putting him on edge. The thought of another perfectly civil interaction? Enough to raise his blood pressure. Now her missing bug-brained husband has been found, the Commander has been the one to keep a cool head. Not only rational but seemingly content. At-ease. Patient.
It doesn’t suit her.
Not that anyone is going to ask his opinion. He’s sure his wife would prefer he not have one at all.
Drawing a sigh, Tarskal adopts a professional expression with an easygoing hint of a smile. He activates the comm. “Good morning, Commander.”
Mirnaj’uli’eris’s face blinks onscreen. The chiss woman doesn’t smile to see him, but her tone is unfailingly polite. “Same to you, general. We’ve scheduled our briefing for noon. Will you be here on time or should we plan to holo you in?”
“Depends. Have you got the classy droid doing drinks, or will we have to divert course for something caffeinated?”
Crisply, Juli replies, “We’ll be serving lunch. It’s just a small group today.”
“I expect whipped foam and the bitter flavour of quality.”
Fronting a nonchalant tone is as effortless as breathing for him, but Tarskal can feel a tension in his shoulders. He’s conscious of his hands: the way he’s posed them to appear most relaxed, draped from the armrests on either side of him. The risk of revealing any hint of stress to the ex-intelligence agent is increasing his agitation. The sense that the keen-eyed chiss isn’t paying attention rankles him more.
“Hm. You said you’re prepared to be in the field for a while? I need you on Hoth for the next several weeks.” There’s something on her face, a twinge of her eye or a twist of her lip, that suggests his employer is expecting that to get a rise out of him.
He doesn’t need to give her the satisfaction. The way things are, isolation from all non-essential social contact will be a welcome retreat. The longer the trip, the better. “Understood.”
“Good. We’ll discuss it when you arrive.” If she’s disappointed, he won’t get to see it; Juli closes the channel.
The shuttle falls quiet save for the hum of the engine. Tarskal slouches back in his chair, resentment bringing the twinge of a frown to his face.
Marixah is silent, but there’s a palpable weight to it. He catches her darting a look at him out of the corner of her eye, and he knows she’s barely holding back the urge to make a comment.
“Seems like everything is working out, then.” He speaks before she can say a word. “You weren’t counting on being home sooner than that, were you? Or on keeping your chin-tips toasty warm.”
She shakes her head. “I go where I’m needed. Malavai understands, and I don’t have children waiting for me at home.” There is still something left unsaid. Tarskal watches her, waiting. He won’t deign to prompt her with a question. Eventually, Marixah shrugs. “I’m only surprised you didn’t protest, my lord. You hate Hoth.”
Red in his eyes flickering at the echo of Juli’s ambiguous, taunting subtext, Tarskal scoffs. “There’s nothing good about it. On the other hand–which is relevant to my volunteering myself–it’s not here.”
Marixah sucks on the inside of her cheek as she considers her next sentence. “So… It’s the commander you’re avoiding?”
His eyebrow raises, and he says nothing, his silence inviting her to clarify.
“With respect, my lord.” Marixah flashes a look at him, then focuses very intently on her flying. “You’ve been more irritated by her than usual for the past few weeks. But I’ve observed that she is less inclined to bicker with you.”
“Hmmm.” Tarskal tries to treat this as though he is considering her evaluation, but his attempt to sound unconcerned is so heavy-handed it comes off as unconvincing. “Do I seem irritated?”
“Yes.” No hesitation this time.
“Really?” He’s aware his apprentice isn’t buying this act, and he doesn’t care. “You’d have to admit she never treated me very respectfully. Perhaps the dearth of well-deserved recognition has worn me down.” He doesn’t bother to filter the hypocrisy out of his contrived excuses either.
“I’ve witnessed some of your arguments, along with everyone else who frequents the operations base.” Marixah gives him another sidelong glance. “She wouldn’t have given you a proper rank if she didn’t bear some respect for your skills, master. It’s not like she did it out of friendship.”
Tarskal haughtily returns his attention to the view again. “Oh yes; bestowing the rank of General and allowing me to command the troops I brought to this Alliance.” He grits his teeth against the bitterness slipping into his tone, re-establishing composure and feigned disinterest. “You’re fully aware, I know, that I have my reasons why I’ve put up with it; but I’m sure you also realize I’ve been overqualified for anything I’ve ever done for her.”
Outwardly he merely sounds finished with this conversation, and someone Force-blind might be fooled into believing he’s grown bored. Marixah knows better. She can smell prideful anger smouldering behind the measured neutrality on his face. A dark mood crawling to life like kindled flames: simmering low, fastidiously confined and vented, with all the menacing potential of the blaze to come.
