The human is looking a little bit worse for wear. There's blood on his fists and some dots and splatters on his skin, and he has a spectacular collection of bruises. (Some of them look a little older than the blood, though.)

He was sleeping, but something started to encroach on his dreams, something hot and dark and boiling like pitch, smoke filling a small room. It's enough that he's stirring before the speeder even stops.

The last thing he remembers was stumbling away from – that – and slumping down over the countertop, so waking up to high velocity is a little disorienting. He groans, not opening his eyes just yet.

"We're almost there," the droid at his back says, reassuringly. "She's come out to meet us, it'll only be a few more minutes."

...Oh. Cute droid lady. Familiar voice, at least.

If "she" brought whatever energy he was feeling to the table, though...that's probably a bad thing?

"Should I...uh...get ready to run?"

"No, you'll be safe. She might not be happy about it, but - we'll figure something out."

"...okay. Trusting you on this one."

Besides...out of all possible ways to go? That's a pretty excellent one.

He forces himself to sit up with a groan and waits to meet his fate.

They round a corner and, yep, that's a Sith, standing directly in the path with her lightsaber lit.

After a moment, she extinguishes it, and the dark aura dissipates.

He stares for a moment.

In all fairness, who wouldn't? It's not like he's ever met a Sith before.

"...can you really shoot lightning out of your hands."

He might still be a little out of it.

" - yes."

"Daisy, why did you bring me a Jedi?"

"I- I- what?"

Oh, no, dammit. Now cute droid is scared of him. This is not going according to the plan he didn't have.

(lightning tho)

"No, no no, definitely not a Jedi. That was not for me."

Even as he tries to defend himself he keeps glancing at the Sith's palms with barely veiled interest.

The Sith considers this.

"Well, if he is a Jedi he's a smart one, at least. C'mere, Love, tell me what happened."

She dismounts, and goes to get a hug from the Sith. "Well, it was..."

Night; after her usual radio chat with Dusk, she goes visit Nine, the security droid for the pawn shop. His owner doesn't like her talking to him, but - he's her friend, and she's his only friend. They hang out for a while, standing together and talking, the conversation ebbing and flowing slowly as Daisy gives Nine as much time as he needs to think through the things they're discussing.

He doesn't technically need to be here right now – he's done all the jobs the old man gave him for the day – but he likes these droids. They talk like he's not there, which is kind of comforting in itself, and just listening to the decorated one waiting for the security droid to speak is...well, even outside being adorable, it's pretty nice. Droids can be so much more okay than people.

And, speaking of people. The shop owner comes around the corner.

Daisy freezes, obviously alarmed.

...okay, well, something's clearly up.

He stays as still as he can and watches.

Yep. Something: up.

The shop owner immediately goes hostile. "DZ. I told you to stay away from my droid."

She backs away. "Yes, sir."

...who does this guy think he is?

Other than the asshole owner of a droid exercising whatever control he's legally got. Obviously. Still...what does he think he's accomplishing, here, other than scaring someone who seems completely harmless?

He frowns, and moves closer.

He addresses the battle droid. "How long has this been going on?"

"Four months, sir."

"So, you didn't listen at all last time I told you. Well, fine. 9P, if you see this droid here outside store hours again, shoot it."

"Yes, sir."

The cruelty of it hits him hard and thudding in the gut, makes him freeze in place.

They're friends. This is murder. This is torture.

His head is spinning. He reaches out towards the closest shelf, and his fingers close on some kind of machine part. It doesn't really matter what it is. It's heavy and it's metal and it'll do.

Before he can even think about it he's stepping forward to swing the thing at the shopkeeper's head.

(He won't let it happen.)

The battle droid has to shoot him; he doesn't have to do more than wing him. A blaze of pain marks his shoulder, and then the man goes down, a mess of blood and ick, and the droid freezes.

He thinks he just saw brains.

(He hits him again for good measure, caving the skull in with a sickening crunch.)

Then he stands up and looks back at the two droids, hand vaguely wandering to his shoulder, finger tapping at the edge of the smoking hole the blaster left.

He's...honestly not sure what to do next. He didn't exactly have a strategy.

"Nine? Nine?"

Nope.

All right. (No. Not all right at all.)

She turns to the human. "Are you okay?"

He sticks a finger in the blaster hole.

Ow.

He pulls it out.

"...y...es?"

Then the power that was moving him seems to turn itself off, and he stumbles, catching himself on the counter with a scream of protest from his shoulder. So much for "okay".

Crap.

Well, this isn't getting less disastrous. She goes for the speeder, abandoning the half-unloaded carts from the back of it, loads Nine and then the human, and sets off for home.

"Well. Good call," she tells the Jedi.

"I've never actually killed anyone before."

Maimed, yeah, and he's never sure what happens later, but...never with that same sickening finality.

He looks down at the mess of gore on his shirt.

"...this is probably supposed to feel way worse."

Shrug. "Shock. We're bringing him home and letting him heal up?" she asks Daisy.

"I hadn't thought that far. But - if you're okay with it, I'd like to. Please."

"Yeah. Yeah, we can do that."

"Thank you."

"...For sure?"

His face does something he thinks is probably smiling.

"That's, uh...that's probably be--"

He falls off the speeder.

Ow.

Less ow than it could be; she telekinetically cushions his way to the ground with a sigh. "I'll take the back, Love, go ahead and load him up."'

It's another twenty minutes; she keeps an eye on him so that he doesn't fall off again.

Thank the Force for telekinesis. (Really, though.)

He makes sure to stay balanced, leaning on the front of the speeder, but the more time wears on the more he can feel the sharp, insistent burning in his shoulder. He grimaces every so often. Pain can be really annoying when you're bored.

He can't even focus enough to fix it, right now. He doesn't want to fall off again. Twice is just embarrassing.

And soon they come to what must be the duo's home.

"D'you care whether we put you up in the garage or the house? Not much privacy in the house."

He makes it halfway through a shrug before remembering why shrugging is a bad idea and wincing.

"Either one's good? But I'm obnoxious, so..."

He trails off for a second, then realizes that the end of that sentence is not necessarily a given.

"...so if you wanna put me in the garage that's cool."

Snort. "If that's you don't think you deserve being in the house, you go in the house. If it's you'd rather not worry about bothering us, you can go in the garage."

Oh. Nobody's really put things back to him like that before.

He could definitely get used to that happening more often.

"...little bit of both? But...house wins out, I think."

She nods. "Daisy, go find the camp bed while I get your friend unloaded?"

"All right." She goes; the Sith starts working on the ties holding the other droid down. "Is there anything else I ought to know?"

"Uh...well, somebody's probably gonna find that body soon. If that's an issue."

Something else occurs to him and he groans.

"And all my stuff's back on my ship. In town." Guess he's going to need to find new stuff. And a new ship.

She nods. "I'll go pick it up once we're a little more settled here - is there room for the speedeer? - and they'll get the idea about dropping it."

Wow, that's significantly better than he expected.

"Yeah, there's a little dock for a speeder in there...I, uh, crashed mine a little while back..."

He finally makes an attempt to get off the speeder. His legs are wobbly, but they manage to hold him up.

"You can get people to drop murders?" That's pretty chill.

"In that they'd rather drop it than deal with more murders, yup," she grins, amused. "You won't really be able to go back, but it's better than letting them string you up."

She doesn't need to be looking at him to notice if he starts to fall, so she doesn't. The droid is about half free, now.

...he had some really spectacular luck, running into the one Sith who'd murder people for him. 

He wanders shakily over to the other side of the droid and starts messing with the ropes, trying to figure out how to free it.

"Is, uh...is she gonna be okay? I mean, she seemed like it, but..."

He nods towards the house.

"Yeah. I dunno, she's going to be pretty upset if I can't fix her friend. I bet I can, but." Shrug. "Wish she'd told me sooner, maybe I could've done something."

"...here's hoping."

He hopes he didn't get this droid killed as well.

He pats it gently as he loosens some of the ropes, as if it can feel it. Then he wobbles again, catching himself on the side of the speeder.

And there's the gentle tug of telekinesis again, making sure he doesn't fall any further. "Depends on what's wrong with him. It sounds like it might just be the restraining bolt; that's going to be a pain to get out, but I'd want to anyway. Hate those things," she spits.

It definitely takes the edge off the dizziness, somehow, when she catches him. It feels more secure.

"They're pretty much the worst."

She nods, and finishes freeing the droid, floating him into the air without compromising her hold on Kai at all.

"I'm Lord Pradnakt, by the way." She pauses to consider - "you can call me Dusk."

He has a much easier time walking like this, with the gentle hold of the telekinesis.

"Dusk. Nice. I'm Kai-Zi."

Clearly, "Dusk" isn't a name she offers to just anyone. He feels kind of special.

"Nice to meet you. And I bet Daisy was too flustered to introduce herself - she might tell you to call her DZ, but that's just nerves, it's not what she prefers."

"Yeah. Daisy's what her friend called her."

He's valiantly resisting the urge to just lie down and see if she hovers him.

That's inferrable enough that she picks up on it, and scoops him up into the air for the remaining few yards to the house.

Holy shit, this is so great.

(It's also a little terrifying to totally lose contact with the ground and get floated around by an invisible force, but, y'know. In the good way.)

Into the house we go!

From his position he can mostly see the top halves of the walls, draped with pretty fabric, though there's also a wooden cabinet decorated with a swirl of metal insets against the back wall. She holds him still for a few moments, then gently lowers him to the table. "Just a minute, I need to make room for the bed."

...wow, it's gorgeous in here. At least, the parts he can see. Who even owns this much pretty stuff all the way out here?

She lands him on the table, and he sighs a little and relaxes. Now he's just got to...stay awake long enough to...

Nope.

Aww.

She's quiet as can be, rearranging the furniture and setting the bed up, and then carefully floats him over to it.

Your Jedi is cute, Love, she signs, before floating Nine to the table and examining him to figure out where to start.

Are you sure he's a Jedi?

Oh, not really. He's not a Sith, though. But - no lightsaber, either. And you saw how he was; that doesn't say Jedi to me.

Yeah. Okay. And...

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I can take him. If it comes to it, but I don't think it's going to come to it.

Okay.

She unscrews the battle droid's chest plate, and begins rummaging around inside while the protocol droid watches fretfully.

Oh. Softer. Good. He curls up a little in his sleep.

Aside from the occasional annoyed hiss or soft swear, she works quietly, gaining access to the bolt after some forty minutes and taking an additional twenty to rig up a reader for it.

I think he'll be okay. There might be another loop, but this one would explain it all by itself. One sec - she puts in the command to clear his ownership flags, and then pauses to restrain him before sending it...

"Nine?" She's as distressed as Dusk has ever heard her, nearly hysterical.

"Daisy? What happened?"

"That asshole had you practically tied in knots even before he died, and when he did you couldn't resolve it. Lucky for him he is dead, I'd be tempted to make him regret it. No, don't get up, I still need to take the bolt out."

"Yes ma'am."

"Go ahead and talk to Daisy, though, it isn't that delicate."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Are you all right?"

"I'll be fine as long as you are. Are you?"

"I think so, I -"

"What did you do...?"

"Cleared all your ownership flags. You're your own, now."

"Oh."

"I - I don't know..."

"That's fine, there's no rush."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Good. Now stay still while I get this out, okay?"

She gets back to work.

The talking woke him up, just a little, but he's only just been conscious enough to register words are being spoken.

He makes an indistinct noise and waits to fall asleep again.

It's another hour, freeing the restraining bolt and putting the droid back together. He and Daisy talk quietly while Dusk works, trying to figure out what he wants to do next, but they mostly end up talking in circles; not being owned is just too new, too hard to think about.

He drifts in and out of sleep, hearing vague murmurs that play on the edges of his consciousness.

what do i want?

Okay, she signs to Daisy when she's done putting Nine back together. I should nap, while he's asleep. You'll be okay?

Yeah, I think so.

All right. Wake me up if you need me. And off she goes, leaving the droids to sit in companionable mostly-silence.

He sleeps like a rock, shoulder notwithstanding. His dreams are bizarre and fractured and very bloody.

When he wakes up -- he doesn't know when, exactly -- the hole in his shoulder does not feel any better.

He should...probably fix that.

He sits up and closes his eyes again, lips starting to move silently.

This wakes Dusk up, of course. She lies in bed, watching him - healing, yep, that's healing. Good.

She waits for him to be done before heading back into the room.

He jumps a little when she comes in.

"...Hey."

Now that he's a little more well-rested he's a lot more conscious of the fact that he's been sleeping in a house with a Sith.

He looks simultaneously deeply wary and incredibly intrigued.

"Hey." She sits at the table, by the bed, casually.

"You helped my Daisy, you're safe here."

(Daisy gets up from where she's been sitting with Nine and gets started on making breakfast.)

He can't help but grin a little.

"I guess Sith do care about people once in a while."

Now is as good a time as any to start looking around, he guesses. Wow it's decorated in here.

"Next you'll tell me I get to enjoy my breakfast."

"Yep, she's a good cook. Nine's fine, by the way. Little bit of existential crisis, is all."

"Heh. That's good. He's a tough guy."

He seems to drift off for a moment, then.

"...so...I really killed someone last night."

"Yup. If it helps anything, I would've as soon as I'd found out about it."

"...honestly that kind of does help, yeah."

He lies back on the cot again.

"Usually I'm the guy getting beat to shit, not the other way around."

"Well, not here. Maybe you can take Nine with you, might help you both."

"No, no, I mean...on purpose."

"....ah. I see what you mean about 'not a Jedi', then."

"Self-denial is not for me."

He pauses for a second.

"I mean, getting ganged up on during practice was fun as hell, but..."

"Heh. Well, not my jam, but we can spar sometime if you want."

Oh my god, it's like his birthday.

"Will you shoot me with lightning."

He has always wanted to try that.

"I'll even use the extra painful kind, if you want."

"You are seriously the best."

Lightning! Sparring! Maybe he'll actually learn something about the Force without the extraneous self-deprivation bullshit! He is so happy he could just-- he could just levitate a few inches off the bed without noticing!

He is really cute. "Don't get ahead of yourself, now," she chuckles.

"What d'you mean, get ahead--"

...huh.

He doesn't feel the cot anymore.

"Uh--"

Thwump.

Heh.

"I usually do forms after sunset, it's a little warm for it when the sun's up. And then we can hike up and see some art, if you're in shape for it, I have a couple pieces I think you'll like."

He nods quickly.

"Art, like...the things we passed by coming up here?" He woke up enough to see a few of them, at least.

"Mmhmm. There's a few art trails around, if you want to go see 'em."

"Yeah. Definitely."

He has not, historically, had a ton of time or money to view giant metal sculpture, and he definitely wants to take the opportunity.

"Is it all yours?"

"Yup - Love?"

"Hmm?" the droid turns to look, and there's a quick signed exchange.

"Daisy does calligraphy, too, though."

"--hey, really?"

He doesn't think he's ever seen a droid's art. He doesn't think most people would believe a droid can do art.

That's metal as hell.

"Could I see?"

"Sure, I have a couple pieces in my room." She goes to get them.

When she exits the room, he looks over to Daisy.

"So...uh, I never actually introduced myself or anything, but I don't wanna interrupt whatever you're making."

"I'm almost done, sir."

And indeed, when Dusk comes back she signs to her and the Sith floats their meal over to the table: two single-serving mashed-potato-topped casseroles, silver dollar pancakes - half with chocolate chips, half with a swirl of strawberry jam - crispy hash browns, sliced fruit, and a small veggie omelette for each of them.

He looks troubled.

"...Hey, Kai-Zi is fine."

He's momentarily distracted by the spread, though. That is an incredible breakfast if he's ever seen one.

"All right."

"Wow. She doesn't usually feed me this well." She sets the framed art she's carrying on the table and moves off to make room for him to sit.

"--Hey, is this because of me, then?"

He can't hide how excited he is at the prospect.

He hops off the bed over to the table and slides onto a bench, looking over the spread.

"I don't even know where to start."

"Yes," she grins shyly. "Try the casserole; Pradnakt usually likes things a little bland, but it's spicier."

He grins back and takes a bite from the casserole.

Usually he prefers to look a little harder at what he's eating before he starts, but he trusts robot friend's cooking implicitly.

Under the mashed potatoes is a layer of lentils and corn in a white sausage-style gravy.

It's delicious!

He is just radiating contentment right now. He looks like he's going to compliment it but before he can really speak he's already taking another bite.

Dusk doesn't have this problem! She signs to Daisy in between bites.

"I'm glad you like it," she directs at him as much as her.

He nods vigorously and barely pauses before reaching for one of the chocolate chip pancakes.

"For somebody who doesn't eat food you are a great cook."

"I've had a lot of practice."

He nods.

The chocolate chip pancake is delicious! Before he even finishes it he starts on one of the strawberry ones. He almost looks like he expects the whole spread to vanish any moment.

Between bites, he turns to Dusk.

"So, uh...what does a Sith even do out here?"

He pauses.

"...what does a Sith even do in general?"

Heh. "Whatever we want, more or less. I like my space, is why I'm out here - I get to do whatever I want a little more directly, this way, with so few people to compromise with."

"Sounds like a party."

Mmm, tiny omelet. He loves the tiny omelet.

Dusk goes from pancakes to the hashbrowns, carefully leaving well more than half for Kai-Zi. "Yeah. Not for everybody, but it was just what I needed - spent a lot of time meditating, my first few years out here, and even more time on art."

Oh. Huh. He scoops up some of the hash browns and leaves a bit in the dish.

"Had a bad time before you got here?"

Meditation and art as pastimes suggest either a boring or a tumultuous former life to him, and he's fairly sure her life wasn't boring.

"Yup. My master - well, usually I just gloss it as 'he tried to kill me', but really it would've been worse than that. Ended up with a raging case of force burnout before I managed to kill him instead, kicked around being the kind of Sith you hear cautionary tales about for a few years, finally got my head together enough to decide I didn't want to do that any more, threw pins at a map of the galaxy until I found someplace out of the way enough, and here I am. Here we are, really, Daisy's been with me from the start, there."

"...well, shit."

He is so bad at articulating emotions. He wants to go for somewhere between "I'm sorry your master was a dickhead" and "that sounds like it sucked, it's good you're better now" and "you're kind of a badass", but he just ends up with another half a pancake in his mouth looking sympathetic.

"Yeah."

"Ah - I'm a sense specialist; I have some basic emotion-reading going by default. Not much, just about as much as I'd get from body language, but -"

"...damn, that actually makes life so much easier."

He is quite palpably relieved.

"I kind of wish everyone had that."

Heh. "All right. Bugs some people, is all. At this point I feel blind without it, personally." She considers. "You could probably learn it?"

"...That'd be pretty great to learn, honestly."

He takes another bite of omelet. Mmm.

"I mean, I get why it'd bug people, because people are weird..."

More hash browns! What a feast!

"...but I like that I couldn't hide if I was pissed, or excited, or something, even if I tried."

Nod. "Not the safest thing, not being able to hide that. But it's great for communication."

"...yeah, probably wouldn't be the safest with some people."

He finds himself taking another bite of the pancakes even though he knows she'll be able to tell that he's suddenly feeling a little nauseous. Stop being so dramatic.

"Mmhmm." She scoots the serving plates away, just a bit, and then does... something... and the nausea dissipates. "Not the best breakfast conversation, huh."

...huh?

His hand goes down to his stomach instinctively.

"...what'd you do?"

He looks a little in awe.

"Do they teach Jedi that one technique to block pain? Turns out you can do other stuff with it, too."

"I, uh, maybe accidentally didn't learn that one."

He keeps touching his stomach.

"...wow, they would've killed to have something like this."

Nod. "It's pretty limited; actually not being sick is a different technique. But handy, yeah. Want to learn that one, too? 'Casting it to someone else is tricky, but just using it on yourself isn't too hard."

"That'd be a pretty neat trick to have."

"Yeah. Not today, I'll be heading into town as soon as we're done here, but I figured you'd be a couple months healing up; I don't mind you staying that long."

A couple months. That sounds pretty good to him.

(A little part of him already misses being here, somehow.)

"Yeah. Yeah, that sounds good to me."

He looks down at the table and remembers the calligraphy. Rather than pushing aside his plate quite yet he scoots down on the bench to see if he can look that way.

Dusk chuckles and hovers them to eye-height. Both are poems; one is short, with elaborate letters in gold ink on black paper and a simple red-and-gold frame; the other is quite long, composed of small precise letters in black ink on stone grey paper, with a frame decorated with the same sorts of flowers that adorn Daisy.

He has to physically stop himself from reaching out and touching the paper.

While he struggles with the right words to express good, that's beautiful, I like it he reads the shorter poem.

Nwûl tash. Dzwol shâsotkun: Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Shâsotjontû châtsatul nu tyûk: Through passion, I gain strength.
Tyûkjontû châtsatul nu midwan: Through strength, I gain power.
Midwanjontû châtsatul nu asha: Through power, I gain victory.
Ashajontû kotswinot itsu nuyak: Through victory, my chains are broken.
Wonoksh Qyâsik nun; the Force shall free me.

Wow.

That's a little revelation in itself.

He needs to bring that a little closer.

He doesn't move his arm, he just sort of...reaches out, body unmoving, and takes it, without a closing hand.

It wobbles just slightly as Dusk's telekinesis fades from it. "I imagine Daisy wouldn't mind making you your own copy."

After a minute of reading and rereading, soaking it up, he sets it down as carefully as he can. (He's never had quite this much control over the telekinesis before.)

"...I'd love that."

He turns to Daisy.

"I, uh, don't know this stuff very well, but...I love the way it looks."

"Thank you," she says, shyly but very pleased. "I think I have some gold ink left."

"I can check in town, if you're getting low."

"All right. I think we'd need to order it, though."

"Sure."

Oh. Yeah, there's something there he forgot to ask about.

"So, uh...the speeder...

Was it supposed to come back here with something other than a robot in it?"

"Yeah, Daisy was on our monthly supply run, we should have a couple carts' worth of stuff to bring back. Mostly stuff to fix," she gestures at the bins along the side wall, some of which are full or partly so of machine parts and some of which are empty, "but, like, I was expecting some books, and we don't grow all my food here. The personal stuff should fit in your shuttle just fine unless it's already packed full."

"...Huh. I think I was lugging some of those books around for a while. Metalworking and poetry, right?"

"The really nice poetry book? Yeah, that'll be for me."

"It was really nice, yeah. (Also really heavy.)"

"Heh. Sorry. I tend to assume you're only really going to be handling those twice at most, loading and unloading."

"Hah, no, it's ok. Honestly I just wanted to be careful with it."

"Well, thank you. Most of my collection is datacards - wouldn't have nearly enough room for it, otherwise - but there's no substitute for a really nice book."

"...God, there's even more art in this house than I thought, then."

He seems to be satisfied with that.

"Oh, yeah, all the really good stuff is in back. This is a workroom, things catch fire in here sometimes."

"Ooooh."

"Mmhmm. Not sure we'll have time to get to it today, but you can have a look back there."

"Wait, get to the fire or the art? Because I wanna see both at least once."

She laughs. "I do try not to set things on fire in here on purpose. But there's plenty of room outside, I suppose."

"Aww, no flamethrower-sculptures?"

"Nah. Lightning's much more fun."

"Upgrade!"

"Yeah. That one we can see today, it's better at night anyway."

"Why is everything about this place amazing?"

He tries to levitate a pancake to prove a point, but...

...it sort of goes up faster and higher than he expected. And now there's a pancake on the ceiling.

"Oh."

She chuckles, and the pancake detaches from the ceiling and floats itself over to the bin by the sink, leaving only a small spot of strawberry goo.

"Well, there's no reason not to have it set up just how I like it, generally speaking. That seems to be doing most of the work here."

"So...it's great because you're great?"

"I suppose you could put it that way."

"Sounds right to me," Daisy puts in.

"Honestly? That makes three of us."

"Can't argue with that, I suppose."

He takes one last bite of fruit, and then pushes his plate away slightly, sighing.

"So...best breakfast ever. What now?"

Heh. "You realize she's going to outdo herself tomorrow, I hope. Next I go out and get your shuttle, hopefully before they take it apart as evidence. Daisy, I assume you want to stay here?"

"Yeah."

Nod. "So you can stay here or come with me, up to you."

"I'll come with, if it's cool. I wanna make sure some stuff is still there before we take off."

"Sure, that makes sense. Ah, it's probably a better idea not to let them know you're also Force-sensitive; this's already going to be a bit confusing for them and I do like to keep things as simple as possible when it comes to how they should react to a Sith or a Jedi showing up."

"Got it. It shouldn't be too hard. I mean, I don't exactly look like a Jedi."

"Mmhmm. Anything else you want to do before we go?"

"Nah, I think I'm good.

...unless you don't want me to talk your ear off on the speeder. Then I should probably borrow a book or something."

"Not a bad idea anyway - most of what I have is poetry or short stories, unless you want a technical manual."

"Short stories are good! Weirder the better."

"Hmmmm. I think I've got something like that, yeah." She heads for the back room.

Might as well follow her!

Wow that's a lot of art.

The room is dominated by a huge bed, covered in a charcoal-grey comforter that's embroidered with large, loose swirls of glittering silver. The back half of it, what would on most beds be the head, is covered in a small mountain of pillows in a muted rainbow of colors. There's a large landscape hanging over it, of a canyon in rock much redder than the local sort, and the rest of the wall space is so covered - with framed art, and painted scrolls, and wall sculptures in metal and cloth and a variety of other materials - that it's immediately obvious where the calligraphy samples usually hang. Even the ceiling is partially covered in hanging pieces. Beside the bed are a pair of shelves in dark wood, covered nearly as densely with things as the walls are, though somewhat fewer of them are artwork. Plenty still are, though, or are heavily decorated examples of practical objects; the boxes holding many of the things on the shelves are painted, for example, or covered in cloth, or woven of dyed reeds.

Pradnakt ignores all of it, and crouches at the foot of the bed to pull something out from under it with telekinesis.

...wow.

Once again, it is so hard not to touch any of this.

"...it's all covered in you."

"Sure, what else would it be covered in? Here," she looks up and flicks a stuffed rancor made with real, if tiny, claws and nails toward him from the shelf.

"...oh, sweet."

He holds it up in front of him.

"Haha, look at its horrible tiny mouth!"

She chuckles, and then moves to the edge of the bed with the datacard box she was looking for. "I got this collection a while back, of stories from all kinds of alien species, one disc per species - most of it was pretty good, but a couple of them were just - gets at why we call aliens alien, you know?"

He sets the little rancor down carefully on the nearest surface and leans in.

"Sounds like the weird ones would be just as interesting for different reasons."

"Oh, yeah, definitely; I really wish they could've done a droid one, I learned a lot about what those species are like."

"It's probably hard to get a hold of droid fiction. I don't think a lot of people believe that droids could even write fiction at all.

But I'd read the hell out of that."

"Yeah. It's not Daisy's sort of thing, but I bet there are some out there who could. If, y'know, they were allowed to grow up enough to get the idea," she sighs. "Well, maybe someday. Meantime I have these; I might be misremembering some of them but at least one should be what you're looking for." She hands him four datacards and then flops backward on the bed to reach for a reader from the shelf.

"Yeah..."

God. Poor droids.

He tries to put that out of his mind for the moment and take the datacards, tucking them carefully into his pocket.

And then he has a reader, too, and Dusk heads back to the front room.

"Anything else I should take care of while I'm out, Love?"

"I hadn't dropped off the library stuff yet. Other than that, no."

"All right. Last call, Kai-Zi."

He thinks for a second.

"...where's your bathroom?"

It had to be asked.

She points him to it.

He runs off, runs back and grabs one last chocolate chip pancake off the table.

"OK! I'm good!"

And off they go. It's a four hour trip.

He spends most of the time reading alien fiction and occasionally giving an animated opinion on one of the stories.

She mostly resists the urge to ruffle his hair in response.

Well, he'd be fine with a little ruffling.

Good, 'cause she's only mostly resisting the urge.

"It's cute how excited you get about things."

"What? No. Things are just exciting."

"And you're cute about it!"

"I mean...I guess."

He can't quite hide that he's a little happy about this.

Hair-ruffle.

Awww.

He scans the horizon again for the town. He's...not easy to scare, but is definitely a little apprehensive about the whole process of walking through a town where he killed someone the night before.

The road she's taking will give plenty of warning that the town is coming up, but it's not quite in view yet.

"There's nothing to worry about. I can sense everyone there already; even if they weren't going to be avoiding us like their lives depend on it, I'd know instantly if someone was planning on attacking you. But the hard part is going to be finding someone who'll sit still long enough to take a message, not fending them off."

"The message 'don't go out looking for this guy's murderer'?"

"The message 'that's what happens to people who mess with my droid'."

"...Good message."

"Mmhmm."

"...you really love her a lot."

He knew that, before, but it's like he's realizing it for the first time again.

"Yeah."

"It's cute, honestly."

"I do try to keep it under wraps a little more than that. I guess I'm too used to being able to lean on the fact that most people would never even consider the idea. She's such a sweetheart, though."

"...kind of sucks that you have to hide it."

He looks out at the horizon.

"Is that a Sith thing, or a people-suck thing, or...?"

"Mostly a Sith thing." He can feel her shrug behind him. "Most of the stories you've heard are true, or at least close to it; leaving a vulnerability visible like that is just asking for trouble."

"Yeah, that makes sense..."

He frowns.

"And then she'd get hurt, so someone could get to you."

"Yeah. I'm more careful, when there's any actual sign of danger."

"...why is every Force-sensitive an asshole?"

Present company excluded, of course.

Another shrug: "They're idiots? I couldn't tell you, for Jedi, but Sith tend to think everything's zero-sum - the only way to get something is to take it from someone else, whether that's things, or prestige, or power. It's so dumb, but if enough people believe it it ends up working that way anyway."

"...makes sense.

Honestly I think Jedi do the same thing. Just...different words.

Like, if you have anything for yourself, there's nothing left to give to anyone else."

"Yeah," she commiserates, then brightens a bit: "but any artist can tell you that's not how it really works. I didn't have to take anything from anyone to make my artwork."

He nods.

"Art is great. People can give you hell, and you can say 'fuck you' and make something amazing out of it."

She laughs. "Yeah. You're really going to love the art trail I have in mind for tonight."

"Got some artistic revenge out there?"

He can't wait.

"Mmhmm!"

The town's been in view for a few minutes, now, but there's still a ways to go before they get there.

"Looking forward to it."

He squints at the tiny buildings on the horizon.

"I really hope they haven't messed with the ship."

"Mmhmm. Fragile stuff, or just hard to replace?"

"Both, plus some illegal shit and some sex toys. I've got all my bases covered."

"Sounds like we should be able to get most of that back, at least. It's not like they're going to keep me out of their evidence locker."

"I hope they didn't confiscate the toys. That'd be even more awkward for them than it is for me.

...thanks, though."

"No problem."

Nyoom.

Nyoom!

Reading resumes until the town is within reasonable distance.

"All right, here we go," she tells him as they get close enough for her to be recognized, and then she slows the speeder and starts up the aura of doom.

There it is again.

He can't help but be somewhat in awe. It's like breathing in a storm cloud, when she's like this, all heavy dark air and the promise of lightning.

He doesn't think he'll have a problem pretending to be harmless.

It doesn't take long for someone to spot her, and they take off running immediately, followed quite quickly by everyone around them; soon the street is deserted.

Her first stop is the speeder lot, where Kai-Zi would have left his ship; she leaves the speeder running in the street and hops off to stride into the lot.

He follows her in at a comfortable distance.

The ship appears to still be there, although there's brightly colored tape plastered over the door. Hopefully that means they haven't started going through it.

The tape detaches and curls into a loose ball on the ground as she approaches; she stops and waits for him when she gets to the door.

He catches up fairly quickly.

"...uh, it's kind of a mess in there right now. Sorry."

He fumbles in his pocket for the keys.

"It's fine." There's nobody in earshot; she can be casual about it.

He opens the door.

It's one of the (unusual, but still available) class of ships that you're actually meant to live in. The main compartment is essentially a studio apartment, with lots of fold-down furniture and drawers that lock in place.

Right now, it's not in tornado-blew-through levels of disarray – it helps that he sort of has to clean up the area before he takes off from anywhere – but someone was clearly living in it for a few days and not staying in it long enough to clean up.

"...this is pretty much exactly how I left it. So, no snooping, I guess. I can open the speeder bay if you want."

She seems both unsurprised and nonjudgmental. "Nah, I've got some stuff to pick up, it'll be easier to do that on the speeder. Town hall, next, let 'em know what happened."

He nods.

"Let's go, then."

He will probably follow her a little more closely this time.

She picks up the Sith body language again on leaving the shuttle and directs him onto the speeder when they get there.

He is duly directed.

(This is kind of hot.)

Oh, the hazards of telepathy.

She leaves the speeder in the street again and heads in.

(Aw dammit.)

He follows her inside.

She stalks through the halls, exuding menace, and opens an office door apparently at random. There's a man cowering behind a desk inside.

"Who's in charge of the murder investigation from last night?"

He whimpers.

He's gonna stay back here and try to look a small but non-zero amount of threatening.

"Making me ask twice isn't the best idea, you know."

"Ah - ah - ah - room 54, room 54!"

"Good."

She leaves him alone - door open - and sets off for room 54.

He keeps following her.

(This is still really hot. Also she can still sense his emotions. Fuck.)

Room 54. The door is locked; she kicks it open. The man inside is attempting to hide behind a potted plant; it isn't working very well.

"You're in charge of the murder investigation from last night? Good." (He begins crying.) "The idiot with the pawn shop messed with my droid. If you want the kid who killed him you're going to have to go through me. Understand?" She pauses; he nods, panicked, and doesn't stop nodding. "Good."

Holy shit.

And back toward the entrance. "Satisfied?" she asks quietly after moment.

"Yes, ma'am."

He is trying to politely restrict his tone of voice to "impressed".

She chuckles, still keeping her voice down. "Good."

And out, and back to the speeder. "Okay, time for errands."

"...how do 'errands' work when everyone is too terrified to talk to you?"

"Daisy'll be back next month, make sure they all get paid." She retrieves a piece of paper from a compartment in the front of the speeder.

"...good system."

He wonders briefly if she gets lonely. Mostly, this is overpowered by the desire to see her scare some more hapless townspeople. He thinks he may be a bad person.

She looks the paper over, tucks it into a pocket, and heads for the general store.

Following!

It appears to be deserted; she heads for the grocery section. "Go find yourself a change of clothes; change, and bring me the tags."

...Oh. Right. He's still covered in blood. He kind of forgot about that.

"Yeah, that's a good plan."

He runs off to find it. When he comes back he's wearing something very similar to the dark grey tank and black pants he was in before, but without all the biomatter.

(He also has a thin silvery bangle around one wrist. He liked it and thought it fell mostly into the "clothes" category.)

She doesn't comment on it, and pockets the tags without looking at them. "How's your ship doing for provisions?" (She has several bags of dry goods sitting in a pile at the edge of the grocery section.)

"It's still pretty good. I stocked up on the last planet.

...there's a lot more instant noodles on there than there should be, though."

She nods, then winces as, on the far side of the store, a baby starts crying.

--!!

He turns that way immediately.

"...did someone not get out?"

Worse question: did they leave their kid?

"-they're hiding," she says, very quietly, "safer than trying to get away, running draws attention."

And then she straightens up again, redoubles the aura of doom, and heads for the back of the store.

He winces, shrinks back for a second when the aura gets stronger. His mind is buzzing with a fear that doesn't make sense and his whole body is starting to rebel against the idea of following her forward.

He does it anyway.

There's a knot of maybe twenty people huddled together in the corner; the baby and her parents are in the middle of the cluster.

"Give her to me," Pradnakt orders, but she doesn't wait for a response before lifting the child into the air - this time, she uses her hand to show that she's using her telekinesis - and drawing her to herself.

She takes a moment to settle the infant in the crook of her arm before striding off toward the baby section without a backward glance. (The baby's mother bursts into tears.)

--oh, what.

He's frozen in place for a second, and then he runs after her.

"What? What the hell?"

At least he's whispering.

"She was going to kill her," she whispers, running her free hand through her hair. "So I wouldn't get annoyed enough to kill all of them."

"...she was going to what?"

He doesn't bother whispering.

"It would be the right choice, with any other Sith." She finds a pacifier and pops it in the baby's mouth, letting her aura fade back to its original level as the noise stops. "Even me, not that many years ago."

He doesn't respond yet. He's just staring into the middle distance, clearly struggling with something.

                                                                      --she doesn't deserve--

       --to kill your own child, who would--

                                            --this isn't right, this isn't fair--

"Kai-" she sighs.

"...please tell me what to do."

    --take the child--

           --give the woman a chance--

                        --she should just die--

"I'm planning on giving her back," she whispers. "Once we're done. I'm not going to judge someone for the choices they make in an impossible situation. So just finish our shopping and we can go."

"...okay."

He lets the energy go. It drifts and dissipates.

He'll follow her for the rest of their time in the store, watching what she takes.

She checks the office supply section for Daisy's ink; there isn't any gold, but she picks up a jar of metallic red instead. Quick passes through the electronics and book sections don't turn up anything interesting; she pauses to re-settle the baby before adding a jug of fertilizer and some seeds from the gardening department to her pile, and then grabs a crimson sweater in her size that she spotted nearby.

"Is there anything else you'll need in the next month?"

"...I think I've got everything on my ship."

Wait. Wait.

He's almost out of toothpaste.

He walks off and comes back with some to put down carefully in the pile.

"All right. Wait here."

She heads off for the baby section again, returning with a bassinet; she settles the infant into it and floats it carefully down to sit in the middle of the floor near the entrance, where it won't be missed. Then she floats their things into the air and out to the speeder.

...Oh.

Before he walks out after her, he pats the child's head gently.

Aww.

She drops the things off by the speeder and beckons for Kai-Zi to follow her down the alley next to the store, where there's a bit of privacy.

He follows her.

She deflates, once she's more or less out of sight of people observing from nearby buildings, though she leaves the aura up. She sits against the building and pats the ground next to herself.

He sits down, a little unsteadily.

She puts an arm around his shoulders, pulling him a little closer.

"That was really sweet of you."

“...what was?”

"How you were worried about the baby."

"Who wouldn't be?"

He rubs his forehead. Headache.

"She couldn't worry about herself."

"Yeah." She dispels the headache - not entirely, but down to almost nothing. "I have a lot of sympathy for the mom, too, though."

The lack of headache helps.

"...yeah."

Now that he can think a little more clearly, he can start to see the outlines of what she must have been thinking, how she could have thought that the only way to protect everyone around her was to do that.

There's a question he wishes he didn't need to ask.

"What did you do? When you got here first?"

"Yeah, that's." Sigh.

"I stopped coming, after a while. Unless there was something Daisy couldn't handle, and there aren't many things like that, it's pretty much just the one kind of thing. If we get through this visit without me killing anyone, it'll be the first time that's happened."

“...oh.”

Logically, he expected something like this, but it’s still...a little difficult, to hear it outright.

"Yeah. It is mostly that I've stayed away; I don't want them to get the idea that having a Sith in town isn't life and death. But that doesn't really help when I am here."

“Yeah.”

He takes a deep breath and tries to pop a few dislocated feelings back into place.

”...I guess...let’s make this the first time, then.”

"Yeah." She gives him a squeeze. "There isn't much else to do, anyway."

He nods.

”...Let’s go, then.”

With any luck, nothing will go wrong between now and the time they leave.

With any luck.

She loads up the speeder, then takes them over to the hardware store to pick up the wagons Daisy discarded last night, which have since been emptied apart from the stack of library materials. They go to the library, next; the main section is apparently empty, but one of the librarians is visible in the back office, through a window, and Dusk nods an acknowledgement to her as she leaves the books and discs on the intake desk and retrieves a new stack from behind it.

"I have one more stop to make, is there anything else you need while we're here?"

“I think you’ve got enough library to keep me busy for a while.”

"Mmhmm."

The final stop is the feed-and-seed, where she grabs a bag of goat food and a bag of chicken food, then takes a cage and goes to pick out a trio of chickens.

While she's examining the birds, a man comes out from between some shelves, wielding a length of pipe, and tries to sneak up on her, apparently assuming that Kai-Zi won't give warning.

Oh, dammit.

He doubts that man will actually get close enough to do any damage. If he gets almost that close to her, he will definitely die. If Kai-Zi says something, he will also almost certainly die. Kai-Zi wanted to go home without anybody dying.

That's as far in his calculation as he can get before he has to make a choice.

His hand extends in front of him and, with a twitch of his fingers, he slams the man into the wall behind him.

"Fuck off."

...he really wasn't supposed to do that.

He really wasn't.

The aura of doom falters for a moment as Dusk freezes.

...shit. Shit that was a really bad idea.

Is the guy at least unconscious now like he hoped?

Yup. Not laying at a very healthy-looking angle, either.

"All right, time to go," Dusk says, and then picks the man's limp form up and snaps his neck.

God. Why.

He averts his eyes.

"...yeah. Time to go."

Yup. Speeder, shuttle, let's go. She tosses the collected purchases in the shuttle's living area and gets the speeder and carts loaded into the cargo bay.

"Just take off, I'll keep everything from flying around," she directs, sitting abruptly on the floor as soon as she's back in the main area.

She doesn't have to tell him twice. He steps into the cockpit and a minute later the shuttle begins to lift.

A few things might shift in the cabinets, but everything visible stays firmly put.

He calls back from the cockpit.

"Tell me where I'm going!"

"Follow the road east, I'll be up in a bit."

He flies the way she told him.

As soon as they're clear of the town, she drops the aura, and ten minutes later she comes up to flop into the copilot's chair. "Ugh."

"...that could have gone better, huh."

He pulls back a little when she comes in, as if the aura is still up.

"Yeah. Not much, that guy was dead the minute he decided to pick up the pipe, but."

He nods and watches the road twist in front of them. He's glad this is faster than the speeder.

"Yeah."

"Hey. You can't blame yourself for someone else's stupidity. They know how this works; I've been very clear about it. Sometimes they decide to do stupid things anyway, that's on them."

"...how does this work?"

He turns a little in his chair.

"I mean...stay out of your way when you come to town, sure. But not everyone can get out of the way."

"I've never killed anyone just for being in the way - not here, anyway. Scared 'em, sure, I don't want them getting into habits that'll get them killed if some other Sith comes through, but there's only four things that'll get them killed - not following directions, coming into my territory, mistreating Daisy, and attacking me. It hasn't always been that simple - I know what it's like to have an impulse problem - but those four have never not been trouble."

He nods.

"...makes sense."

He looks back out at the road.

(This is fucked up. This is fucked up for everyone. This isn't okay, but he can't think of a better way for things to be and he doesn't know how to fix it. He probably can't fix it.

It's a lot easier to ignore this shit when you think you have no power at all.)

"Yeah."

"I don't - I'm hesitant to just let you go off on your own, it seems like you're kind of courting some Force problems yourself, there. But if you want to, I'm not going to stop you."

He thinks about that, for a minute.

"...I don't think that'd help anything. I think...maybe if I stay, something could get better for somebody."

"Mm."

"Maybe."

"We're going to have to figure out what to tell them about you; I don't want them suspecting random people of being Sith. I think we can get away with - you're my apprentice now, you didn't know you were Force sensitive until I told you, and telekinesis is just that easy to learn. If you're okay with them thinking that."

"...wait, wasn't it just us and him there?"

Fuck. He thinks back, tries to remember if he saw or felt or heard anything.

"Yeah, there was somebody else hiding with him. I'm not sure what she saw; Daisy can probably figure it out and just not say anything if she assumed it was me."

"...okay, so, uh. Today I learned I'm really bad at stealth."

"Yeah, the impulse control problem will do that. You probably wouldn't be bad, otherwise, just not as good as a sensory specialist."

"I'd say I'd work on my impulse control, but...last time somebody tried to fix that I ran as fast as I could in the other direction."

"Yeah. And they're some pretty good impulses, for the most part. Implementation's a little iffy but that's not so hard to fix."

"Ha. Yeah, that's one way to say it."

He seems slightly reassured, though.

"Maybe you can teach me that and how to fix headaches."

"Make a start on it at least, sure."

He nods.

"Not something you fix quickly, yeah."

He watches out the window for a moment.

"...you could probably kill me whenever you wanted, huh?"

If there's any negative sentiment there it's balanced exactly by the positive. It's just...an observation.

"Yup." She's also pretty casual about it. "If I wanted to, which I don't."

"Well, I'm glad I'm not gonna die."

More or less.

"Daisy would be so upset at me."

"Huh? For what?"

"She likes you? She is subtle about it sometimes but I thought that breakfast was pretty clear."

"Oh. Right. If you theoretically murdered me. I thought you meant 'for talking about theoretically murdering me', which was weird."