Nar Shaddaa

Once the Everlight is clear of the atmosphere, and they've made the jump to hyperspace, the waiting begins. This should be a straightforward trip, and the team she brought should be thoroughly overkill. But if it isn't...

They'll burn that bridge when they come to it.

Arali finds a seat in the back and just flops down. These last couple weeks have just been exhausting. And now, her apartment... well, that just makes the decision to leave a little easier.

Luth comes over and settles into the seat next to her, looking over. "You okay?"

"Yeah, just tired," she answers, offering a weak smile. "Been quite the week. I like what you've done with the hair, by the way; it's cute." She was confused at first when she saw it, and had to spend a while in her head trying to remember how human hair works. It's pretty, but it seems like it would be a pain to maintain.

"Yeah... it has," she sighs. "By the way, the pass to Club Vertica... Do you have one?"

Arali quirks an eyebrow. Now there is an interesting question. "I did, back in my apartment, but that's cordoned off. Why?"

"Thank goodness. I hope you didn't carry it around too often. Then one I had was bugged. They might all be," she says quietly, for Arali's hearing only. Similarly, she adds, "By the way... You should call me Luth now. Luth Khalan. Asra is missing, presumed dead in the Imperial compound explosion."

"Luth...?" it takes a moment to process, then the twi'lek chuckles softly. "What is it with people and double identities lately?"

"Not the first one you've run into, I take it," she says with a soft chuckle.

"One or two," she admits. "Can't talk about them, of course. Obvious reasons. This one certainly makes the big move easier, though."

"Of course," she agrees. A smile comes to her face. "Yeah. I've already done one part of it. That reminds me... Where are you going to stay with what happened?"

"Good question. The enclave is reachable, but not habitable. My apartment's probably gone. But I'm leaving the moon for good pretty soon, so I guess just a hotel for a couple days will do?"

She nods a couple of times. A blush slowly creeps across her cheeks and she looks away. "I'm doing the same. It might be cheaper to share one."

Arali reaches out and gently grabs Luth's hand, "I'd like that." A point of light in all this darkness. They both need this.

She looks over toward her, still a little red, but smiles. Her hand closes around Arali's and squeezed it with a smile. "I'm glad." She leans over and leans her forehead gently against Arali's.

Arali closes her eyes and just holds Luth there before she finally speaks. "Things are going to get busy again soon. I'm heading back to the temple on Coruscant in a couple days, and that's probably the first place the order will want you to go, too. After that... I don't know. And a lot of that probably depends on how the peace talks go."

Luth doesn't move back while Arali speaks, her eyes closed as well. Her breathing was calm and slow. When they were this close, she could still feel that sense of Arali, and of the flow of energy between them, like the other night when they'd kissed. "Okay. I appreciate knowing... I only went there for my initial training. It'll be interesting to see. After that, we'll see what happens when it happens."

"Yeah, we'll see what happens."

She reaches out to Luth through the Force, touching her presence as gently as if she were stroking her cheek.

"I never liked Coruscant... never really liked Nar Shaddaa, either, but the people, they're what make it home... I always enjoyed some plays peaceful. Alive. A quiet life, on a quiet world. A farm under the open sky, and a beautiful woman at my side."

She never was good with visions and senses. It all runs together to her, a general impression instead of a picture, and that's what Luth gets now; a mural of rustic simplicity. "...some day."

At the touch of the Arali through the Force, Luth turns her hand in hers, lacing their fingers together. She returned touch through the Force lightly and a little more cautious, hesitant with this new thing she was just learning to deal with, but it was there.

"I've never had a choice of where I would go or what my life would be. I was born a slave and then served out of obligation and gratitude to my rescuers, who led me where to go," she says quietly. "That... does sound like a nice idea, though... I've always liked it when I was able to be near water, for myself, when I think about it."

"You'd have loved to see my home world, then." In retrospect, it's strange calling it that; she'd spent much more time on Nar Shaddaa than she did there.

"Mylan. A fringe world. Once, it was a barren rock, covered in rocky cliffs and endless oceans. But my parents had a vision. They were gonna feed the galaxy. They grew a nutrient-dense algae on the ocean surface. Enough to feed entire planets. Bred a special breed of lily to aerate the water, let the algae grow deeper. So lush, so full of life, and love for all people, everywhere, such a vibrant green as far as the eye can see. Have you ever seen a rolling hillside, covered in flowers? I mean literally rolling, with the waves and tides..."

The images come in a patchy haze, but the feelings? A place that is warm and whole and right.

"...until... well... Jedi don't get happy childhoods. Guess you're ahead of the curve." For a moment, a piece of herself pulls away, hides from the connection, but after only a moment, she opens that up, too. It's vague. Fire and screaming and loneliness. Fear. Pain... loneliness. Whatever happened, she was on that world by herself for a long time.

"It sounds beautiful," she says, experiencing her emotions toward it. When she pulls away for just a moment, Luth physically brings her free hand up to brush over Arali's cheek, and the emotions she's feeling are warm and comforting. Reflection of the person with her comes naturally as a reaction, but she resists, focusing on moments of calm on her own homeworld, not dipping in the badness, not now when it could easily lead into a spiral.

Luth was a much more visual person. She used visualization in her work constantly. There was a view from the branches of a tree with near-black leaves, and red hair in main braids hanging over small shoulders, looking more crimson in the red light of a permanent twilight. A dark ocean crashing against the shore, struck off and on with a bright flash of lightning. Clouds above threaten rain. The emotion with it is quiet and content, though, as though looking at the very picture of normality.

As Luth reaches for Arali's cheek, she feels both sides of the touch, both caressing and being caressed. She can feel the weight of two bodies as if they were her own, the beating of two hearts and the breathing of three lungs in time with one another. She can feel a tightness in a back not her own from a scar not her own. Not pain, but a constant reminder, and she feels the weight of lekku, so sensitive they seem to read the entire room from the delicate play of air and heat, all culminating in the sweetly intense play of sensations where foreheads touch, something few humans ever truly get to appreciate.

Arali continues exploring this connection, unlike anything she's ever known, and in the shared space of Luth's memory, she is no longer alone; a presence is beside her, behind her, around her, unseen but distinctly felt as it explores her inside and out, without need for the slightest motion.

It was a not unfamiliar experience for Luth, a fact that Arali would feel. Still, she didn't seem to indulge in whatever memory that was attached to, leaving it behind her for the moment. She could feel the scars that adorned Luth's back, as well. Not as heavy as Arali's, but they criss-crossed down. Her thumb runs slowly across Arali's cheek, and the darkness at the edge of the memory fades, the memory itself dissolving into a sort of misty pleasant sensation as she just explored the connection between them, where they were in the here and now. Eyes closed, no need for visuals when they could feel one another so completely. Her other thumb stroked over the side of Arali's hand.

Her mind was tempted to wander, but just feeling for the moment... It was a much happier experience than most of her memories. Arali could likely feel her push the dark memories have deliberately, but there were little flashes of emotions or images before they completely disappeared - hot wind and sand on her face, nervousness while she spoke calmly, a red glow to the side of her vision and something solid and metal clenched tightly in her left hand.

There is little tension left in Arali's hand, as she gives herself fully to the force, leaving her body behind, her physical senses growing more and more distant as she becomes the void. As Luth tries to hide the darkness and the pain, she feels the slightest resistance. Arali's presence surrounding and suffusing her is open, inviting; she wants to accept Luth. All of her; the joy and the pain, the good times and bad.

She lets other parts of herself come to the fore. The war. Blaster fire and dust, pain and loss.

A trooper. Dear. Beautiful, in her eyes. Chest wound; reaching out, holding onto her, rekindling the fire within through the Force, trying to pull her through, keep her from passing, only to feel that flame snuffed out, taking a piece of her with her. A former lover?

A blur of action. One man stands out; enormous, powerful. Master.

The scene shifts. He's on the ground, a mangled mess, cleaved in half. She holds him together, keeps his organs functioning long enough for the medics to put him back together.

A blur. Clashing sabers, then a searing pain in the back.

Time passes. Calmer times; to when Master sets her aside. Sends her away.

...cut. Her first sight of Nar Shaddaa; the blighted urban hellscape.

Sad times, but they are not locked away, or kept separate; they are embraced, welcomed and accepted into the greater tapestry of self. Emotion, yet peace. Passion, yet serenity.

The world that is Arali reaches out to Luth, to accept and embrace all of her, as well.

Luth lets out a soft breath at the sense of welcoming and just... lets go. Lets go of her her hesitation and concern for what she'll think of her. She was so used to hiding all the time, trying to be what the people around her wanted her to be, what she needed to be to get her job done. She let go and just let herself be Luth, her self taking the welcome and the physical sensations falling away, as well.

The images that were part of her were vivid snapshots in time, images and emotions attached together.

The images at the beginning are all tinged in red and white - the eternal twilight she lived in as a children, surrounded by dark-hued native plants. Living with her family - a mother and father, two sisters, all wearing collars. She doesn't notice the weight; it's just an ever present fact of existence. Her young self doesn't question its existence or meaning.

As she gets older, training. The gun is a familiar weight from a young age. Strikes across her back are the response if she misses. She learns not to miss.

Her master is a rare presence in her memories - a dark man with a red saber, when he was on the world. He treats all of them like objects. She's used to it. Doesn't think of herself as anything else.

There's a strike when he's there, when she's a teenager. She's deployed against the invaders, but she watches as he uses her family as shields. All of them die, and the invaders are having difficulty. She shoots but it hits his hand. The saber drops. She picks it up. Turns it on. He's dead moments later by her hand, the moment suffused with her cold fury at the time, replaced with horror moments later.

Confusion, gratitude, happiness and sadness in her transition to the Republic, taking on her job, the resolution in the back of her mind to do something that would save as many people as possible. She has a gift, they find, for connecting with others and creating trust. They use it as a weapon.

She goes through her training and goes undercover. Baras reminds her of her master and she swallows the fear and anger that rise at the reminder. Everything is always locked away in her heart.

A year and some change on Tatooine. She gets good information, information that saves many more lives than she takes, but... they use her skills with a gun. Against her allies. She never needs to confirm her kills. She feels their life go out in her bones.

A face that comes out clear this time - her mind now recognizes it as Niall Organa. She hits, but doesn't feel the death. But she's not sure. She doesn't trust fer feelings yet. But there's hope.

All of this is suffused with deep loneliness. Contact with allies is rare and careful, and they treat her like an asset. An object. The people around her treat her like a walking gun, except one. Spotter. Sister. Not a real one, but one in spirit.

Nar Shaddaa and the few hesitant, tentative connections she made there, colored by her work always. One very... intense one. And the more open one that connected with Arali.

Finally, just recently, the relief and sense of welcome of homecoming.

From Arali, the journey evokes many things. Sadness. Sympathy. Confusion. At some points, shared horror, but never rejection. All around Luth, there is serenity and acceptance, if not always understanding.

Luth feels something hot and wet on her shoulder. Something physical, as the connection fades, but is never gone. Arali's arms are wrapped around her, as she cries on her shoulder. "You don't have to hide anymore," she whispers in her ear.