Far From Home [Day 0, Vindicator]

[Tendash]

The door to Tendash's quarters flies open. He stands in the doorway for a moment, and behind him, his room is an absolute mess. Although he doesn't have much in the room, it appears cramped, with various personal items and other objects on the floor, some piled up, and just generally everywhere. A datapad is facedown on the bed.

He looks around the hallway for a moment, before spotting and making his way towards the comm room. But before he gets to the door, he stops, and looks back to hs room. After a minute, he turns and makes his way back, leaving the door open.

[Kristal Serasai]

Training in the common room with Biggs and Wedge, Kristal was interrupted by the sound of the agitated wookie moving through her ship. Which was still something everyone was getting used to even when the wookie wasn't agitated. Intent on getting to the bottom of it Kristal nodded her head to the side to indicate to Wedge and Biggs to continue without her while she checked it out.

By the room afforded Tendash, Kristal stepped into the doorway. Crossing her arms over her stomach, both flesh and cybernetic. In a light gray tanktop the point where flesh ended and machine began at her left elbow was noticeable, if still a little jarring to the young sith.

It took a moment, but she quickly remembered to pull up a datapad linked to a translator. She never liked voices flooding, especially when it was from one source, so she opted usually for voice to text for such translations. Never quite thinking she'd have needed to grasp the wookie tongue. Despite the wookie that had removed her arm.

[Tendash]

Tendash was momentarily surprised by Kristal's swift arrival. He'd expected it, but not so fast. Was I really that loud?

Tendash turns to greet her, moving to and leaning against the wall. "How long have you been away from home? I've been gone for one year, seven months, fifteen days and..." He reaches to the datapad on his bed, flipping it over. "and two hours and twenty minutes."

[Kristal Serasai]

Kristal held the datapad in her true hand, reading the output as it arrived. Contemplating and considering the words before she answered.

"I have lost count of the days," she said reservedly. Glancing up to the wookie and continuing in her cool, Imperial tone, "That is a level of precision that would even allow an Analyst to blush," she commented on the matter. Allowing him a moment to offer her an explanation before she forced one.

[Tendash]

"It's one of the ways I deal with being so far away from home so permanently. I long for the day that I can reset that count to zero. But that isn't happening anytime soon."

Tendash gets up from the wall, pushing the datapad away carelessly and taking a step towards Kristal. "What was it like for you, leaving home for the last time? Was it a smooth exit? Do you miss your it?"

[Kristal Serasai]

Not that it was meant to intimidate, but Kristal remained unwavering as the wookie approached and towered above her. Despite the difference in height she didn't allow for her to appear any shorter, lesser. Kristal kept herself if not equal, above, any in the room. It helped that she had the nee to look down toward the Datapad anyway to see the translation for what he was saying.

"I left home with the assurance that I would return, leaving to learn to become Sith I would return stronger than before. Only after I left did it become something else, something I could never properly return to."

"What of you, Tendash?"

[Tendash]

"Well, both of us can't ever return home. But you have left on much, much better terms. Leaving was not a sorrowful event, but a prideful one. You were to return with the strength of your empire behind you. I was to never return, and to never contact anybody. I left home in shame."

Tendash takes a step back now, giving a glance towards the bed. "I don't need to tell you how long it's been since I've spoken to another Wookie."

[Kristal Serasai]

Glancing down to the datapad she read the output, she figured the nuance wasn't on point in most cases but it was managing fine. Looking back up to her new companion she asked, putting the pieces well enough together, "What is the cause that allows a Wookie to be banished from their homeworld?"

[Tendash]

"A combination of a very old grudge and opportunity. I was in a small defense unit that was in charge of defending our homes. We had heard about something going on on the lower levels of the forest surrounding us, and when we descended, we were ambushed by a group of wyyyschokk." Tendash takes a moment, looking down to his feet, before continuing. "Me and one other survived, but he came from a much more powerful family, and he had thought I'd wronged him in the past. And so he used his influence, and managed to convince everybody that their deaths were my fault. And so I was sent away."

And after another short pause, he speaks again. "I'm not familiar with the Imperial gossip. What's happened to you, that could cause a Sith to lose her home?"

[Kristal Serasai]

"I am a Serasai, my father was Moff Serasai," she said still looking down to the Datapad. Not waiting the moment after she finished reading the output. "My Family has been chased off or murdered by others in the Empire for a crime my father has been executed for," she said with an inherent calm and power behind her. Retaining the strength of being that was instilled in her since birth. Keeping herself from betraying the truth of the matter as she knew it and just relaying the facts.

"My father was executed as a Traitor, a man guilty of plotting and orchestrating the demise of Grand Moff Torsin the former ministry of war," she said with resolve. Of course, that resolve that allowed her to hide the truth was the very thing that likely revealed it. Kristal Serasai was not the daughter of a traitor.

"I could return to the place that was once home, the destroyed mess it likely is, however there is nothing there for me any longer."

[Tendash]

Tendash watches Kristal intently as she speaks, nodding his head. When she finishes, he offers only four words, amounting to a single grunt in Shyriiwook:

"Did he do it?"

[Kristal Serasai]

An internal debate took place, one that protected her more times than not. It lasted for only a moment but that wasn't indicative of how easily she came to her decision. What it came down to was a simple decision of trust, not because he had earned it in any way but because she knew in this moment, without a doubt, there was no way this Wookie could have a care or concern for duplicity.

"No," she replied coldly. Cold enough that it made the room feel darker, tense. Showing a bit of her true anger on the matter. Tension hung in the air after the simple word.

[Tendash]

With a short, satisfied nod, he replies, "Then we are one in the same. Although there is hope for you to clear your father's name, even posthumously, no? Or are the Imperials too haughty taughty to accept that they are wrong?"

[Kristal Serasai]

"If the rest of the Empire does not wish to admit it, they will be made to accept the truth," she said honestly. Pushing herself off the side of the entryways frame so that she stood perfectly tall once again. "I will fix this Empire," she added confidently. For better or worse.

"Perhaps there will be time for you as well, Tendash," she offered as a thought but didn't seem committed to it. Having little knowledge of the greater intricacies of Wookie culture as it was on their homeworld.

[Tendash]

Tendash shook his head. Even though she was standing straight, he still towered over the human, and had to look down to keep any form of eye contact. "There is no hope for me, it would be a great risk for me to even return to Kashyyyk. You have bold words. But if the two of us are to accomplish one thing, I hope that may be removing the shame from your family's name."

Although it isn't reflected in Kristal's translator, Tendash takes on a lighter tone, saying "Maybe then we can worry about 'fixing' your Empire."

[Kristal Serasai]

"As you remain at my side, perhaps it will come to pass that history may remember your truth," she offered, not intending on offering it as incentive but it spoke true to her belief. "Know this, Tendash, I do not make false claims or goals. I will root out what ails this Empire and drag it forth for all to bear witness. In this action I will not only clear my father's name, but rid the Empire of a festering cancer."

Kristal spoke with the strength of conviction of the warrior she was. Standing tall, broad shoulders, she looked eye to eye to the large Wookie she could only barely begin to understand but she knew this would speak to him on a level only a fellow warrior was capable of.

"Stand with me Tendash, and we will correct the course of this galaxy or perish in our attempt," she spoke clearly, without wavering.

[Tendash]

Tendash took a moment to size up Kristal, before offering a large hand forward. "Your enemies are my enemies. And as you know, I'll be proud to help you build this vision. But there is little hope for my name in history. This will be your mission, and I will be there to ensure it succeeds. Though in the short time I've known you, something tells me your course would not have changed had you not found me in the wastes that day."