Chapter Fourteen:

Where the Gossip Column Makes an Appearance in the Form of Vev

The newest escapee from the evil empire next door was surprisingly short, especially since she appeared to be a Dathomirian. On average, the women seemed range between Daegen's height and Xesh's, and so, for a moment, Daegen had wondered if perhaps the girl wasn't yet fully grown. On the other hand, the boy had said she was older than he was, and even though he had no idea how old he was exactly, they did manage to establish he was probably between nineteen to twenty one years old.

She appeared to be alert and as soon as he and Xesh took their places slightly behind Quan-Jang she focused on Xesh, who in turn seemed to be rather uneasy, although not to a degree that would threaten windows and doors. Still, it appeared the Council did learn something from that accident, since the girl was not being asked to stand in the middle of the room.

The girl turned her attention to Daegen, and gave him the kind of look Xesh also tended to give others. Judging how to best take them out and if they were a threat, he supposed. Xesh moved closer to him then, and then slightly to the front.

The girl frowned and Daegen sensed confusion, irritation and then suspicion from her. She had not expected Xesh to be protective of anyone then?

"Right so—I'm not going to be anyone's," she said, her voice trembling slightly. The suspicion was now blending into fear and hostility. "I ran away on my own, I told you what I know and I... I'll help you fight, but I'm not going to be anyone's attack dog. You can keep Xesh, if you want-"

The words poured out of her, chaotic and clearly spilling as fast as she could think of them. Daegen was not certain the girl truly meant what she had said, or if it had been a knee-jerk reaction of someone who knew no better, but given how Xesh tensed beside him that was going to be a fun gathering.

"No one is planning to enslave you," Ketu said, which was met with complete and utter disbelief.

"They don't have slaves here," Xesh added. He even managed to keep his tone to something approaching civil.

The girl turned to look at him and then at Daegen, and- ah-hah. The boy was standing in a position where he could stop her if she had tried to attack Daegen—and she drew the conclusion which she was most familiar with. It seemed like she really couldn't fathom Xesh could feel protective of another person and would choose to shield them of his own volition.

It did not appear like Xesh had any intention of moving away from where he was standing. It was a good thing Daegen was taller than him, he supposed, but then it also meant he'd be standing through the whole thing. And he'd even brought a chair with him.

The girl settled back, though her posture remained defensive.

"But who does the work nobody wants to?" she asked after a moment.

Daegen felt very virtuous then, having restrained himself from absolutely any comment and letting the Master of Knowledge say "Droids".

The girl's expression fell into a dismayed immediately. Probably because she realized that she had been enslaved by grotesque-looking idiots. That probably would be a blow to anyone's self-esteem. Although, Xesh had taken that particular piece of news pretty stoically.

"Perhaps we can move on?" Ketu said, his voice deceptively placid. "Xesh—who is this woman? What can you tell us about her?"

Xesh glanced at Vev—he actually did not seem to be consciously avoiding eye-contact with her.

"Her- She's called Vev," Xesh replied. "She is Dictator Skal'nas's Force Hound—my owner trained her along with me, and gave her as a gift, since he thought she's better at sensing-" He paused and seemed to be searching for a word, "People with the intention to betray."

"And you, Vev, what can you tell us about Xesh?" Ketu turned to the woman.

"Well, he didn't say that he knew me before we were trained, because we were in the brood of Force sensitive children that Predor Tul'kar got," she replied. "And I saved him." That was followed by a quick glance—Daegen had the impression she wasn't exactly trying to remind Xesh he should feel indebted to her, but rather checking if he remembered that at all. "I mean-"

"Another slave would have killed me, she killed him," Xesh cut in.

Vev then glared at him. "Don't interrupt, I'm talking."

Xesh seemed to back away, although Daegen had the suspicion it was more because of the Council, rather than Vev.

"You know each other well, then?" Ketu asked turning to Xesh again.

"No," Xesh said tersely. Speaking in front of an audience seemed to have this effect on him. "We used to."

There was a moment, when Daegen sensed some disappointment from Vev, like she had hoped for something different. Then, she raised her head and turned to Ketu. She seemed at a loss for words for a moment, though.

"It's not like we were ever allowed to catch up," she said. Her voice had softened then for a moment.

"Would you like to?" Ketu asked.

Both Xesh and Vev fell silent, quite surprised at the suggestion. Vev mostly seemed to be puzzled, while Xesh seemed to be waiting for her reaction. Eventually, the young woman said, "How is that relevant to anything?"

"You can ask for armed guards to watch us, if it will make you feel like this is more of an appropriate situation," Xesh said, having apparently reached the conclusion that Vev was not going to be making any choices. Or perhaps she'd make one he wasn't going to agree with. "We can try. What's the worst that can happen?"

Vev gave him a look of wide-eyed pity and said, in the tone of someone who was stating the obvious, "We could try to kill each other."

That earned her Xesh's most grumpy glare.

Vev still wasn't sure what Xesh was exactly now, and what the natives had done to him to make him feel more like them in the Force. Not exactly, since he wasn't so eerily calm as they were, but maybe they never taught him that particular trick. Or maybe you had to be born there.

"So, did you run away too?" she asked, deciding to ignore Knight Noortje, titleless Sanaa and the tall human with a beard of whom Xesh was protective. "What happened to your master? Is he here?"

"No and I killed him," Xesh said. "Then the ship crashed. I suppose we can count bits all over the crash site as being here?"

At first, Vev was taken aback. Xesh was not normally this communicative, but the last comment he made her giggle. "Easy to eat bite-sized pieces."

Knight Noortje winced. Sanaa shuddered, while the man with the beard rolled his eyes. He was actually not bad looking, she thought. Kind of paler than Xesh, though not by much, with brown eyes and hair, and his features were sterner.

Then, the first thing Xesh said caught up with her brain. "Wait, why did you kill him, if you weren't running away?"

"I don't remember," Xesh answered curtly and looked away from her.

"How do you forget something like that?" she asked, shifting so that she could look him in the eye. Really, if he thought he was going to get out of answering so easily, he was in for a surprise.

"You hit your head hard enough to get a concussion," he answered, his posture shifting towards a more defensive one. Maybe it was time to leave the subject alone, after all. "Where is Dictator Skal'nas?"

"Agamar?" Vev said. "He should still be there." But as soon as she spoke, she realized that Xesh was asking her not because he thought her master was in a different place—it was strange that she was away from him at all. "He should have sent one of the actual scout teams. I don't know why he didn't."

"Probably prion diseases," the tall man said. For some reason, he was looking very smug.

"Can we not talk about prion diseases?" Xesh said, half turning towards the man.

"Well, you can get out, while I inform your... colleague? about them," the tall man said. "In fact we can go through the whole list of things it's best not to eat, regardless if one has experiences in eating them before and has definitely not gotten sick before."

Knight Noortje seemed to be watching the tall man like some kind of a mythical creature, while Sanaa was making a face. Vev felt mostly puzzled—as far as she could sense, Xesh was more at ease now. Exactly why arguing with someone would make him feel better was something of a puzzle, especially since he wasn't even getting angry.

"Um, I know not to eat poisonous things," she said. She would have then asked about that disease her master was supposed to have—how did this man even know it? He'd never seen Dictator Skal'nas.

This was getting a little too confusing.

Feral was a lovely specimen—large, with shiny sand-coloured scales that would have kept her camouflaged in the desert her species was native to. Normally, Shae would have loved watching her navigate a labyrinth, but today she was too preoccupied with her own thoughts.

She still made notes, but her mind kept turning towards the Council meeting. Was Xesh actually ready? The first time had been quite disastrous. Was she getting over-protective? After all, Daegen would be there—and while he was not what she would call traditionally supportive, he did seem to be getting the hang of it.

Slowly.

The truth was that Xesh needed more than her help. Except, first, he needed to get to the point where he'd be willing to trust other people. They were getting there, of that she was sure—but she wasn't sure what would happen if he interacted with the other Force Hound.

They could easily lose at least some of their progress—she was certain enough that it wouldn't be all, but-

There was a thunk, and Shae saw that Feral had placed a chunk of her prize for getting out of the labyrinth in front of her. She was now sitting on her haunches and giving Shae an expectant look.

"Oh no, dear, I can't eat that," she laughed despite herself. "I'd have to cook it."

She stepped around the drool-covered, slightly dusty piece of meat and reached up to scratch the soft scales on Feral's throat.

"You're such a good girl," she cooed.

Feral cooed back and bared her throat more.

Vev still wasn't sure what the tall man had wanted to accomplish before, but fortunately, it seemed like Xesh at least intended to go back to the actual subject.

"Why did Skal'nas send me and predor Tul'kar and no one else here first?" he asked, scowling. That at least hadn't changed—it seemed that his default expression was still a frown.

"Oh, right, he wouldn't tell you, would he?" Vev said, as she recalled all the details. "See, First Concubine Ore'mun found out that the father of Third Wife Ceh'let's second brood was actually predor Tul'kar and not Dictator Skal'nas—and then Ceh'let sent me to kill Ore'mun but I didn't know why—anyway, Ceh'let also had evidence Tul'kar was plotting against my master, so he needed to get rid of him."

Xesh's scowl remained quite thunderous. The tall man stared at her. Sanaa rubbed his lekku with a thoughtful expression.

"What?" Knight Noortje asked radiating confusion.

"Um." Well, maybe Vev was not the best at the whole explaining thing. She shifted her weight from her left leg to the right one, as she tried to put things in order in her head. "So... my master has wives and concubines, and they all are trying to one up each other, so one of their brats is heir and all the others get eaten."

"How are they not all dead yet?" the tall man asked, while staring at the ceiling with dismay. "Go on, don't mind me."

"Sure—so, Ceh'let presented evidence to Dictator Skal'nas that predor Tul'kar was plotting against him," Vev continued. "Except, it wasn't true—probably, he might have actually been plotting, but you'd have to ask Xesh about it—so, anyway, that was all lies, because she didn't want Skal'nas to know she had children with Tul'kar. And she got in a panic, because Ore'mun—a concubine—found out. Which is why she had me kill Ore'mun, but I didn't know that until later."

"And why did you listen to her at all?" Xesh asked. As if he wouldn't have done the same in her place.

Well, actually, he wouldn't have been in her place, because his master was in the military and had only one wife. So, she supposed an explanation was in order after all.

"Well, Ceh'let said that my master thought Ore'mun was too expensive," Vev said and shrugged. "He already did that once, so it sounded plausible enough." She looked around, trying to figure out if she'd lost her audience somewhere again, but they were looking at her and not ceilings or walls, so they probably were still on track. "So, anyway, I found Ore'mun's data cache, after I killed her, but I didn't know if I should tell my master, because I kind of didn't do my job, right? I'm supposed to sense plots and deceit and here it turns out his wife is lying to everyone like it's a lying party of lyingness."

"And that's why you ran?" Knight Noortje asked.

"Hm? No," Vev said shaking her head. She wasn't sure if she liked the idea of telling others, again, that she hadn't thought of running away until so late, but on the other hand, Xesh had ended up free on accident. So, maybe, she wouldn't look that stupid. "He sent me here. I mean, first he sent Tul'kar to either die or prove his loyalty. And then I gave him Ore'mun's evidence, and we lost Tul'kar's signal and he sent me here, to die or prove my loyalty, and I only figured out when I was on my way there could be a third option."

"So neither of you actually thought about escaping earlier? At all?" Sanaa asked. It would have been nice, if he had refrained from doing that, really. Vev felt stupid enough about not escaping without people reminding her that it had been an option.

Or maybe, it had only been an option, because no one ever thought about it? Force-blind slaves were under much better guard and no one would trust any of them to go to a free planet on their own and not to escape.

"Before I was a Force Hound, and after Predor Tul'kar died," Xesh said. He didn't sound embarrassed about it. She thought she sensed anger from him, though. "I mean, after he died, I realized that I never thought about running away, even though there were times I could have."

Vev hadn't really wondered if she could have ran away before she did, but now she started—surely- but no, there actually had been moments like that. She remembered them existing, but at that given moment, she'd just start thinking about something else, like-

But surely they couldn't do it, could they?

And yet, if running away really was that easy, why hadn't anyone done this?

"Why doesn't anyone ever try running away?" she asked. "I don't mean regular slaves, but Force Hounds. I mean... when I think about it, I could have killed my master, and you did, right? So- so- why not do it much earlier?"

"What do you think?" the tall man asked. He felt like someone approaching a dangerous animal then—all caution and suspicion.

"I... don't know? It's not like- I mean, you can't just stop people from thinking certain things," Vev said after a moment. At least, she hoped so. The alternative was not something she wanted to consider at all.

"It is possible to influence minds," the tall man said, not even allowing her to harbour any illusions. "But usually not those of Force-sensitives and not for very long." He examined her and then Xesh. "It has to be something simple—overlooking something, or performing one or two actions, most of the time."

"Don't harm a specific person isn't complex," Sanaa said, his lekku rubbing against each other.

The tall man looked at Xesh again, his expression very thoughtful. "How old were you more or less when your owner picked you?"

"Around ten," Xesh replied after a moment of hesitation.

"We never tested this on children," the man said, as he rubbed his beard. He appeared to be thoughtful now. "Perhaps, if this is done to someone who is still developing the effect can be more long-lasting. Though clearly not impossible to overcome."

Vev wasn't sure this all made sense. It wasn't like she felt any... well, she just suddenly realized she could escape. And then, that she could have killed her master. That didn't sound like overcoming anything. Still, she had no better explanation.

"Um... maybe it just wore off?" she said. She really didn't want to think that if not for some unknown factor, she'd have spent all her life following some sort of directive planted in her head. That for most of her life, even her thoughts hadn't been her own. "I mean... there's been other Force Hounds who killed their masters. Not that they ever survive long after that—quantity is a quality of its own, Force or no Force." She bit her lip. "And since they don't survive, we don't really know what happens later—maybe there's some fail-safe or there's backlash, and that's why Xesh can't remember stuff and not just the concussion? And I'm fine because my master wasn't there, so I had no one to lash out at."

The tall man looked at her then. It felt kind of like she was some interesting insect to be dissected. Not malevolent, but cold, detached.

"That sounds plausible," he said eventually. "Congratulations. You have a working brain."

That was not the kind of comment that Vev knew how to handle. Was it a statement of fact? She had to have a working brain, otherwise, she'd be dead. That sounded a bit too much on the obvious side. So, was he making fun of her, maybe? Except he said what she said was plausible.

"Um, yes, I do," she eventually said, deciding to treat it like a statement, in case the man got weirder if she disagreed.

The man's eyebrows went up, and-

Why was Xesh angry now? No, wait, not angry-jealous.

"Oh, wait, you were telling me I'm smart!" she said. And then instantly regretted it, because if her previous reply hadn't ruined that impression, she managed to do that now, didn't she?

"Somewhat prematurely, it seems," the man answered dryly. "I suppose if one talks as much as you do, child, then just as a blind arva hen occasionally stumbles on a worm, so you will eventually say something smart."

There were things Vev could have said, but she didn't. It could be a test. To see if she'd lose control when insulted, or maybe—well, it made sense, she supposed. She was not one of them, and it was logical that she'd be lower in rank than that man. So, he could insult her and if she talked back-

The man sighed. "And you, boy, really have no reason to be jealous. I've had enough trouble with getting you to approach the proper level of irreverence in an apprentice. I'm not going through the same with another one."

Vev blinked in confusion. That was it? Well, she supposed it made some sense that Xesh would think she might replace him. If the tall man was not planning to take part in any battles, she would be more useful than him.

Except he said apprentice. They were both past the age for learning—anyone who took too long to learn was not going to be worth the expense of teaching them.

Nevertheless, this seemed to have satisfied Xesh.

And then, Vev's brain caught up with what the man had actually said. For a moment, she just turned over what she had heard in her head, but there was no other way to understand. She had been supposed to talk back. Why anyone would want that was beyond her.

"Perhaps... er... it's time for a break?" Sanaa suggested after a moment. "Lunch break?"

The tall man sighed heavily. Vev wondered if he was going to say no, but instead he rolled his eyes.

"Well, now that you've mentioned food, I doubt we'll get either of them to talk until they've gotten it," he said somewhat testily.

"And yet, you're the one who's grouchy," Xesh said. He was eyeing the door, though.

"I remain amazed by the fact that you can recognized such a mood in others, given that it's your natural state," the tall man replied.

"That's the natural state of anyone who is dealing with you for more than ten minutes," Xesh countered.

"How about we leave them and go eat?" Vev whispered to Knight Noortje, who was looking at the tall man and Xesh with an uncertain expression.