Cianen Hayal idly tapped her fingernails against the glass, trying to contain her impatience. Because, of course, they just had to be late to their meeting. She really shouldn't have expected any differently.
If she were to wait, this wasn't a bad place to do her waiting in. They'd left it up to her where exactly to make their introductions, so Cianen had picked her favorite of the restaurants she'd found in these last weeks wandering the Senate District of Coruscant. To be somewhat more precise, the favorite among those she'd found that weren't so ridiculously expensive the University wouldn't cover her expenses. This was the Senate District of Coruscant, after all, the area had quite literally the highest standard of living in the entire galaxy. From the statistics she'd looked up in idle moments, even the waitstaff around here made a wage that would see them easily in the upper class on most Rim worlds. Yet even that wasn't enough to afford the meanest of housing within the bounds of the district itself — they all had to commute at least twenty kilometers, often significantly more.
Anyway, it was a rather nice place. All gleaming rosewood tables, carpets and drapes in reds and blacks, curtains filtering the sunlight, setting everything to a ruddy glow, some sort of sonic dampening tech reducing the conversations at the other tables to an incomprehensible murmur — but, somehow, allowing light music, an absolutely ancient Alderaanian piece played by a being of a species she didn't recognise at a real piano of all things, to slip through unmuffled. The menu wasn't bad, if somewhat too exotic in places, so far as human consumption was concerned. Perhaps rather more pricey than she'd ever be able to afford herself, but that's what the expense account was for.
So she waited, sipping away at a procession of sweetened monstrosities that supposedly had caf in them (she wasn't convinced). Flipping through journals she had saved on her datapad, ignoring the time displayed mockingly in the corner, trying to ignore her own annoyance.
Honestly, the red tape the Jedi forced people to go through. Sure, they had found some previously unexplored ruins on Dantooine. Sure, they'd wanted a xenolinguist to supplement their own team. Sure, the University of Aldera was one of the best places in the galaxy to borrow one from. But did they really have to make the thing so difficult? It had taken weeks of debate for both the University and the Jedi to agree on her, and then she'd been here for a couple more weeks for those damn interviews. Some sort of psych eval, apparently, to decide if they could trust her with...she wasn't sure, exactly. It wasn't like their investigation was classified or anything, she'd asked explicitly if she'd be able to publish whatever they found and been told that would be fine. But, who knew with Jedi? They could be so irrational about things sometimes.
There was a reason most of academia was wary when it came to working with the Jedi. It could be very rewarding, of course, but they did tend to be...weird. Not to mention their bad habit of destroying artifacts or blacklisting sites — there was no telling how much had been lost during their so-called "Great Hunt", nor how long it would be until they lifted the blanket ban on any travel to Yavin IV. The Jedi did have a wealth of resources, and boasted some of the most uncorrupted scholars in the galaxy, but any work with them carried risks.
The point was, she was nearing the end of her patience. That she'd tolerated their delays and runarounds this long was rather magnanimous of her, she felt. After weeks of absurd negotiations, after weeks of pointless interviews, after days just waiting for her escort to reach Coruscant, now she was waiting hours for her contacts to finally get their butts down here. Honestly, why did she even need a special escort to Dantooine? It was just Dantooine! The Jedi had regular shuttles going out to the place at least every week, they wouldn't have even had to tweak their schedule, and she would already be there! It was so stupid, she was so tired of waiting for them to get their blasted act together.
Luckily for the last dregs of her sanity, her wait was finally over. They hadn't gotten to her table yet, no, they had just walked in the door, but all the same Cianen knew it was them as clearly as though they'd been announced. The people who frequented this place were mostly lower-level functionaries, perhaps ambassadorial staff from far-flung systems — irrespective of species and background, they had a way about them, a common set of habits and expectations that was identifiable in the way they dressed, the way they moved. The social environment at Aldera was similar enough Cianen was familiar with it, could blend in without too much trouble.
These two definitely didn't belong.
The first was a human woman, in tightly-tailored yet modest tunic and pants in pale orange and Republic red, brown hair cut short and bound sharply back, almost painfully practical. Her eyes darted around the room, hard and knowing, almost too knowing, that way some people had of looking at someone and seeming to know them, in an instant. (Cianen's gaze did the same thing, so she was well aware how unnerving people could find it.) There was something about the way she held herself, the way she walked — call it confidence, power, arrogance — whatever it was, Cianen didn't need the long lightsaber clipped to her hip to know this woman was a Jedi.
Just as she didn't need the red and gold Republic uniform to know the human man following at the Jedi's heel was military — he had the proper dignified posture, the almost regimented discipline in his gait. Though he wasn't perfectly regulation. His dark hair was a bit longer than she thought was normal, flipping over his forehead in wispy curls, a bit more scruff on his face. A long cloak of thick, brown cloth half-hid the uniform, blasters just peeking out at each hip, not standard at all. Not to mention his expression, an almost petulant glare fixed on the Jedi's back. Enough personality to him she almost couldn't imagine he'd been put together on an assembly line somewhere.
She had encountered droids with plenty of personality, after all.
The Jedi didn't even hesitate for a moment. Hands folded at the small of her back, she wound her way through the tables, breezing right past the flustered hostess without a word — if she weren't Caamasi there might have been a bit more of a reaction to that flagrant rudeness — making straight for Cianen. She'd probably been sent a holo or something. Oh, sure, if asked the Jedi would claim she'd sensed her through the Force or whatever, they did like their whole mysterious ethos they had going, but the mundane explanation was far simpler. In a moment she was standing at the opposite side of Cianen's table, glaring down at her, face so tightly expressionless it was rigid. "Professor Hayal?"
Not moving an inch from where she sat reclined in her chair, Cianen lifted her glass in a little salute. She took a sip, drawing it out longer than necessary, before returning it to the surface. Eyes falling back to her datapad, she said, "You're late, Master Jedi. I was told to expect you—" A quick glance at the time. "—nearly three hours ago."
Cianen wasn't looking directly at her, maintaining her illusion of apathetic inattention, but she still caught the flash of a dark glower crossing the Jedi's face, there for the shortest instant before wiping away again. Hmm, odd — were Jedi even allowed to glower? There is no passion, and all that. After a second of silence, the Jedi found her voice again. "My deepest apologies, Professor." Cianen blinked — were Jedi even allowed sarcasm? "We were held up on the way down to the surface longer than expected."
Personally, she found it hard to believe this Jedi could be unfamiliar with the frustrations of Coruscant traffic. But she shrugged it off. "No matter. Have a seat," she said, nodding at the empty seats around her table. "Lunch is on me." Or, on the University, anyway, but it made little difference. "Well, more like dinner now, I suppose."
The military man let out a snort at that, but accepted a seat gracefully enough. The Jedi hesitated a moment longer but, after an almost helpless glance at the man, collapsed into a seat with a thin sigh. "Very well. The Spire won't be finished tripling for a few hours in any case."
Cianen was confused for a moment, before it came to her — Navy slang from refueling, restocking, and rearming, the three Rs. Right. "The Spire?"
The man got to it before the Jedi did. "The Endar Spire, it's a Hammerhead light cruiser with the Third Fleet. And we never did get to introductions, did we?" Sticking a hand out over the table, lips tilting into a smirk, "Captain Carth Onasi."
She couldn't help the twitching of her own lips at the Jedi's wince. Taking his hand, "Cianen Hayal."
Onasi frowned at the name. "Alderaanian?"
"The name is, yes." And his was of Corellian extraction, of course, but Cianen couldn't even begin to guess which planet he was actually from. Corellians had spread themselves so widely across the galaxy it could be any of thousands of worlds. By contrast, Alderaanian colonies were few, probably less than a hundred worlds concentrated in the core, only a few trailing out along the Perlemian. They did have minority populations on a wealth of other worlds, but humans of Alderaanian descent were still far less ubiquitous than those of Corellian, hence his surprise at her name.
It was actually rather fascinating, human language groups. Other species had colonised alien worlds, of course, but humans have been doing it longer than almost anyone else, and had spread to many times more. For most of recorded history, it had been assumed humans had originally evolved on Coruscant — no primary evidence had survived, but that was the general feeling in any case. (There had been alternative theories, but those had been summarily quashed when, about three hundred years ago, the Columi had handed over sensor records of an early industrial society on what would become Coruscant dating to roughly a hundred thousand years ago.) Even before the advent of hyperdrive, their ancestors had flung out sleeper ships in all directions, to dozens of worlds. The descendents of the original settlers eventually spread to more worlds, bringing their language and culture with them.
Fascinatingly, all evidence suggested the ancient humans of Coruscant hadn't all spoken one language — the different cultural groups spread all across the galaxy spoke different, sometimes completely unrelated languages. Basic, the core of which was generally assumed to have evolved on Coruscant (though it has borrowed heavily from other languages both human and alien since), was seemingly related to the languages of Corellia, however distantly. Finding cognates could be a bit complicated, since they'd both borrowed from Duros languages, some of which were extinct in the modern day, but there were far too many phonological, syntactic, and lexical similarities for it to be coincidence. Similarly, Tionese and Kuati languages seemed to be related.
There was one example Cianen still couldn't get over. It had been repeatedly postulated that it was possible human communities, when isolated on an alien world for long enough, might see enough genetic drift to eventually become a distinct species. Several alien species were far too similar to baseline humans for it to be coincidence, it had been frequently suggested they and humans had common ancestry. (They hadn't any original records on the sleeper ships or their destinations, after all.) One example were the Zeltrons, long assumed to be distant relatives, though genetic confirmation had been slow. Linguists at the time, though, quickly realized the majority language of Zeltros was, quite clearly, a member of the same family as Old Alderash — Zeltrons and Alderaanians were distant cousins. She'd first heard the story, how linguists had proved the existence of the extended human family before biologists had gotten there, when she'd been a small child, had had an enduring fascination for language ever since.
The original point, before she got distracted, was that Corellians and Alderaanians had once spoken completely unrelated languages. They'd gone extinct in favor of Basic millennia ago now, but the traditional languages were still preserved in names. It wasn't at all unreasonable for Onasi to recognize the name as Alderaanian.
Yes, back to the conversation. She had a bad habit of letting her mind wander. "Well, I apologize in advance for taking up space on your ship, Captain."
An expression of confusion crossed Onasi's face for a second, followed with a sharp guffaw of surprise. "No, no, I'm not a navy captain. The Spire's commander is Artik Kre'laq." Hmm, that name could be Caamasi, but they were hardly ever found in the military. Bothan was far more likely, for cultural reasons. "I'm with Starfighter Command."
"Ah." That did explain rather a lot, actually. A greater degree of minute-to-minute creativity was often prized in fighter pilots, the sort of individuality basic training was designed to squash more often than not nurtured instead. Onasi's slightly off-color presentation made perfect sense now. But anyway, "Picking up the civilian beneath the good Captain's dignity, I take it."
A smirk again twitched at Onasi's lips. "Something like that."
"Would it be safe to assume, given that he sent you in his place, that the two of you don't exactly get along?"
"Far be it from me to correct the fancy Alderaanian professor."
"Mm." The server wandered up around then, a Caamasi with almost glowing golden fur by the name of Araqos. When she'd first started wandering the District, she'd been a bit blindsided by how many places here had living waitstaff — at least throughout the core, droids were used almost exclusively. Perhaps the powerful, so thickly concentrated here like they were nowhere else, simply enjoyed having people to order about. Though, this place specifically, maybe they just felt like it. Caamasi could be weird like that sometimes. Onasi made his order easily enough — he did horridly mispronounce ynari ak-qhuguel, but Araqos had to be used to aliens slaughtering Caamasi by now. The Jedi just waved Araqos off without a word, not even looking at him, still blandly staring at Cianen's collarbone.
Wow. Rude.
After mumbling an apology in Caamasi — Araqos just cheerfully brushed it off, wandered away again — Cianen turned back to the Jedi. And she smiled. It wasn't a nice one, exactly, the sort of inoffensive smile that hid cruelty just beneath. It only took a week or two for her grad students to learn to fear this smile. Holding her hand out over the table, Cianen said, "And you are?"
The Jedi didn't reach to take her hand. Instead, her eyes flicked down to it, almost seeming to glare. And, wow, rude again. What was her problem? Voice low, flat, cold, "Bastila Shan." Cianen entirely forgot her planned mockery when she recognized the name.
She wasn't exactly a fan of the Jedi, but she still knew who this was. Everybody knew who Bastila Shan was. A Kuati Jedi — at least, the name was Kuati, who knew where she was actually from — of this newest generation, come to Knighthood after the Mandalorian Wars. While still young, not as thoroughly accomplished as some other Jedi she could name, Shan had somehow made herself absolutely critical to the Republic war effort. Something the Jedi called "battle meditation", though Cianen had no clue what that was. Which was slightly irritating, actually, she liked knowing things, but the Jedi could be infuriatingly vague about their own abilities. But even the hardest of skeptics could recognize the pattern: any battle where Bastila Shan happened to be present ended in the Republic's favor.
These days, it seemed their only victories were (somehow, inexplicably) thanks to this one Jedi. It was...interesting, how people spoke of her these days. Disturbingly messianic at times, but still interesting.
Oh, not to mention, there was also that whole killing Revan business. Though apparently that had been more Kavar than Shan. But still.
Cianen remembered herself after a few seconds, letting her hand fall away. "Well. Are you sure you wouldn't rather order something, Master Jedi? You might just make Araqos's day. You know how his people can be about the Jedi."
"Araqos?"
"Our waiter. You know, the one you completely ignored."
Shan just stared back at her, eyes slightly narrowed.
The flash of annoyance was entirely unexpected, but Cianen didn't bother fighting it. "I wonder, do they give you Jedi etiquette lessons, or is teaching you to behave like people considered counterproductive?"
A storm of spluttering and coughing sounded from her right. Sounded like Onasi had snorted into his water. Shan shot in his direction what could almost be considered a disgusted look, if it weren't buried under several kilometers of Jedi self-importance — excuse her, she meant serenity. After a second of not-glaring, Shan turned back to Cianen, shooting her would could almost be considered an offended look, if it weren't blah blah blah. "I can see I'm not needed here. Until it is time to return to the Spire, I will be at the Temple library. Finding something productive to do." The Jedi swung up to her feet and swirled away, in something just shy of a huff.
Cianen watched her leave, shaking her head to herself. "Is she always like that?"
"Yes." The word was said with an impressive depth of weariness — Shan's attitude was apparently a frequent frustration for Onasi. "You get used to it."
She turned to the older man, a single eyebrow ticking up her forehead.
For a second he held out, sipping at his water again, but then he winced. "Okay, you don't, really. She's... Well, she's mostly holed up with the rest of the Jedi. You won't see very much of her, don't worry."
"Hmm." That was something at least. Though, the phrase rest of the Jedi was less than reassuring, at least she wouldn't have to put up with Shan much at all. Dantooine wasn't really that far away, and then that would be that.
After all, it wasn't like the Republic could afford to have Bastila Shan of all people babysitting linguistics professors poking about ruins.
Carth was more than a little surprised, walking into the flight officers' lounge, to spot their unusual guest already sitting at the game table.
It'd been a couple days now, and he still wasn't sure what to think of this Hayal woman. She was a civilian, one unapologetically critical of the Republic war effort at that, which would ordinarily find him predisposed to think less than flattering thoughts. Not only that, but she was an academic type, one whose every word and every gesture and every inch and every stitch gave every implication of privilege. He'd pegged her at a glance as the pampered daughter of some coreborn asshole riding high and arrogant on inherited wealth, at an overview of her background one who had thrown herself into scholarship simply because she couldn't imagine anything else to do with her life.
He'd met such types before. It never took them long to start grating on his nerves.
But something threw him off about Hayal. He couldn't put his finger on exactly what, it bothered him. For one thing, he still didn't know what in the seven hells she was doing here. Sure, the Jedi had found some ruins outside their enclave on Dantooine, they wanted a qualified xenolinguist to look over the inscriptions there, and there were precious few institutions held in higher regard than the University of Aldera, fine. That did make sense...if you didn't look at it too hard. See, the University had a satellite campus on Generis, which happened to be in the same general area of the galaxy as Dantooine — Carth had checked, and they even had a sizeable archeology department. It would be far more convenient to pull specialists from there than all the way from Alderaan itself. Having her meet them in Coruscant was slightly odd, but it was on the way from Alderaan to Dantooine, so not that strange, not so much as having them meet her at all.
Seriously, why the fuck were they escorting her to Dantooine themselves? Why? Why the Endar Spire, why the entire battle group? It made absolutely no sense. Every second they spent shuttling this academic to Dantooine, a mission that had nothing to do with the war effort, the Sith were advancing. Advances the Navy, without the advantage given by Bastila's damn magic tricks, had little hope of throwing back. Why, why, why were they here?
For that matter, why were they transporting just Hayal? If they had to see this diversion through, which was incomprehensible to begin with, but if they must, why only the one expert? Surely, any archeological endeavor needed more than one person. He was hardly informed about such things at all himself, but even he knew that. Would she be joining with a team out of Generis? That sort of made sense. But if they had their own team, why did they need Hayal at all? Surely they had their own xenolinguists. Was she simply that highly regarded in her field? He guessed that was possible, but she seemed a little young for it — it took time to develop that sort of expertise and authority, time she simply wasn't old enough to have had.
No. No, it didn't make any sense at all. Something else was at work here.
The problem was, he couldn't begin to guess at what.
Not only did contradictions abound in their mission, but also in the woman herself. The few conversations he'd had with her so far, yes, she'd taken every opportunity to express disdain for the Republic leadership. But, at the same time, she'd shown himself and the servicemen aboard the Endar Spire nothing but respect. And the Jedi, considering she was a privileged academic, and the Jedi considered themselves scholars before anything else, one would expect them to...well, if not agree on anything, at least be civil. To put it lightly, yeah, not so much. For a second there, he'd been sure Hayal was going to punch Rast right in his self-righteous, sneering, condescending snout.
(He'd been disappointed when she'd just walked out in a dignified huff. He'd have paid good money to see that.)
He didn't know why it bothered him so much. It just did. There was something about what she was and what she so clearly believed that didn't quite...fit. He was missing something, some large facet of her identity, her purpose here, that would bring it all together, explain the grating juxtapositions that made up the confusing woman. He had no idea what it could be, couldn't even begin to guess.
Whatever it was, it would have to be something truly unexpected to explain this.
It wasn't unusual, not at all, for him to walk into the lounge to find his subordinates some distance into a sabaac game, and some distance further into their drinks. As long as things didn't get out of hand, he was inclined to allow it, and even encourage it — as horridly as the war was going, he'd take almost anything that could keep morale up. He'd participated in more than one game himself, though he wasn't a sabaac man, and never allowed himself to touch any drink with a drop of alcohol.
He'd seen a lot of...odd things, walking into the lounge. Confirming the prostitutes his men had somehow snuck aboard weren't slaves remained one of the most humiliating experiences of his life. But he certainly hadn't expected to see Professor Cianen Hayal. In the middle of a rowdy game of sabaac with officers from both Starfighter Command and the Navy, the pink in her face and the width of her grin clear sign she'd had more than a couple drinks.
For a moment he just stood in the doorway, observing the scene with dumbfounded disbelief.
Finally, he shook himself. Nodding and waving back at the officers who called to him, he made his way toward the game table. He chose a chair occupied by Dynal, a naval officer he'd spoken to all of once, propped himself up against the back with both arms. "Professor."
Hayal glanced toward him, only her eyes moving. Her thin, delicate face, complete with the sloping Alderaanian nose, was held in something severe, distant — clearly her sabaac face. But her eyes were a warm brown, the mirth filling them almost visible from across the table. "Captain. I see you've decided to lower yourself to sit with the common officers." Hayal had one of those low, smooth voices, every syllable light and precise with an unmistakable upper-class coreworlds accent, only slightly slurred now by whatever she was drinking.
After letting the guffaws and gentle ribbing from that comment die down a little, he said, "I see you have. Didn't take you for a gambling woman, Professor."
"I'm not, truly." She shifted a little, settling herself more comfortably against the Bothan at her side. "It's more the company I'm interested in."
Carth cut another quick glance at the Bothan. And then immediately did a double-take, somehow stopping his mouth from dropping open. He still wasn't perfect at telling Bothans apart, but that... Was that Asyr Lar'sym? The black silver fur, the piercings arrayed through her long right ear, Carth had had the Bothan woman practically forced on him as a squadron commander about a year ago now, and while he'd been a bit miffed about it at the time, he'd found he couldn't complain about it too much — she was, after all, very good. But then, that was the way of Bothans, wasn't it, to be very good at whatever it was they chose to do. While he'd mostly gotten over it by now, getting Lar'sym to do pretty much anything sociable with any of the rest of his pilots, even her own squadron, was an uphill battle. She could be found in the lounge sometimes, yes, but almost always by herself in a corner, perhaps talking to one or two others brave enough to approach the standoffish, bristly woman.
But then, that was the way of Bothans, wasn't it? They weren't exactly a sociable people. If a Bothan started being friendly with him, he'd know to start checking his back for knives slipped between his ribs.
But there she was, sitting next to Hayal at the game table. Not playing herself — her chair was set a bit back, no cards in hand — but present, which was itself unusual. Even more unusual, she... Well, when he'd walked in Hayal had been sitting an inch from leaning against Lar'sym's shoulder, and with that comment about the company that inch had disappeared. Lar'sym had shot a flat look at the top of Hayal's head but, with an almost exasperated huff, lifted her arm out of the way, moved it instead to drape over Hayal's shoulders, down her side. Then turned a threatening glare on the rest of the room, as though daring them to say anything.
Carth wouldn't dream of it, despite how... Well, they did look a bit ridiculous, was all. Lar'sym was, well, a Bothan — while not a tall race, they were powerful, thick and muscular. The long, dense fur that covered them head to toe only made them look larger than they actually were. Hayal, on the other hand, was a tiny, scrawny little thing. He wasn't a tall man himself, but she barely topped his shoulders, and he'd be shocked if she weighed much more than fifty kilos. Lar'sym might easily be twice her size. But, as odd as it was, it wasn't the first time he'd seen something of the like — interspecies couples could get like that sometimes.
Speaking of interspecies couples, were they...? Well, that hadn't taken very long. Hayal had barely even been on the ship for two days. He had no idea how the hell she'd managed to get through to Lar'sym so quickly, but good on her, he guessed.
Personally, he couldn't imagine sleeping with a Bothan. Mostly it was the claws. And the teeth. And everything around the teeth, for that matter — he still wasn't sure how exactly kissing was supposed to work when the other person was of a species with a prominent snout. Not to mention Bothans were, well, Bothans. They weren't exactly known for their warm and charming personalities. But, to each their own.
He'd been more than distracted enough by that thought. Pulling himself back to the present moment, he nodded down to the table. "You seem to be doing just fine to me." Indeed she was. Gambling technically wasn't allowed in the Republic fleet, but it was perfectly fine if no money was actually changing hands — they didn't even use real chits, the game table instead projecting stacks of holographic ones before each player. Of the eight who had started, three were still in the game. He only even knew there had been eight to begin with from the text and images on the surface, three of the seats were empty, the defeated players having already left. Judging by the illusory chits before the three players, Hayal was far ahead, Ferlip was just barely comfortable, and Dynal would probably be wiped out in the next couple hands.
Hayal's lips tilted into a smirk. "I never said I wasn't good at it."
Grumbling into his cards, Dynal muttered, "Bloody lucky is what she is."
Despite how quiet he'd been, Lar'sym obviously heard him, letting out a thick snort, the fur of her face shifting in a wave. Carth knew Bothan expressions were mostly carried in those small flutterings, but he had absolutely no idea how to read any of it. Even though Hayal hadn't been looking, she had a better idea than he did. "Oh, don't mind him, hjAsythe. Few enough can remain graceful when faced with abject defeat."
One of the pilots, Carth didn't catch who, taunted, "So you know, she said it all bookish, but that was Cianen calling you a sore loser."
"I got that, thanks."
Carth stood and watched the next few hands pass, watching Hayal and his pilots. Trying to get what the fuck was going on here to make sense in his head. It didn't take very long for Dynal to be wiped out completely, and he stood to leave, grumbling to himself. Carth didn't entirely blame him — Hayal managed to draw into a negative twenty-one after the shift, lucky as hell. While Carth took the abandoned seat, Hayal and Ferlip quickly agreed the game was over. (That tended to happen when just playing for fun, sabaac didn't hold up nearly as well with only two players.) And the table switched off, the chits vanishing, displays going dark, the cards stacked before Ferlip returning to simple plastic.
Cards rapidly shuffling in hand, so quick they were but a blur in Carth's eyes, Ferlip asked, "Were we going again?" The words were quick, light, as Ferlip always spoke. Carth wasn't familiar with Ferlip's species — with how many peoples there were in the galaxy, knowing all of them was practically impossible. It was in his file, but Carth couldn't pronounce it. For that matter, nobody could pronounce his name properly either, but everyone just called him Ferlip. Carth wasn't entirely sure if "he" was even appropriate, he'd heard people use multiple different genders with Ferlip, and he never corrected anyone one way or the other. (Carth defaulted to masculine pronouns, just because.) Always struck Carth as vaguely avian, thin and delicate, with a long, pointy head, a thin coating of colorful purple and golden feathers, lightly dancing hands ending in noticeable points. He was quick as anything, with frankly inhuman reflexes and reaction times. Clever as hell, too. Which made Ferlip one of his best pilots, so when it came down to it he really didn't give a shit what species or gender he was.
A few others around the table quickly agreed. Hayal hesitated a moment, turned a bit to look up at Lar'sym. The Bothan let out a huff. Levering her shoulder a bit, forcing Hayal to sit up, there was a brief, muttered exchange between them, though Carth didn't understand a word — apparently, Hayal spoke Bothan. Then Lar'sym was on her feet, walking off toward the kitchen, Hayal turning back to the table. "Sure, I'm in for one more. Captain?"
It looked like a few others were moving to speak, but Ferlip got there first. Ferlip always got there first. "The Captain is a pazaac man."
Grinast, a couple seats around the table, said, "Fucking children's game, is what that is."
There was a bit of jeering at that, but Carth ignored it with the ease of long practice. "Ah, I can make an exception this once. I'm in."
For the first few hands, Carth was quiet, observing, working out the puzzle in his head. The conversation at the table was composed mostly of taunts and easy banter — his pilots were clearly comfortable with Hayal here, she'd apparently managed to insert herself as one of the group. It just didn't make a whole lot of sense. Lar'sym was strange enough. When she got back, a drink in each hand, Hayal went right back to leaning against her, sometimes flipping up her cards, muttering to each other in Bothan. That didn't make any sense, far as Carth had managed to read her Lar'sym was acting wildly out of character, but nothing else about this made any sense either.
He wasn't saying it was outside of the realm of possibility a passenger could get along with his people so easily. He just didn't get how Hayal had done it. Far as he'd put together so far, she was a pampered academic type. Civilians didn't get more civilian. But she'd slipped herself right in as though it were nothing, his people accepting her presence with apparently very little objection.
It was weird. It bothered him.
Finally, when it was his turn to deal, Carth decided he'd been quiet long enough. "So, Cianen," he said, shuffling. He'd noticed his pilots were calling her by her first name, had decided to follow along.
A single narrow eyebrow ticked up, a hint of a smile playing at her lips. "Yes, Captain?"
Carth blinked at the title for a second, then shrugged it off. After all, even when in very casual settings like this one, his pilots still observed the proprieties with him — she was probably following their lead, just as he was. "You're a bit of a puzzle, aren't you."
Hayal's eyes widened, showing every hint of polite surprise. The shade of a smirk kinda gave the game away, though. "Am I?"
"You can't expect I find people like you in here playing sabaac all the time." He started dealing out the cards, two to each player, the thin plastic sliding across the table until slapped down or snapped up.
Hayal let hers slide right off the table, deftly catching them before they fell in her lap. "I don't expect you have people like me on this ship very often at all." She did have a point there. Military capital ships didn't make a habit of ferrying professors around during war time.
A series of calls and bets made its way around, the table moving the holographic chits around at the players' command. When it came time to start the roll, Carth didn't start dealing out the new cards immediately, flicking the top one between his fingers. "Where does a linguistics professor from the University of Aldera pick up sabaac, anyway?" He passed out another round of cards. The players all locked in their cards, not really in any order, but whenever each had made their decision.
Carth was slightly surprised when Liera put down and locked her entire hand. It did make a sort of sense, though. By the rules they played, the cards would all be randomised exactly once, after the next round of betting. The exception were any cards played face-up — they wouldn't change, but everyone at the table could see what they were. Everyone was required to roll one card face-up, but any more than that was optional. Liera had locked in a good hand, adding up to twenty-two, which made it likely she'd win this one, but everyone else would know she was likely to win, which meant she'd also likely killed the rest of the betting. The take would be practically guaranteed, but less than it could be.
Like he had, Hayal didn't roll a card down right away, staring across the table at him. "You'd be surprised what grad students get up to." There was a bit of good-natured ribbing and chuckling at the obvious suggestiveness on her voice. She shook her head, locking in an eight of staves. "Really though, I picked it up back at home. An elder cousin taught me, used to bring me around to the cantina in the local spaceport."
Somehow, Carth really couldn't imagine Hayal of all people slumming it in a seedy spaceport cantina. Unless it was Alderaan, he guessed — he didn't think Alderaan really had seedy...well, anything. The wealthier of the coreworlds could be like that. Before the game could move on, Carth asked, "Which world?"
"Shelkonwa. My family are all farmers, I'm the first to even really make it offworld in generations. Though, most of my cousins are Republic military now, I suppose. Where are we going next in this little interrogation?"
Carth frowned to himself. Ignoring the few comments from the rest of the players, he waved for them to get going again, started passing out additional cards to those who asked for them. And tried again, futilely, to figure out what in the hell was going on.
Because, see, Hayal was obviously lying.
Oh, it was pretty enough of a story, explained a fancy professor being comfortable, well, doing this, quite neatly. But it was clearly a lie. He knew of Shelkonwa — it was in the Colonies, settled before the Republic by Alderaan, had remained a largely agrarian world over the millennia. The problem was, Hayal wasn't at all what he expected of someone from Shelkonwa. For one thing, her accent was completely wrong. She spoke clear, clipped, upper-class Basic, the sort of thing one only heard from natives of the wealthier core worlds, a privileged few from well-to-do families throughout the rim, and the Jedi. For all that Shelkonwa was a very old and well-off world, the people boasting all the benefits of an advanced social economy, it was still an agrarian world, with all that entails. He guessed Hayal could have gone to some effort to cover her native accent, but it felt too natural to him, too precise.
Not to mention, she didn't look like she should, if her story were true. She'd said her parents were farmers, which meant, obviously, she would have grown up on one. Children growing up on a farm tend to help with the work — and, even with modern technology, it tends not to be the easiest work in the galaxy. But, for all that there was a subtle hint of toned muscle along the visible length of her forearms, Carth had the very clear impression Hayal had never seen a day of manual labor in her life. She was just...too clean. He didn't mean he would expect her to still have dirt on her years later, no, it...well, it was most obvious on her hands. Her fingers clearly visible, lightly holding her cards, it was clear she hardly had any calluses at all. Certainly not what he would expect to see, years later. No scars from the litany of nicks and scratches she should have gotten either. The skin of her arms and face was pale and clear, absent even the slightest signs of sun damage. None of it made any sense at all.
Unless she had undergone thorough cosmetic treatments to erase any sign of her relatively harsher youth, anyway — that certainly was possible. But, those kinds of treatments were extremely expensive, expensive enough he doubted a junior professor, even one with the University of Aldera, would be able to afford it.
No, put all together, that she was lying was the simpler explanation.
But...why? That was the real problem. And, for all his thinking about it over the next few hands, he couldn't even begin to guess at an explanation.
Not that he thought she was a threat. No, the Jedi had requested her presence specifically, and she would have been thoroughly vetted before being let anywhere near the Endar Spire. At the very least, he was certain the Jedi knew what was going on, and probably someone somewhere up the chain of command as well. He just had no clue what it could be.
And it bothered him.
He never did get back to what Hayal had (accurately) called an interrogation. There wasn't any point asking questions when he knew she was just going to lie to him.
The shift in the sound of her breathing was a subtle thing, nearly covered by the low rumble of a large ship in hyperspace. Subtle, but Cianen caught it all the same. She glanced toward the bed, Asyr visible in the light from her datapad as only a fuzzy outline. Not quite awake then, alright. Cianen sat back in her seat, returned to her reading.
She'd been trying to prepare however she could for the job the Jedi had recruited her for. The problem was, there wasn't much preparation to do. She'd read absolutely everything in the University records on the history of Dantooine; she'd managed to do that during only the two days she'd been on this ship, because there simply wasn't that much of it. Dantooine had only been discovered in the last century. The world was one of the few in this era to be surveyed by the Republic, and had thus been left open for colonization to whomever could get themselves there — given the climate and how isolated the world was, it had attracted a few farmers and not much else.
It was discovered a few years into the settlement that the Republic survey had been less than thorough: Dantooine was already inhabited by a sapient species. The Dantari, as they'd been named, were a mostly pastoral people, the small population divided into dozens of nomadic tribes. So far as anyone could tell, they had very little in the way of technology, hadn't even mastered agriculture. While seemingly peaceful — there had been zero reports of Dantari attacking settlers, and there was no evidence they even fought amongst themselves — they were very skittish, giving any offlander settlement a wide berth, fleeing at first sight. No attempts at contact so far had been successful, they always ran.
Curiously, the Dantari appeared to be human, or at least near-human. There were theories the Dantari were descendants of a lost colonization attempt, probably tens of thousands of years ago, given the loss of sophistication and the clear signs of genetic drift. While nobody had been able to confirm it yet, what with the Dantari always running away before anyone could get a blood sample, just by their appearance it seemed very likely.
The problem was, there was absolutely no record of a human settlement on the world. Or even in the whole sector! If anyone were to have colonized Dantooine in the (comparatively) recent past, it would have been the Anx — their worlds were focused in this sector, after all. When the Jedi founded their enclave there a few decades ago, they had claimed they were building it on the site of the ruins of a much older enclave abandoned centuries ago but, again, there was absolutely no evidence of that. The enclave was built on old ruins, yes, complete with a system of artificial catacombs running deep underground, but the assumption these were ruins of an old Jedi site were seemingly erroneous. According to the records the Jedi had given her, even their own scholars cast doubt on the idea.
It was possible the ruins under the enclave and the ruins bearing the inscriptions she'd been recruited to translate had been built by the same people. She just had no idea who they could be. The Dantari seemed an unlikely candidate. Given the location of Dantooine within the galaxy, other possibilities were the Gree or an ancient race known to the Jedi as the Kwa, both of which had been present in the region before the formation of the Republic. (Cianen had never even heard of the Kwa before, she should really consider making copies of as much of the Jedi-hoarded knowledge she could get her hands on while she still could.) If it were these Kwa, this job might take quite a while — the Jedi only had a tiny handful of artefacts, they'd never managed to crack their language.
There were a handful of other possibilities, spacefaring civilizations old enough to have built the ruins, old enough to have been active before the Anx started exploring the area. The problem was, nothing was local. From what she could tell, while the Gree and the Kwa were the closest neighbors, neither had expanded as far as Dantooine. No other known civilization had been anywhere even close.
Which wasn't outside the realm of possibility, for the ruins to have been built by an unknown ancient civilization. There were unidentified relics from thousands of worlds, unending question marks the galaxy over. The problem was, well, she seriously doubted she'd be able to translate these inscriptions the Jedi had referred to. Unless they got seriously lucky and it turned out to be Gree, or else some other previously deciphered language, it was pretty much hopeless. Without a litany of other sources, a few dozen other minds chipping away at the project, and at least a few decades to do it in...
Interpreting a previously unknown language wasn't exactly easy, after all. Far too often it was quite simply impossible.
Of course, the Jedi should know that well enough. Which really made her wonder, not for the first time, exactly what they wanted with her. Because she wasn't sure dragging her out here could be justified by their stated reasoning.
Not that Cianen really expected anything the Jedi did to make perfect sense. Not the point.
Finally, she heard a shuffling from behind her, the soft hiss of fur against sheets. Her voice thick and low with sleep, Asyr muttered, "Hjanethe? How long you been up reading?"
"Oh, a couple hours." Cianen was aware she had a rather horrid accent in Harishye, the standard dialect of government and media and education in Bothan space — the human throat simply wasn't up to distinguishing the fine differences in vowel quality reliably. But no matter how off she might sound, it was close enough to be understood, and that was all that really mattered. "I read quite a lot, you know. You could even say it's what I do."
Asyr let out a low grunt, the rumbling, growling sort of thing Cianen would just hurt herself trying to imitate. "Get back in here."
Smiling to herself, she spun the chair around. Asyr was still mostly invisible in the darkness, the curves of her body only vague shadows. One eye was open, catching the light from her datapad, glowing white with reflected radiance. "Don't you have to report in twenty minutes?"
She had to imagine Asyr's confused frown. There was a bit more shuffling, Asyr rolling away, reaching to turn the chrono around. And she jerked, springing to her feet an instant later, and started for the fresher. "Ghysin ve shrallak anthe—" Cianen did understand that, of course, profanity simply wasn't always translatable. "—how long were you going to let me sleep?" Asyr clicked the light on, let out a sharp hiss at the assault on her eyes. Hers already adjusted by the datapad, Cianen took the opportunity to stare. Asyr hadn't gotten to dressing yet, and she wasn't bad to look at, after all. But she disappeared into the fresher soon enough.
"I wouldn't have let you sleep too late." Putting the datapad into standby, Cianen moved toward the fresher herself, peeked in. Right, Asyr was in the sonic already. She always thought species with fur looked so funny in there, countless hairs fluttering wildly with each wave pulse. Like a kitten in a windstorm. Not that she would ever say that out loud, Asyr certainly wasn't the type who would appreciate that sort of comment. "It's not like you really have to be there early. How much time does it take you to get ready in the morning, anyway?"
"You are an evil, evil woman."
Cianen just grinned. Reaching for her brush, sitting where she'd left it on the rim of the sink, she turned to the mirror and started—
Her smile instantly vanished. She lifted her chin up and to the right, stretching out her neck. She took a breath in and out through her teeth, and then another, fighting the sudden flare of annoyance rising in her throat.
There were risks involved in sexual encounters with people of different species from one's own — and she wasn't talking about the kind that required treatment for particular infections. No, quite simply each species had only evolved to couple with others of their own kind. Obviously. There were always incompatibilities, some minor, some insurmountable. Some species didn't really have sex at all, some did only to reproduce and didn't find it particularly pleasurable, sex for some species was so wildly different they and humans simply couldn't see eye to eye, so to speak. It wasn't unusual for people to be allergic to each other — Cianen herself was hypersensitive to even indirect contact with eleven different species that she knew of, the reaction severe enough sleeping with any of them simply wasn't thinkable.
Some people could get a bit more, ah, aggressive than humans were really built to handle. In some cases, humans would be seriously risking their lives, but it only rarely got that bad. For Bothans, and a litany of other species of similar physiology, the problem mostly involved claws and teeth. Cianen had known this going in, had come with a list of ground rules. She'd expected she'd get scratched up a bit. She hadn't examined herself too thoroughly, and it could be easy to lose track in the moment, but judging by what she could see in the mirror right now and the stinging where she couldn't, shoulders, all down her back, stomach, arse, and thighs.
Asyr was thorough, after all.
Cianen didn't particularly mind all that. As long as Asyr properly washed her hands first, it wasn't really a problem. To be perfectly honest, it was part of the reason she'd been open to Asyr in the first place. A few of them had gone a little deeper than she would like — she hadn't missed the blood on the sheets — and it could make sitting down or wearing anything at all a bit uncomfortable at times, but it wasn't that big of a deal. It'd all be healed in a week or two anyway. Worth it, in her mind.
This one line, though. This one was high enough it wasn't really her shoulder anymore. This one, a thread of torn skin white and inflamed pink, a few tiny beads of dried blood here and there, this one was on her neck. High enough it would probably be visible.
And she was annoyed. Not at Asyr, exactly — okay, well, maybe a little bit. But with herself, that she hadn't been paying attention, with everyone she just knew would stare or make some inane comment. This was going to be a pain, until it was properly healed and everyone could talk to her normally again. Without something else very clearly on their minds. And it would still be there when she got to Dantooine. Lovely first impression of her the Jedi there were going to get, wasn't it?
With another sigh, Cianen set to getting herself presentable, grumbling to herself in her head.
After barely a few seconds, Asyr was out, slipping behind her. She took slightly longer getting out of the fresher than entirely necessary, Cianen could see in the mirror her eyes were wandering. Cianen felt herself unconsciously straighten, but ignored it, kept sorting her hair. Her voice a hissing drawl that put a smirk on Cianen's face, Asyr said, "An evil woman." And she was gone, walking into the room proper.
Cianen set down her things and followed after her. Pointing at the scratch on her neck, "I'm an evil woman? You did this one on purpose."
"Yes." The flat, matter-of-fact delivery nearly made Cianen laugh. She wasn't even looking at her, more focused on slipping into her uniform. Cianen was distracted watching her for a second, then jumped for her own clothes — she couldn't even get out into the unsecured halls by herself, she'd need to follow Asyr. "That was punishment."
"Punishment? What for?"
"For teasing me in front of the others."
Cianen let out a huff. Okay, she'd known even at the time that had been over the line. But she'd been a little drunk, she hadn't been entirely aware of what she'd been saying. Asyr was the one who kept bringing her drinks, didn't seem like that was her fault now, did it? "Oh, like they'll even remember me two weeks from now."
"You might be surprised. I haven't made a reputation for being personable." Tying her boots, Asyr glanced up at her. The hairs of her long face had shifted, settled into something Cianen read as amused. "They don't know what this is, you see. You're an evil, evil woman. You just want me for my private quarters."
She rolled her eyes. Of course, Asyr wasn't entirely wrong — she wouldn't deny the idea of getting to share her private room had been a contributing factor. Cianen had been stuck with an insufferably energetic and simple-minded ensign, she'd spent maybe five minutes in Ulgo's presence before she'd been overwhelmed with the need to be far, far away. (What the hell was an Ulgo even doing here, anyway? Whatever, didn't matter.) Asyr, as a squadron commander, got her own room. It was a tiny, ascetic little thing, but still. But, well, if Cianen had just wanted to crash in someone's special single-person room, Asyr was hardly the only option.
So, slightly petulantly, she said, "That's not the only reason." She barely knew Asyr, they'd just met a couple days ago, but she rather liked her so far. She was just...refreshingly blunt. Many Bothans could get that way, almost obsessively matter-of-fact in all things, just part of the warrior culture bit, they weren't the only ones. (Actually, Asyr wasn't even the first Bothan she'd been with, but that was beside the point.) Asyr was just, she didn't know, she had a way of saying things she found amusing. Combined with being not at all hard on the eyes, and the usual almost pathological down-to-earth-ness of her people, well.
It wasn't like she'd needed to find someone on the ship. She was shagging Asyr because she amused her and she wanted to. It really was that simple.
But there was no real point saying all that. Asyr had probably guessed near enough anyway. "And hey, you only want me because I won't get all sappy."
Asyr smirked at that. The toothless kind of smirk, not a hint of white peeking through — in most cultures that had them, after all, showing teeth was considered a threat. Or flirtatious, she supposed, depending on the species and the context, but the human smile was actually very weird, xenosociologically speaking. "That is refreshing. Too many people make things more than what they are. Humans are particularly bad about that, most of the time."
Well, yes, she was well aware humans were a comparatively emotional people. Especially when it came to sexual relationships. There was a reason she tried to avoid her own species when it came to this sort of thing. "And everyone knows Bothans are particularly sweet and cuddly. Fact."
Asyr gave her a hard look, but didn't dignify that one with a response.
Bothan culture — For the record, I have altered Bothan culture significantly. In my head, they will end up much as they are in the canon Rebellion / New Republic, after gradual evolution during the Great Peace of the Republic.
[What the hell was an Ulgo even doing here, anyway?] — For those who don't know, House Ulgo happens to be one of the Alderaanian noble families (like Organa).
The first scene was first posted in "Back Burner" some time ago. The rest is new.