Aaron is a nerf caught in the speeder lights. Wide-eyed, he stares at the overseer, almost hypnotized but the glittering silver jewellery in his face. The other class of acolytes didn't have to take lessons taught in only Sith!
The red-skinned overseer says something else. Maybe repeats the question, probably insults him. He fumbles with his datapad and then nails his gaze to it. Aaron doesn't know what the question is, but even if he did, he doesn't know any Sith history apart from the five lessons he took with the other class before getting bumped up.
Since "checking his notes" doesn't result in immediate punishment, he clutches the datapad in his sweaty hands and prays to anyone that might be listening for the answer. Miraculously, it comes. Sith words written out in Basic characters scrawl across the electronic screen and Aaron reads them out without wasting any time second-guessing his good luck.
He's rewarded with a curt nod, after which his datapad clatters onto his desk. He lets out a shuddering breath and stares at the datapad in wonder. Before his eyes, the words disappear and are replaced with the sentence: Don't embarrass me.
Aaron looks up, peeking around the room to see Sailens with her gaze on the overseer, but her hand aiming a rude gesture in his direction under her desk. Why would she help me?
The question haunts him for the remainder of the class. It's not as if he could understand anything anyone said, anyway. Rencarn knew he didn't speak a word of Sith, so why had he been moved into this class with Sailens?
When he's dismissed by the overseer with a parting shock for his trouble, he follows Sailens around the Academy compound, hoping to get her alone. Her droid trails about a meter behind her and he uses it as a guide when he loses sight of her between the buildings. Eventually they're alone between sand-swept buildings, but before he can call out to her, she puts her bare palm flat against the stone.
Head tilted, Aaron walks up behind her shoulder in time to see metal bands shoot out of the stone and trap her hand there. A wicked, three centimeter needle pops out of the stone and creeps towards her skin. He cries out, but she slaps him away with her free hand. The green light from a scanner emits from around her hand and the metal bands retract.
Her droid knocks into his shoulder. "Unlike the reverse, I do not need your help."
A loud grinding drowns out any response Aaron could have made as a secret door opens next to where Sailens had put her hand. He's still staring with his jaw dropped when she sweeps into the room. Dumbly, he follows.
"What is this place?" He turns his head from side to side to admire the room. He's expecting a secret archive, but instead is met with a spartan, though private, bedroom with an inside door he guesses leads to a bathroom.
Sailens flops onto the bed and kicks her boots off. "A legacy room. Only those pure of blood can enter. If you attempted to enter, you would have been injected with a most painful and, eventually, lethal toxin." Even though her voice is mechanical coming from the droid, she manages to put emphasis on the word.
Aaron shuffles around the edge of the room and sits on the edge of a stiff chair. "Why did you help me? In class, that is. And, well, why show me this place?"
Her droid putters around the room before settling on a shelf near Aaron's head. "In your failures, it is now more than you that will receive punishment." She waves the question away with her hand.
"You mean… if I do something wrong, they'll hurt you, too?"
"Yes." She looks up from the bed at him before shrugging and laying back down.
"...shouldn't you, you know, be worried about that?" He leans towards the bed.
She holds up a hand and spins her pointer finger in her circle, her droid spins on the shelf next to him. "Lord Sa'alle expects you to fail horrifically. She looks forward to watching me suffer through no fault of my own. Disappointing her by ensuring you don't…" Sailens grins at him and with the tattoos around her mouth, it looks pointedly cruel.
"Do you hate her that much?"
She pulls the sleeve of her academy robe up past her elbow and Aaron sees for the first time that her hand and entire arm are covered in a web of thin, raised scars. After giving him time to look, she points to her ruined mouth. "What do you think?"
"I hate my master, too." Aaron's voice is low, far from the arrogant tone he's been using since his arrival on Korriban. "But he's so much stronger than me, what can I do?"
Sailens is staring at the ceiling again, spinning her finger and droid around. "A better question is, 'Why did he take you for a student?' A notorious blood supremacist doesn't just wake up one morning and decide to take a half-sultan as a student."
"Sultan? Really?"
She throws up both hands and her droid rolls from side to side on the shelf. "With the lust party tricks. How am I supposed to know? A better question is 'What is a human supremacist like Lord Sa'alle doing betrothing her only heir to a half-breed?'"
"First of all, it's Zeltron, and secondly, it's not 'lust party tricks.' And who cares what they're up to?" Aaron crosses his arms and leans back in the chair.
"Beware your master, beware your apprentice, and most importantly, beware those whose motives you do not understand, for you cannot predict their actions."
"I don't need a lesson on being Sith, Sai."
She sits up and slashes her arm to the side, a frown on her face. "If you are not suspicious of this arrangement, then you do."
"I'm not going to base my life on suspicions!"
"You are Sith. Base your life on staying alive. We're in this together now. If I tell you to wonder, then you wonder." She holds out her hand and the droid floats through the air to land there.
"Why should I trust you?" Aaron juts his chin out.
"Why do you hate your master?"
"Don't answer my-" He cuts himself off, not about to play the 'who's more stubborn' game. "He keeps telling me I'm weak. Just because I don't like hurting innocent people. People who haven't done anything to deserve it."
"I can help you become strong enough to choose your own targets and I'm the only one here who needs you alive. Here, he cannot see everything that you learn. Take advantage of it."
Aaron sits silently for a time. At length, he stands. "Teach me how to walk on the sand."
Sailens is not a forgiving or patient teacher, but she knows the Force well and shoves Sith language lessons down his throat while they work. "No. Again."
Aaron swats at her voice droid, even though he knows he won't hit it. The slight momentum from moving his arms causes him to lose his balance and fall face-first into the searing sand. "You kriffing-"
She unleashes a kick at his stomach, but he rolls back onto his feet and holds his hands in front of him.
"If you want to lose in a spar, we can do that, too, Sai."
"Use the Force, not your fists." She leaps back, well out of range, and lands just on the surface of the dune.
"I'm a combat Sith, I don't need to fight with the Force." As soon as he says the words, he lunges to the side, avoiding the blast of Force lightning she sends his way.
Her droid float around his head and screeches, "Suspicious!"
"He doesn't want his student to steal his knowledge!" He dashes up the side of the dune towards her, but she jumps away before he gets in range.
"You're not thinking like a Sith!"
At her goading, his feet sink and drag into the sand. "I'm just not thinking like you."
She stops, faced away from him, and holds up one hand to keep him from attacking.
He stops next to her shoulder, manages to keep his boots from sinking into the sand. "What is it?"
Sailens gestures to a transport ship on the horizon. "New acolytes. If they out perform you…"
"They won't." His voice is as solid as his footing.