Chapter 12
"Is anyone else scared about all the solders around here?" Atton pulled his hood lower to better hid his face.
Meetra backhanded him in the chest not even breaking stride as they walked. "Oh would you stop that. You look like we're trying to hide."
"But we are trying to hide." he rubbed his chest. Both of them bobbed and weaved avoiding the people walking in the opposite direction.
"That doesn't mean you have to look like it." Meetra looked at her map. "Alright according to the information the Dock Worker gave us this Tallness guy should be right up here.
"All I'm seeing is a bunch of street venders."
"What you expected him to be in a shady room or something. And after we show him the gems, he gets quite locks the door and puts the close sign out?" Meetra teased.
"Um... well actually... Yeah."
"Doing stuff like that takes people out of the norm." Meetra explained. "Doing stuff out of the norm draws attention. This way we walk up to him. Make our proposal, haggle a price shake hands and walk away. To anyone watching it looks just like a normal deal over food."
"Makes sense." Atton nodded begrudgingly. "Still like my way better."
"Yeah well let's just let me do the talking this time all right?" While nothing bad had actually happened at the dock they still got ripped off and Atton came to close to giving them away.
Atton sighed. "Alright fine have it your way."
The two walked up to the street vender's stall and looked around. There was no one manning the stall and no one around that looked like they were looking after the place.
Atton leaned in toward Meetra. "What do you want to do?"
Meetra opened her mouth to answer when they heard a voice coming out of the building the stall was in front of.
"My apologies I had to step out for a moment to answer the call." the tall young looking man gave them both a warm smile. "My name is Tallness. What can I do for you?"
Meetra stared at the man for a long moment. If she didn't know better she would have sworn that she had met him before. It was the same feeling that she had had when she first met the Disciple.
"It's impolite to stare." Tallness said returning the stare back at Meetra. "Especially when nether of you have given me your names."
"Meetra are you alright?" Atton gave her a slight nudge on the shoulder. His words barley registered as she stared at Tallness' face. It seemed hard for to focus on it. She saw him but none of the details seemed to stick, none the less she knew she had seen him before.
"I'm sorry but have we met?" Tallness asked.
"I don't know. Have we?" Meetra focused harder. It was like something was preventing her from remembering.
"I would think that I would remember a face like yours. Is there something I can do for you? I just got in a new shipment of fruits like none you have ever tasted." he moved to behind his stall pulling out a few assortments of fruits.
Meetra Surik just stood there fighting her own mind. Why couldn't she remember?
Atton taking the initiative started, "Well I'm Atton and this is my wife Meetra. We have some things that we were told you might be interested in buying from us."
"Oh I think you misunderstand, I do not do the buying I do the selling. You are the ones who are suppose to buy from me." Tallness laughed at Atton but not a dismissive laugh it was more of a nervous one.
"Really because a helpful dock worker said that you are just the man to talk to in selling these kinds of things." Atton reached into his pocket and pulled out a few of the gems that he had.
Tallness examined one of them for a few moments looking over the cut and quality. "These are some nice stones you got here. Might if I ask where you got them?"
"What does it really matter?" Atton shrugged off the question.
"It matters because if these are stolen then that probably means that there are people looking for them, so if I buy them from you then they will then be looking for me. And the last thing I want is one of the Sith Lords to come investigating my place of business."
Atton nodded in understanding. "That is fair I suppose. Let me assure you that no one in the whole Sith Empire is looking for these gems."
Tallness raised an eyebrow. He looked Atton over trying to decide if he should believe him or not. "I'll give you a thousand Imperial Coins for every handful of gems as long as they are all this quality."
"Ha lets try again their pall." Atton laughed. In truth Atton had no idea if that was a high number or not as they still weren't sure on the currency. But he wasn't playing the numbers he was playing the man.
Tallness pursed his lips together annoyed that this man was not the fool he appeared to be. "Alright five thousand and that is my final offer."
Atton looked over at Meetra who was still just staring at Tallness. He put his hand on her shoulder snapping her out of her trance. "Meetra." Atton shook her shoulder.
"What? Yeah. Make it six and you got yourself a deal." she shook her head clear. "Or we will just go find someone else."