Chapter 21: Educational Shortcomings

Perhaps Mace was right. Perhaps Korkie was unwell, afflicted. For they travelled five days in their journey from Yaga Minor to Ketaris to Mapuzo and back and in every minute of rest, every moment of inactivity when danger abated, Korkie's mind returned, without fault, to thoughts of Mahdi. From his first footfall back on solid ground on Yaga Minor, Korkie found himself buoyed by a lightness in his fluttering stomach. He didn't want any dinner. He wanted to pack up the ship, wash his hair, and return to The Yagai Hive.

"What will you do if he's not working tonight?" asked Kawlan, watching Korkie remove clods of Ketaris soil from his boots.

"Return home completely bereft," Korkie informed him. "But if he is working, then I'm not coming home."

Kawlan snickered.

"You're very confident."

"He likes me. I know it."

And he rode this wave of determined confidence, ignoring the churning in his stomach and the tightness in his chest, all the way through the streets, down the rickety stairs, through the crush of dancers and to the drink-slicked bar. His eyes found Mahdi instantly and his body surged with warmth.

"A water, please."

Mahdi regarded him with a cautious grin.

"No Sunrisers tonight?"

"None at all. Now that I know you prefer to serve me water, I'll never drink again."

Mahdi snorted.

"You weren't drinking all those Sunrisers just to see me."

"I was!"

"You're full of shit."

Mahdi slid him his water and promptly turned to serve another customer. Korkie watched him and could not help but think how easy it would be, with a gentle Force-suggestion, to prod him in the right direction. But no sooner had the vague thought crossed his mind than he felt a potent churn of guilt. His parents had been quick to notice his uncanny ability for persuasion – more powerful than any of his other capabilities in the Force – and had begun their firm teachings on the matter of uncoerced consent long before he had the faintest interest in applying his talents to anything less benign than suggesting a second helping of dessert.

Never, Korkie, for your own benefit. No matter how much you like someone. No matter how much you think they might like you. Never, ever, without exception.

"Can I get you something else?" Mahdi asked pointedly. "You're clogging up the bar again."

It was a fair point.

"No, thank you. I'll go dance. I'll see you later."

Mahdi snickered.

"Sure you will."

"Don't look so superior," Korkie countered mildly. "I wouldn't have come back to see you if I didn't know you liked me."

Mahdi looked at him, stunned. He didn't need to say anything; Korkie heard his disbelief clearly through the Force.

Where in the hells did you get that nerve?

Korkie would have liked to tell him that soldiers had been bowing before him since infancy. Just to see the bewilderment on his beautiful face. But instead he turned and allowed the queuing patrons to push past him in their quest for a drink. It would be a waste not to dance while he was out.

"You heading home?"

Mahdi didn't need to turn his head; the voice was recognisable to him already, although he'd not yet pinned down the accent.

But he did turn his head. To see those tangled curls and that crooked nose. To see the flush in those cheeks.

"Yeah. You should be going home too, you know."

Ben shrugged and fell into step with him.

"I thought we were revisiting the prospect of my going home with you."

Mahdi cursed beneath his breath. His prayers for amnesia had not been answered.

"I shouldn't have said that," Mahdi admitted. "I was being stupid."

"Because you like me," Ben supplied.

Mahdi groaned but said nothing. What was he supposed to say? Ben was right and they both knew it. How the young man knew it with such assuredness, Mahdi could not fathom. Mahdi didn't have the self-confidence at twenty, let alone seventeen, to go about making such accusations.

"As I said," Mahdi reiterated. "That was stupid. I'm not taking you home with me."

"The legal age of consent on Yaga Minor is fourteen-standard," Ben pointed out. "My fourteenth lifeday was a lifetime ago, Mahdi."

Mahdi smirked.

"How long ago, exactly?"

The grinning teenager did not miss a beat.

"Three and a half years ago."

Mahdi grumbled and folded his arms against the early morning chill. Ben's story was consistent but that did not mean he was not lying.

"If you've been reading up on consent laws on Yaga Minor," Mahdi argued instead. "You'd know that you're not allowed to have a partner more than two years older than you until you're eighteen-standard."

Ben huffed.

"So pedantic! You're what, two and a half years older than me?"

"More like three," Mahdi informed him. "My lifeday's just after the New Year. Besides, that's assuming you're actually seventeen."

"How young do you think I am?" Ben asked indignantly.

Mahdi hesitated. That was not a question he wanted to answer, not even silently, in his own mind. Ben was nearly as tall as he was but with a narrow frame and gangly limbs that implied a recent, or even ongoing, growth spurt. He certainly could have been seventeen-standard, perhaps passing for eighteen-standard at a push. But he could equally have been sixteen, and in any case, pinpointing his age was unnecessary when Mahdi was twenty years old and really shouldn't have anything at all to do with a teenager who snuck into clubs without ID.

"You have beautiful skin, Ben," Mahdi told him off-handedly, which he supposed he could say because Ben somehow knew he thought so already. "Like a baby."

Ben ran a finger over a burn upon his right cheek, disgruntled.

"Crazy, isn't it? Given I'm a grown adult."

"If you were an adult, you'd have proof of age to show our bouncer. Speaking of which, how in the hells do you keep getting in?"

But Mahdi's attempt to change the subject was disregarded.

"What does eighteen-standard even mean?" Ben asked, kicking at a bit of stone that had crumbled from the road paving. "An adult on Mon Gazza is sixteen. On Tatooine, it's fourteen. And Naboo used to have thirteen-year-old monarchs."

Ben eyed Mahdi with some caution, thinking a moment, then pressed on.

"Look, I'll be honest with you-"

"You'll tell me how old you actually are?"

"I will tell you," Ben corrected him, irritated, "that I have fended for myself for more than two years since the Republic fell. No one looks after me and I don't need anyone. And frankly, Mahdi, I've all but forgotten what it feels like to be touched by a person who isn't trying to kill me or isn't stitching me back up afterwards. And I met a lot of people the other night who would gladly have taken me home without all this proof of age bantha-shit, but the trouble is, Mahdi, that I like you."

He declared it as though a great injustice. Mahdi opened his mouth to say something – to apologise, perhaps, or to reassure him – but found that his mouth was dry and his tongue clumsy. Why did he feel such an ache, deep in his chest, as he looked at Ben now? He wanted to hold him, blast it. He appraised the crookedness of his nose and the burn upon his cheek with new eyes.

"You want some breakfast at my place?" he managed, eventually. "I can make you a proper meal."

Perhaps Ben was indeed seventeen-and-a-half and skinny simply because he didn't have enough to eat. Perhaps there was another reason he didn't carry an identity card. What did he mean about people trying to kill him? Why would anyone be trying to kill him?

"I'd like that," Ben conceded.

"Then let's go have breakfast," Mahdi resolved, heavily.

He was doing nothing wrong. He did not reach for Ben's hand, as Ben had reached for his in the early hours of the other morning. He would feed him a proper meal and send him home to bed.

Mahdi lived in a flat accessed by four storeys of cramped stairs. But the walls were solid and asides from muddy boot prints there was no evidence indoors of the heavy rain that had fallen overnight. The windows, protected by metallic grates, were intact and the wind howled outside without corresponding rattles in the interior. It was scarcely warmer inside than out but it was the most solid, most permanent building that Korkie had set foot in since he had lost his own home.

Mahdi opened a heavy door with some mumbled apology about "a bit of a mess." Korkie followed him into a simple kitchen with an enormous, tarnished pot upon an old gas stove and a small table cluttered with pieces of flimsi, small glass bottles filled with colourful liquids, scattered dried herbs and flowers, and a plate scattered with toast crumbs. In the corner lay a mattress and quilt and a carefully folded pile of clothes. At the table sat a diminutive, round-faced version of Mahdi, who looked up with interest from the plate where he had been picking at the remains of his breakfast.

"Who's that?"

Mahdi glanced at Korkie with some caution.

"My friend Ben," he answered, after a moment's consideration. "I promised him a good breakfast. Do we still have some stew left?"

The boy nodded.

"You cooked enough of that to kill us, Mahdi."

"Kill you? How? Death by good nutrition?"

"Death by blandness," the boy answered. "Are you sure you want to feed it to your friend?"

"I'd love some," Korkie volunteered hurriedly.

He hadn't had a home-cooked meal since Ryloth.

"If there's enough," he added.

"Ben, there is more than enough," the boy declared. "Don't you worry about it. Hey, did your boss like the new drinks, Mahdi?"

"Yeah," Mahdi answered without enthusiasm, already arming himself with a bowel and ladle to prepare Korkie's stew. "He did."

"And so is he giving you a raise?"

Mahdi grimaced.

"No."

The boy cursed beneath his breath – an impressive string of words for a child who looked to be aged in the single digits.

"Maybe he didn't like it," the boy proposed. "Maybe he just said he did. Maybe your cocktails are as bland as your-"

"Shut up, Riyan."

Mahdi bundled the bowel of stew into the reheater with more vehemence than was probably necessary.

"I've not got a raise because boss hasn't got enough money to give me a raise," Mahdi explained. "And I know it gets a bit boring eating all this poor food, Riyan, but you could be a little more grateful that you're not one of the thousands of kids in this city going hungry."

He swept the scattered pieces of flimsi into a pile and clattered the plate into the sink. Riyan watched his brother's cleaning efforts with disinterred.

"You left the alcohol out," he pointed out. "All night."

Mahdi snatched up the vials and packed them onto a high shelf.

"I take it you've not drunk any, Riyan?"

"Nope. Alcohol makes you stupid."

"Agreed," Mahdi sighed. "But it also keeps our family fed."

Riyan shrugged.

"I'm going to make some money today."

Mahdi cocked a brow.

"At school?"

Riyan snorted.

"School doesn't help you make money, Mahdi. Jez and I had a better idea. We're going to go to the ports and tell people that we'll guard their ships from thieves and vandals if they pay us some money."

Mahdi looked uncertain whether to be amused or appalled.

"Who's going to pay to nine-year-olds to guard their ship, Riyan?"

"Word will get out fast," Riyan declared. "The people who don't take up our offer will find damage on their vehicles."

Mahdi settled on appalled.

"That's criminal, Riyan. I'm not letting you do that."

"You have to go to sleep at some point today," Riyan pointed out smugly.

Mahdi sighed.

"Is that what Mum would have wanted for you, Riyan? Star's sakes. You're not starving to death. There's no kriffing need…"

"Chill out, Mahdi. It's not like I'm selling smokes like Pax and his friends."

"This," Mahdi grumbled beneath his breath, as he pressed the bowel of reheated stew into Korkie's hands, "is why doing adult things does not automatically make you an adult."

Korkie scowled at the comparison.

"I'm not a nine-year-old selling smokes!"

But he was unable to stay irritated for long. He settled down into the chair Mahdi had pulled out for him, a steaming bowl of vegetable stew in his hands. Neither Korkie nor Kawlan had any inclination for cooking. They got by on nutrient gels, Yagai dindra, and if they felt like putting in a great deal of effort, dried noodles boiled in flavour-sachet broth.

"You seriously don't like this, Riyan?"

Mahdi snorted.

"The young brat still remembers when we used to be able to afford meat twice a week."

"And when we had a mum who could actually cook," Riyan contributed morosely.

Mahdi sighed but softened, laying a hand on his brother's shoulder.

"Mum would want you to go to school today. I'll walk you there myself, if I have to. You're not going to the port."

"But you have to sleep!"

"I can wait an hour," Mahdi resolved. "Speaking of which, go get Lana out of bed. She needs to go too."

Riyan brightened at being allocated this task, which presumably afforded him an opportunity to harass his sister, and disappeared from the kitchen with a spring in his step.

"It's alright?" Mahdi asked, in the ensuing silence, coming to stand by Korkie.

Korkie was slow to answer. Mahdi's close presence beside him overwhelmed his weary mind. He just wanted Mahdi to reach out and touch him. His body ached for him.

"Riyan's probably right. It is bland. I like simple flavours. I could probably eat this every day for the rest of my life. But that doesn't mean I can't make a good cocktail. Riyan's talking bantha-shit. A raise was never of the cards. I never should have let him think it was. I…"

Mahdi was rambling with a gentle nervousness that could only have come from their being alone together. The thought buoyed Korkie's spirit immensely.

"It's the best breakfast I've ever had, Mahdi."

And he meant it, even though he'd been fed breakfast from the royal kitchen on Mandalore.

"I'm really grateful, you know."

Mahdi's hand moved then from the back of Korkie's chair and onto his shoulder. Korkie's breath caught.

And then, a shriek.

"Riyan!"

Lana, presumably. Mahdi jumped back and cleared his throat.

"Riyan, I told you to wake her, not terrorise her," he called. "Come back here and wash your breakfast dishes, please. And I'm putting soup in the re-heater for you, Lana. It'll be hot in two minutes so you'd better be out of bed to eat it."

Korkie snorted.

"No wonder you insist you're too old for me, Mahdi. You parent like a weary nursemaid."

Mahdi's cheeks flushed a faint pink despite the deep olive of his skin.

"Riyan has taken twenty years off my life expectancy," he grumbled, in reluctant humour.

The culprit skipped back into the kitchen and embarked on a half-hearted dish-washing effort. Lana, her eyes still bleary with sleep, padded in shortly afterwards.

"Who are you?"

"Ben," Korkie answered, before Mahdi could. "Mahdi's friend."

"He's your age, Lana," Mahdi contributed tritely. "You'll get along."

Korkie scowled into his soup. Lana quirked a brow, amused.

"I hope you didn't bring him home in an effort to marry me off and save some money like grandma always advocated."

"I wouldn't condemn you to that, Lana," Mahdi reassured her. "Ben's not got any money."

"And no sense of taste," Riyan contributed. "He likes the stew."

"Stop whinging about the stew, Riyan," Lana warned.

"Can you promise me you'll walk our beloved brat all the way to class today please, Lana?" Mahdi posed. "He's got the most appalling idea in his head that he's going to quit school at the ripe age of nine-standard and make his money as a thug vandalising ships and blackmailing pilots at the port."

"You're a little shit, Riyan," Lana informed her brother. "Sure thing, Mahdi. No worries. I've got him. You go to bed, okay?"

"Thanks, Lana."

"Does no one realise that school is useless?" Riyan appealed. "A university degree only gets you a job working for the Empire these days and I'm not ever-"

"No one's asking you to work for the Empire, Riyan," Mahdi intoned, grasping his brother by the shoulders. "You know we don't want that. I'm just asking you to learn to read and write and do some maths. You need to be able to get some sort of non-criminal job."

"Come on, Prince Riyan," Lana beckoned, having drained her bowl of stew at impressive pace. "Let's go. School time for us."

As Lana dragged her younger brother out of the door, Korkie could not help but look at the teenager with faint wonder. In another life, he'd still be going to school, dressed in Academy blue. There were so many things he was yet to study. So much more that his parents had wanted him to learn. Constitutional law and Halmadi and calculus. He'd not even learned kriffing calculus. Not that he knew exactly what it was for. But it was something an educated adult was supposed to know. And instead all of Korkie's lessons these days were learned in the streets, in the shipyards. In the scars that adorned his body.

Then the door to the apartment clunked closed and Korkie was alone with Mahdi again and he promptly forgot all about his educational shortcomings. He forgot about everything. His mind was filled by the beautiful young man who had touched his shoulder and somehow set his whole chest on fire. The silence around them was strange and wonderful.

"Are you going to eat?" Korkie ventured. "I hope you're not going hungry on my behalf."

"No. I ate at the club before I left. I eat as many meals at work as I can manage."

"Clever."

Mahdi's nerves, apparent in the Force and which had earlier brought Korkie such a rush of excitement, seemed contagious now. He wolfed down the rest of his stew before the fluttering in his stomach could destroy his appetite entirely. Where there had been a ravenous hunger there now swelled a heavy exhaustion. And something else, stirring deeper. He pleaded silently for Mahdi not to send him home.

After so many minutes of silence, they spoke inexplicably in the same breath.

"Thank you again. I've really not had a meal like that since-"

"You've got glitter in your hair, you idiot."

And Korkie had no chance at all to finish what he was going to say because Mahdi's hand was in his hair, his fingers gently parting his curls, nails working delicately to comb the glitter out. Korkie could only bury his face in his hands to muffle the low groan that was perhaps bliss or relief or exhaustion – probably all of that and more – which escaped his lips.

Kriff. After all of his efforts, he was melting apart under the simplest touch. And Mahdi would see him and know that perhaps he was right after all and Korkie was truly just a homeless, hopeless, lovesick kid.

"You're tired, Ben," Mahdi murmured.

He hadn't recoiled yet. He was still finding glitter, presumably. Korkie hoped there was enough to keep them there an age. All day. Korkie could have sat there all day just like that.

"What have you been up to the past few days?"

"Work," Korkie managed. "Had to travel. I'm a bit behind on sleep."

His face was in his hands still. He felt as though the sheer adoration he felt would radiate like a beacon – like the faces in the stained glass windows of the palace in Sundari – and disgrace him.

But he'd told Mahdi, hadn't he, the night that they first met? He'd told him that he loved him. Mahdi already knew that he was pathetic.

And yet here they were. Together.

"I'm not going to be able to get all of this out in a hundred years," Mahdi declared.

His hands dropped from Korkie's hair and came to rest upon his shoulders, at the base of his neck. Korkie lifted a hand to meet Mahdi's. And they were frozen in stillness and silence once again.

"Two all-nighters and work trip this week?" Mahdi ventured eventually, voice strained. "I think you'd best get to bed, Ben. You're well overdue."

Korkie sighed and steadied himself. He didn't know what to do, blast it. It was one thing to read all that emotion and all those unsaid words swirling in the Force around them and another matter entirely to know what to actually do.

Oh, kark it. He'd give it a go.

Korkie rose to stand and turned to face Mahdi, almost knocking over the chair that reared between them. Kriff's sakes. Mahdi would think he'd never done this before, some stupid kid who didn't even know how to coordinate a-

Mahdi's hands on Korkie's shoulders stopped him short.

"Ben," he pleaded. "I told you. We can't…"

Korkie leaned on the back of the chair, crestfallen.

"I'm sorry. I just…"

"I know."

There was something consoling in the way he said it, in the heavy depth of his understanding. Mahdi knew that Korkie adored him and knew that he wanted to hold his face and kiss him and he knew that perhaps because he felt some of it himself. But he had his own (senseless) set of moral standards and far better self-control that Korkie could boast.

"As I said," Mahdi murmured, dropping his hands from Korkie's shoulders. "You need-"

"Some sleep. I know."

Korkie picked up his empty bowel and spoon and brought them over to the sink where the rushing of the water might be able to fill the silence of his shame.

"I'd offer you my bed to sleep on but it's objectively the worst in the house," Mahdi told him, gesturing to the mattress on the kitchen floor. "Prince Riyan decided that if Lana was getting her own bedroom, he needed his own bedroom too."

Korkie tried to stifle his relief. He'd presumed he was being kicked out.

"I'm a younger brother myself," Korkie told him. "I get it."

Mahdi laughed.

"Checks out."

The levity faded from his face then, as he perhaps realised the gaping absence of such a figure from Korkie's solitary, nomadic life.

"Your siblings, are they-"

"Just one," Korkie answered. "My brother. Half-brother, I guess. He's a lot older than me. Don't worry. He didn't die, or anything horrible."

Which of course wasn't true; something horrible had indeed happened to Anakin.

"He lives off-planet," Korkie went on. "He's got his own kids."

"And no room to look after you?"

Korkie shook his head.

"Enough room. I lived with them for a few months. But I don't need looking after. I left. I wanted to work, you know? He's a dad and a farmer on a remote property. I had to travel if I wanted to find anything interesting to do."

Mahdi looked to be pondering a number of questions that he was not quite willing to voice. It was obvious to Korkie that he couldn't understand, or perhaps didn't approve of, Korkie's decision to move away.

"What do you do for work?"

"Uh… I'm self-employed," Korkie decided. "Boring stuff. Mainly freighting."

Stars. Mahdi would think he was a kriffing spice runner.

"Well, you're welcome to have a sleep in Riyan's room, if you'd like. He has a much nicer bed than he deserves."

He faltered.

"I mean, I understand if you'd prefer to get back to your own bed. You just really do look completely exhausted. And your place is a pretty long walk from here."

Korkie rubbed at his eyes and hoped that completely exhausted did not mean unattractive.

"I guess… I'll have a sleep here if you'll have me."

"Of course."

Mahdi gestured down the hall.

"That's Riyan's room there on the left. And there's a 'fresher on the right if you wanted to wash the glitter out."

Korkie managed a laugh.

"If I wanted to wash the sweat and smoke and spilled drinks off, you mean? I must smell revolting."

Mahdi shrugged.

"Maybe. But I think I'm immune to the smell of the club. I don't perceive it."

"Lucky for me."

Korkie clattered his clean dishes onto the drying rack and gave Mahdi a cautious smile as he plodded past him on his way to inspect the 'fresher. It was nothing fancy but it would be blissful to be able to stand fully upright and have room to move his arms – which was more than could be said for the said excuse of a 'fresher aboard his ship – as he washed the grime away.

"You want to go first?" he offered Mahdi.

"Nah. I'll have a shower when I wake up in the evening, before I go back to work. You go."

He rummaged in a cupboard and tossed Korkie a worn but clean towel. Korkie took a few steps in the direction of the shower, then paused.

He'd already disgraced himself today. He might as well lean into it.

"You sure you don't want to join me?" he offered. "Save some hot water?"

Mahdi appraised him with a scowl, but not without a faint blush.

"No," he articulated firmly. "I won't."

But, as Korkie consoled himself within his cocoon of running water, Mahdi had not exactly answered the question as it had been asked. He'd never said that he didn't want to.

Mahdi chewed at a piece of Riyan's discarded burnt toast alone in the kitchen and hoped it would knock some kriffing sense into him. What in the hells did he think he was doing? It was one thing to admire those golden curls from behind the bar and another thing entirely to reach out and touch him. The glitter glinted on his fingertips. It felt like evidence of a karking crime.

It probably was a crime. Seventeen-kriffing-standard…

He pulled his boots from his feet and lay down on his pallet. He'd normally crash into sleep so quickly he would forget how he even got there. But instead he listened to the water of the 'fresher. Ben was humming some tune Mahdi didn't recognise.

He should have walked Riyan to school. He should have sent Ben to sleep in his own bed. He should never have pointed out the glitter. He should never have brought him home to begin with.

He was the stupidest twenty-standard-year-old in the whole damned galaxy.

Korkie collapsed into Riyan's bed – surely twice the size of Mahdi's pallet in the kitchen – and wrestled with the fatigue surging upwards and making heavy his head. Alone in the house with Mahdi. Freshly showered, no less. He should be getting up. Returning to the kitchen. Trying again, without the blasted chair in the way.

But Mahdi was perhaps wiser than he had given himself credit for. Korkie was truly kriffing exhausted. He fell asleep before his imagination could even begin to rehearse how he would get that reattempted kiss exactly right.

"And you just walked out of there?"

Kawlan was sitting beside their best-loved freighter, cackling with laughter, spanner discarded.

"The man gave you breakfast, a shower and a bed and then you just left without a single bit of romance?"

"He was sleeping!" Korkie insisted. "I couldn't wake him, Kawlan. He has to go to work again tonight. And really, I don't think he wanted me to stick around and bother him any longer. I'd overstayed my welcome."

Kawlan shook his head, his body quaking with laughter still.

"You are an idiot, my young friend. Mahdi did not platonically invite you into his home."

Korkie, who had returned from his escapades flushed and restless, protested with beaming sincerity.

"He did, Kawlan. He feels sorry for me. Because I told him about how I don't really have a home or a family anymore. He probably thinks of me like some stray mooka-pup."

Kawlan finally managed to rise to his feet and regard his young companion properly.

"Firstly, I'm offended that you told him you don't have a home or family."

"I said I don't really have-"

"And secondly, you're an idiot."

"You already said that."

Kawlan grinned and handed Korkie a second spanner.

"Come help me take this panel off."

The teenager complied, rubbing at his still bleary eyes. It was obviously to Kawlan, lacking Korkie's strange telepathy though he did, that his mind was still far from the task before him.

"I didn't mean to be rude, or anything," Korkie mumbled, as they worked. "I left a note."

Kawlan had quietly resolved to stop bullying the poor kid. But he could not help but laugh again.

"A note!"

Korkie grimaced and scrambled to defend himself.

"Saying thank you. And that I enjoyed the breakfast."

"How cordial."

"And that I looked forward to seeing him again sometime."

"Good."

"And that his shower really was spacious enough for two."

Kawlan tossed back his head and laughed again.

"Ha! You don't need my advice after all. You've got it covered. Let's just hope his little brother doesn't find the note."

Korkie flushed his deepest shade of burgundy yet.

"I didn't think of that."

Kawlan gave him a reassuring pat on the back.

"Don't fret. It'll be a funny story to tell at the wedding."

What I wouldn't give for Korkie's confidence.

This was a longer chapter than I meant to write - apologies. First love is never very slick or efficient.

The good news is that I can promise a return to some actual plot next chapter. We find our - in part - what Mace has been up to.

xx - S.