Lorash picked up the bowl of food for Seia and took a deep breath. The sith had not emerged from her room even after dinner. Her dark emotions still battered at Lorash's serenity if the jedi padawan tried sensing, so Lorash had stopped trying. It would be easier to talk to her without engaging with the Dark Side within her, if possible.

"Good luck," Eso said with an encouraging, if slightly doubtful smile. "If she gives you too much grief, just, uh, run back here."

"Will do," Lorash promised. She turned and headed for Seia's room, steaming bowl in one hand and a mug of water in the other.

The door to Seia's room was closed, but it opened when Lorash went to knock, heat spilling out in a wave. The sith sat not on the floor, but on the edge of her bunk with the krayt dragon pearl in her hands.

The jedi padawan advanced nervously. "I brought you dinner."

Seia looked up abruptly. "I am not hungry."

"You should eat, Seia," Lorash said as she held out the bowl. It felt like dangling a piece of meat towards a wounded rancor. Seia was unpredictable at the best of times, at least as far as the padawan was concerned.

The sith warrior took the bowl, but set it on the bedside table instead of eating it. "Your feat today was more than I expected you to be capable of yet. You should take pride in your accomplishment."

"Do you want to talk about Yaikâ?" Lorash asked gently.

Seia hissed at the sound of his name, an expression of bone deep pain. For a long moment, she held her silence like a wall.

The padawan softened her expression and her voice. "Please."

"Do not overtax my patience, jedi." The rasp in Seia's voice sounded worse than ever before and those beskar eyes glared a hole in the wall. "You would not enjoy the outcome."

Lorash could take a hint. She hunted around through her endless array of questions about the sith for something that wouldn't set Seia off. "So you cook."

Seia sighed, but it seemed less hostile. "A fact that you have benefited from."

"You're pretty good at it. That's not what I was expecting." Lorash pushed a little, trying to find something that would defuse Seia further.

"I imagine you were expecting me to rip your head off and drink your blood for sustenance," Seia said, an edge to the words that might have been sarcasm. It was harsh and biting, but slowly, the muscles of her shoulders relaxed as she buried her pain again.

"I was trying to give you a compliment, Seia."

"I am aware." Seia sighed, running her fingers through her hair. Once she'd smoothed herself out again, she picked up the bowl of food. "I see the wookie cooked in my stead."

Lorash blinked in surprise. Seia had seemed completely involved in her own thoughts. Had she still sensed the entire time? "How'd you know?"

Seia plucked a long wookie hair out of her stir fry and held it up for Lorash's inspection. "His hair is wavier than yours."

"Is that the real reason you didn't want to eat?" Lorash asked. It was a dumb joke, but she said it anyway.

Seia raised an eyebrow at her, but the tempest in the Force around her seemed to ease by another degree.

"Sorry," Lorash said sheepishly. "I'm not known for jokes."

A ghost of a smirk curled on Seia's lips. "You're a jedi, aren't you?"

"And what is that supposed to mean?" Lorash demanded. It gave her a little hope to see Seia amused by something, even if it was coming at her own expense.

"That you are a joke, on a cosmic scale," the Sith said, the smirk becoming a little more obvious. "And dense too, it would appear."

Lorash sighed heavily. "You know, I'm beginning to understand why the Sith have no friends, including each other."

Seia laughed, clearly surprising herself as much as Lorash. It was a sudden, bright sound that only lasted for a moment, but it raised Lorash's hopes almost exponentially. The Force in the room seemed to calm even more, like ripples receding across the surface of a pond. Seia shook her head slightly. "That was a good one."

Lorash smiled. "You really should eat, you know. You're going to have to beat me into the ground tomorrow morning. That takes energy."

"Less than you'd think," Seia said, picking up her fork. She ate methodically and carefully, on the hunt for any other stray wookie fur.

That comment sobered Lorash slightly. "I believe you. I don't think Dren is going to just walk that one off."

"He will recover and seek vengeance. I doubt his master will kill him for failing, he seemed more competent than the other. Better that he continue in his training and let his hatred strengthen him. At least, if this Inquisitor Zul has any sense."

"Master Vori seemed to think Zul's as dangerous as Lord Vader, though nowhere near as powerful. His schemes are like nets that not even minnows could slip through."

"Then such a painless escape means either his apprentices were not acting under his orders or your Master Vori vastly overestimates his cunning." Seia picked away at her food between sentences, clearly not objecting to Yyrfhojarrr's cooking.

Lorash shifted uncomfortably. "I trust Master Vori's wisdom."

Seia shrugged a little and finished her mouthful. "It seems most likely that his apprentices were acting on their own. One does not earn a title like inquisitor by bungling things."

"And neither of them were expecting to catch the wrong end of a powerful Sith." Lorash sighed slightly. "Not a mistake they're going to make twice, probably."

"Both will remember me with clarity," Seia said thoughtfully. "It is only a matter of time before a proper warrant is issued for me as well, this time with an accurate image. Even if Szorda Zul wishes his apprentices to compete for my head, he will want to make it harder for us to do his plans harm. The easiest way of doing so is making our lives more difficult."

"Then we may have to join this rebellion Eso mentioned, or at least hope they help us," Lorash said.

Seia shook her head. "We will draw too much attention for any cause striving to work in secret, like those on the supply chain. We would have to go to an active place of conflict, and they would not be likely to trust me. You would be fortunate if they trusted you, having been around me."

Lorash grimaced. "That's probably true. So what do we do?"

"We stay in the ship's smuggling compartments while Eso makes his deal, then go to Naboo as quickly as possible. The shrine where the holocron belongs is in a remote area. We will only need permission to touch down, and the kind of credits Eso is about to bring in will make many eyes turn blind."

"That was a long time ago, Seia. That area of Naboo is probably well developed now." Lorash's eyes turned towards Seia's bag where the holocron stayed. That was when she caught sight of the two bags that Seia had brought in just before the deal that had gone so badly. "What did you buy, anyway?"

"Armor for you," Seia said. "You will learn to wear it. Even those perfect in their mastery of sense can miscalculate, and the consequences of such mistakes can be lessened by armor. At least against blaster fire."

Lorash sighed. "I'm not a warrior, Seia."

The sith warrior narrowed her eyes. "That was not a request or a suggestion. I would remind you that my patience for repeating myself is exceedingly thin."

Lorash wanted to argue, but her instincts stopped her. This was a lesson Seia was imparting, and without knowing how, Lorash knew it had its roots in pain.

Did she not make Yaikâ wear armor?

"No," Seia said out loud, rising to her feet with her bowl in hand. "I thought that I was his armor."

Lorash's heart twisted in her chest at the emptiness in Seia's tone. No amount of anger would make that hole in Seia's soul go away. If anything, the way the sith had probably salted her own wound had left it a permanent fixture. The jedi stood up as well and went over to the two bags, unpacking the pieces methodically while Seia took her bowl up to the kitchen.

By the time the sith returned, Lorash had all the pieces pulled out and was examining them with interest.

Seia cleared her throat to announce her return. "No questions?"

"I've never worn armor before, Seia. All I have is questions," Lorash said, focused intently on the different fastenings.

"That wasn't what I meant." The intensity of rasp in her voice removed any potential doubt about the subject.

Lorash pulled in a deep breath. She was surprised to say the least, but she wasn't going to shut Seia down either. "When I…felt him, he didn't feel dark."

"No, I imagine not," Seia said, picking up the first piece of armor. She motioned for Lorash to stand and set to work putting the armor on the jedi as they spoke, avoiding eye contact. "He was an anomaly, a pure-blooded Sith born with a strong affinity for the Light Side. His parents meant to kill him when they realized his nature" Her lip curled with contempt. "I corrected course and killed them instead. Utter fools. He was already more powerful as an toddler than many apprentices at the Academy."

Lorash stayed still, letting Seia buckle the armor together. "But you didn't try to turn him to the Dark Side?"

"How could I hurt him, this fragile little thing that squeaked and cooed and wrapped his tiny, little fingers around mine?" Seia asked quietly. "And then he grew, climbing me like a tree and playing with my hair. He looked at me like I was the sun up in the sky. How could I hurt him?"

Lorash felt the prickle of tears in her own eyes at the thought of Seia's loss. "I'm sorry."

"Empty platitudes cannot wake the dead," Seia said bitterly as she snapped the last armored plate into place. "Nor do tears. All that matters is that the one who did it is dead by my hand, cut into pieces and rendered to hateful ash."

The jedi padawan knew better than to give her sympathy again. "Thank you for telling me about him, Seia. Even a little." She rolled her shoulders, trying to adjust to the feeling of armor.

"How does it feel?"

"Lighter than your weights," Lorash said, trying to lighten the atmosphere slightly for both their sakes. "It feels…ungainly. Like, it's not hard to move, but I can't move as freely."

"It will get a little better as you adjust and break the armor in, but yes, that is something you will have to adjust to. We can discuss how armor will modify your footwork in the morning." Seia quickly undid the buckles, helping Lorash remove the armor. "And we'll need to have you practice with getting it on and taking it off."

"Seia?" Lorash waited until the sith actually met her eyes to say what she was thinking. "Thank you. It's a very thoughtful gift."

Seia shrugged. "Take it with you. It is cluttering up my quarters. Now, if that is all, I would like to get some sleep."

Lorash stuffed the pieces back into the two bags and picked them up. "Have a good night, Seia."

The sith offered up no response except a curt nod as Lorash left her room.