Pov: Muja
It was hard not to think of the girl as an insect when she'd first arrived in Syra’s halls. The estate was an oppressive thing- like some python draping its fat, coiling body over the Zygerrian landscape. It was enough to make anyone look insignificant, but something about the small, skittish, afraid-of-her-own-shadow creature before Muja felt particularly microscopic. If the girl wasn't careful she'd find herself squashed into the carpet and forgotten about.
So Muja did what she could.
The twi'lek wasn't the girl's mother. She'd made that distinction perfectly clear, only teaching her enough to survive- how to polish silver, how to fit a bed sheet, how to bow your head without losing it. She'd never asked the girl where she came from, but the lingering cough and aversion to small spaces was enough of a tell. The mines were an ugly place to grow up and she sometimes worried she made a mistake in taking pity on her. That she'd poured too much passion and hope into a hollow shell of girl until there remained nothing but ambition. Time passed and she could see those eyes entertaining dangerous thoughts. Freedom. Vengeance. The kind of thinking which burned down buildings and spilled blood.
"Muja?" The girl asked. Older now, harsher like bubbling lava. Her hair was cut down to her ears in a sharp, even bob and the twi'lek couldn't help but admire her handiwork. Perhaps next time she'd go shorter.
"Hm?" Muja polished a spoon against her skirt before setting it down. Syra was hosting a banquet tonight and then spent the majority of the day on preparations.
"We're expecting a delivery of wine later, yes?"
Muja looked up at the girl, silent for a moment. She found herself wanting to plant both hands around the girl’s face to force her to look at the scarred remnants of her own. To ask is this what you want? To shake the hate, and ambition, and every other violent impulse from her body. But then what would be left?
"Yes, I believe so."
—————————
Muja was dead and Capris was a murderer.
The girl fought for every step, rapid inhales taking her further out as she peeled through dark streets. She'd only ever been to this shipyard during the daytime running an errand or two for the estate, now it felt like entirely too much ground to cover. But Muja had told her to run fast, and so she did. Muja had also told her not to poison the wine, or to steal the silverware, or to do something remarkably stupid.
She willed the thoughts away, fingers tightening around a spoon whittled down to a sharp point. Murder was a lot uglier than she'd thought it would be. She'd dreamed about it if she was being honest. Muja had gotten stories of Jedi knights and Masters stuck in her head until all she could think about was some white knight lasering through the halls of the estate like disemboweling a beast. It was much harder to accomplish the same with a piece of silverware she'd learned. Still, she'd managed to do some damage. They'd find three guards bleeding out and her bed empty. Syra's skull might have been thick, but even she could piece it together, and this time Muja wasn't there to shield her.
"Hey you!"
Panic surged through her veins. The guard went to grab her wrist, and she kicked viciously at their shins like a fox in a trap until she was reunited with the ground. The victory was short lived as the crate next to her was reduced to splinters by a crackle of electricity. Capris willed her body to move fast enough to avoid the same fate, but fire still spread across her face the next moment, skin stripped down to rivets of blood. A hand ghosted over the damage almost in disbelief, scared eyes looking up as the guard readied for a far more punishing strike. Her hands reached out in a futile attempt block, eyes squeezed shut. When she opened them again, she found the guard with a chest pierced on the hook of a shipping container, kicking away the sand at their feet. She scrambled to her feet, like a baby deer trying to stand, unable to make sense of the scene before her.
And then she ran.
Two fingers pulled the discolored skin on her cheek taut, masking the y-shaped scar scoring her face for a moment. It didn't help to make her look any less serrated, but it was nice to play pretend -something Capris was finding herself exceptionally good at nowadays. She imagined him trying the same and, like always, that trifling nauseous which attached itself to every thought of Kyric forced her away from the mirror and back to the cockpit. Thinking of him was like picking at a scab. Inevitable, slightly painful, and definitely self sabotaging.
Her shoulders slumped down in unison as her body found an open space on the floor. Tired eyes scanned the papers at her feet for the umpteenth time as if there was any possibility of change. She'd spent the few last weeks hunched over star maps, connecting strings with pintacks, crossing out system after system with a fat red X -and yet she was no closer to finding Caspian. No closer to preventing the inevitable. She hugged her knees to her chest and rested her head atop. That kind of thinking was getting her nowhere. The bounty hunter had to face the fact her only path forward was through Sinestra. But he was making it difficult to moralize that conclusion.
She couldn't begin to understand why her mind decided to invent all it had. To get her so invested it this fictional white knight and his fictional injury to the point she could practically feel the homicidal protectiveness blistering inside her.. As if she could just get her hands on whoever hurt him, she'd break every bone in their goddamn body and-
Capris sighed, pinched the bridge of her nose and recalibrated. She was lonely. He gave her attention. And now her mind was running a false narrative. Kyric was just some pretty thing to occupy her dreams and distract from the reality all she had to wake up to was an an empty ship. To convince her the impending doom which stuck to her like a leech every day and night wasn't terminal. He was impossibly good. Impossibly forgiving. A pillar of virtues that made her painfully aware of every deficit that existed within herself. Every way she failed to measure up. Every way she'd disappoint if he ever did peel back the layers to her selfish, corrosive soul. And a part of her did very much wanted him to try.
You'd choose pretty eyes over your own blood?
The girl winced at the intensity of her inner voice. Caspian's death had felt as real as any of her other dreams, and he was something verifiable. The only actual thing she could trust in. Kyric on the other hand.. Her eyes stared at some distant point for a moment, as if depleted of all life. There would be no going back after this. And if this somehow wasn't enough to snap whatever thread had been drawn between them, she'd find some other way to gnaw it half. And then they'd finally be rid of each other. And then he would learn to hate her the way he should.
♪
