Bad Life Choice or Best Life Choice?

[Tengiz]

"Are you sure that's him?"

"Yeah, yeah, look, I gotta holo."

"And this'll work?"

"Yeah, yeah man c'mon, you're not turning yellow now are you? He don' know we're coming, we scrag him, we're in with the Sun's, for sure. They hate these guys."

"He's big."

"He's all by himself and we have the guns, now c'mon!"

That was probably a good conversation to just go on pretending she hadn't heard, the Nautolan reflected, looking very intensely in a shop window and pointedly not looking at the Devaronian and the skinny human as they entered a cantina just ahead of her. Would probably be a good idea to just keep on walking, maybe even turn around. Hail a cab. But. Well, it wasn't every day you got to see a shoot-out was it? And maybe she could figure out who their target was and warn him. Y'know, if there was no chance of her skin being on the line by doing so. If it was going to put her in danger, well, sorry buddy, thrilling heroics were great but numero uno came first.

So, since there'd been no screaming or shots yet, the Nautolan let herself into the cantina. It wasn't a total dive, but it definitely wasn't first class either. It was the kind of place you went to pay average credits for decent product and be left alone. People probably didn't break the furniture over each others heads here very often. This shoot-out might be a first.

Suddenly a crackle-hiss-hum sort of noise split the air, her first impression before her head turned to find the source was that it was oddly layered. Which made sense once she did look, since there were three glowing blades of light. Two were being wielded by a giant of a zabrak who'd just used them to slice the devaronian into three mostly equal pieces. The third was floating by itself after giving the skinny guy a fatally close haircut.

Deactivating the blades, the Zabrak held out his hand in an entirely casual manner and a glass on the bar flew to him, so of course he took a drink before turning back to what she could only imagine was his recently vacated seat at the bar.

Well.

That was...

That was something all right.

Flee? Was fleeing the correct response? He didn't seem to be giving off angry vibes though, and to be fair those thugs had come in here to kill him. Killing people back seemed like the correct response really. Plus all the stuff floating around. This wasn't water. This was air. Stuff did not just float through air. That did not happen.

What was one more bad life choice in the grand scheme of things?

So she sidled up beside him. And having thought about it long and hard on the few second walk over there, stepping carefully over the body bits, she was silent for a moment before looking up at him (quite far up) and opening her mouth.

"So uh.. You just, you just floated things around. Like, with nothing touching them. That's impossible. I think you just broke physics."

She paused again before getting to the important part.

"Can you do it again?"

[member="Daxton Bane"]

 

[Daxton Bane]

[member="Tengiz"]

Daxton's drink paused a few inches from his lips as his eyes gazed upon the creature at just asked the question. Although his blood was running wild and strong from recent combat, he resisted he urge to snap back with a witty retort. After all it was a fair question and one the teacher in him acknowledged was an important one.

"Perhaps I can." He replied rather cooly, as he lifted the creature and its seat into the airway hour any warning at all. "simply a question of mind over matter. My question to you is can you fly?" a smile curled his lips as he quaffed the drink while the ceiling rapidly closed in on the curious ones head.

 

[Tengiz]

Oh boy, she wasn't quite sure whether this was terrifying or fantastic, but she was leaning towards fantastic, even if she did have a white knuckle grip on her stool. She was resisting the urge to let go and see if she could in fact swim about. It was clearly him doing it, and she'd go where he decided, she'd probably just look a bit silly. Besides, what if he was only floating the chair and she fell off? I mean it wasn't that far, but this was neat! It was a bit like zero-g, but without the knowledge that your gravity generator had broken and you were on a shit ship and likely going to die. Granted the ceiling was getting awfully close. She leaned back a bit, giving herself an extra few inches before impact.

"Werl, prior to this I'da said no. Awfully good at falling though!"

Mind over matter huh? So he floated things with his brain.. And he'd used a floating glow-sword to kill a dude. Which meant he killed people with his brain. That was so cool it almost stopped being intimidating!

"So, I met other Zabraks before, and I feel like if they coulda done this they woulda, and they definitely did not. So it's not a species thing. Ooo, are you genetically engineered or sommat?"

By now she was pretty much lying completely back over the stool to avoid the ceiling.

[member="Daxton Bane"]

 

[Daxton Bane]

[member="Tengiz"]

The chair paused just before it could brush her head against the ceiling, before slowly lowering again until it touched the ground. "Something like that. We can have you tested to see if you hold the potential to do that or perhaps any number of gifts." Using his mind he formed a tentacle of force to grasp the bottle off from the table and pour the amber liquid into a glass before floating to his guest. "Of course, if you pass, I can teach you a trick or two."

 

[Tengiz]

No collisions, hurrah! This was shaping up to be basically the best day ever, much better than that one time she'd tried to take a beach vacation.. Where had she left that one kid again? Hrr, thoughts for another day, when she felt like being reponsible, right now, busy! She sat upright again as the chair lowered, giving her room to safely do so. The small part of her brain that actually analyzed and thought about things in a logical fashion noticed the control he displayed in the slow, even lowering. Her already large seemingly black eyes widened as he spoke, swirling with glee.

"I will do all of the tests!"

Tengiz gingerly accepted the glass out of the air. Not certain if it would suddenly be dropped, if her fingers would encounter resistance or what. This was a grand day of discovery! While always enthusiastic, the Nautolan did not always approach people she did not know, but this had been too neat to pass up, and it was paying off in spades. Learn to float about? Yessir, definitely game!

"Really? You would?"

Her face switched from incredulous amazement to what she hoped was super serious. It felt serious from the inside anyway.

"I am really good at learning things. Some of my tutors have said I'm too frivolous and such, but I am really, super good at learning. I know like.. A lot of languages, as, as an example. Not that languages and breaking physics are necessarily related but. Um. It was an example, of application. And, yus."

Oooh, oh, that thing was happening. With the words and the not stopping. Whoops. She hastily took a sip from the glass, managing to not choke, but flushing an interesting shade of purple. It was stronger than expected!

[member="Daxton Bane"]

 

[Daxton Bane]

[member="Tengiz"]

Pouring her another glass, he raised his own in toast. "To new beginnings. Tell me young one what is your name? After all I can't very well take you as an apprentice without a proper introduction."

 

[Tengiz]

An Apprentice, so cool! Eeeeee! Oh boys though, another glass, best be careful. The Nautolan did not actual drink all that much as a general rule, and when she did it was usually cheaper stuff than this, with a much lower alcohol content. Still, it was only polite, so she clinked her glass to his.

"Tengiz, I'm Tengiz, nice t'meet you. I'm uh, not being rude, my family doesn't do surnames. Sorry."

This was sometimes a problem. Humans usually had family names, when they didn't share them they were often trying to be mysterious, or sneaky. Since some Nautolans also had family names, it had happened in the past that beings thought she just wasn't being forthcoming. She'd considered making one up, but was pretty certain she'd forget to reply to it and get herself into trouble. You weren't meant to look blank and go 'who?' when someone called your name.

[member="Daxton Bane"]

 

[Daxton Bane]

[member="Tengiz"]

"Your name would suffice for now. I am called Daxton. Should you pass into the academy, you will be an apprentice and I, your master, until you earn the right to stand as an equal. Now I do believe we still have one more glass each to polish off this bottle, do you have any more questions before we are done? "

 

[Tengiz]

"Master, gotcha."

Pft, stand as an equal, who cared? Learn all of the magic, float around all day! Like water but with no water! It was good to have life goals.

Dear Daxton, we will have all of the adventures, Love Tengiz.

Another glass? She looked down at the one still in her hand, mostly full, and polished it off. This drink was good stuff actually! The first glass had been harsh and tasted mostly of burning, but this second one was mellowing out. She could hardly taste the alcohol at all! Maybe alcohol floated to the top and the more you drank out of the bottle the weaker it became? Somehow that didn't seem quite right, but one never knew. It was making more and more sense, the more she thought about it.

"Do, do I need any gear? Like, I dunno, special shoes or something? Or a coat?"

Yeees, doing so well, hardly drunk at all! He probably couldn't even tell, look at her asking logical questions and stuff. Victory!

[member="Daxton Bane"]

 

[Daxton Bane]

[member="Tengiz"]

"Not really. Everything you need would be provided by the Order. Take some time to settle your affairs and then present yourself at the Order's Temple. Mention to the greeter that I recommended you be tested and they will do the rest." Draining the last of his,liquor in one quick gulp, he signaled the droid server for another bottle to be sent to his table.