Private Breathe (In The Air)

[Aeris Lashiec]

There was a new soul in the Second Home tonight. Zeltrons on the Beach, tall glass with a hint of sugar. Frosted rim, slice of lime stuck to the very tippy top. A light-skinned hand wrapped around the base to put it against a pair of surprisingly well-done lips. Cherry-rose on satin, a mixture recommended to her by the only make-up wearing friend that Aeris could think of, and the partner of the man that she was waiting for.

For a few moments longer she would glance around the room and come to the same conclusion: Denon was a shithole. Unfixable in its entirety and a lost cause, and yet a place where perhaps the Jedi were needed the most. Just like Nar Shaddaa, Terminus, and a great many other places where the light seemed to have waned.

She twisted in her seat, placed a foot to the ground as she dug her free hand into the lower pocket of her drab, olive military jacket that stood in stark contrast to the colorful drink and lipstick that she had chosen for tonight. Today she had not come here as a Jedi, the energy for that had thinned rapidly in the past few days.

Why was it that Jedi insisted on talking so much? It was infuriating.

She raised her drink to her lips as she watched Dagon step in through the door. About time he showed up.

Dagon Kaze​

 

[Dagon Kaze]

Frankly, Dagon Kaze did not expect Aeris to take up his invitation to Denon.

And frankly, she probably did not expect him to be on time either.

Both expectations were met.

Draped in a field-type jacket with a hoodie underneath, he looked more like a daily commuter than a partygoer. He scrambled out from the grasps of a raving crowd of bachelorettes and honed in on the bar, refusing, uh, all sorts of invitations thrown his way with a cocky smile plastered on his face.

"Water, please." Dag raised a finger as he leaned on the bar stand, then turned to his friend, "Whooooaa!" he blinked in disbelief, "Lady, I didn't know we were getting married today!" when was the last time he'd seen her with makeup? Never? "You sure ramped up some Yula for this R&R invite, huh." he grinned.

Aeris Lashiec

 

[Aeris Lashiec]

Dagon Kaze

"Surprised?" Aeris asked, her brow cocked in amusement as Dagon walked up and ordered a glass of water of all things. She looked at his choice of drink. "What? Are you driving or something, D?"

Denon wasn't exactly her space, but an invitation was an invitation, and any reason she could find to not be on Prosperity — surrounded by Jedi — was a good one. For the moment it was all that she wanted, all that she asked for. No questions, no outbursts, no fuss over semantics. Just her, a drink, and a group of people that did not know who she even was.

Well, beyond Dagon anyway.

"I don't really want to be a Jedi right now. I just want to be Aeris." She said and scratched at the back of her neck. "No Circle business, not a single voice that goes 'Yes, but you are trying to bend the knee to the Alliance!' or 'I am unable to comprehend Basic.'"

Deep breath.

"No Alex, either."

 

[Dagon Kaze]

"Uh..? I don't drink?" except when he did. Probably three or four times. All more embarrassing than the other. Alcohol had a way of unleashing the beast within - Deputy Law. Let's forget about that.

He chuckled at the remark about Circle business but found her drawing a line between Jedi and herself as something foreign. And yet so familiar. His inability to draw that same border had been at the core of his interpersonal problems. It was the crux of the issue that often sent Dagon and Yula fighting.

She then near silently mentioned Alex's name and Dagon's grin disappeared into pursed lips. No. Aeris was here to get her mind off everything that caused an ache. He couldn't let her spiral down that painful lane. Not now.

"Cheers then. To those that are no longer with us--" he raised his glass of water and emptied his mind, "--and to those still around to annoy us."

Clink.

"Listen--" he took a sip of his glass again, "--we're not going down that road again, alright? Not tonight." he paused, tangled in a struggle to figure out anything that did not concern their duty and its consequences. "...err..."

I'm a Jedi. That's all I am.

"The make-up,--" his palm circled over his face, "-- the bar, the drink - you really are tired of mediating talks, hmm?" he pulled the sleeves of his jacket and hood back in typical fashion.

And an investigator too, I guess.

Aeris Lashiec

 

[Aeris Lashiec]

Clink. To the dead and those who stepped on all the wrong nerves.

A sizable chunk of Aeris' drink disappeared into her mouth, nearly puffed her cheeks for a moment before she swallowed hard.

Right, none of that achy-breaky stuff.

"Did you not see the same man that I saw at those talks who was there just to seek out a reason to be upset?" Aeris asked and cocked her brow yet again. This time, not so much out of amusement. It quickly sunk and she went back to cradling her drink again. "Yeah, no. Right now? Right now I am just Aeris Lashiec, make-up wearer and drink-drinker."

"I actually got both of these on a tip from Yula, you know." Aeris said took another sip from her drink. Not one quite so big as he last one this time. "She said, that given everything that has been going on lately, I should treat myself to a Zeltron on the Beach and that I was free to interpret that however I wished."

Dagon Kaze

 

[Dagon Kaze]

Dag's slightly widened at how she downed her drink as he sipped a drop from his water. From the sides, it looked as if he was the one drinking pure ethanol while she was just back from a 40-year sabbatical in the Dune Sea.

"Did you not see the same man that I saw at those talks who was there just to seek out a reason to be upset?"

He nearly choked on his next sip as Aeris recalled the most recent Jedi meeting on Tython. "That sure was something else." he silently whistled and set the glass of water on the side as he leaned with his forearm on the bar and brought one foot up on the bar rail.

"She said, that given everything that has been going on lately, I should treat myself to a Zeltron on the Beach and that I was free to interpret that however I wished." yes, clearly Yula was on everyone's mind at all times. Especially in Dagon's when the mention of a Zeltron on the Beach was brought up.

That, uh, had, uh, a whole different meaning to him.

"And so, uh, how do you interpret it, then?" he was, as usual, nosy. "Actually, hold that thought, I... don't wanna know." shaking his head, he asked, "Yula tell you anything other than Zeltrons on the Beach and the seediest bar in this district? Like Millenium Spire?" one of the highest cloudcutters in the City.

A real pleasant view of one of the most unpleasant worlds.

Aeris Lashiec

 

[Aeris Lashiec]

"Wouldn't you want to kn-" Aeris murmured happily for a moment before her brows furrowed in frustration from being cut off. Her eyes closed to truly articulate the word: "No." Spoken without a care in the world. "She said that no matter what, there would be something good inside, and I am inclined to agree."

Her eyes wandered out across the room. There were a few ruffians and scallywags around, but none that were beyond a few kind words should they decide to do anything rash. Where Dagon saw problems, she started thinking of solutions. Perhaps that was what separated the two.

"Millenium Spire sounds too much like the Jedi Spire." Aeris scoffed. "In the words used by the Younglings-about-to-be-Padawans,"

"Miss me with that lame chit. I want authentic."

Dagon Kaze

 

[Dagon Kaze]

"She said that no matter what, there would be something good inside, and I am inclined to agree."

Dag's eyes roamed about the haze-ridden bar but found nothing to agree with. This was a piss hole, more or less. Lots of shady scumbags and a few bachelorettes that just had a drink too much and ended up on the wrong side of town. That didn't mean he wouldn't put his chest out for either. This was his world now. The crime-ridden sanctuary he had to protect from evil. The scars across his body were proof of that.

"Authentic?" his head came back to his friend with a slightly raised eyebrow. He'd promised no Jedi talk. That was the deal but... she wanted authentic, huh, and maybe every time they butted heads the timing and the place were all wrong.

Fine then.

"C'mon."

---

---

One thirty AM. The typical night breeze picked up this time of the season, cooling the warmth that had settled upon the concrete and steel. The lights of the City shone brighter than ever concealing the inherent darkness that ran among the streets, the alleys, the high rises, and the slums. Could see all of it from here, top of the tower. Hundred floors above Denon. Hundred floors above the grime and slime, the sludge and mire, and still none closer to it.

You feel it in the air.

In the fabric of this world itself.

Dagon Kaze stood close to the edge, observing the city below, while the sipping of colored drink from a cocktail mixer they had picked up from the bar reminded him he was not alone. It was easy to get lost in the view. As it was to get lost in its machinations of evil. The holographic light shows of advertisements cutting through the clouds and far into the distance of low orbit always fascinated him. Even if he knew very well what stood behind them. In some odd way, it reminded him of the Dark Side, of its temptations. Flashy, easy to obsess over but inherently self-destructive.

"Pretty, isn't it?" he remarked. It was far more than just pretty, it was impressive. For a boy born on Ruusan, the infinite skyscrapers never ceased to dazzle him. And their rooftops, high in the air, were his escape. His freedom. His ability to fly. To soar.

"Standing right here, on top of everything - it kinda galvanizes you. Like you have the power to do anything. Like I could wave my hand and bang - everything's fixed. The Suicide Slums, see 'em right beneath us going all the way to the Seven Corners. Fixed. Baker's Row, right there on the right of the junction - fixed. Lum Rouge, northbound from Baker's - fixed."

"...but we can't, can we."

Aeris Lashiec

 

[Aeris Lashiec]

There she sat at the edge of a building that pierced the skyline with a drink in her hand and looked straight down into the streets that seemed so small.

"Not really." Aeris mumbled as Dagon seemed to think of it as 'pretty'. She was a girl who had grown up in the jungles of Ossus, fled to the volcanic wasteland of Sullust, and then settled on Coruscant several years later. And that was not to mention the bouts of merely moving planet to planet as Jedi rose and crumbled over and over again in her thirty years of life.

To her Denon was a planet of steel and concrete like Coruscant where the air was as likely to kill you or intoxicate you as it was to sustain you. The poor were in the streets where the luxuries of the rich rarely (if ever) trickled down despite the repeated mantras that such economics would surely deliver them salvation sooner or later. And as Dagon explained the feeling of empowerment he felt as he looked over the city, Aeris felt like little more than a girl looking out upon a crowd of people that wanted to fight for justice but lacked the voice to do so.

As Dagon swept his arm across the plains she looked at his bravado and chuckled before she shook her head.

"No. It's not our problem to fix. Not on our own at least." She took a sip from her drink and pointed towards a crossing between Baker's and 53rd. A CorpSec squad executing people in the streets. "Hard to fight corruption when it comes from two angles. It's almost like you'd need more people for that."

"Don't underdeliver on a promise you can't keep, Dagon."

"These people need you alive and visible as a symbol for something better. Something more than another avenging spirit from the shadows. They need leaders."

Dagon Kaze

 

[Dagon Kaze]

"...It's almost like you'd need more people for that."

She was right about that. Ever since the day he took the Jedi's oath, Dagon preferred to work solo. Take the punches so others wouldn't. Yula often criticized him for it, calling it a savior's complex. And she, too, was right. When he had witnessed the fate of his brother, there on that fateful day on Ziost, Dagon Kaze had come to take everything as a personal responsibility. Burdened all the blame on himself with no regrets. Because he did not want his own failures to infect the others.

Captured by the Final Dawn and tortured for two weeks until Jem rescued him was a painful but refreshing lesson.

"Don't underdeliver on a promise you can't keep, Dagon."

"These people need you alive and visible as a symbol for something better. Something more than another avenging spirit from the shadows. They need leaders."

His eyes narrowed, still lingering over the neon lights showering the cityscape.

"They don't need me, Aeris. They need themselves. To leave the shadows makes me vulnerable, makes me a man. I can't be that." he states, then continues plucking out the domino mask from the inside of his jacket, "I need to be something more, yes - an idea. A man lives and dies but an idea - you can't kill an idea."

Aeris Lashiec

 

[Aeris Lashiec]

Aeris let out a quick exhale, a chuckle as she sipped on her drink again.

"I think that's where you and I will always differ, D." She said, notedly using his preferred 'initials only' approach to addressing others. "I can't do that. Just live in the shadow and observe as change happens. To be so…" Exhale as she struggled to find the word. "Indirect."

"It feels like that conclave all over again. Using words, expecting others to just agree and do what you say." She shook her head. "It is better to show intent than speak of it. And, I think if there is one thing we both do agree on, it is that the Jedi are just a little too much bark and a whole lot too little bite."

"Or well, historically anyway."

Dagon Kaze

 

[Dagon Kaze]

He tilted his head at her, "Observe? You think I just sit around here and twiddle my thumbs?" his tone was surprised rather than hostile.

Aeris Lashiec

 

[Aeris Lashiec]

"Sure," Aeris chuckled. "Especially with that whole 'constipated and staring into the sun' look that you put on when you look out across the city-"

"Yeah, just like that!" She said and pointed at Dagon's face with a laugh. "How do you do it?"

 

[Dagon Kaze]

At first, his brow knitted close into a frown, then it eased into confusion, "Are you-- are you drunk already?"

 

[Aeris Lashiec]

A glance away. Shame.

"N-no."

"Shut up."

 

[Dagon Kaze]

"Pfft--" he held it for a moment then burst into laughter, "No way, no way Aeris Lashiec, Head Librarian of the Great Jedi Library is wasted on a rooftop on Denon." Had he ever seen her drunk? Dagon couldn't recall. It had been so long since the days they were less on the edge all the time.

"I need to frame this." he plucked out his phone to take a few snaps at the blonde mess.

Aeris Lashiec

 

[Aeris Lashiec]

What Dagon got was a picture of a blonde looking out across the Denon skyline, content and happy. Smiling almost.

"Yeah, yeah. Soak it up, Dagon Kaze." She chuckled. "You won't see it again in a while."

"At least not on Denon."

 

[Dagon Kaze]

He was grinning from head to toe, "What do you mean? You're a day-drinker only on Coruscant?"

Aeris Lashiec

 

[Aeris Lashiec]

"Oh please, drinks go for a fortune on Prosperity." Aeris grinned back. "No, I just rarely have a reason to drink."

"I guess… Today is just a good day for it. Nothing to celebrate, just letting my hair down and sort of… Be normal for a moment."

 

[Dagon Kaze]

Dagon scoffed, the grin turning into a smile as he glanced to the side at the bright city below, then back to Aeris.

"You look good, Aer." he stated genuinely, "Force knows you needed a bit of a break from everything." then the cocky, lopsided smirk crossed his lips, "So... why's today a good day?" ah, yes, fishing for likes.

Aeris Lashiec