Particeps Criminis (Part Two)

[Setzi Lunelle]

The Jen'jidai on Voss. She never forgot him. The touch of his hand upon her torso, and his seeping wounds, strange furrows in a body she did not know intimately, but felt just the same. Slender and pale fingers pulled away with new fingerprints upon them - the echo of someone else carved into her flesh. Cells which would slowly wear away with time.

And then nothing. They’d gone their own way until Azurea awoke again, thrust again into the cradling arms of darkness.

"...remember that pain the next time you decide to be a hero, Master Jedi."

Pain. Ha, Azurea lived pain! She ate it for breakfast and spit it out as lunch for others to dine upon. The woman that Alkor Centaris met in the little dive bar was gone, but her ambitions were just the same.

He’d given her a secret comm line which she programmed into the Pirate’s Foe in order to find him. The call out to him could have been the equivalent of a drunken text message, or it may have been encoded with so much more.

A cry for help? Or a test of his abilities. A lunatic for the asylum? He would not know... unless he answered.

Either way, her message said, “Let’s find her. The Xilsaga. Let me know where you are and there will be absolution for both of us.”

Undoubtedly he had secrets. The conundrum was whether he wanted to be released from the circular torture of those old wounds - Fibonacci sequence in its design, endless pain over and over - like she did. And oh what a sweet release it would be if it could happen.

[member="Alkor Centaris"]

 

[Alkor Centaris]

There was something cathartic for most people in the act of following through, and Alkor attributed the words that flashed across his datapad as just that. [member="Setzi Lunelle"] was a learner among the Jedi when last they met, and one gripped with rebellious notions about trespassing in the affairs of the Sith. He could not know anything that had transpired since that day, how she had grown and what path she had chosen, but the determination to seek out her pet gave him some idea.

Some men were slaves to compassion, and acted purely on the impulse to do right by others. If that drove this woman, she would have acted long ago. This choice was deliberate, and the words so hasty that something seemed fractured. Alkor was faintly interested, but more, if this woman sought to enter into the darkness then he had only to open the doorway for her.

If she was still a Jedi, she would fall or break. If she had chosen an enlightened path, then there would be more waiting for her at the end of this journey.

His reply was short and to the point. Celanon. The planet was a trade hub and notorious for smugglers and blockade runners, but it was also neutral ground and far from the safety of Voss and the watchful eyes of the Silver Jedi. It would not do for them to be involved in the series of events to follow.

He made his own way to the planet, only a few jumps from the ominous shadow of a hidden titan. The darkness would make its move in time, but he kept its secrets for the time being. The Spaceport of Celanon City, before dawn. If you're late, you won't hear from me again.

What she could not know, is that there was no absolution.

For either of them.

 

[Setzi Lunelle]

The most obvious explanation for Azurea’s desire to bring back the Xilsaga would be to say she wanted her children - long since fled - by her side. And therefore the somatically challenged, half braid dead creature was the next best thing.

But if only it were that simple.

Into the The Pirate’s Foe’s navigational system, the Knight programmed a course to Celanon, which would be the meeting spot between herself and Master Centaris. From there they would make their way to the Temple of Pain on Fresia, assuming it had survived whatever tribulations the Sith would put it through. And hopefully the Daughter of Sorrow was not in a pile of ash, or her wretched and twisted bones scattered along the line of corpses who had failed Bane himself or any one of his fawning underlings.

To make it to the planet by dawn, Azurea had flown all night, and now dark crescent moons marred the skin under her eyes. But anticipation worked just like stim caf to keep her senses on alert. She’d been in stasis so long, she had no idea who controlled the planet, until she and the S2 medical droid she’d had on The Foe figured out that it was likely under rule by The First Order or Galactic Alliance. But even that information was difficult to come by as Azurea had tinkered with the comms system of her vessel to encrypt it and strip away its links to AgriCorps. Needless to say HNN did not stream very well into the ship’s interior.

She’d arrived before dawn as firmly recommended by Master Centaris. Once The Pirate’s Foe set down in the spaceport, landing claws engaged for good measure, Azurea walked the ramp to meet up with the fellow Force user. Dressed in black fatigues and moderately armed, she could nearly feel his wounds again from where she stood, imprinted upon itching fingertips which longed to heal him, to defer his pain again as his muscle and flesh knit back together under her guiding hands.

The second itch she felt - more unexpected however - was to use her saber, which Azurea had not touched for a year when in statis. Her Makashi would be rusty, but perhaps Alkor would indulge her in some practice if they had a little breathing room. In order to soothe the strange prickle, she palmed the saber handle, relishing the cold metal juxtaposed against her warm skin.

[member="Alkor Centaris"]

 

[Alkor Centaris]

Alkor rarely stayed in one place for too long. Home was not a word he put much stock in, and there were less than a handful of people he ever actually wanted to see. Most of them were associates, in one grim business or another. When he made an appointment however, he kept it. One of the very few redeeming qualities of the man was that he always kept his word.

Regrettably for one [member="Setzi Lunelle"], that also meant he was prompt and kept his schedule tightly packed. He had stood and adjusted his black garb in preparation to leave as she hurried to him, and he only barely recognized her. Was this the same, strangely wound Padawan he met that day in Voss-ka?

Dark bags plagued her eyes from a fervent lack of sleep, and the unchecked excitement irradiated her entire being. There was no semblance of the Control a Jedi trainee was expected to maintain, not even on an informal level. He pegged her for the defiant sort, but this was something else entirely.

This could be made interesting.

"I see you've decided to join me," Alkor commented as he gestured in the direction she had come from. "You're still fascinated with that Sithspawn of yours, so the path ahead of us is clear."

All that was left was for the woman to lead the way. He eyed her as she stood before him, as though she were waiting for something else. They remainedd there awkwardly in silence for a moment before he finally spoke.

"Or was there something else?" he asked.

 

[Setzi Lunelle]

For the most part, Setzi’s ideas of how to spend her time fell into one of two categories - brilliantly reckless, or a complete fool's folly and as of late most of what she did turned out to be the latter. There wasn’t much in between.

As for where she stood right now be it light, dark, up, down or inside out, the Rogue Jedi was flirting with both sides, the danger of which was that the Darkside would eventually win over, consuming her and pulling her back into its suffocating shroud.

“You know it’s funny,” she remarked as they eyed each other up. “I’ve been asleep for a year, and there are so many things I’m unable to remember, but I do remember the girl I irrevocably changed.”

She beckoned for him to follow. “There’s nothing else. Not right now.”

The Pirate’s Foe was a roomy ship, likely due to the fact that it used to transport farming equipment, droids and other type supplies that an aid organization would need. The interior was tidy and no-nonsense, but at the same time had a lived in look - a tee-shirt draped haphazardly over the co-pilot’s chair, a mug of stimcaf in a cup holder with crusted residue as though it had sat there for awhile. It was clear the Jedi had been making the ship her home for a couple of years.

As they lifted off, Setzi punched in the coordinates to Fresia and then pulled up a holomap.

“The Temple of Pain. Have you ever been there? I bought this map of it on the blackmarket. It’s a little crude, but I think it does the trick."

Crude was an understatement. It looked as though it had been scrawled out on flimsiplast by a juvenile bantha. But the entrances, exits and secret passages were clearly marked, and that’s all that mattered. “I’m not sure if you can get us past the guards with your influence, but I assume we’re breaking in.”

[member="Alkor Centaris"]

 

[Alkor Centaris]

The Jen'jidai glanced quickly across the interior of her ship and then back to the wanton woman. "If I had known I would be visiting your home, I would have dressed accordingly," Alkor quipped as he gestured toward the shirt that dangled over what would likely be his seat. His nose wrinkled as he inspected the caf that was already cooled, and he shook his head. "I cannot imagine that the Jedi Order makes these living conditions habit."

The Corellian Exile crossed his arms and faced [member="Setzi Lunelle"] with a scrupulous expression. "My instincts told me you were not entirely what you appeared to be, but you will have to tell me just how far back your flirtation goes," his voice dropped, "did you ever really leave the darkness?"

His question was both academic and personal. It was his experience that once the Dark Side of the Force had you, there was no escape. People could talk about redemption, but he had never truly seen someone break free of the corruption that remained, long after the initial fall. He had never been free since, himself.

"Fresia," he murmured, breaking the tense silence.

It was a Core World, and for most of his youth, it counted among the places he strayed far from. CorSec had some authority well outside of the Five Brothers, and most systems within a single jump of Coruscant knew his face. He shook his head. "No," he replied at last, "I never spent much time Coreward."

She offered up a map- crude, but efficient- and he glanced toward her. "What do you mean, my "influence?" He asked her expectantly.

 

[Setzi Lunelle]

When the Jen’daii ribbed her about the cluttered state of her ship, she gave a soft chuckle. Pressing a button on the console, she activated an intercom and said, “Cid, come out here and clean up.” An S2 medical droid appeared from the back and began to organize the clutter. It abruptly stopped and turned towards Alkor and said, “Is your friend hurt? Here, let me examine him-”

“No! Cid that’s fine.” The droid picked up the coffee cup and dropped it into a trash bin.

“He tends to short circuit when he’s not being useful in the way he was programmed. Needs a memory wipe.”

Rubbing her eyes as though it had been weeks since she’d slept, Setzi answered the question as truthfully as she could. “I was a young Jedi once, but I was wounded by a Togruta Sith Knight during an attack on Ruusan. Encountering him… it shook my confidence, and I began searching for answers in the wrong places. Like trying to illuminate a dark room with a match… I was bound to stumble and fall eventually. And I’ve been falling ever since.”

Her look said it all. Resignation. Setzi was biding her time until the darkness fully consumed her.

"What do you mean, my "influence?"

“I-I don’t know.” Ever since stasis she’d had these weird blips in her memory, ranging from choppy sequences as though holo movie scenes were out of order, or worse what felt like random moments of dementia. “Maybe I was mixing you up with someone else. But I’m sure the two of us, we can do what we need to influence those in our way."

Tapping upon the dash and hoping Alkor was strapped in, she asked, “Hyperspace?”

[member="Alkor Centaris"]