First Reply Tagging Denon

[Iris Arani]

Iris rather pointedly pointed to the scarred half of her face. With the hand missing it's pinky.

"Master Valery is used to me getting hurt on my own. And I don't plan on getting any more scars, ever again. I'm not some fragile temple Padawan. I'm here to help, let me help."

Corin Trenor

 

[Corin Trenor]

He rose the mask and allowed it to settle over his face, mould to it once more. It was in tandem with the earlier smirk that Corin softly nodded towards Iris. It was the confirmation the Padawan needed, whether able to or not... She believed in herself, and so Corin had no choice but to do the same. He wanted to, too. If that was worth much at all.

"Use the hood." He turned on his heel next and faced a sheer wall, "Come on."

In a Force-imbued bound, Corin rushed into the air and found the roof. He wandered towards the low half-wall and leaned his frame onto it, arms folded after a small device of Yula's own creation rest out in front of him and after a few fiddles with it, it crackled to life and bounced between channels. "You listen and wait a lot," the voices of local law enforcement on their own comms, unaware of other listeners, made idle chatter in the meantime. "But it never takes too much time."

In the skyline ahead of them, there was an endless wave of neon. It flickered, it flashed, it bounced back and forth from the streets themselves to the penthouse suits far above the rest. Either advertisements or cautions, even colossal wanted billboards filled the air the local traffic shifted in. It was above them, below them, always on the move.

Iris Arani

 

[Iris Arani]

Iris nodded once, pulling her hood up more. Probably should invest in a mask at some point, if this was going to end up being her life. Then she jumped after him. For a moment she thought he was intending to look out over the city and scan through the colors for issues. Then, well. She remembered that that wasn't something anyone else could do. That she knew of, at least.

Her world of colors were hers and hers alone.

"Listening and waiting.. Who knew you actually understood patience."

Her gaze stayed out on the horizon. Looking through the colors. Always looking through them. On a planet like Denon they were always so muted and dull. Peoples lives were never the greatest. Occasionally there were bright spots, but it was hard to tell where the people who needed help were. Iris closed her eyes. Let herself sink more into those colors. Pulling at every hue, little by little weaving through them all to find it.

Pain. Danger. Fear.

Iris took off in a sprint, leaping from the roof to the next without an explanation. Someone needed help, close? The next building. Third floor. She hopped off, catching herself on the fire escape to swing in boot first through the window.

Right into the side of the head of some thug looking guy with a blaster pointed at another.

Corin Trenor

 

[Corin Trenor]

It was without so much as a word that Corin stood there and watched in idle confusion. Iris bounded across the street and onto another roof without notice, bar the fast footfalls that started behind him a second before she vanished from their own roof. He was content to watch, to see what was in store, more so as his fellow Padawan lowered herself onto the metallic stairs attached to the wall and swerved herself into a since shattered window. In some bout of surprise, Corin reflexively raised his brow and bore a smirk.

In some shock he called out from across the street. "You're doing great!"

Corin motioned to follow after Iris, absent all sense of urgency.

Iris Arani

 

[Iris Arani]

She got the drop on the guy, even kicked him over. But that didn't matter too much in terms of her raw strength. She was fast, sure. But she was still small. The guy tumbled. Groaned. Then glared. Iris immediately went for her lightsaber, only to stop. Right, no lightsaber.

"The hell are you supposed to be!?"

It wasn't the guy she kicked that spoke up. Behind her, the one who was held at gunpoint. She didn't look their way, instead diving to the side as the thug started to try and shoot her instead. He took the silence or the blaster fire as a reason to get gone. Behind the cover Iris just frowned. No lightsaber. Minimal Force? Okay, okay. Fine. Yeah. this was fine. She took out one of her paint grenades, hucking it over. An explosion of pink, and she dipped from the cover to send a kick for the side of the guy's head. Once. Twice.

The third actually sent him to the ground after the first two dazed him. Iris took a moment to breath. Well, she started to but regretted it given paint was still in the room. Eyes closed she forgot that was a whole thing so she stumbled out of the cloud coughing.

Corin Trenor

 

[Corin Trenor]

His eyes trailed the mist of vibrant colour as it wafted into the open air of Denon, no matter how polluted it was. One more new strain of it was of no consequence now, and undoubtedly a welcome sight to those few children that would notice it, Corin mused as he stood there with his arms folded over his chest with his frame half-sat on the metal divider between life and death. Behind him, the sound of speeders and the street stories below sounded off.

"Nice stuff." He remarked, a momentarily outstretched hand had seen the fallen blaster pistol rushed into hand with the Force. "It's a lot of that, over and over." Corin continued as idle hands seemed to disassemble the blaster, bit by bit and without much need for thought. He turned to toss the pieces across to each different rooftop around them, a sort of practised precision came with each movement.

It was his life, after all. Day in, day out. It was all the same.

He feigned a flex with his arms lazily tensed out in front of him and spoke with a smile, "It may not be such a bad idea for you to beef up a little, though."

Iris Arani

 

[Iris Arani]

"Nice stuff."

She frowned and glanced up to him. He was just sitting there? She wasn't sure whether to be annoyed he didn't help or something like proud that he figured she didn't need it. Well. Didn't matter. She glanced to her arms as he motioned to his own arms, tugging down her hood some more to hide whatever face she was making. Beef up a little? Valery probably would like that. Silas was training his butt off to get to that level.

She was going to college. Was being the key word.

".. Yeah, probably should."

Corin Trenor

 

[Corin Trenor]

"Yeah, whatever works for you." He said dismissively with a wave that lacked effort and rolled around to face outwards into the street. His hand reached into the leather and retrieved a small, cylindrical device that his thumb rolled around on with blue neon, much like everywhere else, and concluded with a sound that best resembled a holo's notification. Just another one of Yula's designs. "Got some time before someone comes to clean up the mess," and the device found itself returned to his pocket.

Unsurprisingly, Corin was up to alarmingly little beyond the act of arguable assault. Arguable, the operative word.

He flashed a look across to Iris, a sympathetic touch to his eye. "You alright?" Corin asked with a nudge.

Iris Arani

 

[Iris Arani]

Iris tilted her head, peering at the device curiously. What did it do? What was he doing exactly? She wasn't too sure, but he didn't seem to care too much about whatever he did. Oh. He called for.. Backup? Cops? Probably cops. Handy little device then. She plopped down after a moment, idly rubbing at her thigh now that she wasn't on her feet. Those still got sore. It'd been a while since she last ran around that much anyway.

"The scars hurt, that's all. College has kept me from really keeping up with my workouts so they don't cramp as much. I'll be fine."

Corin Trenor

 

[Corin Trenor]

He frowned, even further once Iris felt the need to sit herself down. Had it been so bad, was it a mistake to allow her into all of this? It was on brawl, over in a flash, the same sort Corin would force himself to endure for hours on end. In the end, both beaten and bruised from the few strikes that added with time, but maybe that was from all his often moronic stubbornness.

"You should head down to Aerial Arts sometime," an all too familiar place for Corin, even his younger self. "It's a side hustle of a mutual friend. Acrobatics, Stava, Teras Kasi, Broken Gate. Teaches it all. Good chance to find the rhythm of it all, settle back in. It's on Baker's Row, Seven Corners."

Hub of Denon. It housed all that there was, even his old and worn down home in the Suicide Slums. He wondered if it still stood, or maybe some arsonist decided to set the old shack aflame. It was common down there. Toss a few individuals with a lack of brain cells combined with a love for fire, it comes as advertised.

"College, though." He exhaled, and a little forcefully too. "What're you doing there?"

Iris Arani

 

[Iris Arani]

"I'm not disabled or anything. I just like not to feel sore. If I have to fight I can easily put up with it." Didn't take much of a guess for her to realize why his colors shifted. Her oddly colored eyes focused on him for a moment, near glaring. That's one of the things she hated most about these scars and lingering injuries. People assuming her wanting to take a break meant she was weak. Maybe she was reading too much into it, maybe.

Still frustrated her to no end.

"I'll give it a look. With Valery.. With the others needing training for the war I should try and get my own, on my own." She let out a sigh, leaned back some to relax more. Pain successfully soothed. Again.

"Was. With the conflict against the Empire renewing, I put my classes on hold to focus on training. Doctor, though. I was learning to become a doctor."

Corin Trenor

 

[Corin Trenor]

His eyes widened with pursed lips and a series of subtle nods. He assumed an art related course, maybe some finer arts related one; the sort those pretentious sorts could endure and earn all their credits from scams on the rich, the kind that lived in and never leaved Sakedo Towers. Good for them, someone had to make it out. Healer to Doctor, it made sense.

"Doctor." He repeated with the same expression, "Sounds like a lot of years of study. Is that what you always wanted to do?"

Iris Arani

 

[Iris Arani]

"Since I learned to think for myself, yeah. People need people who can keep them together when everything else falls apart. But we don't have years for me to learn all that. Not when wars surrounding the Alliance again. I know enough to help on the front lines. Now I just need to get better at fighting so I'm not the one that needs to be kept together." She sighed for a moment. Closed her eyes. Then, blinked.

And looked again to Corin. Directly at him, which was always weird for her to do when she usually just looked at people's colors.

"What do you want to do with your life?"

Corin Trenor

 

[Corin Trenor]

Hesitation fell over Corin as if made from torrential rain in a thunderstorm, flashes of it all settled over him. He could do little else than outstretch his arms and aim them towards all of Denon, as much as the two could see, from all that existed within the Seven Corners and beyond. It was a mess, yet it was his mess. Or so Corin decided some time well before now.

"This," the Padawan said with little enthusiasm. "This is, uh, it."

Iris Arani

 

[Iris Arani]

"You really don't do enthusiasm, huh?" She laughed a little. Not at what he was saying, just how he was saying it. Her gaze shifted, watching through the colors. The world was dim, but it wasn't dark. There was still light here.

Yeah. Corin was protecting that, in his own way.

"You should be more proud of yourself. These people need someone like you."

Corin Trenor

 

[Corin Trenor]

"Yeah."

He muttered, not in a fit of embarrassment nor disbelief. In an acceptance, a muted and softened albeit sincere confirmation of the truth that settled beneath her words. If true, in a more objective manner, Denon needed Corin as much as it needed others; the soft tempered touch to his wrathful blows. Those flashes of warmth in his otherwise cold and abrasive disposition. It was more than Iris, more than even one more. If there was ever to be some form of tangible change, it needed a whole lot more than them. Maybe even a whole team of them.

"Denon needs people like you, too." She came out here on her own, of her own volition, with her own mission in mind. "It needs people like... the rest of them."

He'd forgotten most of their names.

"I want to see more of them out here. Can do a lot of help, but each of them need to understand the same rules I've told you."

Iris Arani

 

[Iris Arani]

"I can bring more. I only figured out how to talk to people without looking like a total airhead a year or so back but I'm already able to make way more friends than you." Airhead was a term she heard a couple times. Not her fault when the colors around were as deafening as they were blinding. Still, she chuckled a little. Did Corin even remember their names? Probably not. Did she blame him?

No. He really wanted to keep people at an arms length.

"I'll make sure they know the rules. .. Mm. I'm hungry." She stood up, stretched a little. Looked around. "What do you do for food?"

Corin Trenor

 

[Corin Trenor]

"I could easily make friends if I wanted to." He rushed to defend himself with his own faint chuckle in there somewhere. "If, is the key word there because there's the forcibly unfriendly," Corin remarked with his own hands turned inwards and aimed at himself, before he proceeded with a voice full of mockery, "Then there's 'I am a Jedi, I am the light, my entire personality is that I do as I'm told', and is it even possible to be friends with that?"

It all came with a soft smile, one often not worn outside of the presence of Dagon or in return to some callous remark the Padawan made. Different, that's how it felt, as if an immense weight had been lifted from his shoulders now there was someone else that knew of this life and someone else that was able to see to it that more came and aided in these efforts. But the thought of him not carrying the burden of responsibility wherever it was he went remained so unlikely. Too much like his master in that vein.

"There's a lot of vendors by Baker's Row, sell all kinds of stuff. Barely consistent in who's there, though." Like a fidgeting child with an oddly acrobatic grace, Corin leaned too far into the railing to where he flipped over it, all with an adjusting hand grip on the bars. He stood on the opposite side, three stories high. "You wanna go?"

Iris Arani

 

[Iris Arani]

"I was literally 'Oh hey pretty colors' and people made friends with me. Don't knock it till you at least try to make some friends. Though, 'forcibly unfriendly'." She ended up just snickering at that. Yeah, that made sense, kinda. Kinda.

"Sure. I bet there's something spicy there, right?" She grinned. Spicy was her lifeblood. She hopped up onto the railing, standing, staring over the edge. Three stories. Not far, for Jedi anyway.

"Lead the way?"

Corin Trenor

 

[Corin Trenor]

"Yeah, well..." His features twisted to form a wry smirk while an idle hand made for the mask and stowed it, "Sometimes people like 'em dumb." He allowed himself to fall in the immediate moment afterwards, as to avoid whatever reprimand was bound to follow. Corin caught himself on each story of the fire escape, rather than straight to the street. Odd as it was to see someone in the midst of that act, it was far better than to fall a potentially lethal height and come out unscathed. Jedi confirmed, in that case.

He seemed like any other teenage boy down there, able to shift into the dense crowds that were no doubt similar to a maze for some. But one he possessed the map for, in this case. "Bit of everything, I'm sure. Always is. It's mostly human but, as with the rest of Denon, but you can get a few off-world delicacies if you look hard enough."

Iris Arani