The Setup

[Arage Bao]

Sullust
Soundtrack

Attachment was a weakness in this biz.

Khal knew that better than anyone, knew it best, and he hadn't thought of his attachments in many years now. But that was the tricky thing with those attachments. They had a tendency to crop and creep up to you when you least expected 'em. It wasn't any different now. Just one moment everything was fine an' dandy, the next he was sitting in his office- staring at his old lightsaber. From there the memories rushed in and the man started to ponder things.

Pondering things was dangerous.

Think too long and the momentum gets gone.
Think too deep and you might do a dumb thing or two.

But Khal had never considered himself a smart man. Just an especially lucky one, with a sense of self-preservation and ambition that had gotten him very far across the years.

So that's where he was at now. A man with his kind of connections? It wasn't difficult to track her down, fairly easy really. The harder part, the one that kept him, was that self-preservation kicking in. Why dredge up the past? Why try and make things complicated when things were going so well for him now?

That was what he pondered about, while leaning against the wall near the entrance to one of the little medical stations scattered around Sullust.

A cigarette was balancing between his lips, the smoke curiously circling around and moving away from the med bay- into the wind, instead of being blown away towards the bay.

The common rules had never had much grasp on Khal.

"I 'ear you pickin' up the robes again," His voice carried, worn and long and low, right when [member="Kana Truden"] exited the 'bay. "Life 'sgotta be... exciting now, ain't it, mouse?"

 

[Kana Truden]

People always made probation seem as something far worse than it actually was. Kana had set into it half-expecting to be exposed to a daily check-in and nonsensical conversations with some officer that didn’t really care for her, but it would seem it was anything but just that. She had been allowed a room with her friend in the place of residence that she had always dreamt of staying at, re-educating herself and going back to the life she had tossed aside before her fall. She was still a disgrace to herself, she still felt the itch within her that tried to sway her mind into chaos, but with the help of her friends she had come along way and she would much rather die than let herself fall back into what she had been before. A good step in the right direction was volunteer work. The Circle of Healers always had their hands full and Kana was by no means trying to make herself an exception. There were wounded all over the galaxy, but for the newly re-initiated it was fair to assume that travelling too far from known Alliance space was hazardous at best.

She was on Sullust for now with a lovely view over the biodome that had once housed her. If you looked carefully towards it you could see where the heat from the magma was vented. Not in her life had she thought she’d feel nostalgic about having spent time in prison, but here she was and she was almost smiling. The healer that had come to relieve her stepped through the door to her office and Kana turned around. They both shared a smile and a quick bow before one of them made way for the door and the other got straight to work.

Kana’s boots clanged through the hallway as she stepped towards the door outside. She was tired, but there was nothing new about that. Fighting against yourself as well as the ailments of others wasn’t one of those things that was done with the wave of a hand. It took time and focus. Something she was very much lacking by the time she stepped outside the doors to the medbay. She heard someone talk but she didn’t really register that it was meant for her.

At least not until the word ‘Mouse’ was brought up.

The healer stopped. She perked up and she turned around.

“Can I help y-” She blinked. “Oh.”

“Well I’ll be,” Kana smirked. “Look who finally decided to stop hiding in the shadows for once.”

[member="Khaleel Malvern"]

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Kana Truden"]

A lazy look was afforded around him.

"Looks pretty shadowy to me," But there was just a hint of a smile there, edging at the corner and threatening to overtake his general dour expression and demeanor. A man who surrounded him with hard (wo)men, ordered killings and ensured that no one could overtake him in the criminal underworld, it takes a special kind of man not to be changed by that- Khal wasn't anything special.

But it just takes a single person.

One who knew you before your change.

To just soften the sharp edges, if at least for a moment or two. His blues were on her again now, studying, maybe even searching for something specific, even if he didn't say what. A nod followed soon after; but it didn't seem to be aimed at her as much as it was aimed at himself. Perhaps agreeing that this wasn't a big mistake.

"'eard the magma chambers are nice this time a year, bit hot tho." Khal took another drag from his cigarette. "Walk with me?"

 

[Kana Truden]

In many ways Kana was oblivious to who Khaleel was. Whether it was by choice or genuine in difference was up for debate. Perhaps in some ways she didn’t really care, perhaps in another it was that she cared too much and didn’t really want it to be true. The man had way too many contacts to be someone on the good team, that much was certain. It either meant he was a criminal or that he was some sort of conspirator in one of the many Galaxy-wide ‘see all’ schemes. Both of them were truths she could live without.

“They’re not that bad.” She smiled with a hazy stare at the ground before him. Walk with him? “Sure, I could do that.”

Kana placed herself by his side and looked around the immediate area. In some ways this alley reminded her of one of the first times they met. Dark and damp alleyways were seemingly his specialty. There was something funny about that, but Kana was too tired to laugh.

A deep yawn filled her lungs with air as she let go of the tension throughout her body.

“I may have gotten special treatment though.” Kana blinked herself awake, knowing fully that she made no sense. “The magma cells, I mean.”

“I guess you could say I am in Avalore’s care. Circle of Healers, trying to bring me back to the way things were before.” Kana nodded, lazily. “So, you know, at least someone didn’t deem me a hopeless cause.”

“Dead man on Coruscant did though.” The healer referred to her father.

“So I killed him.” Said almost too casually.

“Prick.” She spat on the ground.

[member="Khaleel Malvern"]

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Kana Truden"]

"So you ain't all serenity, peace and lovey-dove feelings yet." Khal responded with a snort after that. In truth, he hadn't know what to expect from Kana these days. There were people who were constants - they didn't change much, maybe a few extra bruises, cuts and scraps, rough around the edges and those same edges blunted down after the years passed... but frankly the same people if you looked carefully enough.

Kana on the other hand... she confused him, infuriated him more than she should have been able to.

One day she was the little mouse, calm, silent for the most part and only caring about healing one or the other. Khal could have lived with that, it wasn't his life... but he could accept it - then comes the day that she slaughtered her only remaining family, her da. Of course he didn't care about the killing in itself.

He's had more deaders on him than most people. Blood came easy to him, but it was about the paradox in it -- the healer starting to kill and going down a path that seemed strange for him.

"You look good, though." The man responded a few moments after, for some it would have been an awkward admission. For Khal... it was simply stating a fact and making it real. "Robes are a bit of a disappointment, but ya can't have everything, yeah?"

 

[Kana Truden]

Nah, pretty far from it. Kana chuckled alongside Khaleel as they continued down the road. Serenity and peace was pretty far from the words she would use to describe herself. Apathy, a growing acceptance of death and an urge to be who she used to be, maybe. She knew that the latter was something she could never return to, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t try. With her father dead she had found a weird sense of peace in the same way that a gold digger found solace in their dead spouse’s arms. She had taken exactly what she wanted and left the scene of the crime with little more than a tiny speck of guilt on her mind. All things considered she hated the man and she could still remember the way Corvus had recoiled when Kana admitted that she would have done it again if she could.

He was dead, she was alive and there was nothing he could do to her or anyone else ever again.

She was by all means at peace with her inner demons, if you overlooked the corruption within.

“Thanks, I try.” Kana shrugged at Khaleel’s compliment. “The robes are pretty lackluster compared to my old jumpsuits but uh… Can’t win them all.”

At least it covered up her leg pretty neatly. The robotic one, that is.

“You look okay as well,” She said, returning the compliment with a smirk. “Maybe if you dropped the sullen face you’d get a ‘good,’ but until then, you are just okay.”

[member="Khaleel Malvern"]

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Kana Truden"]

He took a long drag from his cigarette and blew the smoke out.

Both the smoke and her words filled the silence in between and around them. Part of him wondered if this was the kind of things she said to the militant Jedi as well, or if she mostly kept her grudge to herself. Was this her showing that she still had a sliver of trust in him even with all the years that had passed?

Was it her way to figure out where he stood at the alignment line?

But then the silence was filled again and Khal chuckled softly. It was the first time he really remembered laughing, instead of smirking, snorting or rolling his eyes at the things in life, in years if not more.

"Got high expectations, mouse." Another pull from the cigarette was taken, before it was spent and send flying into the darkness of the alleyway. "But I will try to rise to the occasion."

He smiled then, a short smile, tired one. Eyes met briefly and for a moment it felt like the good old days.

When they had taught at the Yavin Academy and things had been so much more simple.

"I missed you."

 

[Kana Truden]

To that, the healer snickered. “It’s been a while.” She nodded. “I think we were standing on that balcony overlooking my father’s home at the time. Talking about that thing I was too afraid to do at back then.”

All things considered, Khaleel had been there both during her time in the Order and the one after that. It just kind of made sense that he had chosen today to make a surprise visit. Sure, she was growing more and more skeptical of who he truly was, but hardly enough to make her feel like they needed some distance between one another. Their eyes interlocked and for a very brief moment it was almost like being back in the old days. If she squinted enough to cover his unkempt beard and hair — which she very much did — she could almost see the same old Khaleel stand before her.

“I was just taking a detour,” Kana perked her brows and tilted her head in a shrug. “Took a wrong turn into a bad neighborhood, but people say I am pretty much the same Kana whenever I speak to them.”

“I mean, I am not sure I buy it, but I appreciate it nonetheless.” All things considered she was far from proud about how she had acted during her little phase. Patricide excluded. “I acted on selfish impulse, with little to no thought in the world about the repercussions of my actions.”

“I’m not sure I would have been able to live with myself long-term if I had kept on going the way I had.” Kana looked to the ground for a moment. “Not that I’d really have a shot at living all that long to begin with.”

“... I owe both Adele and Avalore so much right now.”

“Jacen too.” She felt a feigned snicker burst through her nose. “It’s not even funny.”

“Right, the uh, smiles.” She turned her attention from the gravel in the streets back to Khaleel. “At least I am kind of a medic again. With all the responsibilities that entails.”

[member="Khaleel Malvern"]