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[Darth Daiara]

Aradia snapped up the shell of a hilt, her lips pulling up into a sneer as turned it in her palm.

"I'm nothing without my saber," she grumbled, her voice still rasping in a constant reminder of that lesson. She turned it over, pressing tentatively at the power button. No spark of life signaled underneath her fingers. She tossed it back onto the table. It scattered onto his plate, sending the nondescript crumbs everywhere.

"If they come for us I'll be worse than a sitting duck. I can't go out there like this, we need to fix this first." Her stomach growled in disagreement. She ignored it.

 

[Zaavik Perl]

Reflexes triggered, catching the pitiful remains of a saber before it rolled off the side of the table. He sat it back on the table as he brushed crumbs off that had scattered onto his chest. "Fine," he conceded. A rumble in his own stomach protested with a growl as if to say; 'Like hell we will!' He ignored it.

"Though, unless you wanna risk a trip to Ilum, we'll need to do some sleuthing. Gotta figure out where one might be hiding." Kyber crystals or adjacent materials that pop up elsewhere weren't unheard of. Ilum was just blessed with the most abundance. Not officially in Alliance or Imperial space, though very close to both. Jedi presence was an obvious obstacle.

"I could get us in the caves on Ilum-" he mentioned, almost contradicting himself. "-been there several times, but it's arguably riskier than what we did on Bastion. On the other hand, if we look hard enough we will find one elsewhere, but I dunno how long that will take."

It was time versus risk. Neither was very appealing.

 

[Darth Daiara]

Phone post xo

“Risker how?” She grumped, slumping back into her seat and crossing her arms. The cotton in her ears had dissolved over time. When he said his warnings, she listened. She didn’t immediately push to go. It seemed all it took was one brush with death and to teach her the hard lesson of slowing down.

He could have leveled a thousand gold you so’s over that. He hadn’t. She rubbed unconsciously at her healing cheek bone, the indented break no longer visible. It still ached.

“Are there imperials there? Or just Jedi? I can go under cover. With you there, they’ll never expect it.

right?”

 

[Zaavik Perl]

"Riskier because it's a sacred place. It wouldn't be like poking around on some backwater planet or weaseling our way around in a black market somewhere. We're-" He stopped, articulation caught on his tongue. After a brief pause, he'd clear his throat. "The Jedi are very protective of it." As they should be with the most, and possibly the only reliable source of genuine kyber crystals in the galaxy.

“Are there imperials there? Or just Jedi? I can go under cover. With you there, they’ll never expect it. Right?”

Zaavik shook his head. "Only Jedi. They'd defy the Triumvirate before they let an Imp on Ilum." Hearsay, mostly, but fewer Jedi were pleased about the pact than they let on publicly. Optics were too important to trade for convictions when public war support was keeping the entire effort afloat. A lesson others made sure he learned after his outburst at the summit.

"As long as no one recognizes me, maybe. Otherwise, we'll have more issues than we would from just getting caught."

 

[Darth Daiara]

A very subtle smile touched the corner of her lips as he corrected his pronouns.

Not us, but them. They were the jedi, and he? He was something different. Better. There was corruption everywhere, in the dark and in the light. She hated such black and white titles. She hated the stigma they brought. To her the force was merely the force, what defined you was your own will power and how you let it muddle you.

The jedi were just as muddled by force politics as the sith were. Corruption came in all forms and no one was immune to it. Hearing Zaavik shuck the jedi name felt like a sun beam jutting through a cloudy day.

The smile grew, her eyes soft and genuine as he finished speaking.

"So we don't get caught." Simple, right? Always was to her. "The imperials will kill us on sight. Your credentials will buy us time with a jedi. Listen, I-" She paused, picking at her own fingers as she struggled for a good set of words.

"I know you don't want to burn bridges there. Even if they're shits, you don't need more of the galaxy against you than you already have. Why do you think I kept my mouth shut when my Empire kept shipping kids off to the front line? I get it. Bottom line is, without a saber, I'm nothing. So either we commit and risk it, or I go home.

Because if we fall apart like that again, we're dead. "

 

[Zaavik Perl]

"So we don't get caught."

Zaavik manifested a sheepish expression. Were it so easy. Pulling that off would be an inordinately difficult challenge. Especially given Zaavik's recognisability, having sat on the New Jedi Council as well as slighted Ilum administrators personally on more than one occasion. Thinking of it made him remember he left behind a Padawan now without a teacher. Ilum, come to think of it, had been the last place they'd been together. How terrible of a person was he to go all this time without even thinking about Auraya? Not even thinking about how it might have affected her? He grimaced.

And for what? So he could disappear and have everyone presume he's dead or captured just so he can run around with his own personal vex and get impaled?

He looked up from the table, eyes settling on Aradia. His expression went sullen, his previous thoughts finally processing past impulse surface-idea. Chit. It was unfair to think about her that way, wasn't it? She had saved his life, after all. That already spoke more of her than a title or pair of yellow eyes ever could. Death's door, rock bottom, and countless instances of bickering hadn't driven her off. She deserved better consideration than that.

"I know you don't want to burn bridges there."

"No," he blurted, shaking his head. Would they even take him back at this point? If they found out he was alive and otherwise unrestrained the whole time? What comes then? A trial? Admonishment? Going back to empty smiles and feigned encouragement to keep fighting a fruitless good fight? It would be a lie to say he felt no longing to return, for home, but something could help but be angered by the thought. Disgusted, almost. Even the possibility of consequences notwithstanding, it just didn't feel like an option. He dug his grave when he left, and buried himself when he stayed gone.

"That bridge might as well be ash now." The certainty in his voice could have startled an omnipresence. Whether or not he truly believed that would only be debated internally. The outward declaration certainly left little room for doubt for an outside observer. Unless by some chance she was an empathic savant the entire time and had him fooled? Unlikely.

Deep breath. "If you think Ilum is our play, I'm with you." She saved his life, and he broke her saber. Zaavik had no right to do anything less than go along with it. Adding to it, she was painfully correct about the nigh-impossibility that they'd ever be that lucky again, and especially not if one of them was effectively demilitarized. The cherry on top? Her mention of going home rustled the usual belligerent tendencies, nearly making him fight her on it. As if he should care, but they'd already come this far. "But we'll need a plan. A really good plan."

 

[Darth Daiara]

Confidence straightened Aradia's spine, more earned than ever before. She once was nothing more than a cocky girl, thinking the world was at her finger tips because of what she was. Life had beaten that ignorance out of her, be it from Zaavik's own blade or the hands of the imperials, Aradia understood her limits now.

She was done being stupid. She was done rushing in. But this? With him here? The galaxy had opened up in ways she would never be able to accomplish alone.

With him here, her goals felt realistic again. Together, she felt capable.

"So we make one."

She grinned at him, pushing away their plates as an edge of that cockiness returned.


They hadn't stayed beaten down for long. The bacta might have run out, but it had gotten them far enough. Her bones ached, but she could turn her head and have elongated conversations again. Push came to shove, she'd shoot someone out with the gun she had clutched in her hands. She wasn't the best shot, but she wasn't bad either. Anything to keep a distance between her and threats.

She understood the danger of that now better than ever.

They had even managed a small pit stop on neutral grounds between sith and jedi space. It wasn't much good for infiltration, but food and fuel was as important as intel and bandages. ...Probably more.

So with a full stomach and the ever present tickle of nerves, Aradia sat crouched behind a rock. In the distance was the cave entrances of the Illum mines, a landmark they had to approach utterly on foot. The jedi were watching.

"What makes you so sure this is gonna turn into a storm?" A snow flake landed on her nose, melting into nothing as quick as it came.

 

[Zaavik Perl]

With his back braced against a neighboring stone, most of his weight on his heels, Zaavik hovered over the snow. Miming the position of being sat in a seat, he hunched slightly as he shoved a fresh prothium capsule into his DX-13. Metal clashed on metal, creating the distinct sound of a firearm being loaded. He stared down at the steel-black receiver with an uncertain expression, gingerly switching the setting to stun before slipping the weapon behind his back and into the concealed holster on his waist.

A furtive glance peeked between the curved gap in their respective boulders, just above where the two rocks made contact. "Because it always does," he replied, pulling his head back into cover. "I'm just not too certain about the when." The sky was a monoshade of grayish off-white, giving little indication to the meteorological layman's eye as to the conditions and how they might develop. "It might be a while, might not." Certainty at least lay in the fact that Ilum's weather patterns were generally consistent.

He slid down the boulder, letting his ass hit the ground, snow crunching beneath it. Had environmental conditioning coupled with force techniques to retain body heat not been a large part of the esoteric training received as a Shadow, he'd be damn near frozen by this point. "We'll just have to wait it out, so you might as well try to get comfortable."

 

[Darth Daiara]

Aradia sat back on her heels, her hand sliding off the holster. There was a lot less to be wary about here than Bastion, the fact that no one expected trouble today being their biggest advantage. Still. She cast a final look towards the looming mountains in the distance. She could feel the energy those rocky heaps contained from here. She pressed her palm to the ground and let the subtle echo of the force ripple up through the dirt. Of all the elements, fire had come the easiest for Aradia. Then ground. Then air. Water was impossible for her move. It might of been handy to push all the snow away, but she now knew better than use the force so offhandedly.

She no longer thought a show of strength was her wisest move. Kaalia Pavanos and Ashin Cardé Varanin lesson before that fire now made sense. She conserved her strength, slouching lower into the cold ice.


"Why would a jedi bother going through all of this when you can just buy one?" She grumbled, unable to help another glance over the bolder.

 

[Zaavik Perl]

"Kyber crystals aren't exactly a monetized resource outside of illicit markets. Plus, the Jedi frown on materialism," Most of them, anyway. Back then, Zaavik was certainly guilty of using that taxpayer stipend and salary to buy superfluous things. A speeder, holo-records, the usual things you'd expect from a rockerboy in the core worlds. He wasn't the only one guilty of it, but he dared not indict others with the thought. Bad luck to make a Jedi's ears burn right before you tried to slip your way into one of their holy sites.

"What you're getting in there isn't like the lab-grown synthetics. These are the real deal, more attuned to the force than any person could ever be. You'd be hard-pressed to just buy something like that." Scarcer than electrum, and far more precious than even aurodium. If Ilum were to fall into the wrong hands, lightsabers would quickly become a luxury even for the Jedi. "That's why they bother with the trouble of coming here. That, and it's tradition. Initiates and Padawans come here as a rite of passage. Obtaining a crystal and building a saber of one's own is a very big deal for them." Them. He'd nearly said us.

He made note of the sky but could discern no visible change. Impatience had arrived early. His knee began to bounce with energy he couldn't yet direct elsewhere. After a moment, he brought up an anecdote to distract himself. "Allyson brought me here when I was, I dunno- Nine? Ten?" He patted the saber concealed under his coat. "I've had this same saber ever since." His expression shifted, a physiognomic pose: 'Man Remembering.' When he became introspective, his inner speech often became external speech. "It's only been a few months since I brought Auraya here," he slipped with a droned autopilot laced with a crestfallen twinge.

An odd twist of fate that now he was bringing Aradia here too. Somone that not so long ago he was convinced he couldn't stand. Although their visit was more of a pilgrimage of recompense and perhaps a show of cooperative good faith rather than a mystical Jedi rite of passage.

He made a noise of self-aware contempt. "Sorry, that was a lot of exposition for someone who didn't ask."

 

[Darth Daiara]

Aradia's attention sharpened as she listened, her emotions locked under a vault of steel. There was so much that she felt she had been denied when Kaalia shunned her Sith Lord title. The woman had promised to keep instructing Aradia, but the intention felt looser. More hobbish and less like two's driven purpose.

Aradia should have been given this chance, but it had been stolen. By wars and decisions that were beyond her.

Now no one would guide her. She would never advance. A life stuck in this flux felt like a curse.

Something he said made her ears prick.

"What rank are you?" She asked sharply.

 

[Zaavik Perl]

Memories and considerations had the life choked out of them as they surfaced to make room for focus. He took a deep breath, doing his best to halt the stirring of doubts and anxieties that struggled to manifest. It evened out, thoughts refocusing monomaniacally back on the reason they were here.

Until-

"What rank are you?"

He looked up, away from the eye-paining white beneath him and toward the inquiry. "I was a Jedi Knight." It occurred to him then that she likely assumed him a Padawan the whole time. All authority involved had determined he'd surpassed that title. They asserted that every trial required had been met in the field. Yinchorr affirmed his skill, Korriban solidified his courage, a return to Yinchorr taught him perils of the flesh, a Sith Lord's trap hardened his spirit, and the on lowest levels of Coruscant his insight prevailed.

All at a relatively young age to be considered for such a title, but the New Jedi were small and undermanned. Had they been a bigger order, he would have been allowed to stay off the field and study further. You lose fewer lives that way, but they never really had a choice. The missions, battles, and obligations had forced his skills to hone for the sake of survival and success. Before he knew it he was a knight, though not the youngest in history, he was certainly the youngest knight in his order at the time he held the title.

"I had a seat on the council for a while." Until I left with you. "I even had a student," he confessed, aware that he'd slipped earlier. His eyes followed a large snowflake as it fluttered towards the ground. "But I was never a very good teacher anyway." Whether or not that was objectively true was separate from his firm belief that it was. He checked the sky again. "Snow is picking up, won't be much longer."

 

[Darth Daiara]

"No fair," Aradia breathed.

She ignored his comment on the weather, her brows furrowing on his crouched form as she considered what he had said. Something in his chest tugged at her, a gnawing sensation that she knew all too well.

"You really think you can't go back?" She asked, unable to stop herself. "It's done for ? All the good parts of home? You've been talking about it like you can't come back from this, but all we're out here doing is to fix what they won't." Why was she trying to help a jedi go back? She'd never be able to answer that, but the way he sat there feeling so hollow... politics be damned, she wasn't gonna shove snow into her mouth and be silent.

"Life isn't all black and white yanno... Just cause you didn't kill me doesn't make you a sith. Just cause you left to do other things doesn't make you their enemy. You think our methods our harsh? That's just cultish..."

She dug at the dirt with her heel, uneasy as she thought about the order she was desecting. Out of respect for him, she didn't say more.

He didn't need her words to know she thought they were foul through and through.

 

[Zaavik Perl]

"They probably think I'm dead, Aradia." His blunt retort hung between them like a bad odor. "Or at the very least MIA. If they find out otherwise, and I don't have a really convincing story? That's desertion. Alliance, Imperial, Sith, that's a crime anywhere you go. Not to mention if they discover what we did on Bastion or what we're doing here. It's treason, no nuance about it."

Zaavik released a heavy sigh, sliding his back against the stone as he stood in preparation for their inevitable approach. "I know you mean well," he confessed. "They don't. There's a lot you don't understand about how things work on my side of the river." He frowned, eyes to floor. "There's a lot you don't understand about this in regards to me, either. I-" A frustrated noise punctuated his sentiment with an interjecting hesitation. The existence of the re-investigation into Ido Bastra's death managed to reach him over the last few weeks. SIA could hide anything, but Zaavik knew where to look for better or worse.

"I don't have the best track record with this kind of thing, and I have a hunch they're starting to catch on."

Leaning, he peeked between the gap in their respective hiding spots. "We should start moving if you want to get this done," he declared in an attempt to stifle the subject, feeling he'd illuminated too much already.

 

[Darth Daiara]

Aradia's frown caught on her lips.

Right. She wouldn't say these things in an acedemy. Why would she bother saying them here? She tried to reminder herself that temperance was the only thing that would watch her back out here. She let him brush it all aside without pushing it any further. She stood up, her back hunched to keep her blocked from sight as she looked up to the sky.

"Fine. But if they shoot first, I'm shooting backing."

She darted past him, a blur of red and black in the distance as she hit for another treeline. The wind had picked up sharply, bringing with it a sudden chill. Had he been right then? A flurry of snow decided upon them from above.

She reached her hand out for it, then snuffed. Lucky guess.

The cover was all they needed. She pushed forward, the edge of the forest giving way to wash of flat snow. Within minutes, she could barely see ten armslengths before her. The chill found its way to bones. As she pushed one foot in front of the other, one thing he said came back up to bother her.

They weren't the monsters here.

They weren't.

 

[Zaavik Perl]

"Fine. But if they shoot first, I'm shooting back."

"I wouldn't tell you not-"

She commenced approach before he could fully articulate a response. Yeah, that felt about right. He slipped into invisibility, the Force bending light around him. Unseen, he vaulted over the stone and began to follow at speed only possible with the force's assistance. Snow kicked up like a cloud behind every step, creating the illusion of snowdrifts with the lack of any apparent cause.

A few moments later, he caught up and adjusted his speed to advance alongside her. Though invisible, his unseen presence was deliberately unshielded lest she is taken by surprise. "Up that ridge!" he shouted over the wind, indicating with his finger although it was a useless gesture. Zaavik pulled his hand away once he realized she couldn't see it anyway. "Just follow my footsteps!"

He pushed harder. Enough to overtake her for the purpose of leading to the spot he'd mentioned in their plan. A steep incline brought them over a dozen yards up onto a cliff face. Were it not for the snow, they'd be able to see the rocks they'd covered behind from here. He stopped once they reached the summit, becoming visible again as he waded through the white toward a large drift.

Gloved hands dug away at snow, eventually, with her help, revealing a crevice that had long been enveloped by snow. Zaavik made a joke about this being the right spot after all, oblivious to how flippant it may have been. On a knee, he ducked down and poked his head into the crevice. "It goes for a few meters and drops in suddenly. I'll go first, make sure it's clear."

Down onto his stomach, wading through the reaccumulating snow, he squeezed into the low vent-like cave entrance. When only the bottom halves of his legs remained outside, he shrouded himself again. He writhed and slithered, suddenly being pulled downward at a drop-off. A quiet noise of surprise echoed back through the entrance as he fell. Flipping once over in the air, he called upon the force to end his descent with a featherlike landing on his back.

The dull, azure glow of crystals somewhere in the distance stretched just far enough to make the section he'd ended up in just a half-step up from pitch black. Standing, he brushed himself off and stage whispered up toward the vent. "It's clear. Hurry."

 

[Darth Daiara]

Maybe she should make him shoot one of them. Prove that he really wasn't here to screw her over. Acid hit the back of her throat as she recalled the displays of dedication she had seen her fellow acolytes cornered into.

No, she dismissed.

She didn't need that from him.

She rolled her eyes as the invisible voice fussed with the snow banks. Show off, she scoffed, as she felt his presence descend into the cavern. His voice hissed up at her, alive and well. A trap?

No, she dismissed again, battering back the paranoia from her mind.

She fell light and soundless, her orange locks looking brown in the darkness of the cavern. She craned her head up, squinting as snow fell into her eyes.

"You'd think they'd cover that up." Not that she'd complain. It beat fighting their way in through the front. She turned, a lick of fire erupting over her extended palm as she scanned the area. "...Nothing's amiss. Lead the way, Invsaboy. ...And no funny business," she snapped, her voice a sharp whisper as she shot the space besides his head a mistrusting look.

"What are we even looking for? How do we know when we've found one. "

 

[Zaavik Perl]

"You'd think they'd cover that up."

"It's a cave, they don't go around patching holes. Plus, as far as I know, no one's ever done this before." Ilum had seen its fair share of strife, but no instance of a kyber heist came to mind. At least, not any that Zaavik was aware of.

He stopped himself from blinking, trying to speed up his eye's adjustment to the light level. The closer they got to what they were looking for, the easier it would be to see.

"What are we even looking for? How do we know when we've found one. "

"A kyber crystal?" he replied as if it should be obvious, though maybe missing the point of her question. "Normally to find one big enough and fully attuned to the force a Jedi will just- uh- use intuition." Not very helpful, but that was the way of things. "Let the force guide them to it. I'm not sure if that applies here, with you, but it's our first and only lead." He gave her a look coupled with a half-shrug.

"So, lead on. If it doesn't work, we're bound to stumble onto one eventually. We can figure it out from there."

Before he'd let her go on he'd interject himself forward. "Wait-" he implored. "Look, this place is a vergence. If you tap too much into the dark side we're gonna be in for a real shitshow." A face manifested as if bracing for retaliation. A hand came over the back of his head. "Just try to keep cool, okay?"

 

[Darth Daiara]

"A kyber crystal?"

"Well duh, I know a crystal I meant-" She interjected, talking over him and falling silent again once he came around to answering her actual question. ...Rather poorly, she might add.

I'm not sure if that applies here, with you,

She blinked hard, unsure if she had just been insulted or if he was just horribly blunt. She brushed past him, bristling in not so subtle 'tude and indignation.

"Right, cause the only way I get to share the same things as them is if I do things their way. T o x i c," she scoffed, his meaning lost to her jadedness. It wasn't even pointed towards him. It was as he kept making it a point to say-- he was no longer one of them.

Not one to be told she couldn't, she near stormed on ahead. And then his final warning was uttered quickly.

She stopped short, then slowly turned in place. A look of puzzlement twisted across her features. "Are you fecking with me?" He wasn't making this easy. "How can I use the force if I can't use the force. We don't have the time to walk aimlessly through here. Why didn't you tell me beforehand?" She hissed, her voice quiet and tight to prevent an echo.

 

[Zaavik Perl]

"Why didn't you tell me beforehand?"

Zaavik rolled his eyes under the cover of low light. "I'm sorry!" he hissed with quiet exclamation. "But I knew with your attitude we wouldn't have made it this far if I brought it up." Harsh? Perhaps. He was being forthright rather than shooting for a nerve. Every ounce of his omission was supported, in his mind, by recent historical precedent where the two of them were concerned.

"What do you mean 'use the force if you can't use the force'? I'm just asking you not t-" Wham. The realization hit him suddenly. Fast blinks inflected that gears were turning in his brain. "Hey," he began softly. "You know you're not limited to one end of the Force, right?" His tone was gingerly deliberate to avoid making her think he was calling her stupid or that the question was rhetorical.