You say Force, I say Nature

[Katria Vekarr]

The CIS had it's perks.

It was this very sentence that the young agent reminded herself of every other day. She couldn't remember just when or why she'd joined but, as she nestled into the bunk of her quarters on the Vekarr's Pride, there was little difficulty in reciting that particular thought to reassure herself.

Not months ago she was a free roaming mercenary; there was something to be said about influence.

Letting the thoughts lay to rest, giving her a moment of clarity from the stress of her new position, the brunette stretched and scrambled off her bunk. It wasn't the biggest, nor was it the most comfortable, but there was little to say that could change the young woman's mind about the place she called home. Time and time again she'd considered replacing the bunk, but each time she'd resorted to keeping it as it was.

This time in particular she ignored the conflict entirely and began to make her way through the hall of the freighter towards her personal armory; the one place in the entire ship she felt most at home. She took the moment to input her password and bio-scans before retrieving her verpine, and it's respective verpine pistol companion, then made her way quietly towards the main cargo hold.

It was there that she sat down to a plate of food prepared by Skiss and a set of tools she knew he'd placed to keep her mind at ease.

Debate was swift, her mind set, and without even a word or gesture to suggest she'd hesitated for the slightest of seconds she dug into the food. All the while eyeing her weapons up and down in search of problems.

Better prepared than dead.

[member="Katrine Van-Derveld"]

 

[Katrine Van-Derveld]

There were a couple of bags in her hand as she made her way towards her ship. Ryloth was a fun place to be, which grew more and more important as time passed. There was relevance and power to it and it had far less to do with Mother's stories than it used to. Now it was so much more than that, with the discovery of the Mandragora and the spirits. It some odd way, Katrine had found a home even though it was not home per say, not in the physical sense. It was home on a whole other level.

Katrine hadn't seen it so before even though she'd spent so much time in the library, eager to discover all she possibly could about the Mandragora history. Now, it felt somehow stronger though she had a lot to comprehend it. Like the way she didn't hear a single voice in her head anymore, instead, there were three. They weren't loud enough yet but they were there somehow. Katrine could hear them even now, quietly guiding her, preparing her for what she had yet to know. She wasn't alone anymore, for lack of better word.

In those thoughts, she paused when she spotted a familiar ship. The voices subdued in a moment and her step hurried towards the familiar ship, her bags in hand. For a girl without a legit ID, according to the banks where she'd tried to get an account open (for some reason they'd kick her out when she showed them hers because her date of birth was sixty years in the future which Katrine didn't really get since it was none of their business in her eyes) but at least Uncle Isley was sweet enough to give her one of his credit cards to make use of. She needed to buy things like food or new threads from time to time, and those acid slugs of hers didn't fall from trees.

She wasn't too sure how you entered the ship, it was kinda different than hers. So Katrine did what came naturally to her - use telepathy. Concentrating, she reached out in the direction, searching Katria before sending a single thought towards her. "Katria! Permission to come aboard?" It felt like she was there though someone who wasn't Force Sensitive felt a little different within the Force than a regular force user. It didn't matter too much, she was familiar with her enough to be able to recognize her.

[member="Katria Vekarr"]

 

[Katria Vekarr]

Getting visitors wasn't a normal occurrence for the young agent. Especially when it came to her personal ship and it's carefully monitored interior. Yet, as she had begun to settle back into her daily routine, the young woman was met with an interruption that would have otherwise gone ignored and dismissed.

Were it not for the individual making such a request.

The thought nudged her mind at first, the sensation always enough to raise the hairs on the back of the brunette's neck. Then, as quickly as it made her shudder she listened to the sound of a rather energetic voice in her head. The voice of none other than Katrine Van-Derveld herself, whom the young agent had only recently discovered was a part of the Force integral division of the CIS known as the Mandragora. The revelation was unsettling, but she had better things to focus on.

In some ways less than kosher.

As the thought dissipated and the sensors of the Vekarr's Pride kicked to life, the young woman rose to her feet and made her way to the docking ramp to let her friend inside. While she knew the young blonde considered her a friend, there was no denying in the mind of the brunette that she had other thoughts in mind for the other. While it was fortunate that they went mostly unnoticed, some part of the agent wished the blonde wasn't nearly as naive as she seemed.

Slamming her hand against the ramp access panel, she watched the ramp open and the visage of her blonde friend appear. The blonde was always a sight to behold and a refreshing distraction from the stress that came with her line of work.

Flicking an invitational gesture with her hand towards the blonde she once again disappeared into the halls of her ship to continue her daily tasks.

[member="Katrine Van-Derveld"]

 

[Katrine Van-Derveld]

While Katrine had become well aware that Katria wasn't sensitive within the Force, she'd been more used to keep that sort of company that a small bit of her had expected a response that she knew wouldn't come. Instead, the ramp had begun to lower, Katria coming to view soon enough as she's waved her over.

It wasn't just fun and games in her head anymore. Somehow, Katrine could feel her insides adjusting for something big, her brain almost running on a spark flowing through. It was strange all together, with the little voices reaching out. It wasn't just the mysterious brunette who had appeared to her at the Silver Jedi Party, who still hadn't identified herself, it was other voices as well who seemed familiar to her but inside her head, they had sounded different than they had before so she couldn't quite place them. Father heard voices, she had spent a long time haunted by her ancestor that the presences weren't that much of a shock to her, it was everything else.

Katrine was still Katrine, her perky, energetic and always happy self, even without her medicine now that Avarisa was gone but it was what was happening to her unseen that was making it all feel strange, even in her own skin to which she had been accustomed to her after twenty years.

Making her way up to the ship, her step hurried towards Katria, a big smile spreading across her face as the voices subdued for a time, letting her focus on the soothing presence of her friend. Katria could drink, which made her great company for the ever curious blond. There was a cloud around her which prevented Katrine from being able to read her mind and though Kat now knew that said vacancy in the Force was Katria, it still felt a little bit weird now though they hadn't openly discussed this fact. And probably the most important bit was what had happened on Rodia. Katria had saved her when the storm had become too much for her, making her pass out. Katrine didn't know what would have happened if she hadn't, to be perfectly honest though the whole thing still seemed like a fog, mixed in with the marks upon her flesh she had woken to later on.

The brunette was quick to disappear, making Katrine drop her shopping bags before she quickly followed after Katria. "Whatcha up to?" She asked quickly as she tagged along. There was a thing about Katrine that people around her eventually learned but probably didn't pick up at first which was her inability to understand boundaries. Like, if someone wanted to be alone, she couldn't pick that up on her own unless flat out told and even then, a bunch of questions would follow. She was far too social in comparison to her other issues. "Are you hungry? I'm kinda famished. I could devour a Doashim. Wanna go grab something to eat?" Katrine would never harm a Doashim, they were sacred to her much as Rancors were but it got the message through on just how famished she actually was.

[member="Katria Vekarr"]

 

[Katria Vekarr]

There was something to be said about the energy of others. Some were exuberant, some were zealous and then there was Katrine. She was in a league of her own, and it was a league that the young agent was still beginning to become accustom to.

Noted quickly by her behavior.

Not seconds after she'd managed to slip back into her work, putting her mind back to the rifle she'd left untuned at the side of the entertainment table, the blonde was quick to sneak up on her. Most, in complete honesty, would have been shot on the spot or knocked upside the head if they pulled what the younger blonde had. However, as the brunette turned to eye the blonde, there was a sudden placidness that washed over her as she tapped the rifle silently.

"Cleaning," she breathed as she picked up a small rag, sat on the table and began to scrub away at the grime that had begun to gather on the metal of the verpine. The observant would have noticed shortly after that the half epicanthix' attention quickly became split. Even as her hands began to rub away, her eyes could be seen wandering towards the blonde and her small and vibrant frame. With a roll of her eyes at the blonde's comment about eating something as large as a doashim the brunette tilted her head back down absentmindedly. "There's some blue milk and nerf in the cooler, if you're interested."

As she spoke she indicated with her hand towards a small handle lidded box on the far side of the passenger area, not far from the passage that lead to storage area. With her mind quelled for the moment, she went back to the rifle in her hands as she tried desperately to dismiss the thoughts forming her head with the blonde sitting in her "home".

"Skiss won't cook anymore." She muttered with a sigh, glancing up at the blonde hoping to catch her eye. "What did you have in mind?"

[member="Katrine Van-Derveld"]

 

[Katrine Van-Derveld]

A tap on the rifle and a quick verbal explanation gave an answer to Katrine's question. The blond found herself a place to sit as she began to watch the actions. She'd never cleaned a rifle herself though she'd only had hers recently. Slugthrower cleaning was another subject. Since she'd grown up around them, it was certainly one of the things Mother took the time teach her, just as her own adoptive father had taught her. It was their thing, Mother had said, Seth cleaning his and her cleaning her own when she was still young so Curupira had passed down the tradition, teaching her daughter and always letting her clean one while she cleaned the other.

Katrine didn't see it but she felt it, her sapphire eyes prying themselves away from the weapon to look up at Katria, seeing her look at her on and off. "What?" She asked after a moment before she was suddenly offered milk and nerf if she was interested. "I'm interested. I'm not feeling much for a hunt after the shopping," she admitted. She could, she always could but it wouldn't really be full strength to get a good prey as she'd prefer. Katrine stood and moved to where she was indicated, opening it up to find the offered choices, reaching her hands to pick up one of each, coming back to sit near [member="Katria Vekarr"] . She took a sip of the blue milk before she put it down, beginning to eat the meat out of the hand, nomming it without hesitation. Hungry enough to eat a big animal, after all, though she wasn't greedy about it, not the way she would be in her Lupine form.

Her attention returned to the rifle as Katria mentioned her Skiss, saying he wouldn't cook anymore, making her look at Katria oddly as she finished up the piece in her mouth. "How come?" She asked as she swallowed, bitting into the meat again while Katria wondered again if she had anything in mind. Katrine shrugged, unsure. The meat would do her good, for now, she thought as she reached for the milk again, drinking a few more sips between her bites then continued with the nerf. "You're gonna have to teach me that. My rifle will probably need a clean up soon," she commented off hand before she continued chewing.