Shadows of Bankor

Part of being a Jedi again (not that he had ever stopped, but...) was redeveloping those skills that he'd let fall by the wayside. And, Petrus thought ruefully, there were rather a lot of those. Lightsaber combat, meditation, discipline... pretty much everything.

Including his art.

He was pleased that Dove had accepted his suggestion that she model for him; after all, they were good friends, and had grown pretty close over the last few years. It'd be a nice, casual, low-stakes way to get some practice.

Close wasn't just figurative, either. Pad and stylus under his arm, Petrus stepped out, walked half a dozen steps... and knocked casually on his friends' door.

Dove opened the door, wearing a silky black robe with patterns of white and gray birds. It seemed like the kind of garment ladies wore to cover their underwear, before putting on clothes.

"Hey, Petrus," she smiled, "come on in."

Petrus' lips parted, but only for the briefest of moments. "Hey, Dove. How's it going? Thanks." He said, walking casually into the apartment. No doubt he'd caught her in the midst of changing; once she'd seen him in, she could go back and put on the rest of whatever outfit she had.

He glanced casually around, smiling at the familiar objects; he'd spent a lot of time here the last few years. "So, have you ever modeled for drawing before?" Petrus asked, glancing back at Dove.

"Hmmm..." Dove tilted her head a little to the side as she considered the answer. "I think Mahon and I did something like that in the start, but that's some time ago now." Or had they just pretended? There had been a lot of wine involved.

"But I'm more than happy to help you out with your hobbies, and I got some time to spare today for ya." She moved over to the window, where she had kept the blinders closed most of the time since the little incident with Bowze's visit. "Do you prefer natural light to work with, or...?"

"Ah. That makes sense." Petrus said, tone slightly dry. "Well, I'm not as good an artist as he is, even ignoring how rusty I am. But I think I can make you look nice." He flashed a grin at her, obviously joking; you'd have to try to make her look bad. "And I really appreciate it. Thanks again. I'll owe you one."

He frowned a moment, considering. "Let's leave it closed. I think I'll have an easier time with that."

Petrus began looking around the room. "Huh... there's a lot of ways we can do this. However we're most comfortable, I guess."

She shrugged slightly. "You're the artist, Petrus. Let me be your muse, and tell me how you want me." A wink was given in his direction, because the phrasing was totally on purpose.

"I can strike a cool action pose, or just take a relaxed position to let you work on anatomy. Whatever you like."

Petrus grinned, shaking his head. It seemed it was getting a bit harder to really embarrass him. "I hardly know how to answer that question." He said, shaking his head again.

Well, anyway. "Hmm. An action pose sounds pretty neat. But... let's do that later. For now, yeah. On the couch would be great. Maybe resting with your legs on it?" He shrugged. "However you'd be most comfortable."

Petrus turned, carefully arranging a chair to where he'd best be able to work.

"Ooh, yeah, that's a good idea." She could probably hold an action pose for a good while, but the idea of just lounging on the couch for the next hour seemed very nice to her.

As Petrus turned to set up his work-space, Dove slipped off the silk-robe and draped it over the couch, before getting into a comfortable position lying down herself. Under the robe she had only been wearing underwear. Very nice underwear.

"Ok, I think I'm pretty comfortable," she said and brushed a hand over her ponytail to make sure it could be part of the picture.

"That's g-" Petrus turned, his blue eyes widening. After a moment, he swallowed.

He'd been expecting a bit of teasing. Possibly some very tight clothing, maybe the occasional flash of shoulder or thigh. He wasn't expecting to be confronted with quite this much beauty all at once.

"Wow." Petrus said. "Dove, if I ever suggest that you can't surprise me any more, just remind me of this moment, and I'll admit I'm wrong." He managed to give her a smile, although his eyes were still wide, cheeks noticeably flushed.

The reaction was more or less what she expected, and Dove chuckled. And laughed. "My, Petrus. You're a young man with access to the Holonet, surely you've seen more than this before," she chided him, her tone teasing as it often was in moments like this.

"A lot of artists work with nude models when doing anatomy-studies, but I figured that would be too much for you."

His lips quirked. "I've seen Warrior's Heart. If you lost the bra and put on a helmet, that'd make me feel right at home. But..." His expression wavered as he struggled for the right words. "I don't know. It's different somehow."

Just the suggestion made his heart beat a little faster. "You figured right." Petrus admitted, smiling sheepishly. His lips quirked again. "Maybe later. With the action pose." And yet, while Petrus sometimes joked along, he never did follow up...

Petrus sat, arranging his pad... and then paused. "Can I get you anything before we start? Something to drink, maybe?" Petrus asked, solicitously. After all, he was a Nice Young Man.

"Oh, maybe I should've asked your Mando-friend to borrow her helmet? It could've been Warrior's Heart-fan art, right?" she mused idly, changing her pose a little. Thankfully the pose at least was modest - as modest as it could be in lingerie - so it wouldn't be too much for the Nice Young Man. "Ah no, I'm fine for now, but I'll ask you if I get thirsty."

Dove cleared her throat, trying to be a bit more professional.

Petrus chuckled. "Good luck. She's one of those sorts that always keeps the helmet on. I don't know if she's even human." He acknowledged the refusal with a nod and a smile. And then he began. For a time, there was silence, except for the scratching of his stylus.

It came back to him rather quickly, in fact. And, once his initial shock faded, he found Dove rather enjoyable to sketch. He started with a basic outline first, quick lines (and curves, of course), creating a framework for the details to be added.

"So..." Petrus began. "Can I ask how your, uh, special project's going? The one that we talked about with Mahon?" His eyes flicked from his work, to her eyes, and then back to her form.

"Oh. I thought that was something they only did on the show." To Dove, not taking off your helmet seemed like a very oppressive culture, or a cult with weird behaviour control.

Seeing Petrus settled into the work and relaxing, she felt more at ease too. This was just natural stuff the kid had to get used to to live in the real world. In her opinion the Jedi also for into weird cult.

"Hmm... It's..." She hesitated somewhat. "It's worked so far, I think. I have his trust, I do the dance of trying to keep a balance and our friends a step ahead, but without tripping over myself."

But the longer she played the game, the more it would start to weigh down on her. "And how goes your quest?"

As she hesitated, so did Petrus. His stylus stopped, his blue eyes concerned as they sought hers. "Well... " He smiled gently. "I've seen you dance, Dove. If anyone can do it, it's you." His lips pressed together. "If there's any way I can help, just let me know, huh? You know you can, right?"

Work resumed. This was the hard part. Lines of muscle, tendon, the way the body bent and flowed... as professionally as he was working, Petrus would be lying if he said he wasn't appreciating the view on more than one level.

"Major breakthrough today." Petrus sighed, even as he worked. He didn't sound happy. "It's... I need to figure something out. But did you ever learn something you wished you hadn't? Or maybe learned something about yourself that you wished was different?"

"It's a dangerous dance, Petrus. Like... dancing with a mega-rancor," she figured he'd appriciate the reference. "I really wouldn't want you to be in danger of being discovered by him."

Dove breathed calmly even if she was feeling less than her calm self today. Maybe she was just being too worried that she was stretching her luck with her target.

"Oh... sometimes, but I'm also way too curious for my own good and I go digging for more even when I know it's a bad idea. Why? Did something bad happen?"

The reference made Petrus smile. "That is dangerous. Twice as dangerous as a regular rancor." The smile faded. "I don't want him to discover me either. Not yet." He met her eyes. "But Dove, if you need me, or, I mean, I don't know, need something..." Grimacing, he left the rest unsaid. It was hard, worrying about someone and being helpless to do anything about it.

He smiled gently. "That does sound like you. Do you have any times where it ended well, or just..." He spread his left hand. The clothing actually created some interesting contours in Dove's flesh; Petrus frowned with concentration as he did his best to replicate the effect.

"Not... exactly bad." Petrus stopped again, looking at her. "Seeking knowledge is part of my code. But..." He pressed his lips together, "-I don't know. I learned something about the Jedi... I guess the closest thing I can think of is if a hero of yours turned out to be not nearly as good as you thought. Like, really bad. Murder, deception, the works."

Petrus' offer, and concern, was a good thing to see... it seemed he was getting better at being a Jedi again, and not afraid all the time. Not that she faulted him for being scared when she found him, considering what he and these other kids had been through.

"Rarely does such things end well in my line of work. Knowledge is often a dangerous thing to possess, and the more you know, the more of a liability you can be." Dove resisted the urge to tilt her head as she looked at Petrus. "I think you'll be hard-pressed to make me consider those things nescessarily bad, but... I guess I can relate to learning something about a person you know, that makes you change your opinion drastically for the worse."

"The Jedi have been around in the galaxy for thousands of years, so I'm not surprised if there's some skeletons in their closet, to be honest."

"Yeah... skeletons sounds about right." Petrus right hand was steady, but his left brushed through his hair. "It's just... we're supposed to be better than that. We defended the Republic, but that's not what this sounded like. Using the Force to advance a political agenda, at all costs..."

He pursed his lips, looking thoughtfully at Dove. There was an intimacy to this that he hadn't quite expected. What was it like, being a spy, being ordered to do the sorts of things he was just criticising? The stylus worked, filling in more details.

"Maybe. Petrus shrugged. "Or maybe not. Maybe once you really know someone... maybe then learning something new wouldn't change anything." He gave her one of his gentle smiles. "Dak said that you had secrets... and that I should ask you if I wanted to know about them."

She didn't quite frown, but the usual smile wasn't there. "The Republic was hardly a shining beacon in the galaxy, Petrus. You've seen what it's become - this Empire - that's a change that doesn't just happen over night."

As he spoke of Dak, and her secrets, Dove sighed softly, her lips pressed together for a few moments. "... I suppose you're old enough to ask such questions, I guess. Very well," a brief smile, "since you have me pinned down for the time being, feel free to ask questions, kid."

"I know." Petrus sighed. "We the Jedi. I mean, I was born on Coruscant, and not in the upper levels. Even though I was only six when the Jedi took me, I could still..."

He pressed his lips together a moment. "Sometimes I wondered if the fighting was right. And maybe the purge..." if we deserved it. Petrus swallowed the words, but the flicker of emotions on his features couldn't be missed.

Well, her phrasing made him smile, anyway. "I'm sure there's tons of people who'd be jealous of the position I am. But okay." Petrus worked on drawing her hair; it was difficult to capture the way it seemed to flow. "I'm not sure where to begin. What do I want to... wait, no. Wrong question. Is there anything I should know?" He asked gently, smiling again.

Dove's nose wrinkled slightly. "I never liked Coruscant. It's got the fanciest places in the galaxy and the best luxuries, but... yeah, the amount of rot behind it, and the metropolis placed on the burden of those below." Her expression softened, as if she understood what Petrus was thinking. Or feeling. "But no, you didn't deserve what happened. Especially not you and the other... kids..."

That had been a sight she didn't want to really stick too much in her memory, but it did.

"That's an interesting way to phrase what you want to know," Dove studied him closely for a few minutes, as if she was gauging him to see if he was ready to take that kind of conversation. "... I never told you this before, but... I never worked for the Republic."

Petrus closed his eyes, and shook his head, but didn't otherwise respond to Dove's reassurance. Still, she could see his breathing slow, the moment of remembered trauma apparently passed.

For a time then, there was silence. Petrus working, while Dove studied him. He almost had everything that he needed, just looking for little details that he'd missed the first time around, and her face. He paused, giving her another of his gentle smiles, adjusting the drawn line of her jaw.

He stopped. Petrus head tilted, looking at her. "What do you mean?" He asked softly.

Her chest swelled gently as she took a deep breath. This was going to be awkward. "Confederacy of Independant Systems. The CIS," she said simply at first. "I was an agent of the Seps' during the war."

Dove let it sink in a little before continuing. "Not all of us were bad people. Some of us, like the ones I worked for, fought against the growing corruption in the Republic. The strangehold the Core worlds excised on the other worlds. But when... when your Order were declared to be enemies, some of us didn't believe it. I didn't believe it. Neither did my superiors. It's why I helped you. And others like you. Because you had become victims of what we had been standing against."

"Oh." Petrus said. He chewed his lip. "Did you... no. Nevermind." He fell silent. Did you kill any Jedi? She'd saved him. Others, too. Maybe, unlike her, he knew better than to ask questions that could only hurt.

His lips tightened, just a little, as she criticized the Republic. Just as he'd been doing. His expression softened again. "Victims..." Petrus sighed. "There were a lot of victims, that war."

The stencil moved up the pad, finally working on her face. "Why didn't you believe it?" He asked, just as softly as before.