Shadows of Bankor

She had invited the Balosar to the Hunting Lodge, a quiet place to talk. The table set with a teapot, and two rustic mugs. Around the table, several esoteric candles burned, ominous green vapor coalescing about the flames.

The Witch sat at the table, awaiting the arrival of Vaya.

Vaya had enjoyed her brisk walk through the hills after a few spent hours inside a library. She wasn't a fanatical devotee of nature, but anything that wasn't a polluted hellhole ecumenopolis was nice as far as she was concerned, and much of her career was spent going out of doors on expeditions.

She knocked and opened the door of the the simple cabin, constructed of sturdy natural materials. She was prepared to quip 'Rustic,' when she came in, but when she saw how well-appointed the interior was, she upgraded.

"Cozy. Thanks for the invitation, Juri." Then she squinted, taking a second look at the candles. Huh.

"Welcome." The Witch stood from her seat, bare feet padding on the finished floor, sound muffled as she stepped on fur rugs. A hand extended, offering to take anything Vaya wished to not carry, and set them on a small table by the door. In the dim light of the eerie candles, her purples eyes almost seemed aglow.

"I am glad you accepted my invitation, Vaya. It was nice to hear your thoughts on how it wasn't only the Jedi who were the sole keepers of knowledge of the Force." She invited the other woman to take a seat at the table next to her.

Vaya handed over her satchel without thinking, caught off guard by the old-fashioned hospitality of the gesture, and smiled. It wasn't until she sat that she thought of the secrets on her datapad, now out of arm's reach.

Her heart fell as Juri spoke. I guess we're getting right down to it. This morning, she had looked forward to this private moment of discovery. Now, she felt like a child who had carelessly fumbled one precious gift asking for another.

By the end of her sentence, the feeling was like a feral tooka cat in her chest, and she blurted out, "I was questioned by the Inquisitor today."

She didn't say anything. Merely taking the teapot, and pouring a clay mug for Vaya, and then herself. She slipped into her seat, looking to the Balosar woman. Soft eyes beaming with compassion as she looked to her.

"Tell me. What happened?"

Vaya had trouble with the look in Juri's eyes, and felt shame coloring her cheeks. Instead, as she spoke, she looked at one of the strange candles, trying to distract her brain by figuring out why they burned that way. She started talking, knowing she would be talking for longer than she usually did, maybe longer than she should, but she knew what thought she was trying to get out before she started.

"He was conducting a random check. He rounded everyone up, and was asking them about Jedi. I didn't know the answers to his questions. But... everyone knows something. Has someone they could betray. Or, at least I do." One corner of her mouth tugged up.

"My, the, person two in front of me, she must have upset him. Or something. He cut the head off the next man. He didn't even ask him any questions, first." She swallowed.

"I told him I didn't know anything about his Jedi. But... the things he can do..." She gave a short, bitter laugh. "I guess I shouldn't be so focused on the trappings. Any idiot in gaberwool jodhpurs could kill me just as dead if he told his squad to shoot me. The Inquisitor's just a thug with a few extra tricks and a good sense of showmanship.

"But... I'm clever, Juri, but I'm..." she choked on the next words, before spitting them out like a blood clot "not brave. A coward. It's rare that something reminds me that it doesn't matter how smart I am if I can't..." she tapped the side of her head, between ears and antennapalps, with a fist, using slightly more force than needed to simply indicate. "If I flinch. Everyone is wise until they take the first blow," she quoted some ancient sage.

"If he had pushed a little harder... if he saw how scared I was of, of what I might say, and not just of him... but I was scared of him. I might have told him anything. Everything. Gotten people killed." She takes a shaky breath, voice heavy with emotion. "Not because I'd made a calm, rational choice to throw my friends out the airlock to save my own skin, but just because a thug convinced me he was going to hurt me, and I'm scared of pain." She slumped, as if the words had been animating a corpse and now that they were gone she was an empty shell, staring at the floor.

Juri listened as Vaya spoke, recounting the trauma of the day. Understanding, compassion in her eyes as she watched. When the other woman slumped, Juri brought her hands up, gently caressing the Balosar's cheeks, tenderness in the light touch.

"You blame yourself because of a very natural feeling. Fear, no, terror, can make you do things you wouldn't normally do. You aren't a coward, Vaya. You came face to face with an agent of the dark side. They use fear to torment and make suffer." Her words were soft, gentle and serene.

"You might be scared of pain, but they didn't find it, and you didn't give it away, either. Do not judge yourself so harshly."

Vaya flinched slightly at the light touch. It was alien to her, but she was surprised to find that it was not unwelcome. She closed her eyes, tired of staring at the candle but unwilling to look Juri in the eyes.

Few things animated Vaya like a good argument, and her head rose and her expression became more animated. Her antennapalps, drooped along her forehead, perked up, and her hands stayed in her lap but started making sharp, short gestures as she spoke.

"I would have, though. I know it wouldn't have taken much, if he had decided to push a little more, or hauled me away to stick me in a cell for later." Her more rational mind started to think about how many more options she'd have in a cell, with maglocks and regular everyday guards to get past instead of a monster in a mask, but she wanted to argue that she sucked, damn it, so she pushed the thought away. "If you fire randomly into a crowd, and miss, are you less reckless?" She shook her head, but not too much, so she didn't dislodge Juri's fingertips.

"There is a difference. You don't intend to be captured. Someone firing a blaster randomly into a crowd intends to do harm." She leaned in, her voice a soft whisper, comforting. A gentle caress of her hands on Vaya's cheeks, lifting her chin so that when she opened her eyes, she would have to see into the vibrant purple of her eyes.

"You cannot punish yourself for hypothetical situations that only occurred in your mind of what ifs and could have beens."

"Okay, maybe that's fair." She opens her eyes, looking firmly into Juri's. "But that's why I'm saying this before you tell me any of your secrets."

"It is not a very well kept secret, Vaya. And you're my friend, so you have my trust. Especially after this." Juri's eyes were soft, sparkling slightly in the odd candelight.

"I am a Nightsister of Dathomir. And we, too, know the secrets of the Force."

She sighed, deflating again, but much less than before. When she drew breath in, she seemed more herself, like the worst was past.

“Well, upon your ‘palps be it, I guess,” she said, a cheerfulness that was only half-feigned in her voice, and increasing eagerness. “Because I gotta tell ya, I’ve been wondering for a month what your deal is and I’ve got all kinds of questions that I’ve been working really hard to be too polite to ask.”