A Case of Mistaken Identity

[Pash Tafo]

Location: Coruscant, Uscru District

It had been a quick jaunt, though not short. Pash had taken the Skull from Silver Rest on Kashyyyk to the Core on an errand for the Silver Jedi. It was a matter that needed to be conducted in person with a notable merchant who was rather nervous around Jedi. So, the Matukai Adept was sent to ensure the deal for the needed supplies went through without a hitch.

Though not one for the crowded entertainments of such a busy world, Pash ventured, for the sake of seeing it, into the Uscru Entertainment District. It was a stunning display of lights adorning business after business, the streets crowded at that time of early night. He had donned something less conspicuous than his Matukai robes, which resembled those of the Jedi. Instead, he work a pair of loose black pants and boots with a loose, sleeveless tan tunic. Unwilling to tackle one of the larger clubs, the Matukai Adept slipped into a smaller cafe, where he found a place at the counter.

A server droid rolled up to him behind the counter to take his order, its single dark optic glaring at him. "Spiced nysillim tea, please." He ordered, his azure gaze lifting to a holonet screen in the corner as he idly fingered the butter knife at his place setting.

-[member="Scherezade deWinter"]-

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

In her precious few weeks of existence as a non-baby, Scherezade had learned that she loved to walk. She hated running, but walking was nice. It gave her the opportunity to go over the information she knew she had out of all the things her grandmother had shoved into her mind, trying to make sense of the bits she was learning, and trying to draw conclusions out so that she could improve things for her future.

Usually, her walks were full of pleasantly warm thoughts at her advancements, both in training as a Witch and with realizing she knew more than she thought she did. But this walk... It wasn't a happy one. She'd just returned from Tatooine, where was had been going on. It was a good war, all things considered. But her own performance at it had been... It had been horrible.

She's gotten sick in the sandcrawler, made a fool of herself in front of high up people by asking too many wrong questions, and had eventually almost been killed by a tuscan rider turned zombie, had her shoulder and thigh injured, and uttered a spell that rather than help her makes things easier, caused mist to form around her and her enemy so that no one on the outside was able to help.

Thank the Force, her injuries were of the kind that bacta pads could heal. Her reputation and self esteem, on the other hand, would need more time to mend.

Still, she seethed in her bitter self disappointed as she allowed her legs to just walk around Coruscant, not taking too much note of East, West, up, or down. Her attention barely registered the beauty of the Uscru Entertainment District around her, and she sure as heck would not have been able to tell how she got there in the first place without needing to pause and really think her steps through.

But even walking could not fix everything. Glancing quickly at her holopad, she realized it had been four hours. She didn't feel tired, but her mind signaled that she needed to pause, especially if she was planning on walking all the way back to the docks.

With a sigh, Scherezade plomped down on the first bench she spotted, her back turned towards the cafe behind her, oblivious to who it could have been that was in there.


[member="Pash Tafo"]

 

[Pash Tafo]

Pash sipped at the tea. It was good, better than most he had tried. Not one to much watch much on the 'net, the Lothalian spun on his stool at the counter to look out the large front windows of the cafe. Though it was night, the street outside was lit up with gawdy neon lights over bars, clubs, shops and restaurants. Crowds paced up and down both sides of the street, while speeders crept along down the center out of fear of hitting pedestrians. It was quite a site. He supposed that the street would prove more entertainment than the cafe, so he paid his credit and slipped outside. There was a bench nearby, a good place to people watch, aside from the woman sitting there. Perhaps she wouldn't mind.

The Matukai settled at the other end of the bench, casting a brief smile at the young woman before looking around, having to pull back his foot to avoid it being stomped by a passing Ithorian. There was an amazing diversity of species in the milling crowd and the air was filled with sound of a dozen or more languages, and the music that spilled from the clubs.

His gaze shifted again to the woman near him. She appeared human and quite young, as if a girl on the verge of womanhood. Pretty and alert, Pash could see she would stand nearly as tall as he should they be standing toe to toe. She appeared alone, but not really lonely.

[member="Scherezade deWinter"]

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

She hadn't noticed his brief smile. Her mind had been entirely elsewhere, replaying the scene with the undead tuscan rider again and again in her head. Hindsight was always 20/20, and she located about twenty different instances in which she could've turned things around and made them better in the first ten seconds of that fight.

But to be fair, what were her odds of facing a zombie tuscan rider again? Going over what happened seemed almost like an exercise in uselessness. She wasn't a fighter. Her grandmother hadn't been a fighter. Her mother... Her mother had been closer to a physical fighter than any other women that she knew of her the family, but even she wasn't around to give basic instructions. And with the information dump coming from her grandmother, there just wasn't any information in there that she could use to her advantage in situations like that.

Sighing, she looked up, only now catching a glimpse of the man to her side.

And her heart nearly exploded.

"D.... Dad?" she asked in amazement, her entire body turning to him, her jaw dropping open. His hair was a tiny bit longer than she remembered it being, but consider it had been centuries... The curve of his aw, the angle of his nose, even the Warrior-like body she could easily note beneath the clothes he wore.

Her father was sitting next to her!!!

"DADDIE!" she screamed a breath later, moving forward with the greatest speed she could muster, every ounce of hers increased by the Force itself, uncaring as to who might be around who could spot her.

If [member="Pash Tafo"] wouldn't move quickly enough, he would find himself with a teenager locked on to him in a koala-hug.

 

[Pash Tafo]

The girl seemed as lost in thought as Pash was with watching the diverse stream of people mill up and down the street. He had almost forgotten the girl at the other end of the bench, until he heard her voice lfit over the music and noise of the crowds.

Dad?

Pash turned to the young brunette, out of slight curiosity. Then he realized, she was talking to him! She looked at him with almost crazy eyes, and the Matukai looked over his shoulder to see of she was talking to someone behind him. By the time he looked back, she was calling him daddy and was instantly hugging him tightly.

"Um, look, I think you are mistaken." He tried to squirm politely from her grip. It was nice, in a way, but weird at the same time. "I think you have me confused with someone else." Pash tried to explain to the estatic young woman.

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

For a mere few moments, her existence felt almost complete again. For a mere few moments, the girl had been so certain that the man sitting on the other side of the bench was her father, that thoughts that could've suggested it wasn't him never had the chance to appear. For a mere few moments, Scherezade felt true happiness, the kind that fills you up, that gives that warm fuzzy feeling beneath your skin rather than that weird sensation of the Force, the kind that felt like when you were a child and knew, utterly knew, that things were great because your parents were in your life and they were your parents and they were great.

Her adrenaline had spiked so high when she reached for him, that his first attempt at telling her she might've been mistaken was never even intercepted by her mind. But then when the hug was not only returned in any way but there was an attempt to squirm out, when the rest of the words were spoken...

Scherezade jumped back as though reacting to boiling hot oil touching her skin.

The look on her face gave it all away. She hadn't had the time to master her emotions as other Force users did. It took more than a mere few weeks to get that under control. Her eyes received a glossy shine before the tears came out, and her chin wobbled violently. And atop the heart break and the hurt, there was the confusion. She was seeing him. That was her dad! Why.... What...

"You're not... You're not Diomedes Antares," she half whispered, half broke, the name of her father upon her lips for the first time as the realization truly struck her. The difference between knowing something, understanding something, and... Comprehending the mistake she'd just made. "But you look just like him..." she said with that same broken tone.

She comprehended her mistake. She did not comprehend why her eyes were seeing her father.

Scherezade stood up, wiping her cheeks on the back of her hand. "I'm sorry to have disturbed you sir," she sniffled, wanting to break into a run, to get away from there. But her feet refused to cooperate, and instead she found herself rooted to her spot, unable to move.


[member="Pash Tafo"]

 

[Pash Tafo]

The young woman didn't seem to hear him at first. It was apparent by her fierce hug and the elation in her voice that she not only believed him to be her father, but it was as if he had been missing for a decade. But finally Pash's protests sunk in, and the girl leaped back. For a moment, Pash metnally searched his own history to see if he could possibly have a daughter he did not know about. But he could think of no one who he had been with that would be her mother.

The girl was devastated. Her eyes glistened with tears, lip quivering in devastation and confusion. Her twisted features betrayed the conundrum she faced, a man who looked just like her father, yet refused her as a stranger.

"No," Pash answered softly, I am not."

Tears slid down her smooth cheeks, and Pash's heart broke for the poor girl. She was embarrassed, he was sure, but she still stared at him. He must really resemble her father, for she could not turn away.

She was young and vulnerable in her emotional state, and the Matukai warrior didn't want the woman to head off into the crowd in her condition and perhaps fall victim to some unsavory sorts. Pash held out his hand to her. "Please, sit down." He invited her to sit next to him. Maybe if she got to know who he was, it would help dispel the illusion of her father. "My name is Pash, I am visiting Coruscant for a few days." He began. "What is your name?"

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

Please, sit down.

She sat down, her body moving as though it was obeying a command. She hadn't controlled it or willed it. She knew logically by now that this was not her father. Now that he spoke, she could also sense the differences in the voice. Her father had mostly spoken softly when he was around her and her twin, but it had still been different, emphasizes in different places, another tone...

And still her heart yearned out to him, emotionally engulfing her in the feeling that this was her father, that this was the man she had been dreaming of finding ever since she was brought out of that damned pebble.

He was speaking again.

She turned her head to him, doing her best to listen, trying to make the tears stop. She managed in slowing down the rate at which her eyes were leaking, and her chin was shaking slightly less, but she was still not calm. Far from it. A war was raging inside her and she had no clue what to do, no idea which of the tools in her arsenal could ever help with this dreadful situation.

Pash.

No, that hadn't been her father's name. Her father was Diomedes Antares. Not Pash. And he wanted to know her name too, something her father would never have asked her, even if she didn't know who'd chosen which name for which twin.

"Scherezade," she finally managed to answer, her voice still shaking, "Scherezade deWinter."

She left out the whole part about Endelaan and being its princess and everything. This man did not know her, she reminded herself. And at that moment, she felt more like street gludge than someone who could ever claim to be royalty to a planet they hadn't set foot on since they were a baby.

"I'm... I'm visiting too," she added, still fighting to grab control of her senses, of her emotions. And failing miserable.

Her hands moved then, out of their own accord. She grabbed her holopad, the tips of her fingers punching buttons with a fluidity she didn't know she possesed. Out came holos of two parents. The first one, her mother. While she loved her deeply, she was not the person she wanted to focus on just then. Next to her, appeared her father. His holo held a strong, protective arm over her mother's.

"These are my parents," she explained, her voice somewhat more stable, her eyes somewhat more dryer, "this is why... Why I thought..."


[member="Pash Tafo"]

 

[Pash Tafo]

Pash was relieved that the young woman found a measure of composure, taking a seat on the bench next to him. She still suffered from the trauma of believing she found her father, but the drops of tears slowed, and the quiver of her bottom lip eased. She was a pretty girl, and for a moment, Pash pondered what it would be like to be the father of such a woman. He would have had to have been in his late teens to father a child her age, he guessed.

The girl remained quiet as she retrieved the holopad and activated it, revealing a holographic couple. The woman, her mother, he gathered, was lovely. The man, her father, did bear a striking resemblence to himself. Pash nodded slowly.

"I can see where you would think I was... I'm sorry, Scherezade." The Matukai apologized, feeling for the saddened girl. "It's alright, I think I could have made the same mistake, the resemblance is remarkable."

The moment was a bit awkward, for a stranger had shown herself to him in a very vulnerable state. Pash could not in good conscious leave her that way.

"Hey, do you want a stim-caff or something?" He offered. Maybe with a little time off the street Scherezade could recover and Pash would feel better sending her on her way.

[member="Scherezade deWinter"]

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

All she could do was nod miserably as he gave words to his understanding of why she'd thought he was her father. She'd really thought a few moments ago that this was him, this was Diomedes Antares. But no. He was not. And she should have known better. She had other ways to check before losing all sense of self control and causing such a scene. Her real father would have probably been disappointed if he'd seen her like this now, and so was she.

Th awkward moment went by unnoticed, until she realized Pash was speaking to her.

Turning the holos off, she raised her head and looked at him again. Stim-caff?

Scerezade blinked.

"I'm not really a coffee fan," she admitted. Katrine, the woman who had freed her from her prison and became her friend, had introduced her to it. But... To be frank, she couldn't really understand why anyone would like that drink. However... "but I'd love a tall glass of ice cold milk," she added, trying to smile.


[member="Pash Tafo"]

 

[Pash Tafo]

When the holo-image disappeared, Scherezade turned to look up at him. Her emerald eyes were rather remarkable, even when they were red-rimmed from her tears. A small smile graced the corners of the man's mouth as she accepted his offer.

"Alright, lets find some milk." He added, standing from the bench and looking up and down the busy street. The cafe he had just exited seemed the most likely destination in sight for their taste in beverages, and he looked to the girl, then tilted his head at the cafe. "This place is as good as any."

Heading back inside, Pash bypassed the counter where he had sat before, instead finding a booth in the corner, sitting on the side facing the entrance. Before he could breath a word, a server droid rolled up to the table and welcomed them with a canned greeting and inquired as to their orders.

"Caf is fine or me." Pash answered, then looked to Scherezade to place her order. Once the droid rolled off, the Matukai warrior rested his arms on the table, his hands clasped. "What brought you to the Uscru District?" He ventured as a conversation starter. He was rather curious what a teenage girl would be doing alone in Coruscant's notorious entertainment district.

[member="Scherezade deWinter"]

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

She'd almost ordered that cold milk she'd wanted - but then she realized the place also offered shots of cream for those who wanted coffee, and opted to order a dozen of those, sans the coffee, instead. Cream was always the superior option, but not every place offered it. The girl made herself comfortable in the booth by the time they'd finished ordering, her face entirely calm now, her feelings her own once more. No remains of the tears from a few minutes earlier remained. In other words, she seemed as fresh as a daisy.

"I like to walk," Scherezade answered with a smile, "everything is still really new, and my mother grew up between here and Spira. I thought I'd get familiar with the planet since it also seems to be a central location for galactic events. So whenever I'm around I just walk for hours and hours. It's kinda weird though that you have all this gigantic population and not a single agriculture source. Makes me wonder how many ships of the ones that orbit here are food transports."

Their drinks arrived in a matter of moments, and she grabbed an empty cup, emptying her cream shots into it.

"What about you?" she asked, hoping to keep the conversation flowing.



[member="Pash Tafo"]

 

[Pash Tafo]

Pash thought Scherezade's desire for milk was foiled until she ordered the array of cream shots instead. He grinned as they were set on the table before. His caf was set before him as well, steaming with a rich, aromatic aroma.

The young woman recovered quickly from the earlier incident. She seemed intelligent and independent, apparently comfortable with being alone on the giant city-planet. Perceptive as well, as she noted Coruscant's reliance on imported foodstuff to feed the large population.

Pash watched Scherezade pour the cream into a glass, one by one. "I am here on business, just sealing a deal for some supplies from a local merchant, so only here for a short while." Pash looked out the window at the myriad of flashing neon and throng of mixed races. "I was told I needed to see the Uscru District, and now I have." He turned back and smiled taking a sip of his drink. "And seems I made a friend as well." He lifted his cup in a form of salute.

The Matukai could not stop wondering if she would be safe. His connection with the Force was slight, only useful to him with the use of his rituals, so he was unable to sense if Scherezade concealed something more behind her youthful features, nor did she seem to be armed in any way. Perhaps being mistaken for her father had made him begin to think like one.


[member="Scherezade deWinter"]

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

A friend.

Scherezade looked up from her cream shots, the surprise all too clear in her eyes. This was early on, when her only other friend was Katrine, the woman who had broken her out of her prison. Her notion of what friends and friendship was still a very innocent and untainted one, as though those who used the words truly were what the word entailed - friends.

She smiled, and nodded, raising her mug to him, not really knowing what to say.



[member="Pash Tafo"]