A Conversation

[Aela Talith]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

"Noooooooooooooooooooooooo." The elderly couple looked back as Aela drew out the word, a look of worry coming from the woman as she tried to understand just what the two girls were up to. When she realized nothing was wrong she made a face that could only have been described as annoyance and promptly turned around.

"I mean." She frowned. "I mean a world we don't know."

She looked at Jamie. "You know?"

From the look on her Padawans face it was pretty clear that she didn't actually have any idea of what Aela was talking about. The Marshall took in a deep breath, trying to center herself and think properly so that she could actually form cohesive thoughts.

"I've been to Sullust, and Borleias, and Naboo." She looked at Jamie again. "You know?"

She couldn't make it any clearer than that.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

The facial expression on Jamie was one of half confusion, the other half an empty glare at the Jedi Master.

"What?"

That same empty, confused look would linger for another minute as her brain tried to piece together what Aela was talking about. All of these references to knowing. What did she know?!

"Do you mean..."

It was on the tip of her tongue. If only she could find the words to explain what she thought the other girl meant.

"You've been there?" Something Aela had said mere seconds ago. "So you mean planets you know of, but haven't been to?"

She was pretty sure that was what the woman meant. If not, she was lost.

[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

Aela gave an emphatic nod.

Apparently being drunk had turned her into a five year old. "Yes!'

Her voice turned into a high pitches squeal of sorts as she uttered the word, causing the elderly couple to once again turn around in their seats and give both Aela and Jamie a judgmental stare. The Jedi Marshall didn't seem to notice them however, being more focused on the orb.

"I just can't think of a planet right now." Normally she would have listed any one of a hundred, but the amount of alcohol that she had during the night at the casino was simply blocking her from coming up with anything.

It didn't help that she'd traveled quite a bit in her short life.

"OH!" She exclaimed, then shoved the orb into Jamie's palm. "Think about Korriban. Dark, Gloomy, lots of sand."

 

[Jamie Pyne]

"Okay. I'll try."

The Padawan shuttered her eyes once more, drawing in a small well of energy from within the Force to project towards the orb resting in the palm of her hand.

She tried to imagine the surface of the planet, red, barren, sandy. She had only a little knowledge of what the world actually looked like from her research, making formulating the exact features more than a little difficult. Another minute or two would pass, and the girl tapped on the orb once more.

Curiously it zoomed back out to the galaxy, where more than a dozen planets appeared as small, bright stars, orbiting various distances from what Jamie assumed was the Galactic Core.

"Ummmm." She held the orb to Aela. "I don't know if it worked. I think it's too general."

[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

She frowned for a few seconds. Maybe the orb needed more detail? Or perhaps it could only look at planets that the universe had visited before. Aela thought for a moment and then decided that it couldn't hurt to try out the former.

They still had a few moments after all.

"Okay, lets try with more detail." She sounded almost sober, taking a deep breath. "Think of Korriban again. This time more than just those small point, but everything you know about it. The central Sith Homeworld, the tombs, everything you've learned about the planet."

Jamie would know enough by now about Korriban that she could probably describe it quite well. If the Orb worked like a search engine on the holo-net it might be enough, if not...well it was still a neat little tool if you got home sick, or wanted to check that a planet hadn't been burned to the ground.

"Concentrate." She urged Jamie to do the one thing she couldn't even do right now.

Alcohol was annoying.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

All this thinking was going to give the girl a headache. Of that she was certain.

"Okay." A heavy sigh escaped her as she closed her eyes again, focusing on Korriban.

Everything she could remember of the planet in her state she pulled from. The Valley of the Dark Lords, the citadels, the Academy, the surface of the planet and its' moons. The blonde thought of the images she'd seen of the planet, and all of the data points she had collected through studying both on Voss and Sullust. She then tapped the glass orb once again, and notably, the other planets that seemed to have partial focus faded, the orb slowly closing in on one in particular, though Jamie couldn't be entirely certain as to whether or not it was the actual Sith homeworld of Korriban.

She handed it to Aela carefully. "Here. I don't know if it's right."

[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

She took the orb, then for a moment simply inspected the planet that was depicted within.

"Yeah." Aela said quietly as she recalled the last time she had been to the world.

"That's it." Korriban always seemed to have a certain aura about it. There was a darkness to it, something that you couldn't really ascribe to any other planet in the galaxy. Even through the orb it looked somewhat sinister, the red hue of it's atmosphere biting out into the dark space around it, the asteroids that floated slowly about the planet seemed to loom in place like a guard. She frowned for a moment and then shook its head. "I guess you just need to know the planet enough."

A shrug rolled over her shoulder and she offered the orb to Jamie. "Useful little thing."

Well worth the money that Jamie had paid.

As soon as she offered the orb to her Padawan the bus pulled to a stop once again, this time right in front of their hotel.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

Jamie tucked the orb back into her bag as the bus rolled to a stop, doors near the front opening for Aela and Jamie to get out, much to the driver's appreciation.

"That's pretty neat." She gave a nod, picking herself up and shuffling towards the front of the vehicle, holding onto the rail and stepping off onto the duracrete in front of the lobby to the hotel. "I'm glad we stopped." She waited for Aela to step off behind her before wandering to the entrance, the familiar sliding doors separating in front of them as they approached.

To the left the set of turbolifts waited, though Jamie had forgotten what room they were staying in now.

"Ummm." She started to mutter rather quietly before turning to Aela. "What room are we?"

With over a thousand rooms, this might be problematic if they couldn't remember where they were staying.

[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

She paused for a few seconds, tugging her new backpack along. "Room..."

What room?

A frown settled on her face as she tried to think of where they were actually staying. She remembered that the door had a one on it, and a two...but she couldn't remember the order that they were in. She knew that they had to take the turbo-lift to get up there, but again she wasn't entirely sure which one.

"Let's go ask the front desk!" She bellowed as they stepped off the bus. "Oh."

Her voice dropped suddenly. "But we have to pretend to be normal."

It would after all be incredibly uncouth if two Jedi that were here to protect a Governor turned out to be drunk. That might cause people to ask questions about how the Jedi were doing their jobs and whether or not Aela was actually a good Master.

"So deep breath." She told Jamie, softly touching her face.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

The front desk? Where is that?

Despite the fact that she was standing about fifteen feet away from the very thing she was questioning the existence of, the caress of Aela's hand on her cheek drew her attention instead. The girl was incredibly touchy-feely when she was drunk. Jamie had never received so much physical contact from the typically stoic woman.

Deep breath? Pretend to be normal?

"I am perfectly normal!"

But why is her hand still on my face?

Assuming this was some kind of new secret handshake, or code for something, Jamie put her own hand on Aela's cheek, opposite the side her hand was placed on Jamie's.

This seems normal.

[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

Aela patted Jamie's cheek once, then a second time, and then a third time.

She smiled at her padawan, and then quickly slipped away to the side. "This way."

The Jedi Marshall remembered pretty well where the front desk actually was, mostly because she'd spent about an hour in front of it arguing about where the Governors room should be. It had been important to get the man a room that wasn't too high up, wasn't too far away from the Turbo-lift, and also wasn't attached to any other rooms. The arguments had been...difficult, though eventually the clerk had allowed her to get what she had wanted.

"Okay." Aela whispered to Jamie as they approached the front desk. "Remember, be normal."

She very quickly rushed towards the desk, practically slamming into the heavy wood and startling the clerk.

"HI!" Aela gave a broad smile to the woman, her voice a high pitched squeak.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

The woman behind the desk looked frightened, at best. If anything she seemed ready to call for authorities due to the crazy person in front of her. Jamie stood where she had been left for a moment, watching Aela make a fool of herself. Judging by the thud the Jedi made against the desk she almost expected the girl to injure herself.

That's definitely not normal!

"Hell....o" If the hesitation in her voice wasn't enough of a sign that she was somewhat uncomfortable by Aela's presence, the leaning back in her chair, and the slight push away from the desk would be another good indicator. "Can I.....Help you?"

The blonde walked quickly up beside Aela, placing her left hand on top of the counter and smiling as not drunkenly as possible, the other hand reaching down low, pinching Aela's rear and shooting her a look.

"We're lost I think...Our room is one of these. Can you tell us which?"

[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

Her eyes popped open as she felt the pinch, her hand coming up to smack Jamie's side. That had been completely unnecessary, nobody touched her rear. Nobody!

"We checked in with the Governor earlier today." Aela said, her voice having dropped to a much more calm and neutral tone, she tried to take a deep breath to put herself on a bit more even ground, the smile also becoming something a little bit less creepy.

"Oh! Yes I can help you with that."

"Great." Aela said, looking at Jamie. "This place is just so big. Easy to get mixed up."

The Hotel really was huge. Thousands of rooms on hundreds of different floors. Even Jedi could get mixed up. She swayed slightly as she waited for the woman behind the desk to give her an answer, furious typing apparently being necessary to actually pull up the room.

"You'll find your room on the tenth floor, south-side, number 102."

The woman behind the desk looked up and gave what could be called a cautious smile.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

Aela's smack caused her student to wince, before her own hand flung outwards to hit Aela's side in retaliation.

"Thanks!" Jamie chirped quickly as she rushed off towards the turbolift with Aela.

"What was that for!?" She whispered rather loudly.

Her head shook frantically, blonde locks dancing left to right. "You said act normal! You were being weird! I had to stop you."

The doors to the lift opened with a loud DING. Thankfully it was empty, though that was to be expected due to just how late it was. Jamie stepped inside and began looking for the button that marked their floor. "So abusive!" Her finger pressed the 10 on the panel, then stepped back and leaned against the wall of the lift, her hands extended behind her along the small rail to keep herself steady.

"So very abusive!"

[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

"Don't touch my butt!" Aela told her Padawan quite emphatically, shaking her fist with a frown on her face before quickly unfurling her hand and wrapping it around the same bar that Jamie hung onto.

The turbo-lift immediately shot up into the hotel, that odd pit forming in her stomach as they quickly shot up ten floors worth of space. For a brief moment she glanced outside of the glass Turbo-lift, eyes following some of the scenery as they moved up the side of the hotel. She smiled for a few seconds, taking in the lines of Vineta that were now bathed in the soft glow of neon light. She had no idea what time it was, but the sun had long ago set. Everything still seemed to be alive though, she could see people moving around, buses floating about and dozens of shops still open.

"This place never sleeps." She said quietly. "It's like a nicer Coruscant."

Way nicer.

Here she didn't feel like she was about to step into a puddle of scum every few seconds.

Her head shook for a moment, then there was another loud ding! That rang out from the top of the Turbo-lift. The doors slid open before her, presenting the hallway for the 10th floor. She yawned slightly, and then stepped out onto the soft carpet.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

"I didn't touch it!" She argued, "I pinched it! Don't get so excited!"

Jamie poked her tongue out at the girl just as the turbolift sounded off, doors opening before them to reveal the tenth floor. The girl stepped out beside Aela, looking for the first room to determine where theirs was. 100. First one on the left then. The rooms were staggered, odds on the right, evens on the left. It kept things relatively simple in that regard.

Good thing. It would be rather embarrassing having to go back down to the front desk and ask for a guide to get to their room.

Jamie fiddled with her bag for a few moments, searching for the keycard that opened the door, before sliding it and releasing the lock. The cold blast of the air conditioning immediately hit her. The mere look of the bed was almost heavenly.

[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

Aela tromped into the room, letting out a loud sigh as she stripped off her jacket and threw it into the corner of the room. Her backpack was also tossed to the side, the door slamming shut behind her. The lock automatically engaged, something she was rather thankful for because fiddling with any complex mechanisms was at this point an impossibility.

"Okay." She said quietly as she trudged over the carpet.

At this point she was nearly entirely gone. Her head was spinning, her eyes were tired, she felt like she'd run two dozen marathons in a row without the force. For some reason her arms felt more tired than anything, though why that was she had no idea. A few more steps and she found herself in front of her bed.

"I think." She yawned. "It's sleepytime."

There was a creak of springs as she fell down onto her mattress, a loud sigh quickly following after.

"Comfy." She said quietly, kicking off her shoes.