Private A Different Night

[Niysha]

Kumba Chi Tawa Cantina, Nar Chunna
Cont: An Artificial Night​

The borders and politics of the galaxy meant very little to most spacers. Honestly, they probably meant very little to most grounded civilians. Who got your taxes and how abusive the security was didn't change much with the flag that people flew over your local municipal office, and some planets weren't even developed enough for that kind of centralization. Nar Chunna was, of course, but it was Hutt space. No matter who was in control, the Hutts were in control. In a galaxy of dynamic change, Hutt planets were a surprising bastion of static consistency. Land, pay your bribes, and you could do your business without any more or less danger than anyone else.

Niysha didn't have that luxury, of course. Things were always a little more dangerous when your tastes were singular.

Kumba Chi Tawa was a smallish cantina wedged into the middle of what had to be the trashiest indoor mall that Niysha had ever seen planetside. The whole place was desh plating and hot mold. The air was absolutely atrocious, as if everyone had put the smell of a hundred unrelated, mutually-exclusive foods into a blender with one-fifth of a fuel leak and half of a corpse that could've stood to be fresher. Honestly it was a bit uncanny that it wasn't a wild space stationside cantina, considering how much it felt like one.

As she often did, Niysha had found a stool to sit on while she indulged in a light lunch and a beer or two. This was Hutt space, so her belongings were in slightly more danger than normal... but only slightly. She hadn't yet met a pickpocket whose greedy, hostile intent didn't give them away with meters to spare between them. As such, she didn't spare more protection to her bag than wrapping the strap around one leg. Unconcerned, unperturbed, with her nose buried in her datapad, Niysha was utterly at home amongst the detritus of the galaxy, even if the masses were a bit more teeming here than they normally were.

In a place so densely populated, Niysha probably didn't need to keep her shields up... but she'd learned over the last few months that she could never afford to relax, no matter how big the crowd she was hiding in. No exceptions, no compromises; her presence was buried as deep as it always was. By now the feeling of slight numbness that came from consciously being Unimportant and Less was an old, familiar friend. It had, in the past, been plenty to keep the average person from even noticing that she existed. Privacy was an expectation, not a luxury.

But there wasn't much she could do about hiding herself from people who were familiar with her.

Scherezade deWinter

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

The scent hit her like a punch. Rot. Fry oil. Desperation. Scherezade deWinter inhaled like it was perfume.

"This place almost feels like home," she muttered with a grin, stepping off the lift platform and into the thick, humid corridor of the mall. A pair of teenagers in matching neon jackets brushed past her, their music bleeding out of their ears like a warning. A snap of her hands and their source of music malfunctioned, beginning to scream fascist war monologues at the teens. She gave them two seconds before one tried to steal from the wrong drunk and ended up minus a hand. Maybe three, if the locals were slow today.

She didn't mind the stench. Didn't mind the overcrowding or the stinky ceiling vents or the flickering lights overhead that buzzed like their galaxy didn't have the technology it required to make lights function properly. Places like this had a rhythm for those who were willing to dance in blood and duct tape.

And the Sithling was absolutely in the mood to dance.

Nar Chunna was exactly the kind of place she needed to disappear into for a few days. Maybe weeks. Word hadn't spread too far yet about what happened on Denon and a few more planets, but it would soon enough. Glitter had a way of sticking to people. So did corpses. Force knew Scherezade had more than enough of both, even when she didn't intend to.

Her Force presence was a deliberately unstable thing. It swooned and burped, swirling into itself and outwards, effectively announcing her presence with the sound of a thousand screaming women who weren't scared. Some Force Users preferred to hide their presence. Scherezade preferred chaos.

She let her mind brush outward, fingertips of the Force skating along the noise and pulse of the mall, but it had been her eyes that befell on the prize long before any other sense did. A Cantina! Pretending these didn't exist every few steps in a place like this was redundant. They did. But she wanted this one. Why? Because!

With a grin, she walked into the place as though she was its owner and people owed her money. Yet for all the seriousness of it, the curvy Sith lady was humming a tune and smiling. The tune was a Hutteese lullaby. The smile was entirely hers.

A few notes in though… And she stopped, glowing green eyes falling on a very specific person that a moment ago, she hadn't known was there.

"Teambuddy!" she greeted with her sing-song voice. There was no free seat next to the Mirakula. No problem. She waved her hand lazily, and suddenly all the seats nearby were vacated, their former occupants deciding they had smarter places to be. Or more intact kneecaps to keep.

Without another word, Scherezade plomped down beside her.

"You look good," she said, "don't see any sticking glitter parts on your clothes. How'd you get clean so fast?"

Niysha

 

[Niysha]

Teeming masses weren't difficult to pick through. The majority of people were just that: people, with no particularly singular or interesting features. Through the Force this was doubly true, since the normal things that would make someone distinctive - vivid colors, tattoos, wild fashion choices and the like - were indistinct or outright invisible. Instead, the first thing she noticed about anyone was the first thing she noticed about everyone. An aura was a singular thing, utterly distinct and unique. Most of them were completely forgettable, dim and lifeless.

So when the crowd parted around one that she absolutely recognized, that became all the more obvious. The hot, dark, hungry aura of a Sith - a proper one, not a wastoid reject like her - tended to set most people on-edge without even realizing why they were uneasy. Most Sith looked similar, but none of them looked identical. This one was particularly... unique. The closest word she could find to describe her in Basic was "glittery" darkness, based on how other people had described sparkly things.

It was familiar. It belonged to the knife lady with the dumptruck booty she'd briefly been in the same room as on Denon.

Niysha enjoyed her beer as the (generously) unstable woman approached, unperturbed by her surroundings. In just about every situation she chose to put herself in Niysha was probably the most dangerous thing in the room by a significant margin; when other Sith were around, she was at best a distant second. It was a familiar feeling of triviality, old and comfortable, like a pair of extremely well-worn pants.

After the whole bar mysteriously cleared out, the glitterbomb took a seat next to her. Niysha greeted her with a soft grin, picking up her bottle of beer by the neck and offering it without a moment of hesitation. "The trick to getting clean is to not get dirty in the first place. Just about the only thing I'm better at than hiding is running."

At least she wasn't overtly hostile. Niysha didn't feel any active threat, so she kept munching on nachos and poking at her datapad. When her mouth was clear, she set her hefty tablet down and turned her head to physically face the woman beside her. "We didn't really have a chance to get introduced before. I'm Niysha."

No handshake. Certainly not for a literal gliterbomb. Offering her the rest of her drink would have to do.

Scherezade deWinter

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

The beer was accepted with no hesitation. Scherezade lifted it in a mock toast before taking a long swig and then spit it out towards the wall. Sithspit.

"You drink this on purpose?" she asked, blinking at the aftertaste like it had insulted her ancestors. She wanted to wash her mouth with soap. Even during her alcoholic days where she made moonshine in a refresher tub, it hadn't tasted this bad. "Tastes like something that crawled out of a Jawa's armpit and learned how to ferment itself."

Still, she took another sip. Carefully, this time, before passing it back to the Mirakula.

Niysha was calm. Cool. Calculated. Scherezade hated that, as it reminded her too much of people she could never be. And also respected the hell out of it. For the same reason, obviously.

"Don't get dirty in the first place," she repeated with an exaggerated mockery of the Mirialan's voice, then leaned in close, elbows on the sticky table. "Where's the fun in that? Dirt's the point. That's where you find the stories worth keeping. Besides…" Her grin turned conspiratorial, "I think you liked the glitter. You had that whole oh wow expression going on your face."

A new bottle was set down with a thunk, just as the first of the bar's new would-be patrons peeked in from the hallway and wisely decided against entering. This bottle though… No beer. Just pure Boma cream. Hard to get. Surprisingly available in this little place.

"Yeah, introductions. I'm Scherezade deWinter," she grinned. Mirakulas were famously blind. Scherezade famously ignored things that were well known, and decided to maintain her body movements as though Niysha had 20/20 dark vision.

Still, her gaze wandered to Niysha's datapad for a flicker of a second, then back.

"So. What's a slick little shadow like you doing in Huttspace, snacking on corpse-chips in a death mall?" she asked.

There were no chips between them, of course. Not until Scherezade cleared her throat at the bartender, and then, as though by magic, a basket of them was pushed to lay between the women.

"This tastes like mesobalm with sprinkled salt," the Sithling made a face, but took another mouthful nonetheless. Standards? That was for simpletons. "What'd you do after Denon?"

 

[Niysha]

It wouldn't be the first time some high-class Sith princess had tastes too refined for Niysha's comfort foods. And, to be fair to Scherezade, the beer here did taste awful. Too bitter. She would have preferred something a bit drier, a little smoother... but imports were way more expensive and much harder to find than just "gimme a beer and some nachos." Head down, steps quiet, tastes mundane. She didn't even wear a lightsaber.

"Yeah, it's pretty bad," she agreed with a grin, taking her drink back to kill it and leave the empty bottle near the first one. Finished with nachos, finished with beer, Niysha tapped her pad a couple of times without turning to look at it. It was more polite to keep her head turned towards sighted species when they were talking to her.

Very curious sighted species, in this instance. Not that Niysha had anything to hide. Her whole life was an impulsive blur of fringer stereotypes interspersed with rare Sith drama. Why was she here? "Looking for something. Nar Chunna's one of the Hutt rocks I haven't landed on yet. It gets whispered in archaeological circles every once in a while, so I figured it was worth checking out."

And Denon? Niysha gave an awkward grin. "I dunno. You might've been there. I got dragged to some kind of party on Kaas. One of the Zambrano boys was having a big to-do, and a friend needed a plus one." She shrugged a bit, sliding her finger over the screen to shut her computer down. In just a couple of seconds, it was safely stowed in her pack. "We spent most of the party sitting on the roof together drinking wine way too fancy for my blood."

That was back before just about the entire galaxy was at war with itself. They were on the far side of Black Sun space at the moment, far away from the war with the Republic. For now, at least, there weren't any military transports or capital ship convoys rolling through.

Scherezade deWinter

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

Scherezade didn't say anything immediate, instead options to just stare at the empty bottle like it had offended her on a molecular level. She slid it aside with the back of her hand, then leaned over to sniff the Boma cream again. Still sharp. Still pungent. Still hers.

"Archaeological circles," she echoed Niysha 's words, resting her cheek on one fist like she was about to nod off. "People always talk in whispers and riddles. 'Something might be here,' 'the text was partially translated,' 'a Jedi maybe sharted here once, we think.' But Force forbid they just say what you're looking for."

She let that hang in the air a second, then grinned.

"I respect that. I mean, I'll mock it 'til you cry, but I respect it."

Besides, she didn't need to tell Niysha just how often she'd come across people thinking her or her family were supposed to be what was found. They were teammates, but they weren't best friends. Not yet, anyway.

She watched Niysha close down the datapad. It was subtle. Smooth. Deliberate. Everything about the Mirialan was intentional, and Scherezade couldn't tell if that made her want to keep poking, or just go full chaos and start juggling knives for attention.

Probably both.

"A party on Kaas, huh?" she asked with a chuckle. It was one of those very rare things she hadn't actually done. Though she was a very firm non-believer in borders, space ownership, or anything that tried to insist on keeping her out, Sith Space had managed to evade her for the most part. It was probably temporary though.

Scherezade shrugged and snagged another chip from the basket.

"So. What're you hoping to find under all this rust and garbage?" she asked, "Do you need our team back together for the next step? We were pretty good last time."

 

[Niysha]

Niysha smiled just about every tease and jab off without even a wince.

Ms. deWinter seemed to be rather prickly, a little like a cactus that was both actively on fire and totally didn't like you or anything, b-baka. It was strange seeing a grown woman with the same energy as a twelve-year-old middle child actively wrestling for attention, but not unheard of. Lots of Sith were basically spoiled man-children whose temper tantrums cost other people their lives. "A little prima-donna" wasn't the worst possible outcome there; considering the alternative was getting eviscerated by a spinning knife elemental, she could handle a few verbal snipes.

On to the point. "I don't think we had much of a 'team,' and I'm not exactly planning a heist," she answered briefly. "Though if you want to follow along, I can hardly stop you. It might be a bit boring." Niysha's expression, as much as she could have one without eyes, was something approaching apologetic. Wandering around a trashy Hutt urban hive without intent to cause mayhem and getting excited over old rocks was, she expected, exceptionally dull to a blades-and-bodices chaos-goblin.

But then, on the other hand, Niysha was on zero schedule. "It might be a better idea for us to focus on whatever you were here for. I have a sneaking suspicion that even if we talked to a few old men running mogwai shops full of ancient tablets and haunted orbs, it'd still turn into a grindhouse holoflick within an hour or two."

Leaning one elbow on the counter, she gave Scherezade space to enjoy her chips and respond in turn. The impulsive part of her contemplated a third beer, since the glitterbomb didn't seem terribly hostile at the moment. The fact that she hadn't immediately run for cover the second a Sith of passable capability had ozmosed into her orbital filled Niysha with an uncommon swell of self-confidence. Apparently, interacting with Serina and Valery had done wonders for her courage.

Eh, sure. She tapped her free hand on the counter a couple of times and left a few credits with a nod to the droid behind the counter, then took a long pull of her drink. After three, the flavor was barely even very bad.

Scherezade deWinter

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

Scherezade's eyes narrowed a little as she took another sip from her drink. A moment ago, she had been completely infatuated with the Mirakula, in a very platonic way. Now though… Something wriggled her insides, in a bad way. It was a type of speech she'd heard before, more than enough times, back when she was with those who hadn't wanted her around.

But then the other one continued and asked about what the Sithling had been after. So… Okay, that broke the pattern, and removed the reason to feel any bitterness about it. Scherezade's feelings again took a sharp turn as she watched the woman have some more food. Niysha had taken herself out of the categories of friend, just an acquaintance, enemy, bully, and had placed herself firmly in the category Scherezade called unknown. That was the most terrifying category of all.

"I rarely stab first," she answered between sips, "or rather, I'm usually the first successful stabber, but not the first attacker. Even haggled with a bounty hunter to stay on Denon and listen to the music before they collected me."

She almost leaned back in her chair before remembering it had no firm back part that she could lean on, and just shifted a bit in her seated position instead.

"Now, I'll be more than happy to share what I was after in Denon, but that information is private and concealed…" the Sithling took a dramatic pause, knowing well enough that Niysha would see right through the performative act, "Unless one was to either admit or accept that we are a team."

There. That was what she wanted. There would be no repetition of her early years. No dancing between blurred lines. No saying one thing but acting another way entirely. Good or bad, the Sith wanted transparency and honesty. And… Maybe this was a bad way to go about it. But at least, she told herself, she was proactively demanding it.

"Comes with perks, too," she grinned, "I'm really good at keeping people alive, I make amazing brisket, and I flow with a situation smoother than a brand-new sewer system."

 

[Niysha]

That was... okay that might have been the most adorable thing that a genuine capital-S Sith had done in front of Niysha without taking their pants off. Every second, she felt like she was talking to a teenager. Considering how much time she'd spent dealing with much more dangerous, destructive, and mindlessly hostile capital-S Sith, it was refreshing to the point of confusion to find one who wasn't huffing their own fumes so deeply that they lost track of who they were. At the very least, she lacked the ego common to just about every modern Sith Niysha had met. That was objectively liberating to see.

Cocking her head to one side was the closest thing an eyeless woman could get to blinking in confusion, but her smile stayed easy. Maybe even a bit confused. "Alright, Scherezade, we're a team," she replied after another sip of trashy, cheap beer. "To the table I bring a preference for being quiet, a decent awareness of my surroundings, and enough shameless cowardice to flood a cargo hold."

It was hard to parse "woman" instead of "girl," but Niysha forced herself. Did this woman really just want a friend? Frankly, relatable. The Miraluka had made plenty of friends since she'd met In, though not many with the same mindset as her. In, Tilon, Aadihr, Aliris... all of them were too nice. And Serina was too much of an active sociopath. No one managed to ride the thin line between "I really don't see any reason to butcher seven hundred people just because I'm bored" and "Life has no intrinsic value and murder is a useful tool in specific situations."

Actually, Scherezade might've been the first darksider that Niysha had met in years that looked like she could match her vibe.

The Miraluka processed this for a few seconds, sitting up properly on her bar stool and fluffing out the mop of rabid fuzz that made up her hair. Her tone never shifted, staying quiet and warm, with just a hint of fireplace crackle. "I feel like we're both dancing around each other, trying to feel the whole situation out." Judging by the shades of confusion and unease in her aura, Scherezade was in basically the exact same situation Niysha was: not really sure what kind of grenade she was sitting next to, and constantly put off by her responses. The best way to handle misunderstanding was to... like...

Talk about it. Like adults.

"I'll start," Niysha offered, hand to her chest. Finished with her little bit, she leaned against the counter again, bracing herself with one elbow as her fingers tapped gently on her drink. "I'm not really used to working with people, and we really didn't have much of a chance to talk back on Denon. I am used to people like us starting at 'murderous ego-monster' and getting worse from there. In order to not get ceremoniously killed by a rabid psychopath, it's healthy for me to approach everyone with that sort of presumption."

She nodded lightly towards Scherezade. "But that's not really your vibe. You've got your heart on your sleeve and live how you want. I get the sneaking suspicion that we've got really similar goals. Things like 'I just want to do my own thing' and 'everyone else is taking this way too seriously.'" With a broad grin, she picked up her drink and lifted it in a quiet toast. "Plus, you have fantastic taste in disgusting Hutt slumtowns."

Scherezade deWinter

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

There! Confirmation! They were a team!

Scherezade very literally gave a bounce in her seat as Niysha said those words, the joy oozing from an unfortunately afflicted teenage human. She wasn't even attempting to hide it. When something made the Sithling happy, it was always better when there were others around to share that happiness with.

Still, she tried, truly tried, to do her utter best to respect Niysha's preferences as the Mirakula said she preferred being quiet. Well. To be honest, Scherezade could easily be loud enough for more than just two people, but she knew well enough to understand that had not been the intention behind the words. Quiet. Okay. She could do that! For limited amounts of time. And nothing would stop her from getting up to go yell into a pillow and come back composed, calm, and appropriately silent.

Heck, she was more than comfortable just sitting there quietly, knowing her makeshift team had gone from something brought up and made up on the spot, to a new connection, something that was deeper and nicer. Who knew, maybe they could be an actual team, have streets run with blood and glitter coming down from the sky, ready to melt anything it touched.

Then Niysha changed gears and suggested they talk like adults. Scherezade perked up, staying quiet until the Mirialan had finished.

"Thank you," she said, her voice strangely soft for someone who was usually… well, her. Her mind spun a little, trying to catch up.

Niysha was right about her trying to feel the situation out. No point denying it. But that didn't mean Scherezade liked how easy it was to read her. She'd always worn her heart on her sleeve, even when that sleeve had been stabbed through more times than she could count. But the rest? The rest was good. The rest made her smile.

With a grin, she raised what was left of her fermented cream in a toast.

"You read my vibes well," the Sithling admitted, her voice more confident now, "so I'm going to be honest here. Like an adult. I do not read your vibes well at all. A second ago I thought you were going to leave me here all alone and go do something else."

And while Scherezade wasn't above admitting that she enjoyed being right, it was moments like these that made her feel a true and sensational joy at having been wrong.

"I'd only make one tiny edit request," she continued, "I love to do my own thing. But I love it better when I have people to be doing it with."

Because Niysha had been right, too, in the deeper sense. Scherezade, for all her power and chaos and the outer beauty she wasn't blind to, wanted connection. Friends. People to belong with. People to do things with. And sometimes, people she could just be with, even if it was silent, no mission, no pressure kind of a way.

"So, my newly acknowledged teammate and hopefully soon to be friend," Scherezade said, "I was on Denon because I was hunting for something. I just spent ten years beyond the galaxy's edge, and when I came back it turned out that fourty years have passed in the galaxy proper. One of the reasons I came back is because someone, and I have no clue who or why, started sending me random small pieces of a schematic. Took me months to figure out that was what it was. And then I had to come back if I wanted to finish the schematics. I still have zero inkling what it's going to be, but I'm enjoying the chase. The last vocalist we heard at Denon gave coordinates to where the next clue might be."

She paused, a question bubbling up, impossible to hold back.

"By the way, I can smell that you're a Mirkaula, how are you using a datapad if you don't have eye-sight?"

 

[Niysha]

Was-

Was she trying to be quiet?

Niysha couldn't help but grin at how legitimately adorable that was. How unexpectedly considerate. Scherezade took Niysha's commentary that she was a quiet person as an imperative to be quiet. Of course, that probably wasn't the only part of her that Scherezade didn't really understand. That was nobody's fault, really. Once upon a time, Niysha had taken to blaming herself for miscommunications that came from her... way of communicating? She'd long since grown out of that phase; people acted how they acted and there was nothing wrong with who she was.

"I get it," she offered with an understanding nod. "Sometimes I don't come across how I intend. Sometimes people hear my words but not my meaning. It just happens." Niysha shrugged, took another sip, and left her bottle on the counter. "I can't promise that'll get easier with time. Some of my friends have figured it out, others haven't."

Honestly, Niysha didn't think she was that complicated, but clearly she wasn't a reliable source.

Time slippage. With a nod, Niysha leaned back and crossed her arms. "I've had a similar experience. I think I missed like... decades. It didn't really affect me much; I didn't have a lot of friends to lose track of." In fact, basically everyone who even cared that she existed seemed to have been born in the time that she'd lost. She'd largely given up trying to math it out. It was just another aspect of sleeping in hyperspace.

A mystery schematic sounded fun. Niysha almost dug deeper into that, before Scherezade changed the subject. With a big broad grin, she reached back down to her bag to pull out her datapad. It was maybe... half again as big as a normal datapad? Both thicker and physically larger, entirely built around an extremely fancy touchscreen. "Multi-spectrum display. It can manage tactile, thermal, infrared, and electrical display settings. You can 'smell' what I am, right? But most humans can't. It's the same with Miraluka. We all see a little differently."

Two taps on the screen brought up her latest search: trinket and curio shops on Nar Chunna. The screen, unforunately, displayed in BRIGHT NEON and perfect matte black. Scrolling to an actual image created an eye-searing matte of what was effectively an electrical heatmap. "For me, I see power lines, batteries, and electrical signals very clearly. I can actually see normal displays pretty well, though they're a bit indistinct."

Scherezade deWinter

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

For a moment, it seemed like Scherezade would have a heart attack in all the good ways. Niysha had also lost decades! It didn't seem like a good place to one up her with mentioning the time centuries were stolen from the Sithling, but just to know there was someone out there who wasn't a family member and had to deal with the bantha crap of missing so much time too… Her instincts a while back on Denon had been right. They were going to be friends!

The stillness that came from her as the Mirakulan explained the tech device she'd been using was not one born out of an unwanted desire to remain silent. Scherezade had, without realizing it herself, slipped into the tech guru part of her mind, eyes jumping between the machine and the woman, listening to the explanations, running multiple calculations in several dimensions at the same time.

Of course, the neon green thing didn't help Scherezade actually see the way she usually did, but that wasn't an issue. She wasn't the one who had to use the device, she was just someone who thought why did I never think of that? while knowing that she had the background and experience to have been able to. If she'd only thought about it. Even if she never actually had a reason to.

Was it a tech bro macho moment within the Sithling lady? Absolutely.

"I wonder…" she murmured. Scherezade, the little chaos goblin that she was, had always been very adamant about running quality control and a gazillion tests on her weapons and inventions. There was one thing she wanted to know about this one.

Without telegraphing what she was about to do, she just bent at her waist with her tongue stuck out, and gave the device a lick.

Was she thinking about the fact that it wasn't smart to lick electrical equipment? Nope!

Was she thinking about the fact that licking random things without even bothering to wipe them down first was a ridiculously disgusting and dangerous thing to do? Also nope!

What she was thinking about, was whether or not Niysha would be able to tell there was a thin cover of Scherezade-drool on her screen.

 

[Niysha]

The physical surface of Niysha's Everyscreen datapad was extremely bumpy. Depending on settings it might've been like french kissing a cat, but at its current settings it was more akin to a nail file. More importantly, the way she had it set, it wasn't unlike licking one of those plasma ball lamps. Slightly zappy, but mostly just very warm. The fact that Scherezade's hair clung to out of sheer static was probably a dead giveaway, too.

When she saw her brand new friend lick her favorite machine, Niysha just quietly sighed and reached into her pack for something to use as a rag. Since Scherezade was Sith, she didn't much mind uncovering her lightsaber to pull out her spare shirt and rub it dry. "It's waterproof enough to handle a little rain, if that's what you're wondering about," she replied calmly to the silent question that was just about the exact kind of quirky she'd arrived at expecting from other Sith.

With the screen clean, she tapped a setting or two in the top corner, then handed it back to Scherezade without complaint. In this setting, it was a very conventional datapad with an extremely crisp display. "Long as you don't damage it, you can play around all you want. I've got this morning's daily backup stored back on my ship. Go nuts." She actually had a whole spare datapad back there, too, but she didn't want to give a woman who liked first and asked permission never any ideas.

"So, about that schematic. Any idea what it's for yet? Or how old it is?" Niysha prompted, finishing off her beer and stacking the bottle with the rest. "If it's old enough, I might actually know a thing or two about it. I know a thing or two about a lot of really old, important stuff."

A smile crept to the corner of her mouth, much more impish than usual. "You know. Like the name 'deWinter.'"

Scherezade deWinter

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

The tiny zap she felt across her tongue vanished fast enough to barely register. Niysha 's calm response about it being water proof did somewhat disappoint Scherezade though. She'd hoped for something grand, like getting zapped in the fact or having the device crumble. Alas, whoever had manufactured it, had done a good job.

Still, she would never say no to an invitation to play with something. It was therefore almost unfortunate that they had more important things to discuss for the time being, but still she took note of the offer and made sure she would remember to call it in when they had a few minutes. There were a lot of things she wanted to test on the thing.

"It's super old and-" she started saying in response to Niysha's questions, and then stopped. Hard stop. Forget-to-breathe kind of a stop.

Yes, she had given Niysha her last name.

But… One of the reasons she was so free with giving it, was because in this time in presence, it meant little to nothing to most people. The days in which a deWinter was the Empress, another one a terrifying Queen of a Sith Planet, another one fathering babies with anything that had enough of a pulse… But those days were long gone, buried beneath decades of upheaval and survival after the Gulag centuries. The galaxy had moved on and had new and different monsters to deal with.

The only people she'd come across who had any idea of it were enemies from before the Gulag. Enemies that Scherezade had, somehow, inherited from her grandmother, even though she'd had absolutely nothing to do with what had taken place. And Mandalorians. But Niysha didn't feel like either

Niysha had mentioned that she'd lost decades… But how many decades exactly had she referred to?

Scherezade remembered to breathe. She also had no doubt that Niysha would have seen or noticed those few seconds and what it had done to the Sithling.

"You… You have archeology stuff about my family?" she asked carefully, doing her very best not to let her voice shake, "What do you know? What did you uncover?"

And there was no warning behind her words. No threat. Scherezade didn't think it mattered who knew what. But she wanted to know more about the whats. Her own experience with her family was new, post-Gulag, and included nothing of the past other than memories that didn't belong to her. It wasn't the same as having someone from the outside have information about it.

 

[Niysha]

Hmm. Judging by the rush of bright, tempestuous emotions in Scherezade's aura, that had struck way more of a nerve than Niysha had been expecting it to. There were a couple of potential reasons that Scherezade would be extremely cautious about anyone who knew her family name. The most benign was amnesia, and Niysha wouldn't rule it out on speculation alone, but with Sith it was often way more common that names came with baggage. Careful steps, then. Very, very careful steps.

The Miraluka held up one "wait" finger, then pulled her datapad back and tapped the side to flash it back to SCREAMING NEON MODE. Two or three presses and she had the screen up she wanted, then set it back to normal, non-eye-searing colors in crisp 8K fidelity, and handed it back to Scherezade. Niysha indulged every possible instance she got for her ridiculous data-hoarding to pay off.

She'd brought up her image archive, and in it, a folder with maybe two dozen images labeled "Endelaan" The first ten were all of the same singular stone plaque from every angle imaginable, while everything after that was what looked to be an eclectic mess of old objects. Tribal weapons, a brick or two, and some extremely old tech. Very little of it actually pointed to any of the blood rituals and rapidly-advanced civilization the planet had had in its prime, so one could assume Niysha was none the wiser.

After giving Scherezade a moment or two to peruse, Niysha explained. "One of the best places to go hunting for extremely obscure finds is on holonet rumor boards. It's about as reliable as looking for galactic-spanning conspiracies in the local tabloids; everyone claims that they're onto something, just about no one actually is, but every once in a while there's a nugget of legitimate truth there."

She drummed her fingers on the bar counter with absolutely no rhythm as she spoke. "These were out on a nowhere spit of frontier land on a planet with numbers for a name. The post claimed they were evidence of a lost Sith empire, so I had to check it out. No luck yet on finding any hyperspace records of Endelaan." With a sigh, Niysha shrugged her shoulders. "The old lady who held those pieces hadn't found them, so I'm still at square one."

Her mouth set sideways in a half-frown, half-pout. "...Or square zero, I guess. 'A cool idea and a single stone relief' isn't even the starting line for a legitimate study."

Scherezade deWinter

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

This time, all the bouncing and the stillness had run dry within Scherezade. She took the datapad carefully, barely registering the twitch her pinky finger gave as she did so. She listened, truly tried to listen, to what Niysha was explaining, about rumour boards and an old lady and all of that. And still, a cliff inside of her was falling down, causing a landslide that didn't hurt anyone, but was terrifying to witness nonetheless.

"It's not forgotten," she found herself whispering in a shaky voice, "it's hiding. Intentionally."

Was… Was she allowed to say that? To mention it? She didn't recognize the stone plaque, but the tribal weapons stirred something inside of her. They were old, they hadn't been used in so long, but somehow, she knew them, and not from her grandmother's memories. Scherezade, a Princess of Endelaan, didn't know whether she wanted to scream and run away, or embrace the datapad and protect it like a mother nerf over her chickees.

She closed her eyes and took a very slow and very deliberate breath before handing Niysha her datapad back.

"I was born there," she said with a chuckle that was trying too hard to be light but ended up sounding like a puppy that had been kicked, "but I haven't been there in a very, very long time."

But no. It wasn't fun anymore. They were treading down a path that the Sithling wasn't quite ready to take, not when she was essentially on her own in this galaxy, with only one blood sister that only existed because she had ripped her from another dimension. Family story times in any deWinter home were always… Fun, but also far too complicated for the average person. In short, a complete mess. It was hard for them not to considering the family didn't move forward linearly, but like its bloodlines, moved more in wreaths.

Scherezade cleared her throat and forced herself to sit a little bit more up right.

"I know I asked, but I'd rather not talk about it anymore for now," her words came fast now. It had turned, by no fault of Niysha, to something she wanted to get over with. But it didn't mean their impromptu meeting had to end.

"So back to the schematic," she grinned, almost back to herself now, "old. Very old! But also fresh. I think the fact the first pieces of it reached me in a time flow different than the one in the galaxy but is also sending me to pretty much a fazillion obscure parts of said galazy to get more pieces indicates it's something that comes with a Complicated[tm] stamp on its butt."

And maybeeeeeee… Maybe that was part of the point of it. She tilted her head, curiosity reigniting.

"What's the craziest archeological thing you have ever found?"

 

[Niysha]

Niysha nodded in quiet understanding, putting away her computer for now. "I understand. I have beef with home, too." Patience was one of her strong suits; she'd found a definite answer to "what exactly is Endelaan," and its name was "I'll tell you later." Whenever later was, it'd neatly wrap up a mystery that'd been bugging Niysha for months, so it was absolutely worth the wait.

In the meantime, puzzles. Very familiar-sounding puzzles, actually. A time-lost curiosity that held unknown secrets and demanded a complex approach to any solution sounded extremely familiar. Apart from not understanding color, the biggest thing that set her apart from most of the people she talked to was that she didn't believe in coincidences or luck. The universe functioned according to certain specific rules, and those rules actively worked to foil the very concept of probability. The Force didn't care about the odds; if something was destined, it would happen.

So it was no "coincidence" that this whole thing sounded so similar to the cryptex.

When Scherezade asked, Niysha didn't even hesitate a moment. "'Craziest' may be a little too subjective. I'd say that just about anything the Infinite Empire got up to was pretty crazy, and I've seen plenty of their work," she answered openly. "I found the exact square meter where a planet died once, back on Nathema. Three dozen mummies kept in near-death for thousands of years to power the magical dead man's switch on a bomb meant to keep a sarcophagus sealed..." Her expression turned a bit more apologetic. "Like I said. 'Craziest' is subjective."

She paused a moment, took a deep breath, and reached back into her bag. "...But I do think my favorite is this."

Without commentary, Niysha produced a small metal cyllinder, maybe as big as a scroll case or a map tube. Along the center were more than a dozen bands, each covered in runes of no language, arranged in rings like a combination lock. It was tangibly dark, even to someone without Force sight. After giving Scherezade a moment to look, Niysha chimed in with commentary. "Found it three months ago. I've tried just about every combination, blood, lightning, the works. Scans aren't helpful; I know that there's some kind of leather scroll inside, and I know that it's older than my scanners can check."

For the half-dozenth time, Niysha let someone else touch her unclimbable mountain. Her unsolvable puzzle.

Scherezade deWinter

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

Scherezade's eyebrows shot up as Niysha accepted her ask to not talk about it anymore. Maybe it was because she'd gotten too used to her sister, and among sisters, such requests were rarely ever respected. It was expected to not. But Scherezade and Niysha weren't sisters. They were teammates. And they were starting to be friends. Her eyebrows came down quickly and she just smiled in appreciation.

She listened intently as the Mirakula spoke, looking at her like a child entirely wrapped up in the daycare lady's storytelling, almost drinking every word. Every object mentioned sent her fantasies spiralling outwards, imagining the amazing adventures that must have accompanied finding them. Those scenarios were absolutely, over nine thousand percent, something that would never happen even if it had been Scherezade to find them, but wishes were fishes, and fish was yummy, unless it came from the lakes of Grawkmagol.

And then came one that she had in her pack!

The green glow of the Sithling's eyes focused on it almost enough to make it crack and she pressed her lips together. Because the thing about trying to become friends, was that you didn't want to scare them away. Or ick them away. Or creep them away. Which was why the one thing she wanted to say was, holy Force this looks something they used to put up people's buttholes in this very vague and weird society I once heard of, and she totally didn't.

Instead, she leaned forward a little bit, squinting, as she tried to take in the details. The symbols made no sense to her. Neither did… Well, anything, really. She had no idea what it was. The only thing she could offer was… Be herself.

"Did you try to lick it?"

 

[Niysha]

Of course that was the first thing that came to Scherezade's mind. With a giggle Niysha shook her head, unsurprised in the extreme. "No, Scherezade, I have not licked it." Her tone was that kind of affectionate, tired sound you heard from older siblings who were really, honestly trying.

Hmm. Niysha contemplated for a moment, fingers on her chin in a classic thinker's stance, head cocked slightly to one side. When she was done with her deep thought and profound consideration, she threw another curveball. "You know, your name's just about long enough that you probably have a nickname." Scherezade was already having problems keeping up with her train of thought and idiosyncratic reactions; why start making it easy for her now?

"Is there something your friends call you?" The Miraluka inquired without a hint of hesitation or shame, like it was the most normal thing to ask someone you just met except for that one time that the two of you were involved in a lethal altercation with the police. "It'd be handy to know, if we're going to be friends." As always, her grin was sleepy and her vibe chill. Whatever their conversation had been about was, for the moment, utterly unimportant.

Niysha absolutely wanted to make sure she got the cryptex back later, but for now, it wasn't harming anything to let Scherezade play with it. And if she licked it and it spontaneously sprouted spikes or something, well... actually, Niysha had no clue what she'd do with that kind of information.

Scherezade deWinter

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

The object was now in her hand! While Niysha spoke, Scherezade's fingers began to toy with it, clicking here or there, but ultimately, as expected, not really having any kind of effect. She also tried to shake it, not considering that it might detonate in her hands, like many other things had in the past, but still, nothing.

She was still fiddling when Niysha asked about nicknames.

"Not really," she mumbled, "My chosen sister calls me pebble because I was a prisoner in one for a few hundred years, and then my blood sister calls me idiot a lot because… Well, glitter and violence and chaos..." She paused to breathe for a sec, "My sort-of-boyfriend says Scher when he thinks I'm not paying attention even though I don't like it."

She thought about it for a moment. There were a lot of nicknames she'd tried in the past. Zade, Ade, De… None of them had worked. Names by other people tended to be more individualistic in their nature, not something she could pass on and let others use willy-nilly.

"You can give me one of your own," Scherezade assured her with a smile, "I might even give you a T bone steak from an animal of your choosing if it's not princess."

And there. She gave up. Nothing she was doing to the device actually seemed to help or make it react. It refused to spark. It refused to sing.

So Scherezade licked it.