Private A Gran Old Time

[Gabriel Pryce]

Oriadne Hallas

"The dreams, they're getting worse." Gabriel ran a hand through his hair. It had gone from black to light brown like his father's in his teenage years. Now he'd come full circle. His kid said it fit his near-constant scowl and dower mood.

"Hmmm," One of Rana Tau's face tentacles wandered a little too close to his face as she rubbed her chin in thought. "Have you thought about leaving the Core?" Gabriel looked up sharply. Leaving? By the Light, it had been...Years since he'd even thought about it. Sure he left Coruscant for trips back home on Corellia, but even that was mostly work. A lecture here, checking on the Saber there, popping in to say hello to his mother at the ranch. Rana Tau's brow fell. "When was the last time you even checked the Frontier Office?" Gabriel winced. Years.

"I have everything I need here-" Rana raised a wrinkled finger, stopping him in his tracks. She was older than he but had only reached the rank of Master a few years prior. Rana was one of Jedi healers, though she specialized in therapy and she'd seen Gabriel through many an injury both physical and emotional. Now she treated him like a Pamarthen grandmother, the strange mix of accents somehow sounding more stern than awkward.

"You'll go there today. No exceptions. Find a mission that calls to you. Let the Force be your guide. Some Jedi are meant to stay here at the Temple. It is their calling. You are not one of those."

He caught the last tram before rush hour kicked in. There weren't many shuttles or shuttle crews left, though the schedule board indicated more would arrive before the end of the day. Ten years ago he'd have known most of the pilots here. Now he knew no one. Damn that Rana. He outranked her didn't he? If anyone looked at the two of them though, they'd likely call her the senior Master. Let the Force guide him? What was he? Some fresh braided Padawan? Sometimes he wished he could return to those days.

"Something out of the Core..." he muttered, following the list of mission locations with a gloved finger. There was a lot going on in the Outer Rim, but he didn't much feel drawn that far out. He felt he'd spent more than enough time out there. Let the younger Jedi handle those.

 

[Oriadne Hallas]

It wasn’t her calling to stick around the temple, either. That was true in the first two centuries of her life, and it was true now, nigh-eleven centuries from where she had begun; she could never spend much time in the seeming security and near-bucolic routine of temple life before she would begin to feel it: that telltale Jedi itch that was either the will of the Force, the pull of purpose, or the plain old chafe of inertia.

Unrest, crime, the dark? These things would never sleep; it hadn’t surprised Oriadne to find that the more things had changed, the more they just bloody stayed the same, and it was never lost on her how wrong it perhaps was to find herself feeling comfort at that familiar fact of the unsavoury being just as alive and well as it had been in the waning centuries of the Republic.

Sorting through that realization was interesting, to say the least.

But it was that itch that always sent Oriadne to what was, in this era, the Frontier Office, like she was some fresh knight still fostering her own network of connections outside of the provision of her Master. Most of her missions after a point had come over secure comms, if not heavily encrypted, posting her from one place to the next, back in her day… but here she was, walking in to peruse a listing.

It had been long enough since she had last done so that it felt alien, “...that’s what I’m thinking--” she interjected on his muttering with her own wandering, distracted words, her eyes still scanning down the list, “--coreward assignments are typically less straightforward. Use your head more than your saber.”

It was telling that most of her time as an Investigator had been spent in the depths of sprawling civilisations largely coreward, whereas much of her time as a Shadow had been spent rimward where there was more dust and dirt than anything else. Of course it wasn’t quite so black and white, but by and large? Yeah.

“In my experience,” Oriadne clarified; she tapped a finger on one of the options she’d been considering, “like this one? It has several moving parts, and is perhaps a little delicate," she lifted the card, then flicked a sidelong glance up at the guy to the left of her, "How are your negotiation skills?"

Gabriel Pryce
​

 

[Gabriel Pryce]

Oriadne Hallas

​

"Who-?" There was a time when Gabriel could have listed the Jedi Masters by name along with their padawans. Well, most of them. The Jedi hadn't been 'few' in number since the Sith-Imperial Civil War but the Second Great Hyperspace War had brought more communication and cooperation between Orders than there had been in decades and that war had taken its toll. Now though? It seemed new Jedi were popping into existence every day. He couldn't keep track of them. Or maybe it had been because he had been away for so long and shuttered upon his return.

The woman had firey red hair and eyes as green as his lightsaber. She wore no Jedi Robes as he did with his open adventurer's vest but she was clearly a Jedi. She walked with the grace only a person trained in the Force could muster. That and the fact that the miniature space port and office was meant for Jedi aid. It was rare to find others here. His eyes narrowed at the datacard she held in her hand.

"Kinyen?" Expansion region, all the way on the edge of Alliance space along the Corellian Trade Spine. Last on the line of his father's patrols in Alliance Space, though he knew the Corellian Confederation patrolled far outside the Alliance's borders on both the Trade Spine and Corellian Run.

"What is happening that far from Galactic Center? The Gran are basically pacifists on their homeworld." He reached for the card without thinking and paused. She'd grabbed it first. It was her mission now. He hadn't even introduced himself and already he was shifting back into his old ways.

"Sorry," He lowered his hand. "Gabriel Pryce. And you are?"

 

[Oriadne Hallas]

Pacifists, almost to the extent that it could seem like the species had bred itself for that trait. Or at least, she’d gotten that impression between the Gran Jedi she had crossed paths with in the Order, and that one time she had been on Kinyen, long into the past.

“I know,” Oriadne turned her gaze back to the datacard, faint lines of thought working into her expression, “the trouble is imported,” but when he reached for the card, she just as quickly snapped it out of his reach and looked pointedly back at him. An old reflex from countless instances of playful keep-away, in happier times... but he was quick to apologise and offer his name, with little awkwardness. She blew out a moment's held breath.

“No, it’s fine,” she assured with a light shake of her head and a small smile, just as caught off by her own reaction, for her own reasons, “Oriadne Hallas,” her fingers curled against the card, and she considered him for half a moment, “Corpos, negotiations, and trouble with an ex-marine,” then she held out the card to him, “Here, have a look.”

If he’d take the card, she would cross her arms and watch him take the details in. Watching people was part and parcel of who she had been trained to become.

“Looking for something for you and your padawan?”

Gabriel Pryce​

 

[Gabriel Pryce]

Oriadne Hallas

Gabe took the card, his eyes scanning the information quickly. The cards were made to give snippets of information and contact information should a Jedi take on the mission but the more he read the greater his confusion became. Why was a Corellian Agri-Corp trying to muscle into Kinyon's economy? Did his father know about this? He shudderd at the thought of a Corporate slum lord paying off the right CDF captain to bully their way onto the scene. He sucked his teeth. And worse there was the veteran. The GA typically tried to treat its veterans well but some always slipped through the cracks.

"No," he said, hand to chin as he pondered the card. "I was looking for something for me. I've already done that song and dance." His mind drifted momentarily to his padawans fondly. Both were knights now, the second padawan being the push the council was looking for to grant Gabe the rank of Master.

"This would have had my first padawan seething. She never liked the freedom the Alliance gives corporations to muck about in the Galaxy." He offered the card back to Oriadne. "The early banshee gets the vrelt as they say."

 

[Oriadne Hallas]

Oriadne accepted the card back, but dropped that hand to her side, as the saying brought a rueful turn to a corner of her mouth.

“You would think they’d have come up with a different way of saying that by now.”

It was the kind of thing a parent might say, that idiom, and she’d been one, herself. In a way, that had also included ‘raising’ her padawans over the years.

“I did that song and dance five times, and each number was pretty unique for padawans reared in the temple,” she mused with a faint air of fondness, “you might think from an outside perspective that they’d all turn out more or less the same, but then,” Ori trailed off and pursed her lips for a brief moment in fleeting thought, tapping the edge of the card on her chin, then gestured at Gabriel with it, giving it a light shake when she continued to speak, “we might not have ended up with even half the trouble the Order’s dealt with over the years.”

Oriadne glanced down at the details of the card again, then back up at Gabriel. She eyed him for a handful of seconds, then with her free hand still posed under the other elbow, she held the card up between two long fingers and gave a little smile.

“Two heads are better than one?”

Gabriel Pryce​

 

[Gabriel Pryce]

Oriadne Hallas

Gabriel watched Oriadne for a brief moment, a flash of something he hadn't felt in a long time briefly sending a shiver of excitement down his spine. Did he want to get back into the field? Leave the stuffy flimsi and datacards behind? He wavered for a moment. No, he had work to do. The Saber was expecting him to finish his report on new Purgil migration patterns and Professor Greene was waiting on his examination of capital ship tonnage over the last half-century.

They can wait. He felt something say. Take it. Go with her now.

Before he realized what he was doing he'd taken a step closer and took the card back.

"Two heads," he agreed. "You have a ride?"

 

[Oriadne Hallas]

When he reached for the card this time, Oriadne handed it over willingly, her gaze tracking upward to remain on his face when he stepped closer, and her hand dropped to rest against the opposite elbow once the card was again in Gabriel’s possession. A finger tapped against that elbow. The curve of her lips deepened just a little.

“I do,” she confirmed, “and she’s all mine.” Oriadne skirted a brief glance out the door to the Frontier Office. “We can leave now, unless there’s anything you need to do or grab first?”

She’d come here with every intention to leave as soon as she’d picked up a mission - Kyyrk had kitted her out rather well with that ship, and she’d sourced anything else she’d need to be ready at the drop of a hat, after Exegol, replacing as needed over the years.

Gabriel Pryce​

 

[Gabriel Pryce]

Oriadne Hallas

"I pack light," Gabriel said, giving the small sack at his feet a gentle kick. A few days of ration nutrient bars, a little dehydrated grit portions, a few canteens of water and his lightsaber tool kit? It was all he needed along with the things he kept on his person hidden in his flowing brown robes.

"Which...Ship was yours?" The Frontier Office had a grand assortment of vessels. Most Frontier Office pilots were volunteers and so the bays were filled with junky-looking Correlian ships, beautiful Mon Cala works of art, and even a modified old Imperial transport. There was the occasional Convor Jedi vessel but for the most part, it was a mottly group of ships that awaited them and he didn't know this Jedi well enough to guess which was her's.

"I don't mind flying," he said to add, "Or whatever you need me to do on the way there. I pull my weight."