Private Becalmed In Virtue

[Arcturus Dinn]

Things moved fast from there.​

​

So fast they were dizzying.​

​

He felt her pull back as she began to remove her dress, and when their lips broke away to make it so he leaned back slightly. His initial response was to avert his eyes, as he had done in the river. To give her her modesty, her privacy. Something in him stirred though, fought against that. Instead his eyes drifted over her, cheeks red and gaze filled with appreciation.​

​

"You... Are gorgeous..." he breathed, moments before their lips locked once more. His hands tentatively touched skin now, tracing up her back until he felt goosebumps and her shivers. She was cold... That made sense, they were on a ship in space and he hadn't exactly given much thought to warming the place up beyond getting them hot drinks. They'd been rather preoccupied after all.​

​

He lifted one hand from her back, waving it at someplace random in the room that would activate the heating system and get them warmed up. Before he settled it back to her skin though he made one final gesture, pulling a blanket from the back of the sofa to wrap over her. As much as he enjoyed the view it wasn't worth her freezing.​

​

After a few moments, provided she didn't pull back herself, he leaned back and pulled off his shirt. He was a little slow about it, not because it was difficult to do but because it wasn't at all common for him to do so around someone else. Then again she'd already seen what his back had to offer. The front was equally as scarred, some fresh some older. He didn't exactly give her much time to peruse them though.​

​

Ishani Dinn ​

 

[Ishani Dinn]

The look on his face was worth the cold. “I’m not even naked yet, you goof! You’ve already seen this…”

She tried not to laugh, not wanting to seem mean or unappreciative—she was just as flustered as he was. Gorgeous, huh? “You’re not so bad yourself, babe.”

He turned up the heat and pulled out a blanket (this man thought of everything), wrapping it around her. Ah, that solved the problem of the chill.

After he removed his shirt, she yanked off her bra too. She’d been kind of hoping he would do it, but she doubted he had any clue how to work the clasps. Not that he couldn’t figure it out, given a chance, but she was impatient. So was he—he barely gave her a chance to take in his bare chest before he was on her again, kissing every inch of exposed skin. Her hands ran over his scars, tracing the expanse of lean muscle before she pulled the edges of the blanket around him, enveloping them both in its warmth.

Hopefully he had put down that can of whipped cream by now.

Arcturus Dinn​

 

[Arcturus Dinn]

Oh, the can of whipped cream was most certainly gone. Lost down the side of the sofa, or to the floor, or Force knew where else. Quite frankly the very last thing on his mind was the damned whipped cream.​

​

He didn't speak a response, if they got to talking now he'd find himself distracted again, or some sort of fatalism would enter his mind and he'd find a way to sabotage himself. In fact as more layers were removed, and the blanket was brought around him, the only thing he did utter was a quiet little "Are you sure?" against her lips. He hoped it wasn't a mood killer.​

​

Well, he got his response in more than one way...​

​

Everything else fell to the wayside, for the night she was all he cared about, all he thought about, and then sleep came soundly...​

​

Ishani Dinn ​

 

[Ishani Dinn]

The soft chime which signalled the ship was coming out of hyperspace pierced into her dreams. Ishani stirred and tried to roll over into a more comfortable position, jolting fully awake as she felt the edge of the couch. The first thing she saw when she opened her eyes was the cursed (blessed?) can of whipped cream on the floor.

All the events of the previous night came back in a rush. She clutched at the blanket covering her, blushing even though no one was there to see it, and turned over to face Arcturus.

Something she’d read years ago—maybe a trashy romance novel, maybe some literary classic—had said that waking up next to someone was far more intimate than the carnal act itself. For a while she just looked at him, a bit staggered by it all. Not only was he back, they had just… they were… whoa. Okay, okay, don’t get all swimmy now. You felt the earth move, huh?

To tell the truth, it had been a little… it was their first time, after all. Neither of them really knew what they were doing. Didn’t make it any less of a momentous occasion, and she knew they’d figure it out eventually. With, uh, practice.

So… what now? Take a shower? Eat breakfast? Do it again? Damn, when she said she wanted him to make her a sword, all this wasn’t quite what she meant...

Arcturus Dinn​

 

[Arcturus Dinn]

He wasn't the quickest to rise, that was for sure.​

​

The chaos of the last week or so had finally hit him, and in her warm embrace he'd succumbed to a sleep so deep that it put every other rest he'd had to shame. How long had it been since he'd rested fully? How many nights had he been plagued by insomnia or nightmares or both? Not that night, no... He slept like a babe.​

​

After a little while of her watching him though he did awaken, all too aware of eyes upon him. He shifted in place on the sofa, groaned some, and opened one eye... then the other. He stretched, then he reached out toward her and languidly stroked her back.​

​

"Morning, beautiful," he murmured, only half awake himself though he was coming to more and more as the seconds pass. Eventually he shifted, moving to sit upright, and once his eyes adjusted he searched her expression for... something. He wasn't sure what. Was she okay? Did she regret the night they'd shared already? Worries that hadn't reared their heads the night before swam to the surface now.​

​

The ship still chimed lightly here and there; they were at their destination, wherever the feth that was.​

​

Ishani Dinn ​

 

[Ishani Dinn]

His eyelids twitched, then fluttered. Her heart beat faster. There it was. A sense of overwhelming closeness descended over her, as if she was seeing something she was not meant to see. For once, she didn’t shrink from it in shame. There was nothing to hide, no privacy to maintain. Ishani watched Arcturus awaken with quiet reverence, not daring to disturb him with a word or a touch. He stretched, said good morning, and then gave her a searching look.

She gazed back at him, her eyes full of warmth. Her hand still clutched the edge of the blanket, hugging it against her chest, but her grip had slackened. She reached out, the knuckles of her curled fingers brushing his cheek gently.

It was the sort of moment for which sonnets are written. She opened her mouth to speak, then swiftly closed it. Whatever goofball cliché gobbledygook she was about to spout, it was no love poetry, that was for sure. “Good morning,” she said at last, grinning.

Her arms wrapped around him, holding him close. The tenderness of it was marred by the persistent chiming in the background. “Where are we?” she asked, assuming he had chosen specific coordinates. Finding that he had not, she gave him a funny look. “Playing planetary roulette, huh? I hope it’s a resort world.”

Not that they even had to leave the ship. In fact, she’d be equally content not moving from this spot. Except maybe to switch out the couch for a proper bed… man, that chiming would keep up the dead.

Arcturus Dinn​

 

[Arcturus Dinn]

Phew, she was good. At least she seemed good. If not then she was a mighty fine actress. ​

​

He smiled as she spoke and then nestled in close, holding him. He wrapped his arms around her in turn, yawning away some of the remaining sleepiness he felt. Hunger gnawed at his stomach, he couldn't recall when he'd actually eaten the day before, but for now he was happy to just sit. Three mugs sat on the coffee table, mostly full with their contents left undrunk. Whoops.​

​

"I'm not sure. Neutral space... Folende, I think?" He didn't know a single thing about Folende, but it had been a world outside of any major sphere of influence and in his haste to get them off the ground that had seemed like a good enough choice for him.​

​

After a quick stretch he kissed her atop her head then detangled himself from her and the blanket before rising up. Uh... He quickly reached for the scattered clothes, put them on, and moved to the cockpit in order to shut off the chiming. From the viewport the planet seemed nice, not too busy, green. Very green. That was good.​

​

With the chiming over he returned back to the lounge though he remained in the doorway rather than entering fully.​

​

"I'm going to take a quick shower. There's a refresher down the hall if you want to use it." Showers were somewhat necessary, he'd discovered, after the kind of night they'd had. He smiled, waited to see if she had anything more to say, then did precisely that. A few minutes and some fresh clothes later, and Arcturus felt like a new man.​

​

A happy man, in truth. It wasn't often he felt so serene and carefree in life.​

​

Ishani Dinn​

 

[Ishani Dinn]

“Nooo, don’t leave me,” she joked, still holding out her arms as he got up and dressed. “Folende? Never heard of it. Sounds like a brand of cough drop. Should we conquer it and turn it into our own little fiefdom, like the Worm Emperor is always trying to get young Sith to do?”

The couch abruptly became the least comfortable place to be without him, and she started to rise right as he left for the cockpit.

Arcturus returned to find her semi-dressed and dumping out the contents of the three mugs in the sink.

“Can I come with you? Showering together saves water.” She managed to say all that with a straight face, but broke into a grin afterwards. Trying to get some extra practice in, huh? Watch him think she literally meant just showering together. If he said yes, or at the very least didn’t protest, she left the empty mugs on the counter and scampered along behind him.

Arcturus Dinn​

 

[Arcturus Dinn]

"Now that would be something, wouldn't it?" he mused, talking over his shoulder as he headed away to get things sorted. He knew nothing about the world, was it inhabited? Did it have a bustling economy? Who knew. Not Arcturus. But he was excited to find out, provided she wanted to go down and visit it too.​

​

Of course he agreed for her to join him in the shower, though with rather naïve intentions of simply getting clean. There was no harm in sharing right? After the night before did they have that much to hide any more? Nope. So she came too. And whatever happened therein happened.​

​

A new set of clothes awaited Arcturus when all was said and done, though he hadn't thought to have Ishani grab any of her own before they left. It had been odd circumstances which had led them on this late night adventure, after all. Well he let her rifle through the various closets, most of what was on the ship was not his. Things left behind by others before it even became his, yep. Like the alcohol, he hadn't seen any reason to get rid of most of it. It wasn't as though he had things to restock it with after all.​

​

While she figured out what she wanted to do, he returned to the cockpit and began their descent to the planet below. No cities popped out at him, no grand settlements, just the odd isolated structure. Barns, silos, a few houses that sort of formed a hamlet. That sort of thing.​

​

What really stuck out to him though was the lack of activity. What looked to be fields were left to grow of their own volition, unkempt, and no lifeforms walked between the buildings.​

​

It felt like a ghost town. Looked like a ghost town. And as the ship shuddered to a stop he could do little more than gawp at it all through the viewing port.​

​

Ishani Dinn ​

 

[Ishani Dinn]

Ishani found a bizarre mishmash of clothes had been left on the ship, none of them in her size. She tried a stranger’s pants that were much too big, a pair of shorts that were so tight they cut off circulation to her legs, before she finally gave up on bottoms altogether and took a t-shirt that probably belonged to Arcturus himself. It fell past her hips, looking almost like a dress on her. Works for me.

She staggered into the cockpit with food that was more snack than a meal. “You want one of these?” she asked, holding out a bag of the space equivalent of potato chips. Sitting in the chair beside his, she munched a little more quietly, taking in the view through the windows.

“You seen any people around here? Or droids?” she asked. Pulling out her datapad, she looked up the planet. “Folende, agriworld. Used to be considered kind of crappy, then in the last days of the Republic—that’s, uh, Republic that ended with Plalp—heh, Palpatine taking over—they mysteriously increased their output of produce enough that they were able to compete with Omman. Hmm. It certainly doesn’t look too prosperous.”

She shrugged. “I can see you ruling over a farming planet. If you can get it working again, anyway. Lord Arcturus Thesh has a nice ring to it.”

To be honest, she couldn’t really imagine herself being put in a position to rule over anything. She was barely even an acolyte. Arc at least seemed to be approaching knighthood, and he was the apprentice of Maliphant himself. She had no master, no reputation, limited resources. But she could help him lay claim to this world, if he so desired it.

Ok we dom Arcturus Dinn​

 

[Arcturus Dinn]

She had chosen one of his shirts to serve as a dress. He tilted his head slightly to one side when he noticed this, as she entered the cockpit, both admiring her and amused by her decision. It worked, he supposed, and though initially he had thought that perhaps they could simply buy her something new to wear he realized now that wasn't going to be the case. This world was desolate.​

​

But full of potential. He could see it already.​

​

He took one of the offered chips with a smile. "Thanks; should probably eat before we leave, huh?" Again, he had simply presumed that they would find somewhere to eat on world. How wrong he had been on all accounts.​

​

"Nah, I haven't seen anything. Makes me curious... I wonder where everyone is?"​

​

As Ishani began to read out information about the world, he realized that what she'd found pertained to events which had happened a very, very long time ago. Had the industry here simply dwindled away? Was what they saw merely the remnants of what once had been?​

​

"It does have a nice ring, doesn't it?" he said jokingly, with a smirk, rising up from the seat with a groan and a stretch. "If I were Lord, would that make you Lady?"​

​

He had said it without thinking. Then his cheeks seemed to burn in realization.​

​

"I just mean, well, we both stumbled upon this together didn't we?"​

​

Smooth. Real smooth.​

​

Leaving the cockpit behind, he grabbed a couple of ration packs from the kitchenette, found his satchel, and then headed toward the boarding ramp. From whichever corner he'd fallen asleep in, Nostremous scrambled toward him as he heard him prepping to leave, and once again found refuge in the pocket of his jacket. Doubling back for a moment, Arcturus grabbed a small package of seeds and dried fruit for the little guy to enjoy.​

​

Then he looked at Ish.​

​

"Ready to see what's going on here?" he inquired. Somehow they had once again forgotten that the purpose here was to make a sword... Soon, dear readers, soon...​

​

Ishani Dinn okay we lay foundation for dom​

 

[Ishani Dinn]

“Either at home asleep like all good little boys and girls, or there simply ain’t anybody here.”

He stood up.

"If I were Lord, would that make you Lady?"

“I don’t know how the rules work on different worlds, but my understanding would be no, not unless we were married,” she replied, speaking facts to distract from how red her face had become. Lord and Lady, good grief. Oh please. Oh yes please. “At best I guess I would be… your mistress? A concubine? Uh, but if you ever call me that, I will… pinch you really hard on the arm.”

"I just mean, well, we both stumbled upon this together didn't we?"

She met his eyes, then leaned in and kissed him, briefly, meaningfully. Also saltily, given what she had been eating.

She didn’t have much to bring with her planetside, given how quickly they’d left Korriban. No weapons. Weren't they supposed to be making her a sword? Pfft, well, what they had done so far was arguably more fun. Anyway, whether her being unarmed here would be a problem, she didn’t know. Holding only her rustling bag of chips, she followed him out.

Arcturus Dinn​

 

[Arcturus Dinn]

He pulled a face at talk of mistresses and concubines. Nope, he would not allow that. They seemed such inadequate titles, and likely for good reason. Either way they were getting ahead of themselves, and he knew it. But was it so wrong to want a little bit of... something? Something different, something settled? Even if it was just a dream.​

​

He kissed her back, quite enjoying the salt, and then sighed.​

​

It wasn't until they were already disembarking the ship that he realized she was weaponless. He pondered that for a moment. "I'd offer you a lightsaber, only I know how much you despise them." Arcturus paused, then peered back up the ramp. "One second..." He left, and returned a minute or so later with a blaster pistol which he offered out to her.​

​

She could shoot a bow, with any luck she knew how to use a blaster.​

​

"I used to work as an assistant for various different Sith. Whatever they needed an extra set of hands for, I was there. Had to learn quickly how to use one of those," he nodded at the blaster, "Lightsabers aren't exactly welcome in a lot of civilian places, and well... A lot of Sith seem to deal in very civilian tasks."​

​

He shrugged some. It felt like an entire life ago that he was doing such, alongside the likes of Tehkyram and Kraves. He wondered where they were these days? What life had they been led into?​

​

It didn't rightly matter he supposed.​

​

Ahead of them were fields and fields of unharvested food, and beyond that what looked to be a farmhouse and various other buildings. It was toward the farmhouse that he ventured first, reaching out to take Ishani's hand as he did so.​

​

Ishani Dinn ​

 

[Ishani Dinn]

She quickly ate another chip before taking the blaster, aiming it at the fields ahead with a scoundrel’s swagger. The only reason she didn’t make pew-pew noises was because her mouth was full.

“You’ve been everywhere, haven’t you?” she asked, shoving the pistol into her… well, she wasn’t wearing pants, so no waistband to tuck it into. Ah, would you look at that! It came with a belted holster, wonderful. She belted it around her waist and took his offered hand as they walked. “Sounds like a pretty adventurous life, anyway. And you’re only nineteen. Freaking Luke Skywalker was as old as you when he blew up the Death Star, and that was his opening number, not the culmination of anything.”

Yeah yeah, they were Sith, Luke Skywalker was arguably the most famous Jedi ever. Focus on the “most famous” part and take your very generous compliment like a good lad.

They made it to the farmhouse. It was a very old, very dilapidated building that looked like a stiff breeze might knock it down. Ishani ate another chip. “I sense a person inside. Do we pretend we’re just random kids, new to town? Brother and sister? Ew, no, forget that. I assume we don’t want to kick down the door, lightsaber out, yelling about the glories of the Sith, right?”

Arcturus Dinn​

 

[Arcturus Dinn]

"Hardly," he hummed with amusement, as she remarked on how much he'd experienced in just 19 years of existence, then compared him to Luke-Freaking-Skywalker. Was she okay? Did she have a fever?​

​

"I mostly just went where I was told. Did what I was told." He shrugged some. Most of the adventures had actually been rather fun, some had been borderline deadly, and others had been very enlightening and introspective. His life had been a saga of doing what other people had bid, and it was only more recently that he was beginning to break that cycle.​

​

Still, if Darth Empyrean told him to do something there was no doubt he would. Regardless of what it was, or his own whims. But these days he felt like the exception, not the normalcy.​

​

He stole another chip, as they made their way toward the building. Ish noticed it first, a presence inside. A person. But there was only the one, and as he stretched his senses out further, into the field - perhaps they were harvesting? - he sensed no other.​

​

"Um.. We could be concerned visitors? Because let's face it, the lack of people is kind of concerning. Then it would only be a half lie? Well... Not even a lie really.."​

​

By now they had reached the door. He lifted a hand and knocked.​

​

Ishani Dinn​

 

[Ishani Dinn]

“Well, doing what you’re told evidently leads to adventures galore, babe.”

She held out the bag for him as soon as she saw him reach for it.

“Concerned visitors. Sounds good to me.” She waited as he knocked on the door.

It didn’t take the Force to tell the sound caused a calamity inside. Clattering, rustling, thumps, whumps, rattles, all muffled by a thin wall resounded within. Then, a voice said, “When are you pirates going to learn? We don’t have anything here, just crops. Take the foodstuffs and leave me alone!”

Ishani glanced at Arcturus, then said, “We’re not pirates. We’re, uh… concerned visitors. Does anyone else live here?”

“Gone, long gone. Everyone left for fear of the Bryn’adul horde. They’ll be getting here soon enough, I know it, but that’s my problem, not yours!”

“Wow, okay. You sure are handling impending genocide pretty well.” She ate another chip.

The door was suddenly thrown open, revealing a monkeyish alien wearing rags and what might have been armor constructed from scraps of metal. His nostrils twitched.

“Are those chips?”

She blinked. “Yeah.”

“Do you have more?”

She handed him the bag. He sniffed it, reached a wrinkled hand inside to carefully pluck out a chip, touched his tongue to it, then ate it. Ishani just stood there awkwardly watching him eat the rest of her chips, glancing towards Arcturus occasionally.

Arcturus Dinn​

 

[Arcturus Dinn]

An ape-man.​

​

That was who eventually opened the door to them, after yelling through it and calling them pirates. He tried not to stare, oh Force did he try not to stare, but it wasn't quite so easy. He had large, almost Yoda-ish ears, greying-brown fur, and eyes that looked rather haunted. Though they turned to excitement, however thinly veiled that might have been, when he saw the package of chips.​

​

All the food he could ever have eaten lay out in those fields, yet a simple package of chips caused such great excitement. It was a little bewildering in truth, though what he had said of the populace leaving and the Horde's impending arrival definitely shed further light on all of that.​

​

Without bodies to move the goods, they couldn't rightly export. Without exports they couldn't afford to import. Nope, poor ape-man must have been living on just home cooked meals for a long time.​

​

Arcturus actually preferred home cooked meals, but he knew he wasn't in the majority there.​

​

"There's more where that came from," he assured the man, "I promise we're here in good faith. Why are you still here? Shouldn't you have left with the others?"​

​

After a moment he remembered his manners.​

​

"Oh. I'm Thes-- Um, I'm Arcturus, and this is Ishani. Is there anything we can do to help, Mister...?"​

​

Ishani Dinn ​

 

[Ishani Dinn]

The alien took a moment to finish chewing before replying, “All my stuff is here. Got nowhere to go. Might as well die, I guess.”

Ishani did a double take. What kind of ass-backwards thinking was that? Oh hell, the dude was a monkey man, she wasn’t going to pretend to understand how his mind worked.

More chomping. “Hilarion’s my name. I maintained the agridroids.” He gestured vaguely. “Not much point to keeping up maintenance with nobody around to export the harvest.”

“We noticed,” Ishani murmured. “Uh, well, maybe we could arrange for ships to come and collect your produce. In the meantime we could help you with your droids.”

Hilarion shook his head, licking the salt from his lips. “If you really want to help, you’ll have to bring the people back. To do that, you have to win victory over the horde. And to do that, you have to be gods. Not even the Jedi can defeat them, I hear.”

She made a face. “Well, do we tell him now?” she hissed to Arcturus.

“Tell me what?” Hilarion asked. “Are you Jedi or something? I keep track of the news reports, y’all have been getting your asses handed to you by the Bryn. Lost a dozen systems to them just a few weeks ago. No offense, you two seem like nice kids and all, but the Jedi have sucked lately.”

Arcturus Dinn​

 

[Arcturus Dinn]

"We could get people," he said, with a side-glance at Ishani, "Not the old people, mind, but new ones? People who could help. You seem like a nice, uh, man, Mister Hilarion, I don't see why you should need to simply roll over and die here."​

​

Nope, that couldn't be allowed. Not at all.​

​

He glanced between girl and ape, then nodded as Ishani asked if they should tell him.​

​

"We're not Jedi, no... We're uh... Sith..."​

​

He braced, waiting for some sort of curse to escape the ape, for him to shoo them away or draw weapons or something...​

​

"But we really do want to help! Ours could be a symbiotic relationship, you provide the food, we give you the manpower and obviously credits in return." His brain was whirring a thousand miles a minute. They had their religious epicenter. There were plans for a factory world. Why not an agriworld? That would help lessen some of the burden they felt, surely? ​

​

And besides, there were probably countless individuals on Chandaar that would leap at the opportunity to move to a clean, green world. Somewhere that they could breathe.​

​

They hadn't begun to move on Chandaar yet, of course, but it was next on their list of plans once the matter of Ossus had truly settled.​

​

"What do you have to lose?"​

​

Ishani Dinn ​

 

[Ishani Dinn]

Rather than reacting negatively, Hilarion simply nodded.

“The Sith Empire used to be in charge of this system. It’s a planet full of farmers, not much worth exercising their unlimited power over. Then those NIO pricks came and had a little “reconnaissance” mission here in prep for an invasion, which they screwed up. Never came back. Whatever. Like I actually give a chit about the Force and which side you’re on. It's just that, Jedi seem more likely to show up promising help.”

“I mean, uh… does this planet have any leadership? Wouldn’t we want to talk to them about this?” Ishani cut in, rubbing the back of her neck. She could sense Arcturus' brain running in circles, already chock full of ideas and hopes and dreams. Sweet Force, was it really this easy to take over an entire planet?

“Nah. They all left, like I said.” Hilarion finished off the bag of chips, rolled it up into a ball, then stuffed it in his pocket. “I got nothing to lose, I’m just a Symeong in a farmhouse on an abandoned world about to be invaded by monsters. If you can protect this planet from the Bryn, be my fething guest. They’d just destroy everything and turn it into another lobster spawning ground.”

Arcturus Dinn​