Private Beyond Shadows

[Selinica Miriya Cailis]

One week earlier...
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Cailis Estate
Coronet City, Corellia
Some months after --> xxx
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She had to take that back.

It would seem that, for a retired Jedi, Julius Sedaire was about as easy to find as she herself was at times, and she was little more than a shade, more often than not. Oh, there were instances where she would be accessible for a spell, visiting herself upon the Green Jedi, attending social events... but the state of things in the galaxy at large demanded more of a direct hand in the background, making a scarce woman of her. Where lives hung in the balance, disciples both under her direction and autonomously sought to direct the winds such that there were as many spared as possible, if not acting more overtly when necessary, yet drawing the line as they always had at outright choosing an allegiance to any one power.

It would seem that he had just as many secrets of his own, and when his staff at the Green Devil had nothing to show for his absence, or were unwilling to speak on the matter, she had little choice but to go digging. Though much was said that one evening, winding into early hours, though they had long been acquainted, to divulge of her own secrets was too much of a risk, as of yet, but what the digital excavation led her to was not per se a secret, so much as obscured, and far from common knowledge... unless you were another retired Jedi who just so happened to be no less than brothers with the former Grandmaster, and a little less stringent about covering your tracks. And gregarious. Talking with the salt and peppered felinoid had been, of all things, a treat.

So were the kids splitting his focus.

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Present Day
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Socorran Jedi Enclave
Socorro

Deserts weren't on her list of favourite things, but after a number of forays into them over the past two to three decades since departing Corellia in her youth, she knew a thing or two about dressing for the climate, and skincare so as to avoid becoming a dried husk... but also how to dress like she was a part of the groups that peopled the Soccoran capital of Vakkeya and various points throughout the arid landscape. In those younger years, Socorro had been a port she had passed through a handful of times, but the presence of the remains of an ancient force academy drew little of her interest, back then. A footnote, virtually forgotten, until her quarry cropped up as having a connection to it.

A quarry whom, when she came around from the secluded landing pad, was found draped in a hammock, dozing peacefully at the entrance, except for the occasional kick-up of a snore that might as well have been the sawing of Mandalorian iron; upon closer inspection, a particular scent wafted off of him that certainly belonged back in the inn on Corellia. A vacant bottle long-since tipped over in the sand provided more context.

Well, that explains the snore. Tch-tch-tch.

Thoughts, fleeting thoughts, entertained the notion of upending the grizzled old man, dumping the entirety of him into the dust as a wake-up call, but that wasn't her, no. He'd probably fall out of the hammock without her help, anyway. Instead, Sel took her lithe self and effected a lean against a nearby pillar facing the hammock, and elected to wait.

And wait.

Aaaand wait.

 

[Julius Sedaire]

It was a rollercoaster. Since she had gone, Julius had taken to acting like his wife didn't exist. Running the Green Devil. Teaching classes. Only on rare occasions did he escape to Socorro for a few weeks, crawling into a bottle. He'd find something of hers in their house and down a whiskey bottle he'd dive. Sometimes a student, or group of them, or some wandering Rebel needing sanctuary would crop up, or be there already. But it seemed an unwritten code of the place that you just didn't talk about Julius' alcohol binges. A blind eye turned to the suffering, at his own silent behest.

Near the hammock sat a kryat leather harness, attached to it a beskar pauldron, kal knife, and a holster with a bryar pistol. They were folded and looped on top of a thin desert robe that was almost Jedi looking, and a lightsaber sat next to them, with an untouched bottle of water to the side. His shirt was near too, and the smooth carapace of the bionic arm from his Aing-Tii mentors contrasted visibly with their gifted tattoos and several other works of art. Old CorSec and Corellian League unit marks. Mandalorian clan crest. A Galactic Republic insignia. Even a green devil done in some high-tech Denonian ink that shone and shimmered in the light of the desert orb. His beard and hair were a few weeks past needing a trim, and he seemed at peace in sleep.

As Sel approached, he moved, a change in the snoring, but did not visibly wake. Even coming out of a booze-fueled stupor, the battlemaster had instincts that could scarcely be fooled.

But, instead of waking, he lay there a moment, enjoying the sun on his face and the gentle sway of the olive drab CorSec gear bag that he had co-opted into being a hammock and his bed. Stretched out his mind and his senses. The Academy was empty, as it was when he came out here to drink. But he had known it wouldn't be. Just hadn't expected her of all people. Purposefully, he was hard to find when he went in the wind. And this place was a hidden gem of the best sort.

Eventually, he decided he had made her wait enough, and he cracked his eyes and a lazy smile, volunteering a wave as he winced at the brightness lancing into his frontal lobe with a particular harshness that said he might have imbibed a bit much the night before. Even for him. With a grunt, he heaved himself up, mostly hiding the unsteady sway of a slight inebriation (Absinthe Aing-Tii was a potent elixir...). As he looked at her, the smile grew and he shook his head, chuckling a bit as he ran a hand through messy grey locks of hair. The voice that spoke had a low drawl smothered in half-sleep, and just the last hints of intoxicant on the tail.

"You know, you coulda called first. I would have put the kettle on. Don't get many out this way. Most don't even know this is out here..."

The last sentence was half accusation and half admiration.

 

[Selinica Miriya Cailis]

Upon the almost only uncovered swatch of her body, the brunt of her visage, the most immediate canvas of expression, two clean, shaped brows edged upward to the barest extent. Her mouth, for its part, curved in mild bemusement when the dual intent of the last of his words reached her ears, but the rest of her didn’t see fit to budge. When she settled against the pillar, Sel had spent further moments taking notice of the other accoutrements strewn about the ground by the hammock, some of which spoke to what she knew of, already, and upon his slumbering form, more that she didn’t.

“And here I thought you liked surprises.”

Arms unfolded, hands went to the cowl to move it away from her head with care, so as not to pull on the golden strands it concealed, and left the fabric to pool behind her neck where a braid curved around one side, the end disappearing beneath the fabric that had covered all but her eyes until it too had been pulled away scant moments before the drink-addled Corellian awoke from his slumber. A decision, perhaps, to not invite the trouble a concealed identity sometimes carried. Fingers brushed stray strands, to join them with the rest.

“Master Peradun was reasonably forthcoming about this place,” she admitted, her arms indicating the general area, widely, blues pinning solid on his face, “but the way he looked at me, the lines of his face... said everything he wasn’t.”

There were only a few reasons to get blind drunk, and coming just about clear across the galaxy to do it, to this place, specifically, eliminated two of those reasons; the hesitation in her informant’s words and the knit of his expression when she asked after the former grandmaster’s whereabouts filled in the rest: pain. Unlike the Felacatian, and more like the Corellian across from her, only her words said what she wanted.

“So, yes, I could have called, but with everyone around you acting cagey…” she paused, then cracked a rueful smile, “...well, here I am, when all I had in mind in the first place was to ask you to dinner. ”

Her arms returned to rest about her middle.

"In person... the real old fashioned way."

Julius Sedaire

 

[Julius Sedaire]

Dinner?

The idea confused him for a moment. He had known the blonde for quite a while. And there had been a certain sort of tension and playfulness between them. Not an innocent flirtation by any means, but never much weight to it. Almost casual and teasing. But she had found 'Stali to track him down. And whatever she had brought to his brother in arms had shown enough truth that the felinoid gave her the location he was at.

The shock registered for only a split second. Most wouldn't have noticed it, in the Force or on his expression and stance. Sel might, but the recovery was swift and practiced.

"I never took you for one to stand on tradition. And..."

He stalled. The smarm seem to falter. For some reason, in that moment... There just wasn't a comeback. More often, and for longer periods, he had been fleeing the galaxy at large to hide here. And when faced with the fact that one of his closest confidants had ousted his secret out of concern... Well... He didn't have much to fall back on to avoid the unspoken concerns writ on the face of the woman in front of him.

"I've not got much else I can do these days. Just marking time until the count is up. So I'm not sure you'll find what you came after. Not anymore. That guy left when she died."