Private Birds of a Feather

[Arlo Renard]

Jedi Temple, Coruscant

At first, Kai had gotten away with taking walks outside of his room by pretending to be Dagon—a disguise which only worked so long as nobody tried to talk to him. He had tried practicing his vocal speech in his room, but he still found the vibrations unnerving, the subtleties of language too complex to master. Inevitably the ruse would fall apart, security would be called, and he would be marched back to his cell.

To avoid encountering people, he relied on the ventilation ducts running through the building in order to explore. He could crawl through them easily, his malleable form well-suited for slipping in and out of ducts. But his wardens had caught on to his methods fairly quickly, and more often now he found them waiting for him on the other side.

What was he to do now? He couldn’t stay cooped up in his quarters forever. He’d long since read all the library books Aeris Lashiec had given him, devouring the pages. He needed more stimulation.

It occurred to him that he hadn’t really explored the rooms immediately surrounding his own. He knew he had neighbors in the cell block, but he’d never interacted with them beyond a brief glance or two. Now he was curious. Perhaps they could talk to him, tell him more things about the galaxy?

Walking to the corner of the room closest to the vent, he tried to pry the grate away—only to find it was fastened shut. Huh. Well, that wouldn’t stop him. The palm of his hand grew shiny with a strange acidic secretion; he pressed a finger between the crack and it burned through the industrial adhesive. The grate having popped out of place, he set it aside and slithered through the opening.

Damsy Callat​

 

[Damsy Callat]

Well.

Wasn’t leatherwork a schutta?

Make sure the clamp's stood up properly in your lap. Awl through the marked hole from the right. Work the first needle into it from the left. Cross under with the right. Push that through. Pull from both sides, but not too hard now. Just enough.

A backstitch with one thread, two needles. And an awl. Add to the list of curses she had made against her father-creator what she murmured through teeth clenched around the awl:

She needed another hand, not a shark’s tail.

The innumerable seamstresses of the holonet had proudly concluded that hand working leather was objectively better than machine stitching it instead, but only in the matter of durability - not ease. The process, emphatically, wasn’t easy, nor was it cheap. Well, to do it right, it wasn’t, and she owed that, at the very least, to Dagon for all the chit she had put him through.

Er, all the chit Syreni had put him through, but did that technicality really matter? The two shared a body, after all. Plus, Syreni wasn’t going to come back out to play anytime soon if Damsy - or Dag or Orsk - had anything to say about it, let alone surface to apologize. That task then fell to Damsy.

She hadn’t been in this temporary - though she doubted it would be that - temple room a day, but it already looked like quite the established living space. Quaint even, unlike her underworld apartment. Test strips of various leathers were stacked neatly on the ground near the walls, and all of her tools were laid out in front of her and by height on her caf table. Her hands were covered in small scrapes and dried stain, head forehead in beaded sweat and some of the same.

As veteran of the Confed, she approached new skills with a no-nonsense will to conquer. She'd be damned if his replacement jacket didn't look exactly like the old one that lay across her lap, sans water damage of course.

Awl through the marked hole from the right. Work the first needle into it from the left. Cross under with the right. Push that through. Pull from both sides, but not too hard now. Just enough.

Awl through the marked hole from the right. Work the first needle into it from the…

Damsy dropped the needles at once. They fell silently around the clamp, hung by the same beeswaxy thread. An all-too familiar pit in her stomach threatened to rend itself open. The emotional pilot fish leading on the squaloid.

Oh no.

She was supposed to be asleep here.

Completely preoccupied, Damsy missed the shifting of metal.

Arlo Renard

 

[Arlo Renard]

The cell next to his was empty, but the next one down had somebody in it. Assuming they didn’t sense him coming through the Force, they might notice the grate in their wall beginning to wiggle as he loosened it. Finally freed, an arm clad in a leather jacket with the NJO insignia on its sleeve slid out of the hole, clutching the grate in its hand, and carefully set it aside.

Now a head peeked out. A just-about-perfect facsimile of Dagon Kaze - raven hair a bit mussed, jawline still sharp enough to cut glass. Kai blinked guileless blue eyes, looking around the room at the piles of leather, before his curious gaze landed on the cell’s occupant. Humanoid female, holding… needles and thread and a piece of leather. Was she making something? Huh.

Assuming he’d caught her attention by now, he smiled and started to climb out—only to hesitate, the smile slipping from his face. He sensed something was amiss, but he couldn’t quite be sure what it was, she was stifling it so much. Mostly he felt negative emotion, cold dread.

Halfway in and halfway out in case he had to leave, he risked a cautious telepathic nudge.

<Hi? Can I come in?>

Damsy Callat​

 

[Damsy Callat]

She screamed.

But not just screamed. Siren screamed. Hints of a melody fearful and...short as the Force chased after the string of sound and sizzled it out. There was, after all, no real danger, just a series of heart palpitations that would quickly melt into normalcy.

Godsdamn, Dag! What's your actual damage?! were the sounds she succeeded in keeping tucked under her tongue, but the physical voice was all she was thinking of. It was more than possible than a few stray syllables had accidently flooded into his head, wholly nonsensical by themselves linguistically, but probably clear enough in intoned message.

Anger.

It flared in her like a trick flame. When she tried to blow it out in the next moment by projecting her best calm, dark embers remained on the wick, where they threatened to reignite.

Her next response was enunciated and aloud: "Dag, no. I gotta be alone. Master's orders. Get."

Arlo Renard

 

[Arlo Renard]

The scream caught him wholly by surprise.

Kai ducked back into the darkness of the vent, hunkering down, his hands clamped over his ears like a child hiding in a cupboard from screaming parents. Had terror not paralyzed him, he would have fled back the way he came.

Instead, he had no choice but to broadcast his alarm to her in hopes of strangling the siren song at its source. Projected images and intense feelings bombarded Damsy’s mind, utterly alien and unhindered by any concept of privacy.

A crystalline figure shattering like glass in the morning light.

An alarm klaxon blaring, no escape.

The feeling of his body breaking between the claws of his maker.

He was afraid. It was a psychological fear borne from a belief that a prolonged vibration at just the right frequency would destroy him. Once upon a time, it had been fact—and while it was no longer the case, he couldn’t shake the primitive superstition.

The shriek finally ended, but he had angered her simply by coming here. Well, he would leave.

Even as she began to verbalize the command, he was already scrambling backwards, like a turtle retreating into its shell. He made no attempt even to clarify that he was not really Dag (though given how he had reacted, that much was likely obvious by now). His true identity didn’t matter. She said she needed to be alone.

Damsy Callat

 

[Damsy Callat]

Oh.

Yeah, not Dag. She picked that up quick, like a rare meal found along the seafloor. Perhaps less than ideal, but an aquatic sithspawn had to take whatever she could get down there. At mesopelagic depths, the critter passing up the bounty of the sea was quick to die.

He'ssss just like you, Syreni hissed through the headache blanketing much of Damsy's thought. She was quiet but undeniable. An interesting choice of commentary to make with fleeting strength. Sssssshark bait.

To be eaten up by the spawn. Was... did that mean–?

If it did, she really needed to be left alone. Master Orsk would throw a fit, but maybe not if there was a possibility, far off on the horizon of her mind, that befriending this fellow sithspawn would work to her benefit rather than her downfall.

So, she scrambled to unfold herself from the couch and cross to the open grate. "No, no, wait, starfish," she cooed into the duct. "I'm sorry. I won't do that again."

Not even an ember now.

"Please stay."

Arlo Renard

 

[Arlo Renard]

Her mood and attitude seemed to change on a dime, the heat of anger fading. Now she was crooning to him, speaking in much softer tones, her voice echoing weirdly in the cramped, confined space. Apology, promise, request that he stay after all.

Slowly, he started to shimmy back toward the opening. He practically flopped out, landing soundlessly on the floor and bouncing to his feet. Tall and muscular as he appeared, his shoulders were hunched, the cowering pose reducing his towering height to an afterthought. His mouth was pulled into a glum pout, and his gaze was wary, but still slightly hopeful.

He didn’t say a word, waiting for her to prompt him first. It seemed the safest route...

Damsy Callat

 

[Damsy Callat]

Damsy shuffled back as he shuffled out, and then likewise stood. She cleared her throat, taking care to remain quiet, and then waited. Quickly, though, it became obvious she'd have to fill the silence, so she did by introducing, "I'm, uh, Damsy."

If he wasn't Dagon, just who was he? She hoped he would say.

Arlo Renard

 

[Arlo Renard]

“Damsy.”

The name came out in a delicate whisper from underused vocal cords. Kai rubbed at his throat. He still wasn’t comfortable with vocalization.

His preferred method of communication, telepathy, had already proven imperfect. Some people were overwhelmed by the images and feelings he projected in addition to thoughtspeak, finding it hard to concentrate. But here, for now, he didn’t have much choice.

<I am Kai. My room is the next one over from yours.>

A narrow little cell, populated only by a stack of library books already read.

<I like to explore. But the guards always figure out I’m gone. Then they go looking for someone who looks like Dagon. Sometimes they find the real Dagon, sometimes they find me.>

A glint of mischief flickered in his gaze.

<I haven’t been in the other rooms yet. Yours was the first one I found with somebody inside.>

Damsy Callat​

 

[Damsy Callat]

His preferred method of communication was indeed overwhelming, but Damsy managed to remain grounded in between forced visualizations by focusing on one of her senses every time the real world came back into view:

The oily smell of leather stain open somewhere in the room. Metallic on her fingertips. Kai's stature. A few fluttering blinks of her eyelids.

<I like to explore. But the guards always figure out I’m gone. Then they go looking for someone who looks like Dagon. Sometimes they find the real Dagon, sometimes they find me.>

His disguise was rather impeccable, minus the voice or lack thereof. She couldn't help but smile back to him, barely holding in a giggle at the scene now unfolding in her mind of her own volition. She would never admit it, but she liked Dagon alright - he was kind, caring, cute, forgiving perhaps to a fault. No no, definitely to a fault. Despite it all, feelings and whatnot, imagining the Temple guards detaining him with any regularity was rather entertaining.

"I've been here since yesterday," she said. "It's real nice to meet you, Kai. Sorry 'gain. You just... I thought you were Dag too." Obviously. "He's, uh, pretty clingy for a Jedi." She didn't know if he had noticed quite like she had.

Arlo Renard

 

[Arlo Renard]

"It's real nice to meet you, Kai. Sorry 'gain. You just... I thought you were Dag too."

<I get that a lot.>

Was that a joke? Who knew with this kid. At what she said next, Kai shrugged his shoulders, though there was loneliness in his telepathic tones.

<Dagon left me here a while ago. He hasn’t come back to visit.>

In fact, Dagon hadn’t even bothered to inquire as to Kai’s status, let alone keep an eye on his progress, but Kai didn’t know that. What he did know was that Damsy seemed to be in a similar position to himself, stuck here at the Temple while the Jedi poked and prodded and tried to figure out how to help them, or at the very least neutralize any threat they might pose to society.

<Has Master Orsk done the purification thing with the crystals to you yet? It didn’t work for me. Actually, it hurt a lot. They stopped doing it because of that.>

He clamped down on it as much as he could, but he couldn’t help projecting some of that painful memory as he spoke about it. The attempted “exorcism” had nearly unmade his body, inflicting agony unlike anything he had ever experienced. Orsk had brought it to a halt and immediately called for medical aid. They had considered putting him in the hospital—a prospect which Kai had found rather exciting, as it meant a change in his surroundings—but thanks to his ability to heal and regenerate from most wounds at an astounding rate, they had decided it was unnecessary. Darn.

Not wanting to linger on the subject too much, Kai looked around the room, gesturing to the piles of leather.

<What are you doing with all this stuff in here?>

Damsy Callat​

 

[Damsy Callat]

Kai shrugged, she assumed at mention of clingy. Just for her, then? Wonderful.

It was mostly surprising, though, her peer's admission. Had he really lost interest in Kai? That was lightyears out of character. She was almost disappointed in Dagon.

A nod. "Yeah, man, it wasn't a...great time for me either. I wouldda grinned n' beared it had it actually worked."

A step back as her eyes followed his. "Uh..." It felt sillier now - even more than it initially had - realizing that he might not care for her effort. What did that of a sithspawn mean to the likes of those who would sooner purify her kind in death than life if the latter was impossible? "I was tryin' to recreate his jacket. I messed it up pretty good a few days back. Er, Syreni did." She turned to face him again. He deserved to know, though she had no reason to believe he would be in any direct danger from her. "My personality fracture."

Arlo Renard

 

[Arlo Renard]

Kai tugged at the lapels of his jacket. It was a recreation of Dagon’s made from his own body, and while it felt like leather, it wasn’t real leather. Just an imitation, like the rest of his appearance.

<Personality fracture?>

He tilted his head, brow furrowing. He thought he understood what it meant, but he had never met anyone who had such a thing. Based on her tone and expression, he wasn’t sure if she wanted to talk about it anymore, but he went ahead and hazarded a question.

<Is that like being two people at once?>

Damsy Callat​

 

[Damsy Callat]

"More like I'm either me or her," she corrected slowly, the words and concepts still foreign weight on her tongue. "She's the conglomeration of...every negative thing I've ever felt. An' sometimes I lose control o' her."

Damsy shrugged. She didn't want to delve too deep into psychology - expect an acquaintance to become a therapist. But she did add, "I'm here tryin' to repair myself. Suture, if ya ask Orsk. I don't care too much for Jedi terms; my vernacular ain't used to 'em. I just wan' get 'er done."

She moved away, tucking a question of her own behind her teeth for a moment. Instead, she asked, "Take caf, or something?" If he did, she would move into her kitchenette to fix whatever he had expressed interest in. Otherwise, she would simply step aside and motion to the sofa. "How 'bout you?"

Arlo Renard

 

[Arlo Renard]

<Sounds bad. Sorry.>

He’d never had caf before, possibly because nobody wanted to know what it might do to him. Oh well, good enough as any time to try it. He nodded his head yes and sat down where she gestured.

Her question was a little hard for him to answer.

<I don’t have anywhere else to go.>

He flicked through memories of snow and forest and the cold sterility of a medbay, before settling on a faceless figure half-forgotten. All that was left was the feeling of companionship, of being cared for. Parent, sibling, friend, lover, spouse, all in one being. The image cracked.

<I got taken by a Sith Lord when I was very small.>

He indicated the size with his hands, the span of which was roughly that of a human newborn.

<I don’t even know what planet I’m from, so I don’t know where to go back to. But I don’t think there would be anything there for me now. The only person before Dagon who was good to me got smashed by the Sith.>

Literally smashed, if the accompanying memory was anything to go by. Their crystalline body had shattered like glass beneath the blow of a sword, the pieces sparkling in the sunlight as they fell to earth.

Kai shrugged.

<So I just stay here, I guess.>

sorry it took so long to reply aaaaa Damsy Callat​

 

[Damsy Callat]

Damsy nodded along with Kai's story, taking extra care not to burn - or, really, splash herself with water of any temperature - making their caf as images flashed across her mind. Eventually, caf made and disaster averted, she rounded the half-wall corner with two mugs. She offered one to Kai before sitting beside him.

"I'm right in that boat witcha, pal." A pause to blow over the lip of her cup, parting the rolling steam. "Though I have plenty of places to go. I just don't want to.

“The Jedi are my last hope. SJC, GA, whichever. I've spent the last few years of my life burning bridges." A tentative sip now. "Would not recommend." She was making out by word choice only to be strong, but virtually all her nonverbals told a different story. She was looking just about everywhere but Kai. Her tone warbled just slightly. She was visibly trying to keep the tension out of her hands.

"Y'know, we ain't safe here,” she added after another pause. “Not really. I mean, Dag’s nice ‘nough, but… He can’t keep us on the down low forever. We ought have a place to go we could go ‘n’ not worry about being found out, murdered by our apparent caregivers. Don’tcha think?”

Arlo Renard

 

[Arlo Renard]

Kai drank the caf, paying little heed to the heat of the liquid. It didn’t burn him, and he liked the taste well enough, so he practically chugged it down.

“Y'know, we ain't safe here. Not really. I mean, Dag’s nice ‘nough, but… He can’t keep us on the down low forever.”

<I know.>

The empty mug dangling from one hand, Kai took notice of Damsy’s true emotional state. His free hand tentatively reached over, resting lightly, if she would permit it, against a spot of bare skin on her arm or shoulder. Something was transmitted through his touch, a mild tranquilizer perhaps, which would be absorbed through her skin. It was a rather blunt attempt at soothing her shakes, but clearly well-intentioned.

His brow furrowed thoughtfully, considering the rest of what she was saying. A place they could go and not worry about discovery or the Jedi turning against them?

<Sounds good.>

The idea did, anyway. He wasn’t sure how she would implement it. Where would such a place be located? Could they find other Sithspawn like them, individuals who had been experimented upon, but didn’t want anything to do with the Sith? No doubt there were more out there.

<Where would we go?>

Damsy Callat​

 

[Damsy Callat]

The texture of her skin was unexpected for how human it looked at even a close distance: sleek, slightly damp, and broken up into outlines of scales.

The shakes soon stopped.

“Somewhere outta the way,” she began muse, “ideally unmapped, easy to defend. The last time I was planetside, back when I was technically still employed by the Confed,” she didn’t even think how that might affect his opinion of her, “I came ‘cross a pretty nifty stretch of pipeline down in Sector 943. It was abandoned then; wonder if it still is now. If I could get back to my apartment, I could check.”

Arlo Renard

 

[Arlo Renard]

He had no opinion of the Confederacy, knowing very little about them to begin with.

Sector 943. Abandoned pipeline. Still on Coruscant, then.

<I could help you get back there.>

Kai looked a little sheepish, like a child that had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

<I’ve been outside the Temple before. I know how to get past security.>

Damsy Callat​

 

[Damsy Callat]

After one last, prolonged sip, she unclasped her hands from her half-full mug. It didn’t fall, but instead floated onto the caf table slightly below. "Really?" She asked it slowly, unsurely, half expecting she hadn't heard him quite right. She scooted somewhat closer to him, cross-legged and childlike herself. A sudden influx of the hope that she hadn't noticed the last seventy-two hours had siphoned out of her so quickly. "I gave Dag my keys when he brought me here. I think he still has them...somewhere. Do you, uh, know where he sleeps?" A generally anxious flourish of her hand as she tried to find her words did nothing to distract from the dark red tint rising in her cheeks.

She realized how that sounded out of context. Damn, even in.

Despite any sort of answer, Damsy pulled herself back together to add, "Now, I just want to take a look at the site. I have a lot I want to learn from Dag yet, so I can't leave for good; not yet. I really needta win this fight with myself, Kai." Before she could help any one else, anymore of their kind, and that was just what she planned on doing.

And, to think just a year or so ago when she had been warmastering for House Verd, she had been oh so confident that her military career had seen her fight in damn near all the sorts of combat types available. Well this - self v. self - was that 'damn near.'

Arlo Renard