Built on sand

[Amea Virou]

[member="Loske Matson"]

“No kidding.” Amea chuckled. While she had never stayed at a place that told her there was a small chance she could die, she also pretty much assumed such was the case each night she went to sleep anywhere that wasn’t with people she could trust. It was an occupational hazard and practiced habit. Not everyone is out for you, but not everyone is out there for you either. It was all about learning how to tell the one from the other.

“Well first off, you assume I need tombs to think about what I leave when I die and death in general.” Amea said and chuckled again, giving Loske a weak grin before she continued. “And no, Kaili Talith is still very much alive and well, just quiet. She has retreated back to her family and friends, working on small droids every now and then outside of the galactic spotlight.”

“I don’t know. I used to think the Talith name was big out there, and it actually was during the Alliance years, but not so much anymore.” Amea said and took a sip of water. “Guess at this point it’s just about convenience. Easier to be someone else every now and then, someone that has no remarkable people attached to their name or a history at all for that matter.”

“Just… A small girl born on Dantooine who lost her parents as she became a young woman. Full records of birth, sliced into Alliance databases amidst the Chaos of that particular meltdown…”

“What about you? Haven’t seen you much since those days either.” Not that she had been actively looking, truth told. People to see, people to punch. “What have you been doing?”

 

[Loske Treicolt]

"Right." Loske shifted when [member="Amea Virou"] alluded to the reality of death constantly being something that was to be contended with. Especially for those involved in the good fight. The galaxy was restless. "The fact that you have so much family, history, relationship..it's pretty cool." For the life of her, Loske couldn't empathize with Kaili/Amea's wishes. If Loske had a family that large, she would do everything she could to keep it, to grow it. One man's treasure...

"Actually," She gratefully swallowed her water "-I found out I have a brother." Her face lit up at the notion of having a family beyond herself. Prior to a year or so ago, she'd thought she was alone in the world. She had no memory of any sort of family, just infused training and Republic memories -- it almost all started to make sense on that night when Kiskla, Marcello and Isar entered her life. It had been an answer. Not the answer she was looking for, but it was something. "He and I hung out a bunch, lending out helping hands throughout the galaxy to those who needed it." She set her glass down and turned to look out the make-shift window of the place, while loosely gesturing toward the couch (that would later serve as her mattress). If Amea wanted a seat, she could take it.

"It was kind of therapeutic, not taking missions or orders. Just doing good for the sake of good with no political agenda."

She turned from the window slowly, giving a lingering look out to the grounds below. The suns outside still shone brilliantly by any other measure of light, but for Tatooine it was approaching sunset.

"But, he's off doing space wizard things and I'm working my way back to support the Alliance in Exile."

A pause.

"Kark it sucks saying that....in exile."

 

[Amea Virou]

[member="Loske Matson"]

Amea outright ignored the mentioned of family history and relationships. Family was great, being judged because of which family it was however was not. At least Loske had found her brother and with that found some kind of happiness. Amea’s own brother was still a big question mark and the pain of that moment wasn’t something she enjoyed thinking about all that much given just exactly how much of herself had been unwillingly attached to it. It was the start of the beginning of an end, and the end of a beginning. It was the galaxy giving her one last push into the dirt before it backed off again.

With her attention brought back into the real world Amea caught the end of what Loske said about the Alliance in Exile, and with all of her heart Amea could only say that she truly, undoubtedly, undeniably…

… Disagreed.

It was hard for her not to resent the Alliance at this point. Not the people in it, but the mechanisms that had kept it running. Rogue Squadron, Wraith Squadron, the SIS, the entire system that kept taking, and taking, and taking, and taking from her until there was little more to take. Her sister might have been one of their forerunners and founders but that didn’t mean Kaili had to appreciate what they became for her and what they did to those around her. There was so much hatred for that particular organization that despite the good they had done she was glad to see it gone for what they had done to her.

But, Loske did not have to know that.

“Sure.” Amea pushed from herself with a stifled and stiffed grimace. “Really… Sucks.”

What was it that one child movie had once said? Conceal, and don’t feel? Yeah, words to live by. Besides what part of all this fell on Loske’s shoulders? The part where Kaili had lost her brother to a coma? The part where her girlfriend was spaced, forgot who Amea was and then began to develop feelings for someone else in the confusion? The part where one of her uncles had been the trigger for all of this as he exploded himself above Anoat? Loske was a cog, not the machine itself. As easy as it would have been to pour all grievances on the one person who had once been part of the machine it wasn’t the right thing to do. Undoubtedly the pain that resurfaced blared through the force, but Amea would deny anything about it. The Alliance had never been kind to her and she had no intention of being the one to start caring.

“But, beyond the Alliance…” Amea had to change topic. Fast. “Sounds like you have been up to some good in the galaxy.”

Sitting down didn’t feel like the right idea. Fight or flight had kicked in and until Amea wound down there was no way to be comfortable in a seated position. She knew that.

“Any particular story stand out?”

 

[Loske Treicolt]

Lorridian blood did not pulse through her veins, thus Loske was woefully at a loss to recognize the subtleties that took [member="Amea Virou"] through a cycle of remorse and reflection. She did, however, pick up on the pause in conversation and the hesitation of which she delivered her agreement. She also seemed quick to change the subject, and Loske's gentle expression pressed inward, knotting curiously with a slight cock of her head. A physical indicator of encouragement, should the brunette want to take it.

She attempted an olive branch..not even knowing what olives were!

"There's plenty of good in the galaxy, The Alliance is just putting their stamp on some of good soldiers." A wink fruited from this sentence and she took another sip of her water, pensive over the question.

Stories. Stories, stories. There were many! The rockrenderer, finding out she could read her brother's thoughts, wrestling with a Jedi Master and winning, hmmm. Lots of racing..that was for her own ego.

"I don't know about stories, but.." her body tightened with excitement and she grinned wildly "Oh! Oh, oh oh, I got my own ship! I've got to show it to you. I think I'm in love. I refurbished my Alliance X-Wing when the Rogue Squadron was decommissioned for budget reallocations. I didn't want to see that baby sold for scraps, so I pulled a few strings," she rubbed her fingers together to indicate cash payout "drew up some blueprints, got some help, and got a custom S.S. Bruno - put in scramjet boosters and everything."

 

[Amea Virou]

[member="Loske Matson"]

If Amea remained quiet the conversation would move on.
If Amea remained quiet the conversation would move on.
If Amea remained quiet the conversation would move on.
If Amea remained quiet the conversation would move on.

She repeated the mantra over and over again and bit her tongue as Loske mentioned stamping Alliance tags on good soldiers. Her shoulders visibly sunk in relief as the excitable blonde moved on to talk about her ship. There were many things Amea could say about Alliance X-Wings in the end. She too had experimented on them, although for a far more intimate reason. Safeguarding investments, making sure the right person came back home, that sort of thing.

“That’s cool!” Amea said and lit up. She did have a degree in ship design after all. Or well, technically she did. “The chassis should be able to deal with some substantial modifications if you have done the right calculations.”

“The S-Foils are a bit of a hazard, but that depends on which model of X-Wing it was.” She proceeded to project a hologram of the fighter from a device on her wrist. “Now, I don’t know what kind of modifications you have done to it but the thrusters are always my go-to. Going faster? Absolutely. Diverge some power from the cannons and you are golden. It’s actually kind of amazing how much of a power hog those things can be.”

Made sense, they exploded a planet-sized space station a good eight hundred years ago after all. Which when put like that made the age of the X-Fighter model all the more apparent. Perhaps there was just something to the classics then.

“But uh, yeah.” Amea said and rubbed at her neck. Maybe she should have contained her inner geek. “Cool ship and all. I would love to see the mods on your swoop as well as your ship later.”

 

[Loske Treicolt]

Loske blinked at [member="Amea Virou"]'s reaction. She knew she personally had a habit of pivoting topics quickly, but it was rare that someone would latch on so eagerly to a sharp shift in direction. It seemed the brunette was all too relieved to stop talking about The Alliance that had once been. Loske couldn't understand why - the Alliance had provided her The Rogue Squadron, and that was more of a family than she'd ever had before. She was nothing short of grateful -- and hadn't felt the intrusive scorn and damage the Taliths had.

Nevertheless, she was appreciative of her friend willing to talk about her craftsmanship. Especially since it was Kaili under that dye! The woman she'd met on Borealis had a technical mind unparalleled by any self proclaimed technologists she'd run course with over her few years in the wild and outside of the lab.

She crossed to stand closer to Amea, looking at the rotating blue figure that hovered above her wrist. A smile crept across her lips and she listened eagerly to the suggestions about power diversion. "I didn't do that, I really do have to get you down to see it. You're welcome to go all hands in -- but uh, I don't know how you feel about weapons anymore. There are definitely some of those on there."

She paused. "When you became Amea, how did you know which accent and look to go for? From the tips you just gave me, there's so much of the Kaili I knew in there!" She gestured loosely at Amea -- she had intended to poke at her torso but decided against it, so instead her hand just floated awkwardly until she completed her abstract gesture.

 

[Amea Virou]

[member="Loske Matson"]

“I grew up.” Amea inserted between the lines. Not everyone had spent their childhood on an island with the luxury of not being in any danger because of who their parents were. Amea, or rather Kaili, knew that now and that despite her better wishes the world didn’t do much for the pacifists. She owned a gun that she had made for herself but liked to think it was the exception. It had been designed to be less-than-lethal, but it was still a weapon.

“I am still Kaili. I am still going to like the machines of the galaxy.” She smiled at the question. “I don’t know, there are a lot of people with Imperial accents out there. I grew up with a Lorrdian upbringing so I just practiced until the accent stuck.”

“Besides, it gets me out of a surprisingly large amount of trouble on more one-nation-one-ruler type of worlds.” She shook her head. “Don’t like going there though. They tend to be more ‘lax with the death penalty there.”

 

[Loske Treicolt]

A small smile quivered at the edges of her mouth when Amea Virou confirmed she now had no resistance to weaponry. “Growing up is tough to do, it’s rare it happens out of serenity.” Loske offered, reaching out to pat the air affectionately as if there were a small head at her hip height.

Indifference, or being a pacifist, seemed a dangerous weapon in itself. Not doing anything, and not getting involved, killed more people than those joining the fight.

Or maybe not..actually, the statistics on that felt biased. She shrugged to herself and set her water glass down, eyes glancing upwards to the chrono situated crookedly on the mud-based wall. She wasn’t sure if the time was accurate or not, but if it was, they had ample time to take a look at Loske’s slew of toys.

“Can you teach me a bit of the technique?” Loske asked, biting at the opportunity to expand her skillbase. She was working with The Alliance to create a more excursion-based group, Wraiths, and would have to improve her ground assets to be as useful as she was to the Rogues. “If it’s a yes, we can get started on our way to the track’s garage, that’s where my swoop is. If we’re on a machine tour, my bike is closer, and we can take it to the Esley Spaceport if we’re inclined to check out S.S. Blue.”

While she gabbed, her lithe frame meandered from the kitchenette back to the doorway, gesturing for her old friend to follow. Frank did so without command.

 

[Amea Virou]

[member="Loske Matson"]

The choice would boil down to how they wanted to go about the race then. The swoop bike, if prodded at, would need to have its internals thoroughly in place. Loose parts meant death, death meant no Loske, and that was just something Kaili could have done without. The bike and the ship were interesting though, she had to admit that much. Still,

“I mean, I could.” Amea said and finished her water in a sweep. “The swoop sounds best. Though I’d suggest we keep the tutoring to something simpler. The bigger something is, the more likely it is to go wrong.”

Nothing really came without problems. Digging too deep into a mechanical device was as likely to bring an understanding as it was prone to overload it. Amea was a master of it and she had to admit that even she still had her moments. In the end it all boiled down to focus, and some days that just wasn’t a thing.

She looked around the room for something good to bring. It wasn’t exactly the most decorated room, but there had to be something. Amea set her eyes on the chrono as well and began to tear it down from the wall.

“This will work just fine.” She said and followed behind Loske to give her the clock. “Here, we’ll use this.”

 

[Loske Treicolt]

"Oh," Loske blushed as soon as she saw [member="Amea Virou"]'s pedagogical trajectory. She captured the chrono in her palms when the brunette handed it over. "I'm totally into getting into this," she used one hand to gesture with the device in her hand "-but I did mean feigning the accent.

I'm probably going to be deployed on a few more missions coming up, and any more skillsets I can add to my deception tool belt would probably keep me alive a little longer."

Still, she thumbed the face of the chrono before turning it over in her hands and looking up at her friend.

 

[Amea Virou]

[member="Loske Matson"]

Amea blinked, the confusion evident in the way she looked at Loske. With an awkward chuckle she grabbed onto the wall chronometer.

"Oh," Her lips split into a grin as she threw the device away, utilizing the force to apply both height and length. Needless to say the device went out of sight and out of mind in the blink of an eye. "Well, in that case..."

"I mean, honestly. Just look up movies and other shows. Envision a voice and practice it. Give me your best Imperial douche voice."

 

[Loske Treicolt]

Loske looked startled as a metaphysical force reached into her hands and lifted the object from her grip, carelessly tossing it into the sand behind them. She couldn't help herself, and she wrenched her head around to look to see where it landed. In the distance, beyond the doorway of the strange hostel, a shadow clunked into the sand with a continued roll. She chortled at the casual way [member="Amea Virou"] demonstrated her prowess. Up until that moment, she'd pretty much forgotten Kaili also used The Force. She'd always slated her down as mistress of machines.

"Ahh, yeah, that makes sense. I'm sure Frank wouldn't mind a few more movie dates. He loves it when I pour butter on his circuits."

That's not entirely false. The astromech confirmed sheepishly.

"Okay, okay." Loske rolled her neck and squared her shoulders as she walked, trimming her saunter to a more clipped walk. It was like someone put a rod against her spine. She cleared her throat. "The reports claim all this sand to be barely tolerable."

Loske already had the edges of an accent as it was, inherited from her mother. To feign this one, it was an awkward dip into a more dramatic weight. Sounded rather unconvincing.

 

[Amea Virou]

[member="Loske Matson"]

Movie date? For the briefest of seconds Amea perked her brow before it sunk again, replaced by a grimace. Butter had nothing to do on circuits. Frank’s remark made it twice disturbing. It was understood that this was a joke, but to merely envision the liquid cooking grease run along the circuits, popping off just the one piece that was necessary to make the rest of the machinery move.

… Smooth…

… Got everywhere…

Amea shuddered just in time for Loske to start work on her accent. Imperial came naturally given Loske's regular speech pattern, but there was something just ever so slightly off about it. It was hard for Amea to really explain what she meant. Like breathing, in a sense. She had practiced with her mother from a younger age and even then it was more of a pointer on how to do it. She covered her mouth with her hand as she gave Loske a contemplative look.

“Try with more force behind it.” Amea said as if it was the most obvious thing ever. “Fake it ‘til you make it. That sort of deal.”

A mischevious grin spread on the woman’s lips as she raised her brow.

“It’s never easy starting out.” Amea spoke with an uncanny impression of Loske herself. It was all about finding the right pitch and ‘feel’ in the end, even Amea had trouble with that. “Try again.”

 

[Loske Treicolt]

She stopped walking for a second, frowning with surprise at [member="Amea Virou"]. Like all sentients, Loske wasn't entirely certain how she sounded to others. Through recordings, she could get a glimpse but refused to believe that's what she really sounded like.. The archeologist's impression was as spot on as Loske could perceive, and she turned that frown into a thin, determined line.

Resuming her gait, she continued to lead the way to the garages where they'd find her swoop.

Perhaps she'd gone too gentle at first go, Amea was right. The next sentence strung out with as much emphasis on the stereotype as one would expect. She worried it may have even sounded a bit insulting.

"I understand you're quite the story teller. Able to support an entire audio performance for a full suite of Characters, Ms. Virou." Unconsciously, she locked her wrists behind her back and mimicked the movements as if she were in a stiff, ironed uniform.

 

[Amea Virou]

[member="Loske Matson"]

“Well, yes.” Amea said using her ‘regular’ voice. “Naturally, it comes with the job.”

“But, there is so,” She said and the voice changed. “Much more,” And it changed again. “To it.”

All that was missing was some clawdite-like shapeshifting and Amea could probably have become anyone she wanted to. Although she had to admit she was quite fond of the skin she was already in.

“See, now you’re doing it though.” Amea said and motioned towards the locked-up wrists and nose-in-the-air mentality. “Just dig deep into the xenophobia and the belief that genocide is a legitimate alternative to conquest.”

The brunette chuckled and looked at the road up ahead.

“How much further until we get there?”

 

[Loske Treicolt]

A shudder crawled through her skin at the reminder that some beings in the galaxy actually truly believed the joke [member="Amea Virou"] had made. There were always two sides to the coin, without being double sided there was pure imbalance. The coin didn't exist.

"It's just up ahead." Loske gestured, attempting to keep the façade she'd just learned. Her strut was still clipped, footprints in the sand light and precise. To follow the point from the pilot would lead eyes up to a garage. Within a handful of moments, they were passing through the mouth of said garage. Inside were a handful of vehicles, all being maintained or ogled at by a diverse group of individuals.

To their immediate left, a Gotal was working on the underside of his bike while two maintenance droids primed the thrusters. Mostly dusting at this point, no major reconstructions this close to the race. Ahead of him, a few meters, was a Rodian female with brightly coloured pink hair.

"I raced her on Ahto city." Loske commented, giving a nod to the black-eyed alien who snorted back. She'd chosen to abandon the accent at this point, given the surrounding folks were mostly rough racers who were here for credits and adrenaline thrills. "She's still a bit sore I outflanked her. Lots of folks didn't account for inertia."

They walked a bit closer to the end of the dusty spot, and Loske reached out to pull a tarp from a lumpy shape beneath. It felt more theatrical than necessary, but as she did so a cloud of sand shook to their feet to reveal the swoop Loske had used to already win on Ahto City. And she full intended to win on Tatooine as well.

"Check it out! And please, please don't be shy. I haven't made too many modifications to adjust her for the difference between Ahto's wet landscape and Tat's...very..dry one."

 

[Amea Virou]

[member="Loske Matson"]

As Loske talked about her competitors Amea gave each of them a watchful glance trying to figure out what they were up to. The Gotal seemed to be working on his bike, but the Rodian she wasn’t so sure of. There was a resentment lingering under the skin of that one that was plain in both the way she looked at them and in her thoughts. A prideful racer, or rather a sore loser, was the more dangerous type of racer. Amea knew this by personal experience. She was, after all, one of them.

At her friend’s encouragement Amea knelt down to touch against the side of the swoop bike. Her fingers ran along the edges of it’s metallic surface with a loving touch. It had been a long while since last she gave a vehicle a good look-over. A warm grin spread across her lips that quickly faded into determination, or quite possibly the same resentment as before. It was hard to tell some days.

“Been a while,” She said and looked up at Loske. “I haven’t worked on a machine this big since Allyson was around. However...”

Focus went back to the swoop bike and not another word was uttered. Amea’s eyes closed as she tried to get a read on the construct. The way it handled was often something that could be boiled down to eight different steps. The first one was how clean it was which Amea admittedly could not really tell without seeing it for herself. They didn’t have that amount of time, but Amea trusted Loske to keep her competitive edge clean, so to speak. The second was to check that the pistons and engine was greased up enough.

In truth it was about keeping it all up to speed and having the right parts. However, given the proximity to the race there was simply no way that they would be able to find the time to do any such modification.

Amea settled for a quick adjustment to the battery, gears, and engine. A dry climate was easier to handle than a wet one. Ahto undoubtedly risked the battery to some extent and ran the risk of rusting the gears. The engine, however, was more of a form of jury-rig. People rarely fiddled with them on account of the fatal hazards that an engine posed if they malfunctioned. Obviously Amea wouldn’t put her friend at such a risk, but she could without a doubt see about cranking the acceleration up a notch or two.

And even then, little more than thirty minutes would come to pass before Amea seemed to return to the world again.

“There.” She said and stood up again. “I think that should be it.”

 

[Loske Treicolt]

At about fifteen of that thirty minutes, Loske found something to preoccupy her time other than staring at [member="Amea Virou"]. Sometimes those with the blessing of The Force just...dove right in without giving any sort of wait time or any expectation management. Loske was still getting used to it.

She crouched next to Frank, who was projecting the bike to an X-Ray sort of view, the energies pulsing through the vehicle. It was akin to a heart monitor for the swoop. Both she and the AI-powered droid were transfixed with the machinations of the technomancer's touch. At minute twenty-nine, Loske exhaled heavily and looked at Amea when she returned to reality.

"Wow."

Frank shivered. Can you do that to me?

"That's impressive - can you do that to larger ships too? Like if you placed your palm on a star destroyer."

 

[Amea Virou]

[member="Loske Matson"]

A warm smile spread on Amea’s lips as the droid asked if she could do that to him.

“How do you think you were made?” She said and carefully patted her hand on top of Frank’s chassis. “All of my creations have that personal touch to it.”

From the corner of Amea’s eyes she saw a pink dot creep into the very corners of her vision. She turned to look only to see the Rodian had taken an interest to whatever it was that had tripped up the trio’s excitement. There was an undertone of resentment there, hidden right under the surface yet undoubtedly felt in the force. It wasn’t likely to manifest in anything, yet for the first time in a long while, Amea would feel threatened.

If she memorized what Amea had done, who she was to Frank, and drew the connections…

A cold lingering stare set upon the Rodian as Amea considered what to do. Or perhaps it was more accurate to say whether or not she wanted to do what she felt would be necessary to keep her cover intact. This adventure had been a danger, but regardless it felt good to be back in touch with the people that she had known ‘before this.’

The Rodian scoffed and went back to her ride, and Amea went back to Loske’s.

“Sure,” She said before her eyes went back to focus on her friends. “But it would be draining depending on the size of the ship and what I am doing.”

Amea rose from her kneeling position and threw another glance around the garage. It was pretty obvious what she needed to do, but now was not the time.

“Anything else you want me to take a look at while we’re at it?” Amea asked and turned her focus back to Loske once more.

 

[Loske Treicolt]

Frank oozed a vibration-like radiation from the top of his head where [member="Amea Virou"] left her touch. Despite the disguise and adaption of her dialect and voice, her electromagnetic field was still imprinted on Frank's intelligent little mind.

For a moment, Amea seemed distracted from the curious question, and Loske couldn't help but avert her own gaze from her friend and seek out what had put a pause in their conversation, albeit a small one. That pink haired, snout-faced sore loser was in the peripheral, and the blonde pilot couldn't help but quirk a brow at Amea's attention to the rodian.

"Well, I mean, I'd love for you to get your hands on S.S. Blue - but maybe after the race. It's parked at yet another hangar. That's one of the frustrations with these races -- there's no single spot for all your toys. All so spread out." She gestured as she spoke, as usual, physically introducing her frustrations to the conversation. "But I don't want to suck up all your time and powers - this all feels very one sided. Anything I can do for you..and..." giving way to conversation about that interest in the alien opposition "are you okay?"