Private Cocoon (Solo Thread)

[Inanna Harth]

Inanna was back in Tower Vandiir, in the Dark Councilor’s pristine office, sitting in Adrian’s lap. Four arms were wrapped around him, two around his waist, two clasped behind his head. But this was no surreal painted scene. It was a vision of what she had hoped for, rendered in perfect verisimilitude. There was no stolen data or traitorous Changeling to throw a cog in her plans. She still had a chance.

“It might be easier to just kill him and be done with it,” she was saying, her fingers curling in his black hair. “You could claim all the spoils either way. I don’t care about them. Only… if there are any other children, I’d at least take an interest in them.”

Adrian looked down at her, his lips curled upward in a smirk. Pearly tendrils of herself draped like spider silk over his body, the strange shining threads of the "dress" she had worn that day clinging to the dark gildenweave fabric of his clothes. Though he hadn’t said a word, somehow she understood what his silence meant. He couldn’t kill Arrius Messala. Not for her, not for the children, not even for his own personal gain.

“You’re a coward,” she murmured, resting her head upon his shoulder in sympathy. “I know. So is my friend, even though it was his own daughter who was taken and abused…”

When she shifted her position, his blue eyes followed her, his head angling down and eyelids lowering as he watched her face. Still he didn’t say a word.

“... But if you were to ruin him, humiliate him, expose him so that all who have eyes to see and ears to hear will know what he did, wouldn’t that be much more satisfying? What’s a little extra time and effort in the long run if you get to make the bastard suffer? And to do it cleanly, with true legal justice...”

Adrian’s jaw clenched, an almost imperceptible gesture which she took to mean that what she was asking for was impossible. Messala was a Sith Lord, operating out of Sith-Imperial space. His victim was not a Sith citizen, and therefore not subject to their protections. The courts would be on his side.

But surely there had to be more options, something else that they could do. An alternative, no matter how difficult…

Bear witness, Adrian Vandiir, she thought, gazing into his eyes. There is nothing I will not do for love and justice.

“I’m not a coward,” she said. “I’m not afraid of him or the whole Sith Empire. Whatever it takes to defeat him, I’ll do it…” Pausing, she crawled backwards off of his lap, spiderwalking until her feet were resting on either side of his chair, her four hands gripping the edges of the desk, with her torso suspended between the two.

“... Anything, Adrian. Anything.”

Adrian’s smirk never wavered. “Anything?” he echoed, getting up from his chair to lean over her as he stood between her legs. His hands against her thighs were cold as the touch of a scalpel.

But his eyes were no longer on her. Inanna arched her back in order to see what he was looking at. The intricately carved wooden door to the office had slid open, and there stood Vanessa Vantai.

The Triumvir of Power nodded her head in approval at the sight before her. “Very good, Inanna,” she praised. “A Doppelganger would be most useful to you. Forget about your father’s warnings—he is an old fool clinging to the past. Sithspawn such as these are the future, and the future belongs to the children, after all. I’m sure you’ll be a great mother.”

Inanna jolted awake with a gasp, a strangled scream gurgling in her throat. Fighting to catch her breath, she lay still in her bed, trembling. She felt hot and sick. The sheets she lay cocooned in were warm, but she could still feel Adrian’s cold fingers grasping her like a ghost.

When she was calm enough to turn over, she glanced at the chrono on her nightstand. It was just past three in the morning.

Though dawn was a long way yet, she got out of bed, padding across the floor as she made her way through the apartment. City lights shone through the cracks between the blinds, kaleidoscope neon across the carpet. For a moment she paused, the tiles cold under her bare feet. Then she hurried into the living room, bending to pick up her datapad from the coffee table. Her thumbs darted swiftly over the touchscreen, typing out a message… only to stop, erase everything she had written, and toss the device onto the plush sofa in disgust.

She picked up her cloak and swung it over her shoulders. Then she walked out the door and into the night.

 

[Inanna Harth]

Hal Yomin wandered the abandoned apartment, looking around. His fingers traced objects and furniture as he did, as though he were searching for something and could only fumble around in the dark for it.

“How long has she been gone?” he asked softly.

“The age of the food in the fridge and garbage decay indicates no one has lived here for approximately three days,” Ayreon replied. “There are no signs of a struggle. Nothing is missing except for her cloak.”

“Which one?”

“The new polyweave cloak.” Ayreon gestured toward the closet where it had been kept. “Her wallet and datapad were left behind. Without such identification, she could not have left the planet on a passenger ship—and I have already checked the starport. Her courier is still docked.”

“Unless she managed to get new IDs,” Hal murmured, fingering the edge of a woven tablecloth. It was Shi'ido in make, covered in lovely swirling patterns created with watered-down dye. “A whole new identity. Something that would throw us off her trail.” Letting go of the cloth, he sighed. “You got any leads?”

Ayreon shook his head. “None. Although I do have some theories I intend to test.”

“Theories?”

“My psychological profile of Inanna provides a few possible locations she may have been drawn to based on her previous habits and established ‘haunts’,” the HRD explained. “But it is less than a hint, and requires me to search several locations for each theory.”

“She may have already left the planet.”

“Correct.” Ayreon nodded. “But as I said, I find that unlikely, given the circumstances.”

Hal rubbed his face with his hands. “I spoke to her not even three days ago,” he muttered. “She told me she wanted to write another book. Said she had an idea already.”

Ayreon tilted his head with obvious interest. “Did she describe this idea to you?”

“It was gonna be about a high society girl who falls in love with a dancer. They get married, but then the dancer goes crazy… and there’s a war going on, or something along those lines. I thought it sounded pretty melodramatic, even for her.” He shrugged. “Inanna likes going to see ballets and operas, musicals, plays, any kind of live performance. Holofilms, too. She loves a good story, no matter the medium it’s told through.”

“That is very helpful, Mr. Yomin,” Ayreon remarked. He headed for the door.

“Hey, wait a minute—” Hall hurried after him. “Where are you going?”

Ayreon answered without turning around. “To search every performance hall on Dromund Kaas, beginning with those in the Cultural District of New Kaas City. Especially those that include ballets as part of their current shows.”

"How do you know she'll be there?"

"I don't. But it's the best lead I've heard so far."

 

[Inanna Harth]

There weren’t that many theaters in New Kaas City, but visiting them all to search for Inanna was a tedious process for a mortal Zeltron like Hal. He sat in the passenger seat of the speeder, Ayreon at the controls, his eyes staring out at the eternally rainy cityscape.

His thoughts wandered, replaying the last few conversations he’d had with Inanna in his mind.

Why won’t you be honest with me? I’m always honest with you.

I’m not so sure of that.

You don’t trust me?

I do… most of the time. There’s always room for doubt.

“I apologize if I’m intruding,” Ayreon’s voice interrupted Hal’s flashback. “But my psychological programming indicates that something is troubling you.”

Hal shrugged. “I just don’t get it.”

“I also do not understand the motive for Miss Hoole’s departure.”

“No, I mean—everything.” Hal shook his head. “Inanna has always been like this. She obsesses over the people who don’t care about her, and pushes away the ones that do. Except now it’s getting worse. She’s being drawn toward Sith Lords, for crying out loud, and… well, it’s not like you and me can do much to protect her from them.”

Ayreon took a few moments to process this. “You are correct. Her disappearance aligns with her established behavior patterns, as does her desire to be liked by others.”

“She cares way too much about what people think of her,” Hal muttered bitterly. “I mean, I get it. Having friends is nice. But she should know that if someone doesn’t like her, she shouldn’t keep trying to change their opinion of her. It’s just not going to work and it’s a waste of time.”

“I can see that this is very frustrating for you,” Ayreon said gently. “Perhaps you should go home while I continue searching—”

“No,” Hal interrupted. “I’ll stay. When we do find her, I want to give her a piece of my mind. Maybe knock some sense into her.” This time, she wouldn’t be able to hide behind the phone and hang up on him whenever he started to speak too much truth.

They pulled up to the theater, the last one in the city, and got out. Ayreon led the way inside the building. After explaining the situation to an employee, they were allowed to search. But just like all the other theaters, there was no sign of Inanna. Their search had hit another dead end.

“Is there anywhere else you can think of where she might be?” Ayreon asked, turning to face Hal. The HRD’s face was carefully arranged, making him appear outwardly calm despite the bad news.

Hal pinched the bridge of his nose underneath his glasses. “I hate myself for even suggesting this,” he said. “But the first thing that popped into my head is a bar.”

“You think she may be attempting to intoxicate herself?”

“It’s worth a shot.” Hal heaved a sigh, gnawing on his lip. Another idea had just popped into his head, though it made him ten times more upset, an irrational anger motivated by that ugliest of emotions: jealousy. Zeltrons were supposed to be immune to it, but then Hal wasn’t a full-blooded Zeltron.

“What about that alchemist she was seeing? The one that made that polyweave cloak for her?”

 

[Inanna Harth]

Elsewhere on Dromund Kaas, Inanna opened a door to which she had a spare key.

Beyond it was a small apartment, modestly furnished. There were a few paintings on the wall meant to brighten the place up and give it a slightly more distinguished air, but anyone who knew even a little bit about art would recognize them as cheap reproductions of famous works. The living room, on the other hand, had been utterly cleared of sofas, coffee tables, and entertainment systems in favor of wall-to-wall workbenches and assorted machinery which cramped and cluttered an area clearly not designed to hold such scientific devices.

A young man with black hair sat at one of the benches. Perched on a stool, the height of which forced him to lean forward considerably, his drooping posture made him look more primitive somehow, like an ape used to walking on all fours. Sith robes in fashionable black trailed down to the floor below him. A closer glance would reveal the elegant woven fabrics were old and fraying hand-me-downs.

This was Silas Fogg, the alchemist with whom Inanna had developed a strange relationship that didn’t mix business with pleasure so much as blur the lines between the two.

At the moment, however, Inanna was merely bringing Silas his groceries. Her arms were full of bags of food, toiletries, and other items, forcing her to sprout a second pair of limbs to hold them all. She carried them inside the apartment, heading immediately for the kitchen.

Silas was so engrossed in his work that he failed to acknowledge her arrival. No doubt he heard it, given all the noise she was making, but it didn’t seem to register with him until she suddenly spoke.

“I got everything you wanted.” Depositing her goods on the kitchen island, Inanna let out a deep breath. “Had to go through hell and high water for some of it. Killed some sand people for this blue milk, fought in a cage match for the caviar… don’t even get me started on the ice pops.”

“Hmmm,” Silas grunted, spinning around on his stool to face her. Blue eyes peered at her through a pair of glasses that made him look wonderfully intelligent, though she knew he wasn’t half as smart as he liked to project himself to be. “What about that?” He gestured to a loaf of bread.

“Oh, that.” She patted the loaf with one of her hands and smirked. “I had to beat an old lady with a stick for this.”

“Mmmhmm,” he grumbled, returning to his work.

She finished putting away the rest of the groceries, then approached him. His attention was divided between taking notes, and studying a small transparent cage, the sort used to hold insects and other small creatures.

Inanna still had four arms. Resting the top two on his shoulders, she asked, “What are you doing?”

“Observing the metamorphosis of a Lepidoptera,” he replied, then in plain Basic: “I’m watching a caterpillar become a moth.”

Her brow furrowing, she gave the cage a proper look and immediately spotted the caterpillar inside. It was bright orange, with a pink feathery “tail” of sorts jutting from one end. “Oh, wow. What type of moth is it?”

“I don’t know. I’ll find out after it undergoes the transformation.”

“Well, anything that looks that clownish ought to turn into a great beauty. Like the story of the Ugly Duckling.” Her lower arms began to rub Silas’ back while her upper arms massaged his shoulders, trying to fix his terrible posture. “You know that story?”

“Not really, no,” he replied, stiffening at her touch.

“You should. It’s important to know stories like that.”

“Important to know fairytales?” He snorted. “Would you care to back up that claim?”

Her grip on him tightened with a sudden ferocious anger, the image of jamming his stylus into his neck burning in her mind. It was an obvious overreaction, however, and she forced it to cool into mere annoyance. Time to let the subject go.

She released her hold on Silas, letting her four arms drop to her sides. “I’ve been meaning to thank you for letting me stay here.”

“Well, it’s no problem for me,” he said.

No, no problem at all. He stood to gain everything from this situation. What’s more, even when she did try to go above and beyond in repaying him, keeping his pantry stocked, his apartment clean, cooking his meals and folding his laundry and sleeping with him every night, he didn’t seem to appreciate her. She was just there, like another piece of furniture. A part of his life that he simply accepted, like so much else. She couldn’t even say that he took her for granted—if she left him without warning and never returned, he’d see it as no great loss. He was apathetic, uncaring either way.

Without saying another word, Inanna walked away. Her Sithspawn pet Elfangor, who was by now larger in size than the typical house cat, followed her into the bedroom. She sat down on the long, thin bed that was too narrow to hold two people, held her head in her hands and tried not to feel.

Her shifting moods had only become more difficult to control since Nathema. The Sith poison that coursed through her veins made her aggressive, easy to inflame with anger, lust, and despair. Her highs were stratospheric, her lows abysmal, and everything was just too much. Too loud, too rough, too hard. The smallest things infuriated her, made her want to bury an axe in the head of the one responsible. Appreciation and the absence thereof had very little to do with it.

She needed a cure, and she needed it now. Before things got any worse.

The search for an antidote to the poison was what had brought her to Silas Fogg in the first place. He had alchemized her polyweave cloak to protect her unshielded mind and hide her weak will. He did this in order to prove his skill and earn enough cash to finance other projects, all the while telling her that while he didn’t know of a cure for Sith poison, there was still a chance he could find one, provided she funded his research.

Elfangor rubbed against her legs, sensing her distress. She patted the bed with her hand. He slithered up onto the mattress and curled up beside her, nudging her palm with his head. Stroking his white fur, she tried not to think about what she’d have to do if Silas’ delays left her with no other option.

Adrian Vandiir could help her. She was all but sure of it. He was the foremost alchemist within the Sith Empire, a true pioneer. While the underfunded Silas stalled for more money, making promises he might not be able to keep, Adrian would take it as a golden opportunity to learn and master this obscure branch of the Force.

But unlike Silas, he had every reason not to lift a finger for Inanna, the woman who had come so close to damaging his work, his reputation, perhaps even his standing within the Empire. For all that she had once tried to seduce him, there was certainly no love lost between them.

To convince him to help her, she would have to frame it as a challenge to be overcome. He wouldn’t be helping her so much as… using her as a test subject in his research.

That was where her imagination always forced her to stop, unable to bear going any further. Her nightmares as of late were under no such restrictions, however. It was no coincidence that she had been envisioning him as an invasive monster interested only in using her for his own purposes, while Vanessa Vantai played the part of an unlikely cheerleader.

No dream interpreter was required to determine that Inanna didn’t trust Adrian. She was afraid that if she did give him access to her body—perhaps even her very soul—he would take things too far, using the opportunity to conduct further experiments, to reshape her into something that suited his own twisted vision. Assuming he even considered her worthy enough of that. And if something were to go wrong—what cause would he have to save her? He didn’t care whether she lived or died.

These fething Sith and their callous disregard for life…

Elfangor nudged her hand again, wanting to be scratched. Sighing, she relented. She was only making herself angry again, and there was no use in that.

Purring contentedly, Elfangor rolled over, exposing the pearly scales on his belly. He was a recent acquisition, rescued from a Primyn Group lab. She didn’t know how big her little white fox-snake would grow—or how dangerous he would become. If he got too big and too aggressive, no tiny apartment was going to be able to contain him.

Then an idea struck her. A Primyn Group creation, stolen from his labs before he had a chance to perfect it… oh, but it was too funny. If she came in with a “knockoff” of one of his Sithspawn ideas, after having inadvertently helped to steal his data a year ago, he’d think she’d pulled the same stunt twice. Mmm, but then she could simply explain that she had "found" the creature in Silas' apartment, and he could always confirm the story directly from her mind… after all, it was more or less the truth.

Of course, Adrian would probably have Silas’ head for this. Hell, what did she care? He was an even bigger prick than Adrian was, and those were some pretty large designer shoes to fill. If the prince of potions were to punish the pauper alchemist for crimes he did in fact commit, who was she to stand in the way of justice?

Oh, but Adrian will find a way to spin it so that I share the blame, she thought irritably. Simply by keeping a cute animal as a pet, I’ll have been assisting the enemy.

She supposed it might be worth a shot. Then again, the bastard seemed to think she still owed him a favor for last time, even though she had resolved the situation with Pygar and the data at catastrophic cost to herself. The loss of her father’s respect and her family’s trust, banishment from her homeworld, a downward spiral of shame and self-hatred… and to think she had simply wanted to save a life. A life which, according to Pygar, he had ruined.

But even if she had stressed the point, she knew Adrian, intelligent but lacking in wisdom as he was, would’ve reacted with nothing more than continued indifference, shrugging his shoulders and staring at her with those blank eyes. No, what she really should’ve done at their second meeting was gouge those eyes right out of his head—

There was a loud crash as several nearby objects either broke or were flung from their perch. Inanna gasped and opened her eyes—when had she shut them?—then sat very still in the midst of the carnage, her cold fingers pressed against her mouth. Moments passed, and she heard Silas’ footsteps approaching from down the hall. He opened the door to find his bedroom a mess.

“What the hell happened?”

“Nothing,” she replied softly, standing up and bending down to gather up the shards of a broken wine glass. “I’ll clean it up.”

Silas gaped at her, then closed his mouth and shrugged. “I am getting tired of you breaking my stuff.”

“Then maybe you should get back to trying to find a cure rather than watching bugs spin cocoons all day,” she growled.

Rolling his eyes, the alchemist shut the door, leaving her to pick up the pieces.

 

[Inanna Harth]

Hal and Ayreon paused outside the door to Silas’ apartment.

“Are you sure this is the place?” Hal asked.

“It is the residence of the only Silas Fogg registered on the entire planet,” Ayreon replied.

“Really?” Hal asked. At Ayreon’s nod, he whistled. “You’d think there’d be more.”

“Perhaps on a planet with a more homogenous culture,” Ayreon suggested. “If Miss Hoole is with Mr. Fogg, she will be here.”

But before they could knock on the door, it slid open with an audible hiss. Standing behind it was the pauper alchemist, his blue eyes narrowed. “Who are you? What are you doing here?” he demanded.

“I am Ayreon. This is Hal Yomin.” Hal waved as Ayreon gestured to him. “We’re looking for Inanna Hoole. Is she here?”

“I believe she came here specifically to get away from you two,” Silas replied dryly. “I suggest you leave now. I’d rather not have to waste any time and effort on throwing you out.”

“Please,” Hal protested. “It’s very important. We need to talk to her.”

Silas didn’t bother to reply. He simply waved his hand to close the door in their faces. What he didn’t count on was Ayreon grabbing the edge of the door with his hand and forcing it open again.

“Let go of my door, you plastic bastard!” Silas exclaimed. Ayreon complied, and both Hal and him stumbled into the apartment together.

Stumbling back in shock, Silas geared up to use the Force against them—only to be stopped by Inanna. She entered the fray like a bolt of black lightning, long white hair streaming, pale palm open and fingers splayed. “That’s enough,” she said, her black eyed gaze furious.

Hal found that he couldn’t move. The others likewise seemed to be frozen in place, though Silas was fighting the control she exerted over him. Finally, she released them. Hal sucked in a deep breath.

“What the hell is going on here, Inanna?” he asked.

She glared at him. “As Silas said, I came here to get away. I couldn’t tell anyone where I was going, or else you’d come and bother me. But seeing as you managed to find me here anyway, I suppose I’ll never be able to get some time to myself.”

“You could’ve at least left a note. ‘I’ll be back in a few days, don’t panic’?”

The sour look on her face told Hal that Inanna may not have planned on ever coming back. She seemed determined to disappear, though why, in what seemed to be her hour of need, he didn’t know.

So much had happened to her this past year. She’d been exploited by Adrian Vandiir, betrayed by Pygar, and rejected by her own family when she did what had to be done in order to save them from harm. When she tried to better herself, seeking training from the Sith, she was tricked, abused, and gaslighted by the person she went to for help. The person who was supposed to be her teacher.

Yet among all this tragedy, suffering, and heartbreak, she had accomplished her childhood dream of becoming a published writer. Hal had helped her do it, typing late at night and into the earlier hours of morning, proofreading and editing the little murder mystery with the odd title. While they were working together, there had been little time to talk. But towards the end, he had suspected something was wrong… she had changed so much, and her attitude toward him had shifted. She avoided him, only communicating through messages and comm calls, as though she were afraid to be in the same room as him.

Turned out she was afraid, and for good reason. Vanessa had done something to her that made her unable to handle pheromones. Even with his anti-pheromone ointments and sprays, all it would take was a few molecules to get into her lungs and be absorbed into her bloodstream. A few breaths. It would feel like she had inhaled the entirety of Zeltros, every cafarel and whorehouse and funhouse on the entire planet. She would lose control of herself, do something crazy or stupid or worse.

And now here she was in front of him, angry and hurting and no doubt wishing he hadn’t come. Well, Inanna, I put on an extra layer of anti-pheromone cream today just for this moment. Please don’t run away from me again. Please don’t ever run away again.

“I need to talk to you,” Hal said instead.

“I’d rather not,” she replied. “You know why.” Nodding to Ayreon, she added, “Have my droid take a message.”

“I want to talk to you in person, right now,” he reiterated. “Alone. It’s very important.”

Inanna shut her eyes and shielded her eyes with her hand, as if trying to hide her emotions from him. “Just… give me a moment to put on an anti-pheromone patch, okay?”

She returned to the bedroom, returning a few minutes later. The patch wasn’t visible on her, being covered up by her sleeve. To Hal she seemed no less tense than she had been before she put it on.

“Hopefully this will be enough,” she said, her tone icy and remote. Leading the way, she walked down the short hallway and into a small side room, only slightly bigger than a utility closet. In it were crates stacked on top of each other, making it seem even more cramped. It was lit by a single hanging bulb that cast a washed-out glow on their faces from above. Once she and Hal were inside, she shut the door.

“All right. Let’s talk.”

“What are you doing here?” he blurted out.

Her eyelids drooped and she pursed her lips, looking tired. “I’m staying with a friend for a little while, that’s all.”

“But you’ve also hired this guy to help you with the poison. Is he any closer to finding a cure?”

“No.” She sighed. “But if he can’t find one soon, I’m going to seek help elsewhere.”

Hal’s heart sank. He already knew the answer, but still he asked, “From Adrian Vandiir?”

“That’s a possibility, yes.”

Running a pink hand through his blue-black hair, Hal fished around, trying to choose his next words carefully. Trying to be nice and understanding about it. In the end, though, his true emotions leaked through. “Why would you want to have anything to do with him after all the grief he caused you?”

“I don’t expect you to understand this,” she began, shifting her weight from one foot to another. “But he’s the only Sith I know of who is an honest-to-goodness expert in this sort of thing. If he can’t help me, no one can.”

“Vanessa could’ve undone it, couldn’t she?” Seeing the pained look cross Inanna’s features, he swiftly shifted gears. “There’s gotta be somebody else.”

“No one I know.”

“Then… then look for someone else!” he cried, exasperated. “Find someone else who can help you, who you have no bad blood with. Someone with a clean slate and no history with you. Hell, there must be Jedi who could help—”

She shook her head, her eyes glassy. “The Jedi don’t know about these things. It’s considered taboo to them. They have healers, but… they hide knowledge of things they’re afraid of. And I can’t imagine anything more frightening than this.” Closing her eyes, she let the tears fall. “I don’t want any part of this anymore, Hal. I don’t think I can do it. It’s so easy to wallow in angst and anger, frustration and resentment. It’s so easy to hate. But I don’t want to hate anyone, not really. It’s not in my nature…”

She wiped her cheeks on the backs of her hands and sniffed. Hal grabbed a box of tissues and held it out to her, careful to keep his distance. Eyeing him for a moment, she took the tissues and cleaned herself up.

“I agree, Inanna,” he said. “I think you bit off more than you could chew. It was a mistake to get as involved in this as you have. You should probably just…” He trailed off, afraid to say ‘you should just quit’ out loud. She had come so far, been through so much, and telling her it was all for naught now seemed cruel.

“I wish I could,” she said, understanding what he meant. “Nimdok should be the one doing all that he can to defeat Messala. But he hasn’t. He just keeps running, like a coward. It makes me so mad…” Her clenched fists shook as she gripped the wad of tissue in her hand, but she forced herself to release the tension, spreading her palms.

Hal brushed his fingers against hers, hesitant. She didn’t pull away. “Do you think you could… leave the job up to Red?”

She grimaced and shrugged her shoulders. “He isn’t always around. Red has other things to worry about. Plus, he got captured and tortured because of this…” She looked away, ashamed. Subject 73 Red had been good to her, helpful and kind and brave. But she felt like she expected too much from him, asking him to put himself in all this danger. She knew it was exactly the sort of life he led regardless, a life of heroism and taking a stand to do the right thing, but… well, she was learning that she couldn’t rely on anyone but herself, and even that was left in question.

“Consider this,” Hal murmured softly, their fingers still touching. “Bithia and Ayreon could take up the mantle in your stead.”

Inanna blinked. “Bithia? And Ayreon… but…”

“She’s Miri’s mother,” he went on. “She has a much more personal reason to be involved in this than you. Messala hurt her child. Plus, she’s an incredible warrior, a true killing machine. You faced the other biot on Zeltros, you know how powerful and dangerous they can be.”

“She wouldn’t even need Ayreon, she’s so sophisticated.” Inanna cracked a small smile, then heaved a sigh. “Oh, Hal. I’m so tired of all this… crap.”

He snorted. “I noticed.”

“If I give up trying to get to Messala, then what am I going to do with my life?” she asked, only half joking. “Go back to being a whore? Try to be a Jedi or a Sith again? My family won’t have me, so I can’t go home…”

“You could write another book.”

“Well, I was going to do that anyway.” She looked up at him. “Would you still want to help me with it?”

“Sure. I’ve got nothing better to do with my life.”

She rolled her eyes, but the corners of her mouth curled upwards ever so slightly. “Maybe I should go to Vandiir and ask him to put me out of my misery.”

“Actually, I came here to suggest something like that,” Hal said. “Nimdok, or Arimanes, or whoever he is called. He said he wanted you to give something to AMCO .”

Her eyebrows rose. “Okay, now you’ve got my attention. What is it?”

“A Forcesaber…? It’s some kind of fancy artifact, an ancient weapon. He says there’s no way in hell Vandiir could ever actually use it, but he wants to give it to him as a peace offering. Y’know, to make up for what happened on Nathema.”

Inanna laughed at the memory, however bittersweet it was. “I knew there was a reason I loved that man.”

“You still love him?” Hal asked softly.

“He was my best friend. We were lovers, once upon another time. But he’s changed. So have I. It wouldn’t work now.” Grinning wickedly, she put her hands on her hips. “You know, when he was staying with me on the Scintilla, we got to talking about kids. He actually told me that if I married someone who wasn’t a Shi’ido, he’d be happy to serve as a sperm donor for our children.”

Hal burst into laughter. Inanna’s smile widened. “He certainly is quite the character…”

Their mirth gradually faded, and Inanna backslid into seriousness and sadness again. “None of my plans will matter if I can’t find a cure for this fething Sith poison.”

“You could take the Forcesaber when you go to ask him for help, is what I meant to suggest,” he explained. “Maybe it would help to sweeten the deal."

“He’d be more willing to help me if I gave him a dusty old museum piece as a gift?” She considered it, and realized he wasn’t talking out of his ass after all. “That’s actually not too bad of an idea. He seems pretty materialistic.”

“And he’s known for loving history.”

“Yeah.” She gnawed on her lip. “I was going to bring Elfangor along so he could see him… but that’s a way better idea. Tell Ari I’ll be happy to do it.”

“Hold on a minute,” Hal said. “Will you promise that you’ll at least try to find somebody else first?”

“Of course I’ll try,” she replied. “But there’s no guarantees. That’s just the way it is.” When Hal grimaced, she tilted her head to the side. “I noticed you seem to particularly dislike Adrian. Why?”

“Not only is he completely insane from what I can tell, he just seems like a giant prick in general,” Hal replied. “The kind of nerf herder who is so selfish he doesn’t care about anyone but himself, and yet he’s in a position of power, with some level of influence and control over ordinary people’s lives. You know that in his mind he always comes first no matter what. The chit with him trying to turn everyone into Sithspawn is just background noise compared to his utterly repulsive personality.”

“He is sort of cute though,” Inanna said with a smirk. “Or he used to be, before he became a silly putty monster. Nowadays his face is too perfect. It’s eerie and uncanny rather than attractive.”

“Good to know you have your priorities in the right place,” Hal remarked. “I’m willing to bet he can’t even bring himself to tell his mother he loves her. I feel sorry for Ingrid L'lerim .”

“I wouldn’t feel too sorry for her,” Inanna muttered. “Could you bring yourself to say it?”

“Say what?”

“That you loved someone.”

Hal hesitated. “I think I’d be too nervous and afraid of being rejected, to be honest.”

She hummed in acknowledgement. “I’ve always been too quick to blurt it out. Once I set my heart on someone, they’re it. Even if they don’t want me, I keep chasing them like a hunting dog, reasoning to myself that even if nothing comes of it, I have to be with them as much as I can.”

“You must have a great capacity for love,” he said softly.

“It’s hard on me, though. I give everything and rarely receive anything. You get to thinking you’re not worth anyone’s love, and you start settling for less. Makes you easy to exploit and abuse, too.”

“Inanna—” he began, wanting to reassure her that she was worthwhile, that people did care about her, and that she wasn’t alone. She was with friends, she was home, she was loved. But it was too much, and he couldn’t find the words to properly deliver it all, so he settled for the one thing he knew would matter most.

“I love you.”

She blinked. “Don’t make fun of me.”

“I’m not,” he said firmly. “I’m not making fun of you. It’s the truth. I do love you.”

Saying it for a second time was easier than the first. Pursing her lips, she swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat. “What does that mean for you?”

“It means I’m not going anywhere. I’ll stay with you.”

“I thought that was because you had nothing better to do with your life,” she retorted. “I’m just convenient.”

“No, you’re pretty inconvenient actually. Ever since I started working for you, my life has been put in danger on multiple occasions.” He shook his head. “It’s hard for me to admit this stuff, Inanna. Like I said, I get nervous and shy and scared of how you’ll react. Not to mention the stuff with the pheromones—man, I hate being a Zeltron.”

“Don’t hate yourself,” she said. He figured it was the poison acting on her emotions as she swung from being angry and offended to awkwardly trying to console him. “I… I like Zeltrons. Er, I like you the way you are, Hal.”

“Thanks.” His eyes swept over her face, done up to mimic a beautiful human woman. “I love you however you choose to be.”

“You’re just saying all this to cheer me up.”

“No, I’ve felt this way for a while now. I just haven’t had the courage to say it before. The words, either. Zeltrons aren’t raised to believe in anything but the pursuit of pleasure and happiness. Love doesn’t always feel good.” He hesitated. “What about you? Do you, uh, feel… anything similar?”

“Oh.” She blinked, smiling. “I’m embarrassed. If it weren’t for the poison, I’d have already kissed you a long time ago.”

“That patch ain’t working so well, is it?”

“By now it ought to be.” Her voice softened as she took a step toward him. “And with all that smelly gunk you’re wearing, it should be enough…”

She pressed her lips to his. He took it stiffly at first, not really sure what to do. As she wrapped her arms around his neck, deepening the kiss, he felt the warmth of her body and melted into it, returning the embrace.

When she pulled away, he found himself leaning forward, chasing after her, not wanting it to end. But she braced her hands against his chest and said, “That’s enough for now. I don’t want to tempt fate.”

“Okay,” he rasped, squashing his disappointment and longing. “I can wait.”

She met his eyes. “I love you too, Hal.”