Private Crazy Rich Jedi

[Xian Xiao]

Xian took a little longer than she meant to.

The droid itself was easy enough to find, sitting exactly where it should have been, quiet and patient in that way droids always were when they were waiting to be told what they were for. She paused in front of it, hands settling on her hips as her gaze moved over its compartments, then back again, like something would suddenly make sense if she just looked at it long enough.

"Breastplate stretcher," she said under her breath, testing the words as if that might help.

The droid responded with a soft, obliging chirp.

"Yeah, that's what I thought," Xian murmured, crouching down to start opening compartments, her movements slow but deliberate as she sorted through tools she half recognized and others she definitely didn't. Nothing about any of it suggested stretching armor, at least not in any obvious way, and that alone was enough to make her hesitate.

She picked up one of the tools anyway, turning it over in her hands, her brow faintly furrowing.

"This feels made up," she said quietly, more thoughtful than annoyed.

The droid chirped again, just as unhelpful as before.

Xian glanced up at it, unimpressed for a brief second before looking back down at the open compartments, her focus narrowing as she continued searching with a little more determination, like the answer had to be here somewhere and she just hadn't found the right piece yet.

"Maybe it's called something else," she reasoned aloud, shifting another tool aside. "Same thing, different name."

But as the seconds stretched on and nothing quite lined up with what she had been sent to find, her movements slowed, the certainty she started with giving way to something more skeptical. She straightened slightly, glancing back toward where she had left them, the distance suddenly feeling a little more intentional than it had before.

"…they wouldn't," Xian murmured, though it didn't sound entirely convincing.

Her gaze drifted back to the droid, then to the spread of tools again, and after a brief pause, she let out a quiet breath and resumed searching anyway, more stubborn than convinced now.

"Fine," she muttered, almost to herself. "I'll find something."

Noriko Ike

 

[Noriko Ike]

Xian Xiao

Noriko found a place that she would be able to sit with her cousin and she could drink for a moment. The two of them able to do it while also eating a few pieces of fruit. Her cousin was an impressive warrior in most things who would be moving around. SHe wandered around the planet like the legendary general Hanzo. SHe stretched out though as she sat there and looked up at the skies under the fruits of the trees. A smile growing wider. "Oh I have missed this... not the smell of you from the road which you stianky coussin... but just being able to sit around and lounge like this before Laady Unaga finds us."

 

[Xian Xiao]

Xian took a little longer than she should have.

By the time she came back, she wasn't empty-handed. Not exactly. One arm was wrapped around a bundle of tools she had clearly decided were at least related to what she had been sent to find, and the other held a small, flat device she hadn't entirely ruled out yet.

She stopped a few steps from them, looking between Noriko and her cousin, then down at what she was carrying, then back again.

"…so," Xian said slowly, her tone measured but carrying just enough suspicion to give her away, "I have a question."

She shifted the weight of the tools slightly, letting one piece slide down just enough to catch it again without dropping anything.

"Is a 'breastplate stretcher' a real thing," she continued, one brow lifting, "or did I just spend the last hour arguing with a droid about something that does not exist?"

A brief pause.

Her gaze flicked to Noriko first, then to her cousin, narrowing just a fraction.

"…because I checked three compartments," she added, more pointed now, "and at some point the droid started sounding like it felt bad for me."

She let that sit for a second longer, then exhaled and shifted the tools again, the corner of her mouth starting to tug upward despite herself.

"If this was a joke," Xian went on, a little more lightly now, "I'm going to need to know how long I was supposed to keep looking before I earned the answer."

Another small beat.

"…and which one of you I'm blaming for it."

Noriko Ike

 

[Noriko Ike]

Xian Xiao

NOrriko looked at Xian when she arrived and she moved to look at all of the components. "No... no.... not this... nope.... not close." She said it while making an effort to look through what was brought and she tapped her chin. "Hmmm did you ask the quartermaster droid? He would know better then most of the others. I'll set your locator so you can find him... unless you want to give up? Cause the implication that I would send you to find something that didn't exist is mean Xian.. like really mean and hurtful and I am going to need an emotional support loth cat now because of it." She saaid it while she waas looking at the girl but put a hand on her shoulder. "I sweat the breastplate stretcher does exist." She said it and ignored the in my head part just to keep it going as she looked at her padawan seriously and pouty.

 

[Xian Xiao]

Xian stood there for a moment, simply looking at her. Not confused. Not convinced. Just… looking.

Her gaze dropped to the pile of tools in her arms, then lifted back to Noriko with slow, deliberate precision, as if she were giving her one last opportunity to reconsider her statement.

"…the quartermaster droid," Xian repeated, her tone even, though a thin thread of suspicion had begun to weave through it.

She shifted the tools, letting one settle more comfortably against her side before exhaling through her nose in a quiet, resigned breath.

"I asked the other one," she said, glancing off to the side as if replaying the moment. "It chirped at me like it was trying to be helpful… which I'm starting to think means it knew exactly what was happening."

Her eyes returned to Noriko, narrowing just slightly.

The hand on her shoulder earned a brief look, not offended, not startled, just unimpressed, before her attention lifted again.

"…and now there's a second droid," Xian continued, slower now, working through the logic aloud. "One that somehow knows about a tool none of the others mentioned."

A small pause. Then, very calmly: "You're doubling down." She held that look for another beat, weighing it, deciding just how much she was going to let slide. Finally, she shifted her weight and adjusted her grip on the tools again.

"…fine," she said, though the tone made it abundantly clear she was absolutely keeping score. "I'll go ask the quartermaster."

She turned and started walking, managing only a few steps before stopping. With a quiet sigh, she shifted the tools awkwardly into one arm to free a hand, pressing her fingers briefly between her eyes in a gesture that radiated tired patience.

Then she kept going.

"If he doesn't have it," Xian called back over her shoulder, quieter now but unmistakably certain, "I'm coming back with proof." A faint smirk tugged at the corner of her mouth. "And then we're having a different conversation."

Noriko Ike

 

[Noriko Ike]

Xian Xiao

Noriko looked at her and she gave aa nod of herr head. "Okay." She said it and tapped her earring as the interface was giving the location. "The quartermaasters office is what we passed when we entered from the jungle." She gave the location while she spoke. "Given the hour the lifts are disabled so you'll have to walk or run your choice. We'll wait here for you." Noriko said it with a look of complete serenity.. she waas more then prepared for Xian's return while she went and sat down with a look. Her padawan knew... she knew her padawan knew... her padawan knew that she knew that her padawan knew... everyone knew.

 

[Xian Xiao]

Xian stopped. Not abruptly. Not dramatically. She just… stopped.

Her back remained to them, the tools shifting slightly in her arms as Noriko finished outlining the route, the steps, the distance, and the general misery involved in retrieving whatever tool she insisted existed.

For a moment, it almost looked like Xian might actually go. Her head tilted a fraction, as if she were genuinely weighing the options. Then she let out a slow, resigned breath. "…right," she said quietly.

She didn't turn around. She simply adjusted her grip on the tools, took one step in the direction Noriko had pointed, and stopped again.

A beat passed. Then, without a word, she pivoted sharply and walked the opposite way. Not toward the jungle. Not toward the stairs. Straight toward the living quarters.

Her pace wasn't fast, but it was very deliberate, the kind of walk that said the decision had been made and would not be revisited.

"You can wait," Xian called back over her shoulder, her tone calm but edged with unmistakable finality. "I'm not walking those steps again for something that may or may not exist."

She didn't slow. Didn't look back. She reached her door, keyed it open, and stepped inside with the certainty of someone reclaiming her evening.

"And if it does exist," she added, already setting the tools down, "you can show me tomorrow." She paused just long enough to glance back through the doorway, her voice quieter but no less firm. "After I've slept."

The door slid shut behind her with a soft hiss, leaving Noriko and her cousin in the hallway's sudden quiet. Inside, Xian kicked off her boots, dropped onto the bed, and threw an arm over her eyes with a long exhale.

"…definitely not real," she muttered. And with that, she was done for the night.

Noriko Ike

 

[Noriko Ike]

Xian Xiao

"Okay." Noriko looked at her go and shrugged as she was moving and went towards the living quarters she had. The pavillion as her cousin was staying there with her bottle. The window looking out on it still open as Noriko went up to it with a smaall leap but sat there shaaring the wine while she leaned against the window. "Your padawan is certainly interesting." THe woman spoke and NOriko gave a nod of her heaad. "She is and as you can see incredibly stubborn. Her brains are there, her mouth catches up and her mind might move like lightning but she also has to think about everything to the point I just shrug. Most of the fun of life it roaming around and leaarning but she doesn't want to learn in steps she half the time wants it now."

 

[Xian Xiao]

Sleep didn't take her all at once; it never had, and tonight was no different. Xian lay still for a long moment, one arm draped over her eyes, letting the quiet of the room settle around her in a way that should have been calming, her breathing gradually slowing as the day's tension loosened its grip and her body sank into the mattress. Somewhere between one breath and the next, though, she slipped, not into rest, but into the familiar pull of memory.

Heat rose first, blooming through the dark with a sharpness that had nothing to do with comfort. Fire swallowed the edges of the world in jagged bursts of orange and gold, turning walls into silhouettes and shadows into something alive, the air thickening until every breath scraped down her throat, too hot and too heavy to draw in cleanly. She was smaller here, shorter and lighter, her hands unsteady as they pushed against something that refused to move, something that should have opened but didn't, while voices cut through the roar, shouting, urgent, fractured, words lost to time but the fear behind them unmistakable.

"Xian—!"

The sound sliced through the heat, and as she turned toward it, the world shifted beneath her.

Cold light replaced fire. Coruscant rose around her in endless towers, traffic weaving through the air in constant streams, the noise overwhelming in a way that felt structured rather than chaotic, controlled rather than consuming. She stood at the edge of a high platform, her reflection faint in the glass beside her, older now, just enough to know she wasn't the child from the fire anymore, but not enough to understand the city stretching out beneath her.

Movement below caught her eye. Not traffic. Not civilians. Something faster, sharper. A crack of energy split the air, flashes of red and blue colliding in violent arcs as figures moved too quickly to follow cleanly, each motion precise and lethal in a way that didn't belong in a place built on order. Jedi and Sith clashed below, their blades humming, their power bending the air around them, and she watched not with fear but with a quiet, inexplicable recognition that settled somewhere deep, even if she couldn't name it.

The scene fractured again, breaking into pieces instead of full moments, running through crowded streets, watching from places she wasn't supposed to be, listening when no one realized she was there, always looking, always learning, trying to make sense of a world that never slowed down long enough to explain itself. The fire flickered back for a heartbeat, a flash of heat and light that tightened her breath even in sleep, before fading again into the shifting haze of memory.

Xian stirred on the bed, her brow tightening, her breathing catching for a moment before settling once more. The memories didn't stay; they never did. They moved the way everything in her life had moved, fast, unfinished, always just out of reach, until gradually the edges softened, the fire dimmed, the city dissolved, and sleep, quieter now, finally settled in.

Noriko Ike

 

[Noriko Ike]

Xian Xiao

The night was fun, exciting even mostly cause once the sun set or was setting it refracted through the clouds turning the curtain of white on the stone into purples, orange and all of these other colors as the light faded. She got to go to sleep and sank into the bed while leaving the window opened. The faaint shimmer of the shield there to look over it all as it kept the wind out. from chilling her... though she was still warm while laying there before she found her Makie drroid adjusting some of the setting. The massive bed and posts of it closing small curtains themselves which only let herr block out the lights of the earrly morrrning as she could sleep for a few hours and be worrking out then.

 

[Xian Xiao]

Morning came quietly. Xian didn't wake with it.

The early light filtered in, softened by the shield at the window and dulled further by the curtains that had been drawn, leaving the room in that in-between state where it was neither night nor fully day. The kind of light that usually pulled her out of sleep without asking.

Today, it didn't.

She shifted slightly under the blankets, one arm pulling closer as she settled deeper into the warmth rather than away from it. There was no urgency waiting for her. No mission pressing at the edges of her mind, no immediate need to be up and moving before the rest of the world caught up.

For once, nothing was chasing her out of bed.

Her breathing stayed slow and even, the tension that usually lingered in her shoulders nowhere to be found as she sank further into the mattress. The quiet of the room held, undisturbed, the faint sounds beyond the window, distant enough to feel like they belonged somewhere else entirely.

Xian turned her head slightly into the pillow, letting out a small, barely-there breath as she resettled, the movement instinctive and unguarded in a way she rarely allowed herself when she was awake.

She could have gotten up. She knew that. There was always something to do, something to prepare for, something that could be improved if she just started early enough. But not today. Today, she stayed exactly where she was.

The extra hours stretched out around her, unclaimed and quiet, and for once, she didn't question it. She let herself drift, not pulled by memory this time, not pushed by habit, just resting in the rare space where nothing demanded more of her than simply being still.

And she took it.

Noriko Ike

 

[Noriko Ike]

Xian Xiao

Noriko stretched out when she finally woke up... she had only a few hours of sleep but she allowed the force to revitalize her body and mind... sustaining her while she breathed in with the rising sun... the higher it got allowing her to see while she was in workout gear. The others were going and she smiled joining them as she spoke in whispers at first going through the gardens. A dozen of them joining in when they finally made a large enough group to be able to jog but more importantly as they set up in the cloud gardens. She moved to the front and stood there like an impromptu exercise session. The even lines below Xian's bedroom window and they were all speaking. She had a sharp inhale of breath as she stood there.

"I LIKE TO MOVE IT MOVE IT HE LIKE TO MOVE IT MOVE IT SHE LIKE TO MOVE IT MOVE IT YOU LIKE TO, MOVE IT! WE LIKE TO MOVE IT MOVE IT YOU LIKE TO MOVE IT MOVE IT"