Private Don't Wait 'Til Tomorrow

[Amea Virou]

It had been a few days since Life Day. The festivities had died down but the warm feelings most certainly had not. As Amea traversed the dusty streets she couldn’t help but grin to herself and at the couples she passed. Over the course of the last few weeks if not months had been some of the brightest she could care to remember and it was all thanks to someone who wasn’t herself. Sure, initially it had been nothing but panic and fear, and yet as time had passed it had all settled into a sense of belonging and comfort. Love, as alien as it had once felt, turned out to not have been such a forlorn concept after all and that was something Amea was more than willing to celebrate.

So, she took a seat at the closest café that she could find. It was something picturesque yet not too idyllic. Something that was more charming for it’s flaws than its beauty. A bit like Amea herself, she supposed. Whatever it was that Evelyn had seen in her at first, Amea hadn’t seen it then and she most certainly didn’t see it now either.

Didn’t stop her from feeling all giddy about it though.

Loske would be here shortly. They had agreed to meet and this was the best intersection in either person’s schedule and flight plans to make it as small of a hassle to be there. Of course, Amea could venture anywhere for work, but her Alliance-bound friends… Not so much. This spot was not too far from Loske’s ship while still not too far away from Evelyn’s either. They could have that talk they mentioned earlier, like friends do.

Amea was good at that. Friends. She had like a whole three or five of them now.

 

[Loske Treicolt]

Loske spotted Amea Virou through the window before she entered the cafe. Which made things easier, and skipped the complications of scouring over patron's skulls to find a head shape that looked familiar.

"Okay," the blonde was so brisk in her entrance that she slid into the seat meant for her in record time, the face of her datapad exposed to Amea. The photo her friend had sent her on Life Day dominated the screen. She barely gave it a tap before she was looking around the shop eagerly as if the modelesque Echani from the image might emerge from the washroom and make their way over.

"Who is she, where is she, when can I meet her and how did you meet her?"

Eager elatedness bubbled overall rationale modes of conversation, and she set the datapad down between her elbows to shove her cheeks between two waiting palms, watching the tomb raider's reaction dotingly.

"Ah!" She snapped back, a slap to the table in horror at her lack of manners. "How are you!"

 

[Amea Virou]

Loske Treicolt

A dumbstruck jaw hung to spread her lips into an ‘oh’-shaped look of confusion and surprise across Amea’s face. Her brows lifted and her eyes blinked at the rather unexpected intrusion of the senses as Loske not only made herself seen but also heard before Amea was any the wiser. Her lips spread even wider with an ‘ah’ before they thinned out into a grin and a laugh.

“Hello!” Amea spoke under breath and looked down at the pad. “I’m… Okay, a bit overwhelmed from that grand entrance, but… You know. Good.”

Her attention set on the picture on the screen with a warm smile before she shook her head with mirth, eyes wandered up to see the way Loske continued to keep an eye out for Evelyn. Amea once more shook her head and held her hand up, eyes closed as she struggled to find the words.

“She’s not here. At least, not at the moment.” She said and placed the hand on the table again. “She might come around later, she’s finishing up some business at the moment.”

“So, in order of what you asked. Evelyn is an Echani woman. She is doing business. Might meet her later. Aaaand, how we met is a long story.”

“Now, before you ask. It wouldn’t be right if I didn’t ask in turn, how are you?”

 

[Loske Treicolt]

Amea's willingness to oblige her had Loske on the edge of her seat. Every word was another invitation to her enigmatic friend's new life. A life that genuinely seemed to suit her, and bring her the happiness Kaili of yore sought.

“She might come around later, she’s finishing up some business at the moment.”
“So, in order of what you asked. Evelyn is an Echani woman. She is doing business. Might meet her later. Aaaand, how we met is a long story.”
“Now, before you ask. It wouldn’t be right if I didn’t ask in turn, how are you?”

"Business." Loske repeated, her tone matter-of-fact. A typical explanation for a couple so covert. "Evelyn does business. Somehow, not surprising."

Now with the table more occupied, a waiter appeared to take their order. Their expression was pleasant and feigned patience.

"I'll make sure we have time, then." She encouraged with a shameless grin, turning to look up at the attendant. Loske was promised a might and a long story –– and she'd be darned if she didn't get at least 50% of those teases.

"What do you have that takes the longest to either eat or make?"

The server looked pensive for a moment, and scratched at his chin. "Ehh, probably the diner platter. It's uhh, well...just, a lovely little row of sandwiches, flanked by two little blue blobs."

"Blobs?"

"Er, kind of a condensed blue milk."

"Sure, fine, that please. Thank you."

The waiter lingered long enough to hear what Amea wanted, before reporting back to the kitchen. Informing them he'd be back soon with two waters.

How was she? Loske pedalled her feet beneath the table and shifted her hips, choosing to focus on more recently fond memories than the more distant ones since she'd seen Amea last.

"I'm," running her fingers through her hair, she exhaled. "Better. Honestly, from everything that happened since I last saw you –– also, sorry about that –– I'm getting better." Amea'd seen Loske fresh as a blushing bride, since then, there'd been a Cold War, her husband's existential crisis and wanting to have a child, then him getting captured, her mother dying, Loske getting turbocharged with wraithborn powers, getting her ass kicked on Dantooine, exploited on Felucia, and then finally.. Life Day. She chose to settle the mood on Life Day, where Amea had messaged her and she'd gotten closer to making amends in her own relationship.

"Things were kind of karked for a while, but I think it's going to be okay. It's getting there. But let's not go down that road yet, I want to hear this story. I missed you, thank you for messaging."

 

[Amea Virou]

Loske Treicolt

It wasn’t a surprise to Amea that her candor wouldn’t go unnoticed by Loske. Not that it was all that hard to spot, but more so because she figured Loske knew that Amea still had parts of herself she kept close at hand with care not to say too much. Besides, it really wasn’t in Amea’s place to tell on her girlfriend. Evelyn was more than capable of doing that herself.

Amea’s brow did however rise in question of the blonde’s order. As much as she would like to think she had an appetite, Amea also knew better than to eat a platter of something. Did you know how much a platter was? Usually a lot. Her eyes wandered around the crowd passing by the café to see if Evelyn was there, but there was no Echani woman to be found. At least not the right one. Her attention set on Loske again.

“Hard to imagine you’d be doing better after simply having become someone else’s wife.” Amea said and flashed a grin at her friend. “But then, also hard to imagine the effects of being an active combatant in several bloody campaigns too. So maybe it all just sort of evens out, hm?”

A hand was extended towards Loske. “I am joking, of course. You know you can contact me at any point and at any time.” She squeezed it. “That’s what friends are for, I hear.”

“As for Evelyn,” Amea tilted her head and shrugged back into her seat with a warm smile. “I killed a man before her very eyes the first time we really met. Several, actually.” Her eyes glanced up at Loske with an expression to reassure her that it was a joke. For the most part. “I was working a recon job on a small son and pop crew out of the OPA. We managed to jump into a system right as another ship blasted the other into malfunction. We high-tail it into place, throw an OPA beacon on the ship and glide along to have a small talk with the captain why he is stealing Outer Planet Alliance salvage.”

“... Apparently I make for a pretty convincing authority figure when I put my mind to it.” Amea shrugged and continued. “So, I had the upper hand. The man was slowly starting to trust who I was, and…”

“Then I shot him dead.” Well, that was easy. Amea glanced out at the passing crowds again and then back to Loske. “Evelyn came out to talk, she had a creature aboard her now destroyed ship,” Best leave out the dead friends part. “It was some sort of creature that we at the time didn’t know somehow has some form of connection to the light, in the force. I helped her find a Jedi enclave, we thwarted a plot to discredit the local Jedi… And that was pretty much our first date.”

 

[Loske Treicolt]

“Hard to imagine you’d be doing better after simply having become someone else’s wife.”
“But then, also hard to imagine the effects of being an active combatant in several bloody campaigns too. So maybe it all just sort of evens out, hm?”
“I am joking, of course. You know you can contact me at any point and at any time.”
“That’s what friends are for, I hear.”

Loske melted at the word wife. It was warm, and not something she'd ever considered attributed to her. She'd been made for war and tried to squeeze some level of humanity in there proving her audacity the closer and closer she drew to her vistas.

She smiled and nodded once, surprised at the physical outreach Amea offered, and reciprocated in kind. "Thank you."

Quickly, Amea shifted gears and divulged the story. Happily, Loske listened with all the dotingness she could provide. The tale quickly dipped into shades of solemn, a stark change from the Talith girl who'd not even equipped any sort of weapons into Frank for fear of hurting someone. In response, Loske's face contorted into something like questioning encouragement to continue.

“So, I had the upper hand. The man was slowly starting to trust who I was, and…”

“Then I shot him dead.”

"Wait..what?" The blonde stammered, confounded by the ease of delivery. Blinking several times, as if the flutter of her lashes would wake her from this dream, Loske realized how corporeal this situation was. And how enigmatic but transparent at the same time her friend was. "Wow." Was all she managed, before Amea looked back to their shared space.

The waiter reappeared just as Amea continued to share her first meeting with Evelyn, set down the waters, tried not to eavesdrop, and left.

"A creature, a plot? Ah?" She shook her head again "––Okay, this sounds like one of my first dates or something. What kind of creature? Is that the kind of business Evelyn's in? Some sort of exotic pet trading?

Local Jedi plot thwarted? Where was this? Should I like, give you a ribbon or something? Jeepers. You have a busy life.

If that's just your first date, what else have you been up to?"

 

[Amea Virou]

Loske Treicolt

“They’re called Shinri. Supposedly they have an inborn connection to the light. And no, we don’t deal in exotic pet trading. At least not generally speaking. Exceptions made and all that, you know how it is.”

Amea glanced at the drink before her and took a sip of the water. It had a strange metallic undertone and she promptly put it down. Her mind wasn’t flipping out over poisons, so she figured it was the plumbing.

“No ribbons, please.” Amea laughed and put her hand to her cheek, let her elbow rest against the edge of the table as she thought back on the last few weeks and months. She squinted for a moment to think back on it all.

Well, there was the one thing…

“Admitted to Evelyn that I loved her.” Amea laughed, nervously. “Met her grandparents.”

“Might have accidentally been the accomplice to the murder of a known Sith Lord. But in my defence, he was in my way and the New Imperial Order was attacking at the time. Me and another friend were pressed for time. Action had to be taken.”

 

[Loske Treicolt]

"I feel like nobody knows how it is when you're in charge. Very by the seat of your pants, and on ever-changing terms."

Amea's cool, casual and affectionate demeanour was initially unsettling. Like a remix of an old, familiar song with a play on your favourite verse you needed to listen to before getting the hang of it. The more she spoke, the more Loske observed the ease and naturalness to it all. Like the operator was finally comfortable in hew new skin.

Then the remix dropped the beat.

“Admitted to Evelyn that I loved her.”
“Met her grandparents.”

On her friend's behalf, Loske's heart jumped and fluttered. Amea Virou had found love. The right kind of love, it sounded like. Not like trying to shove a square into a circle. Something that fit this new skin, this new person. This person she was supposed to be, spiritually, romantically, physically, secularly. It all fit.

A goofy, warm smile spread across the young woman's face and she concealed it behind the rim of her water glass, taking a gulp.

"I'm so happy for you, Amea." Loske offered, and set the cup down into the ring of water it left behind. "Evelyn sounds like everything you deserve and so much more. You look, sound, feel genuinely happy." Everything Kaili couldn't be.

“Might have accidentally been the accomplice to the murder of a known Sith Lord. But in my defence, he was in my way and the New Imperial Order was attacking at the time. Me and another friend were pressed for time. Action had to be taken.”

She snapped her fingers together, as if recalling a detail on the edge of her mind. "Dantooine, right? What were you doing there? I saw the bounty for you, how do you handle that and Evelyn? Is she..is she a fighter too?"

 

[Amea Virou]

Loske Treicolt

That look on Loske’s face was telegraphed before she had even managed to crack a smile. The lift in her brows, the way her eyelids slowly began to peel back before an initially manic look set on her face that evened into something more resembling joy as her teeth were bared. Amea smiled alongside Loske, her own lips split into a toothy grin as she felt a blush spread on her lips.

“She is amazing.” She intersected Loske’s talk before she continued to listen again. “Yes, Dantooine.” Amea nodded as Loske snapped her fingers. “Me and, well Runi, had a tip-off on some artifacts that were going to be moved. The plan was to enter as a set of students and leave again before they were any the wiser. A dumb plan in hindsight, but one that would have worked had not the entire bedamned Sith-Imperial echelon been there for some reason.”

For a moment Amea’s brows furrowed as she contemplated the events that had transpired. “I saw the Eternal Empress cradle her dead husband, and in a sick way I think that was what triggered something inside of me, you know?” She glanced up at Loske. “That could have been me in Evelyn’s arms if things were different.”

“Nothing scared me more than the possibility, and I had to let her know. I had to tell her how important she was, and as it turned out I wasn’t alone.” Amea smiled again. “She is amazing. A bit of a pacifist, but everything that I should have strived to be from the start.”

“I…” Amea chuckled as she processed the mere words about to part her lips. “I gave up that life just for her. We still run some shady deals every now and then to spice things up. Some freight here and there that might not be exactly legal to carry. Guns for insurgents on enslaved planets, refugees looking for a better home. Beside that I have a few jobs I run through others, but…“

“Yeah, I think- no, actually, I know- that right now this is where I am meant to be, you know?” Amea smiled again, her eyes beaming with warmth at Loske. “Is- is this what you feel when you are with Maynard?”

 

[Loske Treicolt]

“Me and, well Runi, had a tip-off on some artifacts that were going to be moved. The plan was to enter as a set of students and leave again before they were any the wiser. A dumb plan in hindsight, but one that would have worked had not the entire bedamned Sith-Imperial echelon been there for some reason.”

"A pair of students? Were you in uniform?" She tittered at the thought.

A creeping sense of knowing suffused its way through Loske's psyche. Her hand somehow found its way to cover her mouth as she listened to the tale of the broken Empress, and the epiphany of loss in love. Another story of war smiting the possibility of happiness.

Spite made a fist and clenched itself around the muscle pumping behind her ribcage.

“Yeah, I think- no, actually, I know- that right now this is where I am meant to be, you know?”
“Is- is this what you feel when you are with Maynard?”

"Right now and always. It's the," The blonde nodded, closing her eyes giving a dreamy sigh, letting herself gush on request. "It's the promise of forever every time we're together. And then you want," she looked across at Amea who seemed to understand now, what it was like to have a level of codependence on someone "More and more time together. That's all you start to want. Like an addiction that makes you better." She smiled, long enough for the waiter come by and refill their water glasses. She watched the liquid transfer from the container to glass, and her face fell, reflecting more on what the thief had admitted to seeing on Dantooine.

"You should be scared, though. In a healthy way, the way you are –– to make changes in your life." She was silent for a moment before she drew in a deep breath and the waiter left. The platter still pending. "I've done it, Amea. I've seen him die..held hi--" The rest of her sentence got caught at the back of her throat, reflection shooting sharp pangs through her psyche.

"Don't get there, don't do it. Even if you come through on the other side, it hurts so.." her voice thinned out, becoming small and shaky at the reflection of blood on her hands, the strength of their bond waning as spirit drained from Maynard Treicolt 's body "s-so much."

She exhaled a tense breath and clicked her teeth together. Her hands felt numb, and she dropped them to her lap just to feel something. "I hate this war. I hate what it does to people, and I hate how involved I am." For a moment's reprieve, those unfeeling hands covered her face. "I asked to walk away once, but we can't. It means too much to Maynard and somehow, now, we have to make it work through a tireless crusade against evil and I.." she shuddered and bit her lip, unable to stop the admission she’d been internalizing for months "We’ve always talked about being a family, making a family. He asked me to take another step and I felt like I had to say no because of this war. It broke my heart to say, but I did because I'm scared every time it's the dawn of a new fight, because I know how that Empress felt. I've been there, and I never ever want to be there again, but then I voluntarily get in these positions where that's possible again and again and again and I ––"

Completely ignorant of the situation, the waiter finally arrived with the promised splendour of the diner platter. Fully equipped with the little blue balls decorating between the sandwiches. She smiled weakly in thanks.

Loske's voice was small when she sheepishly deviated from her vulnerability and meekly admitted her rationale: "I ordered this because I thought your story would be longer and it'd give you enough time to really spill it all."

 

[Amea Virou]

Loske Treicolt

“Hey. Loske, hey.” Amea whispered under her breath and moved in to wrap an arm around Loske’s shoulders. “I’m here. Stay with me.”

It was a far cry from the Loske she had been used to. The strains of war and trauma spared no-one in its path and for someone like the blonde within her embrace there was no exception made. In truth it distressed Amea to see a person she had thought to be so unshakeable break down. She wanted there to be an exception, but even the most jagged of rocks were eventually worn down by the tide.

She let Loske spill her soul bare because that was clearly what she needed. Amea’s thumb gently stroked up and down along the blonde woman’s shoulder. The story came to an unresolved end and Amea quickly wrapped around Loske again with a tight squeeze.

“You know me,” She laughed in an effort to lighten the mood. “I’m still learning the ropes with these things.” Amea remained close-by, moved the plate closer so that she could remain within hugging distance in case it was needed again. “But if you want, I will tell the story one more time. But this time, I can take it slow.”

She took a piece from the platter and handed it to Loske. “Would you like that?”

 

[Loske Treicolt]

Heat suffused through her cheeks, colouring them a shade rosier than norm.

She hadn't completely lost it, at least. She wasn't crying. She was just a ball of frustration and hurt and wanted to unwind and get away from it. Talking out loud, she realized how little she'd discussed it and how much she'd internalized. It wasn't that she didn't air her grievances as they happened with Maynard–– but they'd become a cyclical echo chamber of support and duty. Constantly traipsing the border that thinly existed between both.

"Uh," Was her stop-gap reaction when Amea wrapped her arms around Loske's shoulders. Hugs were a typical evidence of affection from the blonde, but from Amea?

Bewildering.

"Thank you. This is nice.."

As if her mind wasn't numbed enough, the thumb along her shoulder sent it into another thunderstorm of emotive questions, feeling, everything. "Ah, I'm sorry." She murmured, and let a long breath out. "I..I usually through everything with Maynard, I didn't realize how much was building up behind the proverbial levy."

It felt humbling to have Amea Virou react with such care, and she accepted the offered snack with a slow nod. It took every restraint she had not to say she felt babied. After all, her friend was new to the physical affection language. She peered at the sandwich and it's cut crusts, still bobbing her head in agreement.

"Yeah, I would love that."

 

[Amea Virou]

Loske Treicolt

“Anger is… Entirely understandable.” Amea admitted and slowly nodded as she grabbed her own. Mould cheese and some form of salted lunch meat. Not a personal favorite, but beggars and choosers and all that. “So, what I told you wasn’t exactly a lie. We did meet by chance. I had signed up with a crew to keep myself out of people’s hair. Wander as I used to. This was with a father and his adopted son, a mismatch gone right for the both of them.”

Amea took a bite, quickly swallowed and put the sandwich down on a small paper blanket. A lazy hand swept back and forth to rub away the grease before she glanced over at her friend again. The hand shook towards the ground and Amea opened her mouth to continue the tale.

“We were doing some pretty standard patrols. Ensuring that nobody was stepping out of line with their salvage around ORC borders and all that.” She said and wrapped the small paper piece around the bottom of the sandwich to get herself a second bite. “For the first few days there was nothing, but this day things changed. We skipped to a new system when residual imprints of a hazardous jump began to flood our boards. Into the system, a few paces away, jumps a banged-up vessel, and right after it another far bigger one.”

“There was no doubt about it. This was a case of someone creating wreckage rather than finding those that were already floating around in space.” Amea frowned. “... This is the part where we slide up to the side, put a beacon on it and let ourselves sort of get captured on a hunch I had.”

 

[Loske Treicolt]

Was she angry? Jedi weren't supposed to get angry. She bit into the sliced bread while thinking about the word. Jedi weren't supposed to hate either, and she'd already admitted to the dismay in her circumstance.

Maybe angry was the right word after all.

The little sandwich was chewier than expected, but it kept her busy enough to focus on the story Amea Virou offered. Sign up for random crews –– Loske nodded at that. She'd done that for a few months alongside her brother, and then Djorn on the Outer Rim before devoting her life to times in the core.

Chance meetings seemed to be quite serendipitous for the new Amea. Their friendship had been recovered by similar space port happenstance. The story took a turn for the exciting. Evelyn being a crewmate sounded significantly more exciting than listening to Yonaka seventeen times on repeat somewhere in the unknown regions. "Oh!" Loske chirped along in response, glancing at the sandwich to see what she'd bitten into without looking at first.

"Trust right from the get-go. A good but..dangerous start. I'm going to assume your hunch proved correct, hence the...what with the killshot you mentioned earlier.

How did that feel, by the way?"

Kaili Talith, the woman who wouldn't equip her astromech with anything more than a little electric zapper, was dead in so many ways.

 

[Amea Virou]

Loske Treicolt

“Well, we hadn’t met yet. We didn’t even know if the crew had survived.” Amea corrected Loske with a quick lift of her finger before she grabbed her sandwich again. “Just had to do the right thing and all that. We went alongside the ship until we landed next to it in the hangar. I knew there was something that was up. The Firebird and its crew would face execution. And I wasn’t wrong.”

“Sent them a threat, or really a note of encouragement to cooperate since I was ORC. Me and Evelyn cooked up a lie right there on the spot. She gave me the time I needed to signal for my captain to bring out the turbolasers and point them at this thug’s men.” Amea exhaled with mirth, a chuckle of sorts as she remembered her first few interactions together with Evelyn. “The turrets went off, Evelyn in her ship, the captain of my ship in his.”

“A big fight ensued, but we…”

“See, you say that,” Amea said and aimed the gun at his exposed face before she pulled the trigger. “But I won’t.”

“... We won.” She seemed taken aback for a second. “I didn’t feel much at the time, just another name to the list. But now…” She shook her head. “After all the death and destruction that I have caused, some because of the spark I set off in that very moment, I never felt much regret until now.”

By now Amea had gotten through a decent portion of the food. Her stomach was not happy with her in the slightest. She shook the mood and smiled at Loske.

“So she brought out this little creature. Sickly pale, but I could feel its energy in the force. It needed tending to and I was willing to help. Suppose I felt responsible for Evelyn, I couldn’t just leave her there.” Amea took a new bite against her better judgment. “So we went to the only people we knew had a shot at understanding him.”

Amea raised her brow to mark the point. “... The jedi. And that’s where that plot came into play.”

 

[Loske Treicolt]

The sandwiches were as good as could be expected. Chewy, flavourful, and the texture wasn't too dry. Loske hardly found herself reaching for water at any interval through the rest of Amea's regaling.

When she did reach for her water, she thumbed residual liquid off from her lip and quirked a brow at one of the details that piqued her pilot's interest. The question landed somewhere between sentences of the story. "What kind of ship does Evelyn have?"

“After all the death and destruction that I have caused, some because of the spark I set off in that very moment, I never felt much regret until now.”

Loske fell silent again, scanning the brunette's pretty countenance for emotion to reinforce the sentiment. With Amea by her side, she reached for the girl's hand. This affectionate display was always easy for her, but with Amea's reinforcement of it earlier the gesture was doubly accessible.

"I'm sorry. I don't want to lie and say that goes away with time, but..I think..in this galaxy we live in, and everyone having to die at some point or another, you just start to rationalize that your reason was better than whatever other option." It wasn't the best of pep talks. Loske hated killing, the only murder she could ever justify were Sith.

"Oohh, a new pet and a Jedi plot. Please continue."

 

[Amea Virou]

Loske Treicolt

“I uhhh—” Amea blinked for a moment. “Huh. I never really thought about it. It was always just sort of there. A backdrop between one trip and the other. Just sort of helped us drift from place to place.”

And that thought alone was enough to make Amea pause for a moment. She knew it was something spacious enough to fit people with comfort. Not quite a luxury vessel, but not too shoddy either. The name of the make escaped her in the moment and shook her head with a shrug and let the thought go.

“I know, Loske.” Amea offered her friend with an encouraging smile. “The galaxy is cold if you let it be and all that.” Amea lifted her attention, set her eyes on Loske to look her in the eyes. “I am just tired of letting it. At least when there are people I can make it less so with.”

Amea took another sandwich and bit down. Some sort of nut butter and bitter fruit jam. Her lips curled into a grimacing frown as she slowly put it down on her plate and reluctantly swallowed the piece in her mouth.

“So,” She groaned as her tongue continued to twist in her mouth. “Oh god, it’s still there. In the damn roof of my mouth.”

With a deep chug of the water before her, Amea gave a hard swallow.

“What I meant to say was,” She cleared her throat. “We had arrived on this seemingly unremarkable planet with a Jedi enclave. I’d wager it was a remnant of the gulag plague or something, one of those old enclaves that were reconnected through the Jedi Academy Network a few years ago.” Amea waved her hand. “Anyway,” She sniveled for a second before she went along yet again. “As we walked to the enclave we were met by a few guards who greeted us and managed to spill the beans that they had seem theft recently.”

“Me being me, I called them out on it. Didn’t want to risk losing Hoshi, who is not a pet by the way,” Amea put on a mock-indignant look and put her nose in the air. “He’s a very valued member of our team and an absolute master at being cute.” A wide grin set on her lips as Amea glanced back down again. “He was in a bad way and the Jedi did confirm that he has some sort of connection to the light. They suggested he rest in their courtyard, and we agreed to it if it would make him feel better.”

“As he rested we went and talked to some Padawans to get a feel for what they had lost in the previous thefts. It usually weren’t anything too big, but the evidence of someone ramping up their efforts was right there.”

“So we went to the bar to discuss our next move on this, and you will never guess what happened!”

 

[Loske Treicolt]

“I am just tired of letting it. At least when there are people I can make it less so with.”

This version of her friend was still baffling, though appreciated. The blonde offered a shrug of acceptance and agreement and poked at one of the small blue spheres that was supposed to be cheese.

“Oh god, it’s still there. In the damn roof of my mouth.”

"Happens to me all the time." Loske admitted, tentatively popping the planet-shaped morsel into her mouth and chewing thoughtfully. Her palette wasn't that sophisticated, it was more so to register if it was worth swallowing or not. It wasn't totally awful, so it fell on the scale of edible. Much like the sandwich prior.

Didn’t want to risk losing Hoshi, who is not a pet by the way,”
“He’s a very valued member of our team and an absolute master at being cute.”

"Hoshiii," Loske part parroted-part cooed and melted a bit into the table with a smile. "Cute name."

“So we went to the bar to discuss our next move on this, and you will never guess what happened!”

"Gods Amea, if you really want to retire from the intel agent life, you should definitely pursue some form of storytelling. I'm hooked.

I'm going to guess something not-so-healing for poor Hoshi, all tied into some wider, more sinister plot. Or the Padawans you spoke to weren't actually students, they were..something worse. I don't know." She leaned forward, eagerly. "Puhlease go on."

 

[Amea Virou]

Loske Treicolt

“Well!” Amea continued with more dramatic flair. “This really weird and distressed twi’lek woman approached us to tell us that she knows of a plot at the Enclave. Me and Evelyn had a bit of a moment where we both just sort of aligned and understood that something felt off about this. So, naturally, we gave this woman information and told her to kark off, in case she was working with the burglars.”

“In retrospect, I might even have pulled the cold schutta act a bit too hard. She looked positively broken by the time we left, but what we did tell her was to own up to her mistake and admit to her wrong-doing. Which, it seemed she decided to do.” Amea shrugged at that, it had worked in the end. “See, we needed her as bait. If we wanted to have the burglars act above their pay grade, we needed to goad them into thinking we just brought something incredibly valuable to the enclave. While I very much doubt she told them directly, word always travels fast in these small towns.”

“Naturally, come night we decide to rest for a bit.” Amea paused. “The burglars arrived en masse. Aggressively exposed themselves to be the guards that had greeted me and Evelyn when we first arrived. Or well, one of them at the very least. There was one good guy amongst the guards, but they knocked him out quite quickly.”

“They began to make demands, threatened to set fire to this… Religious jedi-tree-thing.”

“So, I instigated a fight. Things escalated.”

 

[Loske Treicolt]

Loske was enthralled with each twist and turn the story took. Amea and Evelynn sounded resourceful, fast-on-their-feed, and do-good focused. The longer the story went on, the smaller the remaining platter became. Soon, they were reduced to a smattering of morsels.

"I've witnessed a religious jedi-tree-thing." The blonde interjected, finding an opportunity to offer something to the story. Amea Virou had been right, explaining more of the first-date was making her feel better. Or at least, replacing her frustrations with something more entertaining and enthralling. Loske loved love. She loved relationships. And to hear her best friend speak about something that moved her heart was wonderfully immersive.

"Very cool, and very mind-numbing, actually. I always used to think of nexuses as large, cavernous basins. Not taking the shape of everyday objects or flora. Did it make you feel anything?"