Private Funny Seeing You Here

[Jem Fossk]

Courscant
Jedi Temple
Arlo Renard

The last time Jem had been here the place had been under attack.

It had been her home. Her friends had been alive. Dagon had been an enigma, and her father... well. As far as Jem had been concerned, her father didn't exist. Jem had known nothing about anything.

A stupid child.

What would she say to herself if she could back? The answer was a bitter one: Nothing. As much as Jem resented what she had gone through, this temple and everyone in it and survived because she had gone through it.

The role she played in her father's death did little to appease her imposture syndrome. She had donned the jacket and taken Dagon's hand, but her decision to ... to..... she couldn't even say it.

A jedi. She was trying to be a jedi again.

Sweat ran down her back as she wavered awkwardly in place. Dagon had taken her through here to grab "something". He could coax her into training and stake outs no problem, but getting her here had been like dragging a cat across carpet.

I'll be right back, he had promised, with that crooked grin that masked his plan with sympathy. The world wasn't going to implode but her chest felt like it. Jem pressed her back into one of the rare columns that had survived the temple's sacking and counted down the seconds.

5,6,7 ... don't look anyone in the eye.

 

[Arlo Renard]

Kai was standing on a ledge, turning a grappling gun over in his hands.

Back in his Sithspawn days, he had been able to swing around Coruscant by creating ropes made from his flesh. But he couldn’t do that anymore. A grapple was the next best thing, or so he hoped. After all, Dag had one, so it couldn’t be that hard to use, right?

He had a lot of reservations about the device, but he was at least willing to try it. Eventually.

Taking a deep breath, he raised his arm and pointed the gun toward the half-ruined ceiling of the Temple. Upon pulling the trigger, the hook shot forth and wrapped around one of the rafters.

Kai gave it an experimental tug, then glanced down toward the floor. He wasn’t so high up that he would be killed if he fell, but the drop would definitely hurt, to say nothing about breaking bones.

Attaching the cord to his belt, he braced himself, then jumped over the edge, trying to swing across to the other side of the room...

... only for the clip on his belt to break.

He fell through the air, gravity dragging him toward the floor. Swallowing his panic, he reached out with the Force just in time to catch himself, hovering inches above hard stone.

Scrambling to his feet, his face was flushed bright red with embarrassment. He looked around the room to see if anyone had been watching. Luckily there was only one other person around, and she was—

<Jem? What are you doing here?> he blurted out without thinking. Then, remembering what had just occurred, he quickly added, <You didn't see anything.>

Jem Fossk​

 

[Jem Fossk]

What are you doing here?

Jem flinched but shoved it back, cognitive of the way her chest pinched and fluttered with panic. In the past it would have taken over her thoughts like a haze. She took a deep breath instead and willed herself to let it go.

The whispering darkside grew a little softer, but remained. It always would.

"Dagon had to run an errand," she answered, fingers fluttering to tug at her collar... her hair... the hood she debated putting on. The last time Kai had seen her she had been at her worst. A certifiable lunatic. "He brought me," she uttered quickly, trying to reassure them both there'd be no need for alarm.

But then again Kai had just fallen from the sky.

She looked up, alarmed despite herself-- "What--"

Arlo Renard

 

[Arlo Renard]

Dag had brought her along on an errand. Okay… that didn’t explain why she was acting like she’d been caught committing a crime.

Unless she really wasn’t supposed to be here—which actually seemed pretty likely, now that he thought about it—and was afraid he’d tattle.

He followed her gaze up toward the grapple still dangling from the ceiling. With a sigh, he reached up to unhook it with the Force.

<I must not have latched it properly,> he said by way of explanation. <I’m not supposed to be doing this in here. So don’t tell on me, okay? I won’t tell anyone else you’re here, if you’re trying to keep it a secret.>

Jem Fossk​

 

[Jem Fossk]

"I'm not," she asserted. She heard the force in her tone and coaxed her muscles into relaxing. Dagon had told her no one that mattered would care, but trusting that would take a fair bit of time. She still carried a lot of guilt.

She relented with a sigh and forced her jittering fingers into her armpits.


"I won't. ... but you're doing it all wrong." Her eyes danced skeptically over the carabiners. "...You don't use this stuff-- you use the force."

 

[Arlo Renard]

Oh. So Jem was allowed to be here, and was just acting weird for reasons he didn’t understand. Yep, that sounded about right.

"I won't... but you're doing it all wrong... You don't use this stuff—you use the Force."

<I didn’t ask for a critique,> he grumbled. <And I know I can use the Force. I’m trying not to rely on it so much.>

He hadn’t needed to back when he was a Doppelganger. His body had been a multipurpose tool capable of amazing feats like swinging through the air tethered by cords made of his own malleable flesh. Though he'd searched high and low for ways of replicating his Sithspawn abilities with gadgets and gear, nothing ever worked quite right. It simply wasn’t the same. Everyone kept telling him he just needed to give it time, keep practicing until things got better, but there were limits to what the human body could do that he hadn’t had to deal with before.

Not that Jem would know about any of that. She had never seen him in action, swinging around the city-planet with all the ease of a spider navigating its web. The closest she’d gotten was when he beat her to the top of the kyber arch, using his stretchy body to cheat.

Well. Was it really cheating if you were just using your natural abilities?

<I didn’t need this before, but now I do, and I’m just not used to it yet. That’s all.>

Catching the hook in his hand, he gave Jem a slow wink.

Jem Fossk​

 

[Jem Fossk]

Jem held up her hands passively. "Oookay..." Yanno what? Maybe she wasn't so scared of these halls. Maybe she could follow Dagon after all. It suddenly seemed better than standing here. She shoved her hands into her pocket and squared off her shoulders, mirroring his defensiveness.

"Well I'm gonna go find Dagon so... have fun with that. I guess. " She sliiiid out from her spot on the wall and started taking wide steps around him, avoiding another spat before it could begin.

It was odd to think some things never changed. And she was... she was almost ok with that. She furrowed her brows at him as she left.

 

[Arlo Renard]

<What?> Kai asked, genuinely bewildered to see her leaving already. <Was it something I said?...>

No, it was the slow wink, you idiot. Who does that to their sworn enemy?

<Okay good, okay fine.> He spun the hook in his hands with a casual air, trying to act like he didn’t care. <Bye—>

The hook fell from his grasp and crashed to the floor, cracking the tiles on impact. Flinching, he stooped to gingerly pick it up, then took off running, knowing the loud crash and shatter would probably draw attention.

He fled right past the departing Jem, giving her a vague hand signal that was universally understood to mean you should probably run too if you don’t want to get blamed for that, sorry.

Jem Fossk​