Gaining Knowledge, and a Sister

[Allya Vi'Dreya]

Genetics, biology, cloning. Allya was getting used to building armor, weapons, droids, vehicles, and the like already, however, there was this ache inside. She wasn't where she wanted to be. Her dreams were filled with cryptic visions of an army of biology and technology truly fused. It didn't make sense, and she hoped if she managed to get more information, learn about it all, she could finally make sense of the dreams she has had since she was young.

It was this quest, that brought her to bring her ugly little Z'ceptor to Kamino, to the most preeminent cloners and geneticists in the galaxy. It was a place to start anyway. Covered head to toe in her armor and cloak, the Sithling called in a transmission. “This is Lady Vexia, requesting permission to land.” She had been using this name for quite some time, and it was getting fairly well known in CIS space. The little one was quite pleased by this. The comms came back, and instructed her to land.

The Z-ceptor was a good little craft, and it easily entered the atmosphere, and landed in one of the many giant floating cities. She had been told by her father this facility would be more...accommodating to her. After exiting her craft, she was greeted by a Kaminoan. They took her identification and she entered the facility. For days, they began teaching her the basics of their craft, and the knowledge hungry girl took it all in.

Nearly a week into her studies there, the Sithling, free from her armor, went out to one of the lower landings, that was just above the water, for use when the storms had died down, and the waves were relatively calmer. It was a pretty sight, with all the water. Head tilts to the side, her dark hair slightly falling in her face. Dark brown eyes gaze out at the waters, and her nose scrunches.

Getting close to the railing, she looked over it. Did she see something swimming close to the surface? Oh she couldn't tell so well. If only she had the enhanced sensors of her armor, this would be a breeze. However, instead, she half closed her eyes and reached out with the force, searching the area for anything that could be there. “Hmmm.”

 

[Damsy Callat]

Form: Squaloid Tag: [member="Allya Vi'Dreya"]​

​

Even though Damsy loved the water, she would've been telling a blatant lie if she said that it wasn't lonely. The marine flora was dangerous and, even though she was more than able to hold her own against most of them due to her squaloid physiology, it wasn't an easy life to swim with one eye always trained over her shoulder. Plus, none of the calmer creatures were sentient enough to speak to her. She was very often, utterly and completely, alone, barring the few visits Metus paid to her and the ones she paid to Naroh Se.

There was only so much hunting that Damsy could do before she would be wasting meat. It wasn't nessicarily that Damsy didn't enjoy senseless killing--that was yet to be determined; she hadn't had the chance to figure out--but doing so would require too much energy that she simply couldn't expand, what, between predators perpetually closing in on her submarine territory buffering Tipoca City and her circadian rhythm requiring her to swim and eat around the standard clock.

But, today, Damsy had something special to do. Since becoming a proper Dauntless Commando, Damsy had finally gotten a waterproof wrist datapad and communicator. Only Naroh Se, A'Runda, her special force comrades, and her father had her frequency, so it wasn't a surprise when the Kaminoan female contacted the Sithspawn:

Changeling, the holomail read, the weather predictors are picking up on an atmospheric anomaly that will most likely cumulate to a Class Two ocean storm. Anchored buoy TC-034 was knocked offline by the last storm and is not prepared for prevailing winds of such speeds. Would you be willing to fix it? -NS

Y, was the short reply that Damsy could give, for her talons could not type on the screen well. While she waited for information from Naroh Se about the maintenance the buoy needed, the siren decided to take advantage of the unusually temperate day at the surface. She swam up the continental slope from the abyssal plain, but not before plucking Trinj out of his burrow by his tail. The seamouse had burrowed into the benthic mud surrounding the hydrothermal vent that Damsy used for her heat. It was a hard life, living under the cold and pressure of the deep sea, but it was a necessity on Kamino to live underneath storm wave base.

Damsy blinked as the day's relatively bright sunlight filtered down to meet her as she neared the surface, breaking it with a laugh. She flopped back onto her dorsal fins, then Trinj crawled out of her hands, up her arm, and across her flat and scaly pectorals. The amphibious rodent curled up on her breastbone. As his body began to dry, his fins morphed into little paws.

 

[Allya Vi'Dreya]

Staring down at the waters, the young Mandalorian's head tilted a bit. Okay, something was down there. Something different than everything else. She reached out with her mind, and it would feel almost like a tender caress across the mind of Damsy, she attempts to reach out, sense, and communicate with what it was, to get it to come closer to the surface so she could study it. The girl wasn't the best at this, to be fair, but she was better trained than many.

Dark head tilts in a signature move of hers, causing her hair to fall in her face a moment. Brushing it out of the way, the girl shrugs, and looks out into the distance. Hmmm, if only she had a rebreather, and a wetsuit. The water was fairly cold for a human after all. Then again, it could want to eat her, who knew. But there was fun in that too, battling strong creatures. Looking back down, she waited to see if anything would come up to the surface.

Tapping her foot on the metal, she waited and waited. Gaaah, this had her entire mind in a roil, and she wasn't the most patient of people to begin with! Peering down at the water once more, she squinted her eyes, trying to peer into the inky depths. Then, suddenly, like a pop out of the water, the cutest thing she had ever seen in her entire life came out. Some freakish mix of a human and fish and something else and it was so overwhelming.

Large brown eyes go wide, and that twisted sense of right and wrong, good, bad, and pretty and ugly filtered through her head. “Oh my, so pretty.” She stated loudly, to get across the waves and wind. For a low sighted Damsy, she would appear as a younger, female version of Metus. Allya gave a wave to the fish girl, and a bright smile. Oh this just made her day! “I'm Vexia, who are you?”

[member="Damsy Callat"]

 

[Damsy Callat]

At first, Damsy thought maybe the sunlight was giving her a very mild headache, for she was more used to the darkness of the deep sea or, at the very least, light dimmed by the cushion of the water. She furrowed her brow and closed her eyes. And then the calming swish of the open sea waves was broken.

"Oh my, so pretty."

Eyes flying open, Damsy gave a choking gasp, and, shooting upright, dove to the side and swam a few meters under the surface. She quickly retraced herself, however, apologetically catching Trinj as he fell, still curled in a tight ball. The young Sithspawn poked her head out of the ocean just in time to hear the important part of the girl's introduction, in addition to her wave. Is she...excited to see me? Yes, that smile suggested as much. Why does she look so much like Father?

Forcing herself to ignore those questions for the time being, she yelled back, as loud as her raspy voice would allow, "I'm Damsy!"

[member="Allya Vi'Dreya"]

 

[Allya Vi'Dreya]

She smiled so warmly, tucking hair behind her ear. Looking around a moment, she raised a hand. “Stay here, I'll be right back, I promise, I just want to get into the water too!” Running back up the ramp, using force speed to dash, fearing the pretty mermaid disappearing from sight, Allya ran right into the changing areas. Finding some fins, a wetsuit, a mask and rebreather, she swiftly changed in record time.

After, she dashed back, in a silly manner, to the docks, then dived into the water. The goggles and rebreather rested around her neck, secured from falling away in the waves. She kicked with her finned feet and swam around, hopefully, unless she left, up to Damsy. “Sorry, I just wanted to go swimming too, seeing you in here made me want to....well, um, get closer to you, I suppose!” She grinned sheepishly, easily keeping her head above the waves. The girl was clearly an adept swimmer and diver, just one of the many trainings she had throughout her life. So she hadn't stretched or anything specifically for this, but, she would be fine. Or she thought she would be fine. She could tread water for hours, so yeah.

This was clearly one of her more impulsive actions. But she didn't feel in danger, and felt no threat from this being. “So you are Damsy? Well, Vexia is more my nickname....erm, I'm Allya Vi'Dreya, it's a pleasure to meet you. Do you live here, or are you just visiting or um, native? Something, maybe? Oh gosh, words....lots of words.” Her face contorts into a silly expression, as she loses track of what she was trying to say.

 

[Damsy Callat]

Damsy wasn't scared--no--she was ashamed. She was close to diving away as Vexia disappeared into the city. And, as the girl reappeared and swam closer, Damsy stayed put.

"Uh, a-alright," Damsy stuttered. After a moment of thinking about what she could do that would seem friendly, she extended her arm towards Vexia. Trinj understood what his owner was trying to do and, unfurling himself, scampered over her scaly arm to her hand. There, he stood atop her bony, taloned fingers. Damsy gave her arm a gentle shake, coaxing the sea-mouse off and onto the other woman's shoulders.

Then she returned her arm to the water by her side and blinked. "...[member="Allya Vi'Dreya"]?" she repeated slowly. There hadn't been much reason to go by her full name on Kamino and, as she had been here mostly all of her life, she had only heard it a few times. Most recently, though, on her excursion to Thaere Privo she had signed in a Damsy Callat--her middle name--in an attempt not to be an embarrassment to her father the Vicelord.

"I'm...uh..." She paused to think again. This had to be a trick. Didn't it? She never knew she had siblings, and, how could she? The HRD of Darth Metus created by Naroh Se that Damsy had known as the same of her flesh-and-blood father had spent all of her childhood on Kamino, to watch over her. How could she have another sibling?

Maybe another DNA splicing experiment that hadn't gone so awry. Damsy felt her eye burn with the threat of tears, but it most likely didn't look like much to Allya due to her already very wet face. Still, she quickly thought to ask as a distraction, "Uh, do you wanna play?"

 

[Allya Vi'Dreya]

She reached up, and with the most gentle of touches, caressed over the sea mouse and smiled brilliantly at the mouse. The water was chilly for her, but she knew the suit would make it better shortly, as her body heat warmed the liquid that was trapped in the suit. She reached over, and gingerly placed the sea mouse back where it belonged, with Damsy. “Just...call me Vexia. It's easier. I don't honestly like my name. I have a lot of problems with my family. I love them, just....” She sighs and shrugs. “It's complicated. I never really fit in with anyone, and was taken far away to train a lot.” Perhaps she had just held onto the emotions to long, so she just blurted it out. “Ahhhh! Sorry! Yes, I would love to play, its why I got in the water. Besides, I just thought you were so pretty and elegant I couldn't help but want to come in and say Hi.”

She reaches out, to try and take one of Damsy's taloned hands in her own, but stops short of doing so, not wanting to be pushy. The girl was curious, and it gleemed in her eyes. No matter how Damsy felt about herself, in every action, Allya showed that she felt Damsy was something pretty, elegant, to be admired, something to be curious about. There wasn't any kind of romantic hinting or the like, it was just the girl being overly excited. Especially after being stuck in the classrooms for the week. While she had learned a lot about the basics of genetics and the cloning process, it wasn't exactly fun. It was needed though, if she ever wanted to complete her life project.

The Sithling had no idea Damsy was about to cry. There was no hint of fear, or revulsion, or hate, or anything else. Just admiration. “I bet you are really good at swimming. I'm not to bad, but I didn't really learn how to dive till later on. There was this deep sea where I did my training, and, they felt it was needed for me to learn. I admit, this will probably be the first time I swam for fun in awhile!” Head tilts to the side. However, the little one was very attune to the force, and to the emotions of people around her. Being adept at force sense made this a breeze. Reaching over, she takes Damsy's taloned hand and squeezes it. “Can you show me what to do? Where to go? I can't go super deep in this, but, I'll follow as best I can.”

 

[Damsy Callat]

Damsy didn't know what to think. But she nodded when Vexia's monologue concluded with a question. "Sure," she replied while thinking where it might be fun for Vexia to swim. Hunting was probably out of the question. But this would be fun for Damsy too, if she ever let herself open up to the girl who very clearly wanted to be her friend, as the storminess of Kamino rarely allowed her to venture out of the depths towards the surface.

"Don't worry, I'll make sure to stay in the sunlight zone," she added. Above two hundred meters the sun still filtered though the often violent waters and Vexia's body would not make it to the bottom of the topmost ocean layer even accounting for the abilities of her suit. She'd likely only be able to make it to forty thanks to her apparent fitness, but that depth was more than enough to have an adventure.

"I'll go slow," she said lastly, pulling her hand away from her unknown sister carefully, as to avoid cutting her. Then she dove and swam a ways before waiting for Vexia to catch up. At first, she swam quickly, to be able to watch and gauge Vexia's speed. Now in the water, Damsy's eyes adjusted to their salt water element and realized the true likeness of Vexia's face to her father's. Quickly, though, Damsy shook that thought away and led Vexia on, adjusting her own speed to swim alongside her. Just a single lazy flick of her broad tail flute every few meters did the job.

In a few minutes, a kilometer-thick rock column jutting suddenly up from the abyss came into view. Damsy pointed towards it, specifically a small underwater tunnel in the side of the wall facing them, and made a series of excited, dolphin-like clicks that vibrated through the water. She led Vexia up to the tunnel and swam in after her, to make sure no predators followed.

At the outlet of the tunnel was a limestone cavern with a small skylight eroded in the top that allowed light to descend onto and reflect off the water, giving it an almost-unnatural blue color. There were also gaps in the rock in which to sit and rest if Vexia so desired.

[member="Allya Vi'Dreya"]

 

[Allya Vi'Dreya]

She was following the elegant woman deep under the water. Allya was a strong swimmer, able to push her body to limits most could only dream of. As they explored under the water, her eyes were wide in the mask. Her equipment was simple, but effective. It kept her core temperature warm enough, her vision clear enough, and the fins helped her swim more effectively. She had a good technique too, so she wasted little energy.

As they swim, Allya watches the beautiful mer-woman, so elegant swimming through the water. Her heart quickened a bit, but she wasn't sure why. She seemed so familiar, so comforting to be around. And then add in how interesting, and pretty this woman was, it was confusing. As they peaked into the limestone cave, she took off the rebreather, and her mask, letting them hang around her neck. “Wow! Hahah! This is beautiful!” Eyes look back at the mermaid. “Wow....you are beautiful too.” The girl blurts out, with a bit of widening of her eyes. A blush to her cheek and she looked away coughing. “H-Have we met before? You seem so familiar for some reason? Do I look familiar to you at all?”

Reaching out, she brushes her finger tips against Damsy's cheek, and her head tilts. It was right on the tip of her tongue. Ahhh, it was driving her inside. “Sorry, I probably shouldn't have done that, but...I just can't get it out of my mind.” Reaching out, she gently pokes Damsy's nose. “I've been trying to learn Cloning and genetics here, its why I came to Kamino. I'm trying to learn as much as I can. It's been hard work, but I have a much better grasp of it now, after a couple weeks.” She spoke, eyes going around, looking at the beautiful cave now, reluctantly.
[member="Damsy Callat"]

 

[Damsy Callat]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmwiTfm5wnQ​

Damsy liked the way the water reflected the light here, and how the it caught off the dampened stone. Light and colors acted a similar way when the sithspawn beached herself on top of rock islands to sun--not that she did that very often at all anyways. The landscape of this world, aside from the muddy seabeds, was very much uncomfortable. She didn't make a habit of injuring her spine trying to balance on top of crags.

Huh? She looked back at Vexia from glancing about the cave at the girl's last compliment. Almost without meaning to, she glided an arm's length back in the water; as she flicked her tail to do so, the smooth shark-like appendage brushed against Vexia's legs. ...beautiful? Damsy had had no real understanding of what the word meant, but she could tell from Vexia's awed tone that in her dictionary it carried a good connotation.

But so was the cave, which was, from Damsy's point of view, a natural wonder. So, maybe she was that to Vexia...? No, no, most certainly not: she had been a product of artificial Kaminoian gene splicing and most of the amphibians were scared of here even still.

So, not natural or a wonder.

Damsy's self-deprecation was cut short when she was asked a question. She took time to shake her head before listening to the rest of what Vexia had to say. Only when the teenager was done, did the woman of about the same mental age answer, "N-no, I-I don't think so. Though..." She paused to drive, swimming a few meter down, and surfacing easily behind Vexia. It was her turn, then, to tilt her head. "...you look like my father. He's the Vicelord of the Confederacy."

[member="Allya Vi'Dreya"]