Setting: Coruscant, Level 1782
~~~
After a particularly grueling performance, Val arrived at his dressing room to change. No sooner had he closed the door behind him, the closet was suddenly thrown open, and a green-skinned Twi'lek girl jumped out. She was clutching something in her hand, and it took the startled Val a moment to realize it was his underwear, filched from among his clothes.~~~
"I'm your biggest fan!" she shrieked.
Val promptly turned and ran out of the room, screaming for help. Two security droids rushed to the scene, followed in the direction of Val's frantic pointing - and came back out less than a minute later, claiming there was no Twi'lek girl to be found.
"She must have run out when I went to get help," Val insisted breathlessly. When one of the guards did the droid equivalent of rolling their eyes, he reluctantly added, "She stole a pair of my... erm, personal garments. I'll show you—"
Cautiously stepping inside the dressing room, he headed over to the closet, opened it, rifled through the contents... and found everything in order. There was no missing underwear. The two droids exchanged irritated beeps in Binary.
"Can you at least stay outside the door, in case she tries to come back?" Val pleaded.
They agreed, but not long after Val sank into a chair, trying to calm his pounding heart, he heard the girl squeal behind his back, "Finally, we're alone together!"
And so he had thrown open the door, run past the bewildered droids, out the back door of the theater, and skidded to a halt at the edge of the platform where large set pieces were loaded and unloaded. He could still hear her behind him, and seeing no other option, he decided to jump rather than be left at the mercy of an obsessed, unstable admirer.
A few moments afterward, it occurred to him that the girl might not have been real. He'd suffered hallucinations before, an occasional side effect of his
A little after that, he realized that if he didn't do something now, he was going to die.
The thought of this embarrassed him considerably, and he began rifling through his memories of his master's training in the Force. There had to be something about surviving a fall...
Curling himself into a ball, he closed his eyes and mapped out his surroundings with the Force. Or tried to - it was rather difficult, given how much activity was going on around him. He did manage to avoid getting run over by a speeder. Instead, he fell into the back seat.
The driver, a female Rodian, shrieked. Sprawled across the leather seats, still clad in his dancer's costume, Val tried to get his bearings, yelling "Sorry!" over the sound of air traffic whizzing by. The poor lady went on screaming her head off, clearly thinking he was there either to rob or rape her.
Her screeching became so unbearable that he swung over the side, going into freefall again just to get away from her. Air traffic seemed like pleasant background noise in comparison, and Val found it much easier to concentrate. He was able to avoid the speeders whizzing around him this time, along with the massive buildings stretching up from the planet's surface, the various landing platforms and transport tunnels, and the winking signal towers. He plummeted but did not pick up speed; rather, he slowed himself down as he fell. He was even able to pick his destination—Level 1782, his beloved junkyard. Yes, he would turn this nightmare into a pleasant sojourn to one of his favorite places—
His landing was still rough enough that it knocked him unconscious.
~~~
The two scavengers approached the scene with caution. At least, they did at first—it wasn’t long before the human female blinked and glanced at the Zabrak male, muttering, “What the hell is he wearing?”
Sprawled among a pile of trash was an unconscious man. His outfit was a literal theater costume, and looked like it had been designed for the role of an ancient prince from an opulent, romantic world like Naboo or Hapes. At least, the upper half was such. The man’s muscular legs, with their particularly overdeveloped thighs, were clad only in black tights, and on his feet were a pair of soft-soled dancer’s slippers.
“You think he’s a performer who got jumped or something?” the alien suggested.
“What would a performer be doing down here?” the woman replied. All the fancy opera houses and theaters were located in the upper levels, entertaining the wealthy politicians and rich people who lived nearby. She couldn't see how one of the prissy divas employed at such establishments would be caught dead in a level as low as this one.
“Who knows?” The Zabrak peered at the body, already searching for valuables. “He’s out cold. Or maybe dying. C’mon, let’s check him out…”
They crouched on either side of the man, patting his sides for hidden pockets, the bulge of a wallet, or the outline of some valuable jewelry. As their fingers pinched and tugged on the velvet fabric of his costume, the man stirred and began to swat at them with his well-built arms. The two scavengers quickly got out of the way, watching from a safe distance as the man sat up.
“Oh, my head…” the man grunted, massaging his scalp. Grimacing, he pulled away his hand; both it and part of his dark hair were smeared with something foul-smelling. Looking around, he noticed the two scavengers, and his expression brightened. “This is Level 1782, right?”
“Yeah...” the woman replied, exchanging bewildered looks with her alien companion. “Would you mind telling us who you are and why you’re here?”
Standing up, the man swept into a dramatic bow. “Valerian Drutin,” he introduced himself. “Most people call me Val. I’m here to collect junk.”
“Dressed like that?”
“This is how I normally dress,” Val replied with a shrug.
“Ah. And I’m assuming you were just taking a nap here among the trash.”
Val shook his head. “I remember calling a cab after my performance and telling them to take me to Level 1782, but the driver refused. There was a bit of a scuffle, and then I was falling…”
The Zabrak's eyes drifted heavenward, tracing an imaginary line from the glitz and glamor of the upper levels down to the junkyard below. His gray lips parted in disbelief. “Are you saying you fell from all the way up there?”
“Looks like it,” Val replied, his tone already distracted. He stooped to pick up a shiny object from the ground that had caught his attention. It would make a fine addition to his growing collection of pretty baubles.
“How could you survive a fall from that high up?” the woman demanded, her hands on her hips.
"Oh, well—I was trained for it."
Her brow furrowed, wondering what kind of training could allow anyone to survive such a long fall. “...Are you a Jedi?” she asked.
Val looked displeased at the insinuation, but was happy to tell her about his actual line of work. “I’m a dancer. ‘The God of the Dance’ is what they call me, because I can make it look like I’m suspended in midair when I jump—”
"And how do you do that?"
"By controlling my breathing, mostly." In demonstration, he took a deep breath, then leaped gracefully in the air, each movement of his muscular limbs careful and precise. Indeed, he did seem to float for several moments before he came down, landing effortlessly on the ground.
“That doesn’t explain how you’re still alive,” the woman said irritably, having expected him to demonstrate some wild trick she never would've guessed the workings of. "What did you do that allowed you to survive the fall?"
Her Zabrak companion, realizing how absurd the situation had become, tried to break things up. “Look, whatever happened, he got knocked on the head and he clearly isn't all there right now. I don’t think interrogating him will do much good. Let’s just move on.”
But the woman’s eyes narrowed. She pulled a battered old blaster from her belt and pointed it at Val. “You’re a Sith, aren’t you?” she accused. Something about Val had her spooked.
The Zabrak reached toward her, startled by this sudden turn of events. “Jen, wait—”
Before he could wrestle the gun from her hand, she pulled the trigger.
Val's hand shot out, the bolt deflecting against the palm of his hand and hitting a pile of junk instead. Though he'd managed to avoid injury with a fairly impressive display of power, he now bore a shocked and hurt expression on his face.
"How rude!" he exclaimed. "What did I ever do to you?"
Jen stared at him, her jaw set. Beside her, the Zabrak grabbed her arm, trying to get her to walk away. She shrugged him off angrily. "Let go of me!"
"Didn't you see what he just did?" the Zabrak hissed. "We need to get out of here, now."
"He's a Sith," she replied, as if this conclusion somehow justified her shooting at a stranger who had done nothing to provoke an attack. "Or a dark side user, or whatever. He can't be allowed to live."
"Jen—"
"So what if I use the dark side?" Val cut in, putting his hands on his hips. "That's how I was taught to use the Force. I don't know anything else!"
"So don't use the Force at all, freak!"
"Jen," the Zabrak began again, doing his best to sound calm and reasonable. "If he is a Sith, how can you or I possibly stand up to him? He just deflected your shot. You're no match for him."
She shook her head. "You don't know me as well as you think you do, Silo."
Val had listened to their conversation with growing impatience, but now he once again interrupted. "All I wanted was to collect some junk. I didn't know I was going to be shot at!"
Jen turned her attention back to the annoying little Sithlet. He didn't have a lightsaber on him, but she had a vibroblade strapped to her thigh. Silo predicted what she was thinking and pleaded with her one last time.
"Don't do it."
Begrudgingly, she let her hand drop. "Fine. Let's get out of here. Let's leave him and the rest of his kind to go on terrorizing the galaxy."
Both of them started to walk away slowly, keeping their eyes trained on Val. The dancer tilted his head to the side, surprised by how abruptly the situation had been resolved. But soon his attention was drawn to a broken gadget peeking out from under a pile of discarded electronics, and while he fiddled with the contraption, trying to pull it free, he forgot all about the strange pair of scavengers.
As they passed out of Val's earshot, Silo leaned toward Jen and asked, "What was that all about? What's gotten into you?"
"I know him," Jen replied, her voice soft and flat.
"How?"
She sighed. "It's a long story, and he was just a kid at the time, but I recognized his eyes." Her gaze grew haunted. "I... used to work for some pretty awful people. He was supposed to have been sold into slavery, only the slaver ship carrying him never arrived at its destination. So they sent a group of us out to investigate..."
Silo waited for her to finish, but she had lapsed into silence. "What did you find?" he pressed.
"The ship was derelict and the entire crew was dead. But we couldn't find him. The ship's log recorded everyone suddenly dying—their hearts just stopped. The kid was chained up in the brig, and he was the only one unaffected. Then the ship was boarded by an old woman in black robes, who took him with her." She held out her hands and took a shaky breath. "She was a Sith in need of an apprentice, and she knew exactly where to get one..."
"He doesn't strike me as Sith material," Silo said with a frown. "In fact, he seemed... well, a bit eccentric, but mostly harmless."
"That doesn't mean anything," she insisted. "Haven't you heard what the Jedi in the Grayson Imperium say about them? They can appear to be friendly, even charming, but that's only a front to hide their true intentions. They can't hide their corruption for long."
"I don't care what the Grayson Imperium says," Silo said. "I only care about you and me and not getting either of us killed. I can't think of a more embarrassing place to die than this."
"You could get eaten alive by a Sarlacc," she suggested dryly. "Or shot by an Ewok. Or..."
"Or Force-choked by a Sith apprentice wearing tights. Come on, let's get out of here."
Last edited by a moderator:
