Gypsy in Me [Kiber]

[Natasi Fortan]

The striking, dark skinned woman who met [member="Kiber Dorn"] at the security checkpoint in the First Order's capital building was Sioux Chambers, the ice and stone wall around Moff Natasi Fortan's office and schedule. Currently, she had the unenviable task to go and meet the young man who was being assigned to the Moff's office as a result of community service. Sioux had had to check that last bit twice. It seemed highly irregular to even discuss having a criminal working in the office, particularly considering that the office itself had just completed a probe into its trustworthiness -- a probe that had uncovered no wrongdoing, but a probe nonetheless.

But there was something strange about Natasi Fortan these days. Ever since she had been reported dead and later rescued, she had been... different. Efficient? Of course. Stylish? Always. But there was a -- well, if not a warmth, then certainly a thaw. And yet, she was very clearly in the depths of some sort of depression, for which she either sought no treatment, or for which the treatment was not helping. Sioux worried about her. She would occasionally walk in with a matter for the Moff only to find her boss staring out the window. Nothing ever fell through the cracks; everything got done in a timely manner and with the same attention to detail. But never before had she ever walked in to find Natasi Fortan staring out the window. It was very odd.

This criminal reform bit was just another part of that. It had been suggested as a method of straightening out individuals who, based on the profiles gathered on them in prison, and who had not committed political or violent crimes, might be redeemed and brought into the First Order fold and live a lifetime of service. Or, in some cases, violate the law again and receive swift justice. Never before had Natasi Fortan's office participated, but this round, Sioux had heard her boss muttering something about second chances and wasted potential and then hey presto, Sioux was being dispatched down to the security checkpoint to collect him.

"Kiber Dorn?" she asked the young man at the security station, though she knew it was him. She tucked her briefing book under one arm and extended the other. "Sioux Chambers, private secretary to the Moff. Do you have any weapons or other contraband on you?" Sioux studied Dorn intently.

 

[Kiber Dorn]

You can escape your family, you can escape your cult, but apparently you cannot escape the law. Or maybe it was just Kiber Dorn himself that couldn't escape the law. Long time smoker, part time sprinter. Very part time, like, a block part time.

Was it the end of the world?

For like five minutes, totes. However, at the end of the day getting nabbed for possession was a piss-tonne better than being caught 'with intent to sell'. Could have been worse, could have been better, a lifelong catchphrase. Hey, he was still breathing, right? Did that count for anything? Must mean something, surely? No. No, you're right. Completely deluded. Although not altogether completely insane.

So when presented with the options of jail time or community service the answer was more than obvious.

Standing awkwardly at the security station, he wore a not-once ironed grey suit which completely lacked a tie (obviously some kind of metaphorical constriction), leaving the collar open and crumpled. It was half an effort at least. Couldn't show up like he rolled out of a squatter's den on the first day, y'know?

Madam Stern appeared, wielding unfriendly formal tones that gave him nightmare-inducing family flashbacks. These people were always the same, all appearance and pretences but doing blow when nobody was watching.

The words 'what up' almost slipped forth from his mouth before that first day reminder reappeared in his brain once again. Slowly, he scuffed the palm of his hand against his suit jacket before giving the woman what was almost a parody of a good firm handshake. Just like in the holovids, yo.

“Not right now, no,” he said with a half-cocked grin equipped, “but seriously, nah, I don't. You can personally check and everythin' if you like, Miss…?”

---

[member="Natasi Fortan"]

 

[Natasi Fortan]

"Fine," said Sioux stiffly. She gestured towards the security scanner and followed him through. "We'll arrange a badge for you if the Moff decides you'll fit in. Until then, I'll meet you, escort you through security, and be your supervisor. The Moff needs a body man, the last one she had went to business school. You'll be responsible for her personal needs while in the office -- coffee, copies, food, whatever she needs -- and the bag when she is out of the office. It contains hand sanitizer, a first aid kit, again: whatever she needs. You'll sit in on non-confidential policy discussion and she will sometimes ask for your opinion. You do the time, you do the job, and you get your record expunged and a letter of recommendation from the woman herself. You fuck it up, or in any way harm her or the First Order's interests, and you'll be looking at the inside of a cell until you're old enough to be my great-great-grandfather."

The elevator deposited them on the top floor, where a pleasant voice on the speakers announced "Moff Council, General Command, and Supreme Commanders' offices. Have a nice day!" The hallways was pristine, black marble flooring, the walls were greyish white -- white enough to be stark, but not white enough to hurt your eyes. The hallway curved off in both directions, giving the impression that if one were to walk to the left long enough, they would come back to the same place. "This way," said Sioux, walking with [member="Kiber Dorn"] towards the left, then turned right into a large, spacious foyer, where another security station was set up before the entry to a waiting area. Beyond the waiting area was Sioux's workstation in a foyer surrounded by five other doors (besides the entrance). The room was neat but obviously well-used, with cabinets and printers and assorted office equipment arrayed between the doors. The other doors were not important enough to tell Dorn about -- not yet, anyway -- so she turned to him and said, "Wait here a moment. I'll tell her you're here." As she turned away from Dorn, she murmured silently herself, "Please don't be staring out the window..."

Natasi Fortan was staring out the window.

"Ma'am," said Sioux. "Ma'am, the, uh, reform candidate is here. Shall I send him in?"

Natasi turned from the window and nodded, turning back to the main office and coming around her desk towards the door, as Sioux went back into the outer office. "Last chance to change your mind and go back to prison," she warned.

 

[Kiber Dorn]

Well, that was curt, but at least totally expected. Kiber would have been surprised if the reception here was anything warmer than frosty. Corpses were probably cosier than this lot. That being said, better to hang with the living rather than the dead.

Maybe.

Give it, like half a day, see where we are with this lot.

The woman rattled off the ins-and-outs of the job, without actually giving her name as he followed on. In his skeezy little mind, Kiber had already dubbed the woman as 'Miss Fine' given that it was her first response to his question. It was a nickname that actually fit quite well, given that she was indeed fine if not totally up her own arse. It was a nice arse, though.

“Rightooo,” he said, drawing out his words slowly as emerald eyes eyeballed both the woman and the interior of the elevator.

All the details of the job in question seemed simple enough. Food, beverages, documents, something about a bag, a really boring bag that probably wasn't hiding a fifth of gin and a bottle of hard prescription pills. Or maybe? A guy can dream, can't he? Or a guy can at least drink hand sanitiser, whatever comes first when push comes to shove, eh?

At least the workplace was nice, real classy. He might have been scum but all scum dreamed of black marble floors, didn't they? They just hoovered all the dream home savings up their noses and pumped the deposit into their veins. Nobody actually liked slumming it, the defiance was simply there because reality was too grim to bear. Besides, if you take enough spice, anything you want can be black marble.

So there Kiber Dorn stood, at the precipice of change, well, a possibility of change in his life. Reform candidate. He'd faced reform before. Turns out he wasn't a very good member of a Sith family dynasty, nor was he a great bloodthirsty cultist, perhaps a destiny as a body man was truly on the cards.

“Please, do you know what they'd do to a pretty face like me in prison? I'm totally game, dude.”

Ooooor maybe not.

---

[member="Natasi Fortan"]

 

[Natasi Fortan]

Sioux rolled her eyes and pushed the glass door open for [member="Kiber Dorn"] to enter, and followed him in. "Ma'am, this is Kiber Dorn, the candidate they sent to replace Perest."

Natasi's eyes, the color of just-melting milk chocolate, took in the newcomer. He had the look of misspent youth about him. "How do you do, Mr. Dorn," she said, offering her hand. With the pleasantries out of the way, she gestured for him to sit on one of the modern sofas forming a ninety degree angle with one another, facing a wall which, while currently blank, was hiding a state of the art holoprojector. "Please sit down. Would you care for something to drink? Coffee, tea, water?" She looked at Sioux. "Tea for me, please. Thank you, Sioux."

The Moff went to the opposite couch from where she had sent Dorn, and sat down, smoothing the fabric of her skirt over her thighs as she crossed her ankles primly. "Well, this is a bit awkward, isn't it?" she commented with an apologetic smile to the young man across from her. "You're a criminal, I'm the law, there's no trust lost between us, hm? Please, do make yourself comfortable. I don't bite." She unbuttoned her blazer and leaned back in her seat. "Do you know why this reform programme exists, Mr. Dorn? It's not to frighten you straight, or to keep you off the streets. It isn't to punish you or to get back some labor to justify the expense of it all. No, it's none of that." She laced her hands together over her midsection and looked across to him with heavy-lidded eyes. "It's to give you some appreciation for the kind of work we do, and to illustrate the good that we do, and to show you the harm that comes from... anti-social behavior," she finished.

As Sioux came in with the refreshments, Natasi absorbed the boy's reaction, and then asked: "Before you were arrested, what were you doing? What do you want to do with your life?"

 

[Kiber Dorn]

Into the den of the Ice Queen.

Or so he had thought.

Another handshake was offered but at least it came with some attempt at pleasantries. He wasn't a complete moron, or really a moron at all, Kiber was more than aware of what kind of reception somebody of his status was going to receive. It was all cops and robbers, or...petty criminals and bureaucrats (which didn't ring nearly as nicely as the former).

“Can't complain, Ma'am,” he spoke back, having fulfilled his daily 'dude quota' about a minute prior. Was Ma'am the right term? M'lady? Mistress? Your Majesty? No, definitely not that last one, that was just a missile of sarcasm waiting to be launched. 'Miss Fine' used Ma'am, so that was probably the right way to go.

“I'll take coffee if I'm getting any,” he chirped, plopping down onto the sofa with his usual amount of casual grace, completely unprepared to be disarmed.

She smiled. She used an ice breaker. I mean, yeah, there was a touch of a lecture worked into there but it wasn't at all what was expected. The impression of a militaristic regime had been stamped into his imagination, a bit of the old 'stand straight when I'm talking to you, boy' kind of chat that you'd get from the old Rector at school. This was a far softer touch.

A quirk of an eyebrow, a twist of the lips and a small narrowing of the eyes all emerged from his visage.

Question is, did he believe it? That obnoxious cynicism brought forth in a person's twenties raged rampant within him. Legit? Or good PR? Harder to say when you put a pretty face in front of the entire picture.

Somehow he had managed to stay silent throughout her introductory speech, unusual for the man who had a quip for every occasion. Still sizing her up, Kiber quietly took his coffee and finally gave some form of verbal response.

“Surviving,” he said quietly, holding the cup just below his nose, letting the steam rise up his nostrils and moistening the skin of his cheeks. It was both a vague and cliché answer, but Dorn was hardly going to tell her that he was just too lazy for good, honest work.

It was all feeling a touch serious, almost surreal.

“Well, I had dreams of being a galaxy famous figure skater, but they were all crushed by...the accident,” Kiber said, face solemn and voice as deadpan as dust before finally a slow wry grin crept onto his features, “nah, I'm just kidding ya. Don't know what I want to do, never have done, might never find out, y'know?”

---

[member="Natasi Fortan"]

 

[Natasi Fortan]

Natasi took her tea from Sioux with a polite smile of thanks, and then waited for Sioux to leave the room. "You know, Sioux -- my assistant, Sioux Chambers?" Natasi nodded towards the door to indicate Miss Fine. "She actually was a figure skater. But then she was injured and, one thing led to another, and she ended up with me. And she's phenomenal. Honestly, she is like a wampa in front of anyone who shouldn't be here. It's funny, the path a life can take. If you'd asked me when I was a child what I thought my life would be like, I would have told you, rather matter-of-factly, that I was going to marry a prince and be a holoball-playing holofilm actress slash princess." She sipped her tea briefly.

"But here we are. Staring thirty in the face, and there aren't many princes around." Her chest seized painfully as her mind wandered across the hall. The teacup trembled in its saucer. She felt her eyes fill but blinked firmly until the danger had passed. "At any rate. Not knowing what you want to do by your age is not cause for alarm. Which isn't to say you're alarmed." She sighed and shook her head. "I am sorry. This... mentoring ...well, it's new to me."

Natasi kicked off her shoes and pulled her feet up under her. "I don't know how much excitement there will be for you here. But I hope you'll learn some things. Use the opportunities the office presents you to determine what direction you want your life to take. If you keep your nose clean and stay out of trouble, your record will be expunged and I can arrange just about any job in First Order space that would suit your skills. So really, the result of this comes down to what you want to take away from it. Oh -- and as far as your accommodations. You'll have a room to yourself in the male dormitories downstairs, and meals are provided in the cafeteria twenty-four hours a day. Just give them the credit code 01138-NF. You'll have to work your schedule out with Sioux and the rest of the staff, to make sure I have coverage all day on the comms."

She set her teacup down and spread her hands. "Have you any questions for me?"

[member="Kiber Dorn"]

 

[Kiber Dorn]

There was an extreme 'oh feth' moment as it was revealed that Miss Fine, or Sioux's former career had indeed been figure skating cut short by an accident. Not being some suave 'too cool to care' cat who hid any and all iota of emotion his green eyes widened by a considerable margin, jaw becoming slack in the process.

“Oh nooooooo...”

If Miss Fine hadn't wanted to throw him into a cell before, then it was a definite now. Perhaps time and a lot of overly-polite behaviour would fix that accidental transgression. I mean yeah, Kiber was rude and a touch unruly but he didn't set out upon the galaxy each day intending to hurt feelings. That wasn't how he rolled at all.

“N-never know,” he replied swiftly trying to regain some cool and composure, “could be a Prince out there waitin' for you.”

Truthfully, as a child he too had held onto lofty aspirations. While being miserably groomed by his parents to be a future Sith Lord the young Kiber Dorn wanted nothing more than to be a big-time Smashball player. When he ran away one of the few actual possessions he had taken with him was his card collection. Players like Tommy Boyd, 'Kill 'Em' Kurg and Jimmy 'Jinky' Lennox were a few of the heroes that had left him in awe. Hell, he'd originally gone to Coruscant because the Cannons were his favourite team.

Safe to say that those aspirations had long since left him. Who really wants to get completely battered every week? Or was that just what he told himself to take the sting out?

She laid forth the perks of this situation, of which there were apparently many. It almost seemed too good to be true, like this was a job that ordinary people would have strived for instead of being handed out to petty criminals. Hell, there was even accommodation, no more squatting on the horizon for this man, no! Although, probably a distinct lack of house parties too. Now that was a thought.

Mug held in a two handed grip, Kiber took a long drink from the hot coffee, noting that this was the bloody expensive stuff, far removed from the warehouse sweepings he was accustomed too.

“A couple,” Dorn responded, face still half-buried within the rim of the mug, causing his words to be slightly muffled, “is this like, a trap? Because you are not what I was expecting. Like, in a good way, but...y'know, will you be a dragon tomorrow or….just this? Cus I can dig, just this….uh, Ma'am.”

Wait, there was something more important.

“Oh, also is there a smoking area? Like, just cigarras, y'know? No funny stuff, obvs.”

---

[member="Natasi Fortan"]

 

[Natasi Fortan]

"It's not a trap," Natasi said with a smirk. She lifted her teacup again and took a sip. Jolly good stuff. "As far as whether I will be a dragon tomorrow, of course I can't say for sure, but..." She shrugged her slender shoulders and made a face. "As a wise woman once said, it is difficult to prophesy, particularly about the future. But on the balance I rather think not. I don't know how much you read the newspapers or watch the holonews, but if you have you'll know I've relatively recently faced my death at the hands of those disgusting criminals that call themselves the Resistance. And you're very young, so I hope you've never been faced with that. But I'll tell you, when you're looking death in the face, you look back and you take stock and you think of things that you would change about yourself. Being a frigid, rigid, uptight person was one of the things I decided to change."

She wasn't quite sure why she was telling the boy all this; she wasn't even sure he was going to be staying yet. She filed the question away for now.

"Suffice it to say, your psych profile illustrated potential that would be wasted if you remained in the system," Natasi told [member="Kiber Dorn"]. "So let's just see how it goes. You can smoke out there," she said, indicating the balcony. "Don't throw the butts over the railing. There are ashtrays and rubbish bins."

 

[Kiber Dorn]

They all say it's not a trap.

Kiber mulled her potential dragon-like nature with another few sips of his coffee. Or rather, as she revealed, her potential zombie dragon-like nature. Truthfully it wasn't going to be much surprise that as a cynical man he avoided the news as much as possible. After all, they were only presented with what the government wanted to show and asides from that it was an emotional bombardment of all the poodoo of the galaxy at once concentrated into a single biased source.

Death and celebrity. Now who really wanted that?

As soon as the woman had revealed that there was in fact a nice smoking area Kiber was pretty much on board, like, you can't smoke in prison, y'know? The real important factors in life.

“Awesome,” he said, flashing a very toothy grin while having approximately the vernacular of a sixteen year old, “but rewind for a sec.”

There was something mentioned that re-he-heally needed to be revisited.

“So...you faced your death? Like...like you died? Or just almost? It's kinda a big bomb to drop in first conversations, you get me?” As he shamelessly asked to know more about something that was probably a horrifying point in her life Kiber found himself leaning forward, eyes wide with rampant curiosity. His manners caught up with him eventually.

“Like, you don't have to tell me or anything, it's just y'know...crazy...”

That'd being said, he knew the feeling.

---

[member="Natasi Fortan"]

 

[Natasi Fortan]

Natasi shrugged her shoulders. "It's not to be repeated, but I know you'll hear about it working here," she said. "Perhaps it's better hearing it from me than around the water cooler." She drained her cup and set it back down on the tray, then stood up and went to her desk. In the top drawer was a framed holo, which she took over to [member="Kiber Dorn"], and activated. The first image showed Natasi herself, in a smart grey suit, wearing a red hard hat, against the background of a vast empty field. It was taken not far from where they were sitting now, at the ground-breaking ceremony for the city. She passed onto the next image quickly, this one showed Natasi again and General [member="Ludolf Vaas"] at the awards ceremony for the conquest of Skye. Her dark eyes softened and she gazed at the holo fondly for several moments until she remembered the other person in the room. "Sorry," she muttered over a cleared throat, clicking to the next photo.

It showed two women. One, again, was Natasi Fortan, looking perhaps more relaxed than ever she had. She was dressed somewhat casually -- a satin blouse and black skirt rather than the full ensemble -- and had her head thrown back in laughter, eyes crinkling at the edges. The other woman, glamorous but not as beautiful, with a slightly outsized nose and wavy copper hair, a hand covering her own laughter. "My cousin, Imogen Fortan. She was like my sister. She died, tragically, in the terrorist attack on Skye. Or so we all thought. She covered her tracks well." Natasi sat on the coffee table and set the frame down on the arm of Kiber's chair, letting the image rotate between them. She didn't take her eyes off Imogen's face as it moved. "She became Evelin Redstar, the leader of the Resistance. And a few months ago, she broke into my home on Galidraan and tried to kill me. She very nearly succeeded. According to the medics, if she had stabbed me an inch in any direction, I would be dead."

Her eyes narrowed, still following Imogen's orbit above the arm of the chair. "Alas, I wasn't so lucky. The Resistance scum found me trying to crawl out of the burning wreckage of my home and took me to heir base on Hoth, where they did unspeakable things to me. The only comfort I had was knowing that Imogen was dead this time -- really dead. The medical examiners called it wrong, of course. They thought -- female bones, average height, slender build, in Herevan Hold -- who could it be but me? So they declared me legally dead." She chuckled darkly. "And Sioux -- Balance bless her, my Sioux -- noticed that the bones in the medical examiner's report were all intact, whereas my bones... these old bones... were damaged in the bombing at Skye. So the First Order launched a search, and the rest is history."

She studied Kiber for a moment. "I cannot stress enough the confidentiality of this information. It would be a serious crime to reveal this information to anyone outside this office." She stood and collected the frame, turning away so that her body was between the image and her visitor. Covertly, she switched back to the second image on the rotation, watching it with a secret smile before she finally turned it off and tucked the frame back into her desk drawer. "That's pretty messed up, right?" she asked Kiber.

 

[Kiber Dorn]

Oh, sweet! She was actually going to spill the beans! Kiber of course was excited at getting the mortal gossip, even if it was a very macabre brand of excitement to hold. There was even pictures to go along with it!

There was a pause, a linger on a certain image of her and a man, her beau perhaps? Ooh la la! The pause indicated as much, but the expression on her face gave away more. Kiber of course, in this tender moment of reflection took the pause to scrape at some plaque on his front tooth with his finger before chewing furiously at the same nail.

Then it was story time.

It was the inevitable roller-coaster of friendship, deceit and betrayal that one expected from living in such a dramatic galaxy. Near-death, turncoat friends, even a burning building. If life in the First Order didn't grate her cheese any more then it was a story that could be made into a good holoflick, and hey, even within the First Order, just make it anyway and call it propaganda.

Didn't seem like it was finished yet, however. Was that the real ending?

“Yeah, man. People suck. Galaxy's just full of scum sucking sky sluts that'll use you, hurt you and then ditch you. Don't matter what uniform they're wearing either. Advantageous is as advantageous does.”

A pause, before a solemn reassurance.

“I wouldn't worry about me gabbing about that to anybody either. All my pals are thick scum, all they care about is getting blazed every night and surviving the come down. Even if I did tell them, which I won't,” he said, enunciating that last part with by pointing finger guns at her, “they wouldn't even remember, care or even believe me, ya dig?”

Not that near-death experiences didn't have merit, it was just junkies weren't really into the realm of current events. Also, I totally lied about the solemn part.

“You mind if I step out for a smoke, though? This is a lot to take in. Do you smoke? I'll bum you one if you want.”

---

[member="Natasi Fortan"]

 

[Natasi Fortan]

Natasi watched [member="Kiber Dorn"] with a mixture of good-natured exasperation and humor. "You need a better class of friend. Stick with me, kid," she said, returning the finger guns. When done by a slim woman with manicured fingernails in an antique platinum watch, this gesture was less impressive. When he asked if he could smoke, she gestured towards the glass door to the balcony. "By all means. And I occasionally smoke. Probably more than I should, but it helps me to relax." She followed him out onto the balcony, taking a small platinum cigarette case out of the drawer. She walked over to the balcony, standing to the left of an ash tray, and snapped the case open, offering Kiber a cigarette before taking one herself. She lit it and handed over the lighter before setting the whole apparatus on the rim of the ash tray.

"It is a lot to take in, isn't it," Natasi agreed before taking a slow drag of the cigarette. The sensation was seductive and though she knew it was wrong to enjoy something unhealthy like that, she comforted herself in knowing that if bacta could cure a stab wound to the chest, it could ballywell cure lung cancer. She exhaled, the silver tendrils of smoke billowing around her. "It's rather a lot more than you should have to take in on your first day. Sorry if I've overwhelmed you. I've recently come to understand that honesty is the best policy in professional dealings as well as interpersonal feelings."

The Moff took another drag and looked out over the city. The construction was coming along magnificently. It was almost done. It was her life's work, in a way. She wondered if she would ever do anything again that made her so proud. She doubted heavily whether she would ever marry, have children or a family. No. In all likelihood, this city, this beautiful city laid out in an orderly fashion, already bustling with commercial and cultural activity, would be her legacy. Everyone who would live there, who would stroll down its lush boulevards, would enjoy the safety and order that she had designed for it -- they would be her children. And the First Order government would be her husband. Balance, that's pathetic, she told herself on the exhale. If you really believe that, just throw yourself off the balcony now.

"Sorry if I've overwhelmed you," she said before taking another drag. She exhaled again, while adding: "I just think we regret telling the truth less than we may regret not doing so. What do you think?" Who knows -- out of the mouths of babes, there was occasional wisdom.

 

[Kiber Dorn]

He almost burst into raucous laughter at the sight of her shooting him back the ole' finger guns. It was that right level of harmless absurdity that just tickled his pickle. Absurd. That was the right word for these proceedings. All of it. Not that Kiber minded, at least it was pleasant.

Slipping out with the woman onto the balcony he rather gratefully took a cigarette from the woman, actually fully surprised that she smoked at all. Stress of the job one supposed.

“Hey, you gotta relax, y'know?” Kiber said, lighting up his cigarette and enjoying the first drag, Smooth. Obviously a superior brand of smokes to his own cheap and cheerfuls. “You can't survive all of that and then let stress get you.”

Observing the woman as she looked out onto the city the scoundrel Dorn pondered what exactly was going through her head. He rolled the butt of the cigarette between his forefinger and his thumb before taking a deep drag from the cigarette. It was like smoking silk when he had been so accustomed to gravelly floor sweepings at the bottom of the pile. Emerald eyes narrowed as he continued to study her. Pleasant exterior. Tragic story.

Nigh impossible to decipher. Yet.

“I wouldn't worry, I'm used to being overwhelmed,” Kiber grinned, not telling a word of a lie with that statement, “but I think you're right. I've never heard a person on their deathbed regret the things they did say, y'get me?”

Another drag.

“Kark regret."

---

[member="Natasi Fortan"]

 

[Natasi Fortan]

Why was Natasi Fortan, the highest-ranking officer in the Supreme Leader's government, the rightful heir to Herevan Hold (in her mind), the architect of the First Order's government system and its capital city, waxing philosophical with this teenaged ne'er-do-well? Even the woman herself couldn't answer, aside perhaps from blaming her finger-gun-wielding mania on the tear-soaked, heart-broken, sleep-deprived half-life she had been leading since returning to the First Order's fold.

"Do you spend a lot of time talking to people on their deathbed?" Natasi asked, looking through the plume of smoke she had just exhaled at her newest intern. "My, but you do get around." She took another drag and then leaned over the balcony again. A light breeze from the nearby lake country came by, rustling Natasi's perfectly-styled chestnut locks. "Anyway. Would you like to come to work for me? I can't promise it will be glamorous or terribly interesting, but I will do my best to make it stimulating for you." She exhaled through her nose, her nostrils billowing smoke ludicrously for a few moments.

"Besides all of that -- what are you thinking?"

[member="Kiber Dorn"]

 

[Kiber Dorn]

This was weird.

Standing out here shooting ship (can’t use waxing philosophical, somebody else used it) with a suit from the First Order. Maybe he was dead, maybe this is what Limbo is. Or perhaps he had delved too deep into the hallucinogenics and this was all some crazy vivid trip. Even still it was strange, talking banthas were closer to normality than this.

“Well...” Kiber said, waggling his eyebrows at her in an attempt to keep up some form of mystery, “...maybe.”

Which is translated as no, not a lot of deathbed hours clocked up.

The cigarette came up to his lips once more, another drag and another cloud of smoke exhaled out upon the balcony. “I’m thinkin’...”

What was he thinking?

“...that this is a really weird day, no?”

Kiber stared off into space for a few moments, considering all the events of his life up to this point. How it had shaped him, moulded him and lead him to this exact point. Wasn’t life strange? So many directions to go, but it was this road that he was going down. What were the other paths like? How many of them had he not survived?

“I’m down if you’re down,” he finally replied, keeping it short and simple.

---

[member="Natasi Fortan"]