I don't know how he does it [Abyss]

[NightSister]

A completely neutral expression of mild curiousity formed on Aria's face as she listened, interested despite herself, to the explanation he offered. Chaos seemed, to her, to be the natural state of one's mind - one thought, then another five, then ten more branching from each in different directions - but perhaps that was unusual in most people. Perhaps it didn't pertain to a certain allegiance, only to living a certain type of lifestyle in which there was so much food for thought that it overwhelmed the mind. On that level, at least, Aria could relate.

"So," she said drily, trying to make sense of his explanation, "so - what, you view the Force as some kind of god? That there's a path set out for you and if you don't follow it you're going against nature." In a way it adhered to what Aria was fairly certain was the true Sith view; law and order to the extreme. It had taken her some time to figure out that code - it was just so easy to write off their goals as nothing more than mindless destruction, but all her research over the past few months hadn't been without an aim. It had taken a lot of investigation, which had landed her in trouble more than once, but Aria had come to realise that in their aims, the Sith were truly not that different from the Jedi. Two sides of the same coin.

"Well, fine, I'll respect that. I don't believe that the Force is anything more than a means of guidance and progression, but believe what you will." Though she was mildly incredulous that he truly seemed to serve the Force as though it were a deity, she kept the disrespect from her voice the best she could. She was tiring and soon it would be fully night.

"You can stop floating the lightsaber now, you know," she added, nodding her head towards the red blade hovering above him. Aria took her own lightsaber from her belt for good measure, fearful of whatever lurked outside. "Anyway, it's getting pretty dark now. Somebody should stay awake in case somebody finally answers the damn signal or if something big and scary gets hungry." She let out a yawn, apologetically covering her mouth with one hand and taking a seat on an aisle seat that hadn't been crushed. "Hey, what did you do with the food?"

[member="Darth Abyss"]

 

[Darth Abyss]

She had almost understood his perspective, almost. For a second he thought about simply letting it slide, it was close enough to his true believes to not annoy her with another lengthy monolog about philosophy and history, but he couldn't resist to at least give her a short answer to correct her.

"No, I am well aware that the force is a mindless metaphysical form of energy, but like any other physical phenomenon there are rules bound to it. Balance is what sets our path, as the force always works in favor of balance. That is why the sith and the jedi always bound return even after being destroyed, our orders are the embodiment of light and dark more than any other group in this galaxy. So no, I do not believe in pure determinism, but as a historian I can not ignore that history has repeated many times. In philosophy it is called historic fatalism."

It had been longer than he anticipated, but at least he not ended up rambling like a mad man as he had many times before discussing such topics. As she spoke, the crimson red blade died down, the hilt hovering down into Abyss hand. She was right someone had to keep their guard up if they wanted to get through the night.

"I will do it, I rarely sleep."

Since he had learned to keep his body running by the darkside by meditation he had stopped to sleep like a normal human, instead only allowing himself to rest for short periods of time in trance most of the time. From his robe he grabbed a nutrition bar and moved it to her, before taking the last one out for himself. While he was doing all that he didn't opened his eyes once, already fallen into a light form of trance.

[member="Aria Vale"]

 

[NightSister]

Aria took the nutrition bar, taking a large bite out of it at once. One got hungry quickly when they were stuck in the middle of nowhere, it seemed. That the Sith held firmly the belief that each side of the Force could not exist without the other was only mildly surprising - her own thoughts were similar, in that an ideal galaxy to her was one where both sides coexisted, working together even instead of letting so many innocents suffer as they waged eternal war. How the Light would fare without the Dark and vice versa? Aria was not certain, but in a way she was glad not to know the answer, for either seemed premises to be feared.

"Thanks," she said grudgingly as she polished off the bar. Pushing the wrecked furniture into place, Aria lay down in a semi-comfortable position, her saber hilt still at hand as she remained wary of the noises. "Anyone replies to that damned signal wake me up right away." Her tone was still relatively grouchy, though it was directed not at Abyss but at their predicament. Here she was, about to go to sleep in a wrecked starship surrounded by dead bodies when the night before she'd slept in a massive bedroom with an en suite bathroom and the night before that at her home. She was going to leave a scalding review of that starship line if she ever got back to Voss.

As she had half expected, once Aria closed her eyes her descent into fatigue came to an abrupt halt and so soon the Echani was stuck staring at the caved-in roof playing with the fabric of her sleeve. She was lacking the energy to get up and faff about until something interesting happened, or even to do something helpful like warm the space by...oh, setting a chair on fire, something along those lines. So instead she just turned her head from one side to another, deliberating over the usefulness of trying to meditate her way into a slumber.

She had been in that state for around an hour when the white noise of wind and animals was disrupted by a quiet static crackle. Aria lifted her head reluctantly as finally, a message came through.

"This is...um...we received your distress signal," came a voice, gruff but clearly inexperienced. "Do you have a location?"

"Uh," Aria said quietly, ensuring that her voice still worked before pressing a button to the radio. "We can give you coordinates, give me a minute..." hastily, she fiddled with the system for a minute before finding the button that transmitted the coordinates, crossing her fingers that it would work when disconnected from the rest of the ship. "Did you get it?"

A pause, and then a click. "I know where that is. We can get there in three, four hours at the latest. Hold tight." Click and disconnect.

"Oh, thank the Force," Aria exclaimed, resting her head on one hand. "Now we can - oh, feth." Aria rifled through her jacket pockets hastily, then turned reluctantly to Abyss. "You wouldn't have any money on you?"

[member="Darth Abyss"]

 

[Darth Abyss]

Abyss awoke from his trance, his yellow eyes opened and wandered towards her, while he body stood perfectly still in its meditativ stance. From the beginning he knew that he would need the money that he had taken from the dead, now he only had to hide the way he got it, as it was definitely the worst possible time to generate a conflict.

"Not much, but it should be enough to pay them for our extraction."

His left moved inside his robe, searching for the mixed bag of credit chips he had obtained. He pulled out his hand and presented her the collection of credits, carefully making sure that she couldn't see the few credit cards that had been linked to a person. The ID he had obtained still rested in his robe, ready to be used once the ship would come by to take them from the crash side.

It seemed like this small adventure was slowly coming to an end, and surprisingly Abyss felt a bit of disappointment. For her this probably had been a rough and uncomfortable situation, but for him as a sith it had been a break from his plans and schemes he was constantly working on, a break for his mind to relax and explore the depths of the force. It had been a rare chance for him to take a step back and reevaluate his actions and see the world from another perspective.

"Thank you Aria. I know you will not look back at this with the same eyes I do, but to me this has been a very pleasant encounter."

For the first time since had taken place on the ground his body really moved, as his right hand extended, offering her a firm handshake. It wasn't a gesture of friendship, but one of respect, as he had seen wisdom in the answers she had given him. He wouldn't sacrifice his live for her, or endanger his operations, but she still had earned a ally in the ranks of the sith today.

[member="Aria Vale"]

 

[NightSister]

With a suppressed yawn, Aria rose to her feet, relief crossing her face as Abyss presented her with a handful of credits that from a quick glance, she would guess would cover their rescue. Her eyebrows raised a fraction of an inch at the thought of all that money remaining in his pocket through such a fall, but she hadn't the energy to object and so accepted the money with a nod. She counted it quickly; it would reasonably pay for an extraction, and if more was demanded either she or more likely Abyss could negotiate - she lacked resilience of the sort needed to drive a hard bargain, but almost definitely it was a skill that one picked up as a Sith. At any rate, she could assume from the apparent cluelessness of the men who had answered their signal that such would be unnecessary. Good. All she wanted was to return to the luxury of proper food and a proper bed in her proper home.

"Glad you got something out of it," she replied to Abyss' goodbye, only a flicker of her initial dry malice left in her tone as she shook the offered hand. Truth be told, she hadn't loathed the past twelve-odd hours as much as she had expected to. At some point, when you were the only two people alive for miles, it became easier to disacknowledge that the Jedi and Sith were age-long enemies, and when the thing that made the two differ was made significantly less important, Abyss was better company than she had anticipated. Perhaps that was un-Jedi-like of her, but if their paths crossed again, Aria would greet him as openly as she was capable of doing - which admittedly wouldn't be very much, but that was due more to how socially inept she was than how great her like or dislike of him or the Sith as a whole was.

"And...if the Force ever decides your path is with the Jedi, you know the way to Voss."

After some time, a ship landed; their pay was accepted and they were loaded in. Aria sat in silence, speaking only to thank their pilots and bid they and Abyss goodbye when they reached Voss, where she took a speeder back to the temple and returned. She had plenty on her mind.

[member="Darth Abyss"]