In For A Tune-Up (Alna Merrill)

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Alna Merrill"]

His metal hand wrapped around the small of her back, and the real one gripped a shoulder from behind. One could be present in a moment in different ways and degrees: this time around, more than normal, he focused on her. What she might be thinking, what she might want, what she might be about to do. Not as anxiety, but as educated guesswork based on years of marriage. Responsiveness, in a word. Would they be able to find this level of comfort when in new bodies? Would they have to re-learn everything about themselves and each other, and would that be a chore or...

Then again, there was such a thing as overthinking. Alna could generally identify such trends and nip them in the bud.

***​

​

Come morning, late morning, Jorus spent a decent bit of time checking the priority messages from across the Underground. Satisfied that the First Order hadn't invaded Kal'Shebbol overnight, he rang Mara. Hotel comm to the Daragon's portable hypercomm, across the sector -- no, too many relay notices, too much latency. Mara showed up on the 2D screen in the medieval clothing she favoured while on Kilia Four, at Castle Miriamele.

He tried to explain. He bungled it.

 

[Alndys]

[member="Jorus Merrill"]

Alna had a bit more luck, though not much. Mara was included in several of their talks over the next couple of weeks, though, and came around once the realities of the situation had had time to sink in. Alndys suspected that her daughter had spoken directly with her Master to get a better perspective on all the metaphysical nonsense that was about to happen, and while Alna wasn't EXACTLY pleased with the thought, it was nice that Mara wasn't any more unsettled than her parents. Unsettled was good, honestly. This was unsettling business.

The next couple weeks went by a bit differently than Alna had hoped. They'd been some hard discussions in the middle of what Alndys intended to be a second honeymoon/farewell tour of their bodies, but there was still business to take care of. Talking about what would become of their identities, how or if they'd explain to their associates. A particularly difficult conversation where they discussed their preferred... 'parameters', in the bodies Aleidis was having cloned for them. One part terrifying, one part profoundly uncomfortable, Alndys suspected that it was the dash of sinking exhilaration that kept her going and able to keep Jorus on an even keel. It wasn't unlike when she'd set out on her own as a headstrong young woman, the odd, scary excitement of standing on the threshold of a journey with no clear idea of where her feet were going to take her. It was a feeling that she, in her propensity for preparation and foresight, hadn't experienced in quite some time.

Between the hard, clinical discussions and anxiety-filled talks with her husband, Alndys did her best to enjoy herself as much as possible. After all, her figure no longer needed to be watched (not that it'd taken much watching, thankyou) in the slightest, there was only so much damage that she could do in a handful of weeks. She and Jorus had never been inclined towards wild parties, aside from the celebrant festivals and feasts on Q-27, but those were somewhat hard to come by on Dayark. Thankfully, Aleidis' wife knew how to throw a party. Alna found she got asking much better with the less frail of the two Mrs. Zrgaats.

Finally, the day came. Looking as anxious as Alna felt, but perhaps not as nervous as Alna would like her to be, Aleidis had brought her and Jorus into a small section of the local hospital she'd borrowed for this purpose. They'd been asked to lay down, and gently eased into a very swift and deep sleep. A mercy, Alna knew, since the procedure involved WAS a bit murder-y - hence why it was one way, why Aleidis had emphasised a need to leave regrets behind. She'd fallen asleep hand-in-hand with her husband, the sleeve tattoos they'd gotten on Dayark to symbolize their wedding vows lining up as smoothly as they ever had.


It was impossible to know how long she'd drifted in that coma-like slumber. Alna recalled lights shined in her unfocused, unresponsive eyes. She knew she'd been moved, she remembered Aleidis speaking with another woman. It was all so distant and unimportant. Alna didn't let it interrupt her rest.

Eventually, she awoke. Alndys felt stiff, as though she'd been asleep too long, but was relieved that she could feel her fingers still linked with (hopefully) Jorus before she'd even opened her eyes. Sensory information slowly came in. She was laying on something too soft to be a hospital bed, she could hear rain pattering on glass. She ran her teeth over her tongue and found them... well, they were teeth, but they weren't HER teeth, and that was about the strangest gorram feeling Alna had ever experienced. Groaning, Alndys rolled into her side - noting the considerably less dramatic swell of her hip, or the way there was less of her moving as she sat up on the side of a bed that felt entirely too big to someone used to spaceship cots and the like.

Her eyes drifted open. Through a mess of unruly red hair, Alndys stared down at a skinny pair of pale legs in shorts, narrow feet on the carpet below. Uncalloused, delicate hands rested on those thighs, one of them attached to a monitoring device. They were in a bedroom - judging from the decor, Aleidis had brought her back to get house after the procedure.

Alna half-stood up, but the disorientation was enough to keep her sitting. Instead, she carefully prodded the slumbering lump next to her. "Psst. Jor." Alna hissed quietly, amazed at how... different her voice was. She spoke again, this time not in a whisper. "Jorus."

Sky above, was that her voice? She sounded like one of Mara's friends!

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Alna Merrill"]

His body felt...clean, like interstitial tissue and fat and scars had been stripped away, like he'd been scoured down to bones and raw lean wire. This felt familiar, but the kind of familiarity buried behind years of change. He'd been young like this, sure, but then he'd run face-first into a drinking problem and several careers' worth of war wounds.

Like, say, the metal hand. The metal eyes, replaced so many times, even before he'd met Alna. The scars around them, his temples, his cheeks, the bridge of his nose. Puncture wounds in his chest from Daxton Bane's orbalisk-venom darts at Roon. Small, puckered scars around his mouth and across the backs of his hands -- undead on Denon, rakghouls, Bando Gora reavers. Assorted damage from his two brutal, unsuccessful tangoes with Kaine fething Zambrano. Lung injuries from failure to exhale during explosive decompression. Missing aches and pains from long decades on the run, too many years in a pilot's chair, a stoop in his neck, too straight in the lumbar vertebrae. Tension, accumulated in Jedi convocations and extragalactic mapping expeditions and smuggling runs into One Sith territory.

He blinked, craned his neck over, and looked at his wife with natural eyes for the first time.

He hadn't been born with these eyes, she hadn't been born with that face, but it was absolutely her. He could feel that, in a way he never had. The Force was back -- Aleidis' gamble had worked.

Dayark's hermit-in-chief had left a water pitcher on the nightstand. Jorus sat up, tore his eyes away from Alna, and poured two transparent cups. He held one out to her as he sucked down the other. Dry throat slaked, he coughed. "Hey there," he said, listening to himself. Late teens or early twenties, audibly. A little higher than he was used to, but rough, the kind of voice that could shout without screeching. The kind of voice the Underground could take seriously, in time, though he'd save a lot of hassle if he just stuck to text comms and masked flight helmets for a while. Beyyr knew, Central Command knew, but...yeah.

He rubbed his arms -- lean muscle, not a lot of bulk -- and found himself a little tangled in the line off his wrist. No needle, just a vital signs monitor. He stripped it off, still taking in the details of his body and hers. White shirts and shorts still gave a decent idea of what lay beneath, over and above the...design consultations they'd had earlier.

Alna's former self had been familiar, attractive, always. He felt a twinge of sadness, knowing he'd never look at that face or hold that hand again. But this was clearly her, even pale, young, red-haired, on the edge of skinny. The her-ness of it overcame all unfamiliarity, all physical difference. Good. He'd worried.

He coughed again, clearing his throat. "You...how do you feel? How do I look?"

 

[Alndys]

[member="Jorus Merrill"]

Unable to abide sitting when things were happening, Alna gave standing another try. Slightly more successful, she wavered slightly and windmilled to stay upright, but managed to keep her feet under her. The room was much larger than it aught to be - though that wasn't the truth. Alna had always been a tall woman, up until recently. She was still tall, but in a gangly, late-development sort of way.

The stiff-soreness from laying too long was all but gone. Alarmingly quick, actually. Her entire body practically thrummed with insistent energy, restless and ready to go. No decades of hard labor or cigarettes, no lifetime working in dubious conditions, subjected to who-knew-how-much stellar radiation. Alna briefly took a moment to run her hands over the somewhat-lacking curves of her body, reflecting that this wasn't terribly unlike when she'd spooled up the Daragon's engines for the first time after a life in the Wayfarer - unfamiliar, filled with strange little quirks and bumps, but thrumming like the well designed machine it was. "I feel... clumsy. But kind of amazing?"

Alna glanced over her shoulder at the young man sitting up in bed and offered a slightly sheepish smile - she'd been grabbing her bottom when he'd asked. Alna turned, wavered on her feet, then caught herself. Her center of gravity was lower and much lighter, she'd get used to it in time.

"Hey, you." Alna replied, accepting the glass of water. Jorus... well, he hadn't gone far. He was different, for sure, buy the young man sitting before her moved like he did, in all the innumerable little ways he did ever when sitting. He spoke like Jorus, even if his voice was different. Even his eyes drifting over her were similar, despite being biological for the first time since before she'd known him.

"You look like you." Alna promised, sliding clumsily back into bed. Her opinion of Aleidis increased slightly when Alna found a hair tie around her wrist, which she used to pull her unfamiliar red curls into a loose tail. "Just... young. And maybe a bit more vibrant." She scooted across the bed and cupped Jorus' cheek, finding his eyes. "I can still see your scars, you know."

The phrase was meant to sound romantic, reassuring, even if the specific words were a little ironic given their situation.

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Alna Merrill"]

I see your scars.

Had it been her who'd said that to him first, or him to her? Kothlis, Void Station, deep space with the Vagrant Fleet? Had they even been together then, as more than friends and salvage partners? One more little foundation stone of their life together, sunk so deep there was no telling where it started. But the house on top -- that was still standing firm.

He put his hand over hers and turned to kiss her palm. She didn't have the calluses of a salvager, a mechanic, or the inhabitant of a pre-technological world. Her skin didn't smell the same, had different lines. He shifted on the bed to face her, head swimming. He thought about a kiss, but that could wait. Not all gestures of affection were created equal. A joke, for example...

"So I never did ask," he said, releasing her hand. His palm found her leg at the edge of the shorts, thumb tracing the edge of muscle along the outside of her thigh. An old familiar motion, enough that he'd done it instinctively, and that was probably a good sign.

"Why ginger?"

 

[Alndys]

[member="Jorus Merrill"]

"Went as close to photo-negative as possible." Alna replied, perhaps a bit quickly. Mostly because she'd anticipated the question and had a pithy reply waiting in the wings for the right moment to strike. Her straight face didn't last long, though, Alna grinned and lay back, tried to put her wrist to her brow like an actress in a dramatic scene, and wound up smacking herself in the forehead for the trouble. "All those fair-haired women you loved before me - I thought I'd afford my husband the chance to love a blonde, brunette, and redhead, to further his mythical status."

Bursting into a peal of (honestly, pretty dorky) laughter, Alna put her arms behind her head and, red-faced, smirked at her husband. "I literally rolled a couple of chance cubes." She confessed honestly, raising her leg slightly where he was touching it. She hasn't felt this... endlessly exuberant or capable of handling anything the world threw at her since she'd been a trainee engineer at Fondor. A dangerous thought, honestly, as that impatience with the slow, backwards ways of the Galaxy had led her into Ironwolf's company. "I didn't get to pick the first time, didn't seem right to pick everything about the second, you know?" Sound enough logic for her.

Reaching up, Alna ran her fingers through Jorus' hair - it was a familiar point, a welcoming sensation, the only thing she'd insisted he maintain. Not that he had to keep the same shade, or the same style, but that wonderfully thick, pliable Merrill mop of hair was HERS to claim as keepsake. "Besides..." She pointed out slyly. "Not many women in my shade and profession, somebody would eventually make the connection. Didn't want that."

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Alna Merrill"]

Her good moods were generally quiet things these days, and there was nothing wrong with that. But fethed if this wasn't the woman he'd fallen in love with, the Vagrant Fleet salvager, shooting her way through Void Station beside him, introducing him to a certain yellow bikini on Kothlis. She had life again, and it wasn't until now that he realized there'd ever been a lack. She'd always seemed so composed, so at ease, but maybe she'd felt stuck in a rut. Or maybe she just had the endocrine system of a woman in her late teens or early twenties. Whatever the reason, her good mood was infectious. As she gripped his hair, he got his weight on an elbow and threw a leg over hers, pressing his stomach against her side. He propped his head up on a palm.

"And I'm going to have to send a lot of orders by text and wear a lot of pilot helmets on the comms," he said. A little bit of a non sequitur, but the connection lay in their differing strategies for their new lives' identities. "I'm whoever Aleidis set me up to be, same as you, but I can't totally walk away from being Jorus Merrill. The Underground still needs a hand. But," he admitted, "the general staff know what's up. Beyyr and the admirals have things in hand, here in the Kathol and out there in the rest of the 'verse. I guess I could stop pretending to be indispensable and just be your...disreputable associate. That no-good tramp freighter pilot bumming around your work while you design all the best ships in the 'verse."

 

[Alndys]

[member="Jorus Merrill"]

Alna chuckled quietly, leaning against him as best she was able while he was beside her. "It'll be twice as interesting this time, when I don't have a degree from Fondor or a reputation to back my words up." She pointed out slyly. The details of their new identities had been more or less left to Aleidis with Jorus' input, but having certification from a place as big as Fondor would involve fudging far, far too much paperwork. Something from Corellia-that-was was a bit more feasible, perhaps, but that was when the Merrills had been planning to be closer to thirty.

Alna pondered briefly, scratching her chin. "We'll need to get our feet under us, I think. Don't feel like taking more help from Silk - That's a slippery slope." She confessed, before shivering. "Really don't want to go asking Mara for work, either..." She added sheepishly. "Pride."

Alna sighed, shrugged, then leaned up to kiss the very corner of Jorus' mouth with a grin. The same promise she'd made on Kothlis. "I think we should give the Gypsymoth a fresh coat of paint, get some tools and go find something to explore and tear about for credit." She decided softly, smirking up at him. "Maybe get lost a little..."

She trailed off mid-thought and sniffed the air, squinting. "...do you smell that? Is that bacon?" Twenty years of cigarettes erased, the world was full of wonderful scents... and her stomach had just been cleared for solid food, she presumed.

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Alna Merrill"]

"Yeah. No help from Silk, no help from Mara." He whistled slowly -- and quietly, because he was right by her ear. He nipped the lobe gently, because it was right there. "I like this plan, the Gypsymoth, the salvage. We'd need a fake telesponder, but I've got about nine handy. As for salvage to strip down...you should have seen the mess the Rogue Sith left over Castameer. Seven hundred thousand dead, last estimates I heard, and a whole lot of bad ships in need of a good home. The Underground's headed out that way, mostly to help groundside, but orbit? Even after the Omega explosion wrecked the joint, there's plenty of work needs doing."

Force, she smelled good. He ran a hand over her stomach, testing the waters. No, wait, the smell was bacon.

Bacon.

"I think our host is sending us a gentle reminder that she knows we're up and about." Regretfully, he peeled himself away from Alna's side and got off the bed. He glanced down. "Well, guess there's some aspects of being young I'm going to have to get used to again. Feth."

Some basic and thankfully-sturdy trousers were available, and socks. He pulled them on, wobbling constantly but unwilling to sit back down on the bed. He could do this -- get dressed while unused to standing. The clasp snicked shut and he turned to Alna. "You look so alive," he said, apropos of nothing. "Really, you're just..." Words failed him; he grinned lopsidedly and opened the door. The smell of bacon intensified.

"After you."

 

[Aleidis Zrgaat]

[member="Jorus Merrill"]

A young couple stumbled out of her guest room a little later than Aleidis would have allowed the last occupant to sleep in, but that was fine. They were laughing, stumbling, falling all over each other like they'd been drinking - Really, a best-case scenario. Disorientation was normal, and there were no early warning signs of Asenath's Syndrome or Lohanism, and she'd already had them cleared of tendencies towards Rogersbane. This was why they were being treated to a robust breakfast - they were young and healthy and needed a great deal of protein and essentials that their bodies hadn't really had the chance to stock up on. A large enough breakfast that the Ghostling had put on her prosthetic arm to cook it.

Aleidis would had never figured Alndys for a giggler, but there she was. Thankfully, the animosity she'd arrived with seemed forgotten.

As Alna and Jorus stumbled their way to the table, Aleidis set out a tall plate for them both - carefully measured out, with a stern insistence that that eat everything, for medical reasons. But she needn't have said anything, they demolished all she'd set out and then some, as Aleidis carefully laid out some issues that that would need to keep an eye out for, things that were normal, and so on.

Thankfully, though, she'd written it all down and put their treatment plans with the documentation for their new identities. Creating two full people from scratch was easy, doing so in a convincing way that would survive scrutiny was another matter, but she'd managed. The tragedy that'd befallen Korriban was unfortunately fairly fortuitous, since the last thing anyone would expect a survivor of that crisis to save would be their legal documentation or civil server nodes. New (digital) papers were being issued in bulk, and she happened to have the contacts in that particular humanitarian organization to... smooth things along. They were legally citizens of Korriban as of a week ago, honeymooning off-planet.

It took most of the day in physical rehabilitation to get normal use back to Aleidis' exacting standards. A day after that getting new clothes and painting the Gypsymoth. By hand. Alna had insisted, Aleidis agreed that some light labor might be a good idea. And then they were off, free to explore the Galaxy.