Private Look Me Up When You Get There

[Arris Windrun]

CORUSCANT
IMPERIAL CENTER
Kirie

883 ABY - Nashal Starport, Talus

A dark-haired kid sprinted through the line, pushing through people and luggage. At the end, a man, late twenties, was surrounded by a gaggle of reporters and fans.

"Vic, Vic! Do you have any--" The holorecorder fell out of the reporter's hand. "Hey, watch it brat!"

Emotion, clear as a cloudless sky, said everything. "Where ya goin' Vic?!" Spoken as if betrayed.

The champ got on one knee and put a hand on the kid's shoulder; he grinned. "To the big leagues on Coruscant."

The kid looked in awe. "Where's that?" The kind of ignorance only a street rat'd have.

Vic's grin widened, and he laughed. "Knowing you? You'll be there someday, too." He rose, turned, and walked through the checkpoint. "Look me up when you get there!" He said as he rounded the corner and disappeared.

Present Day

Arris stood still. A cigarette hung on her lower lip. A lighter clenched in her metal right hand.

She gave Arris a searching look, then reached out and flicked the cigarette from between Arris' fingers. It arced through the air and landed in a dirty puddle outside with a hiss. Kirie smirked.

The cyborg hesitated. Thought maybe she should quit. She lit it anyway and took a long drag. Seconds later, a firing squad executed a group of captured ISB agents. She glanced sidelong as if confirming what she already knew. A Covenant soldier glanced back in search of the Triumvir's approval. She exhaled smoke from her nostrils and moved on. Arris wanted nothing more than to be as far away from this mess as possible.

Coruscant's skyline smoldered much like the disease betwixt her fingers. The executions became a distant thing, and as the sun set, long shadows crept along the ground. Their forms twisted like tendrils from where turbolasers reduced sleek frames to twisted metal.

Gathered in what used to be a little public park, Arris noticed a familiar face among the acolytes who rested there.

"Kirie?" She called out, soft and surprised, as if their strange excursion on Nar Shaddaa was so, so long ago.

Maybe Arris had wondered if she survived the invasion... and maybe she was glad.

 

[Kirie]

Location: Coruscant Temple District
Tag: Arris Windrun

Kirie quickly stood up upon hearing her name, and looked around for the source. She had been sitting on a bench in the middle of the park. One half of the space was burned and cratered, but the end where the gathered there were still paved pathways and shrubs and patches of grass. Sitting with her back to the destruction, she could almost ignore the smouldering skyline in the background, almost forget that the thousands of little particles settling to the ground all around was ash.

She panned around the tired, wounded Sith forces taking their rest until her eyes locked onto Arris Windrun. Kirie inclined her head almost imperceptibly and closed the distance between them, chains clinking merrily as she walked.

They had put her in leg and wrist irons, of course, just for her safety, just until they found out what they were supposed to do with her. Really, when Kirie was hauled to her feet and dragged away she was mostly just relieved that she no longer had to face Neriah and Anet. Their betrayal sickened her, but the longer the distance grew from her escape attempt the more she wondered if she really was the guilty party.

'Hey, Arris.' Kirie signed. Thankfully, her droid had survived the assault on Coruscant too. She pointed a bandaged finger- from when someone had stomped on it in their scuffle- towards the cigarette clutched in Arris' hand.

"You got any more of those?"

 

[Arris Windrun]

Kirie

Whatever quiet joy Arris felt, it faded so, so quickly at the sight of chains, replaced by confusion, followed closely by surprise. Though it was difficult to tell with how poorly the cyborg emoted.

"You can tell that droid to stop if you want," she said.

Arris tapped the side of her head. "I... erm," she wanted to say something impressive like that she learned, but, "I found a library on the HoloNet." Simple enough for that droid computer lodged in her brain to understand, with only a few simple modifications to her targeting algorithm.

As Kirie asked for a cigarette, Arris froze a little. She thought constantly of when the younger woman doused hers in the puddle. But, after only a little hesitation, she drew another. When Kirie placed it between her lips, Arris leaned in so Kirie might steal the flame from hers as they both inhaled. Arris pulled back and exhaled off to the side.

"Do I want to know?"

It was weird, to say the least, for the other acolytes to see Kirie casually on a smoke break with a Triumvir, while effectively awaiting whatever the Covenant's version of a trial was.

 

[Kirie]

Location: Coruscant Temple District
Tag: Arris Windrun

"You can tell that droid to stop if you want,"

Kirie raised a brow, and nodded in approval.

'Ok, cool.' she splayed her fingers and performed one of the command signs, prompting the floating miniature protocol droid to land and slip itself into the voluminous pocket of her skirt.

She reached out to receive the cigarette with another delicate clink, turning the thing around in her hand before placing it between her lips in a mirror of Arris. She leaned in close to light it, again following the other woman's movements. She had never been so close to the woman before, and Kirie found that while she smelled vaguely of engine grease and solder, it wasn't offensive. It was weird though, that Arris smelled like machinery, rather than a person.

The end of Arris' cigarette lit hers and Kirie straightened up as she took a drag. Again she watched Arris, breathing out when she did. Though, she could not help the weak, wheezy cough that escaped her at the end, or the slight watering of her eyes.

She didn't feel anything at first, which was a little disappointing, but hopefully it would come soon. No doubt Arris took her doses strong.

"Do I want to know?"

Kirie shook her head.

'Probably better you don't.'

The ISB agents' bodies were being dragged away for disposal, a trail of red smearing across the pavers. Kirie took another drag, then gave Arris a sidelong glance.

'Thought of your plan yet?' She smirked bitterly. 'Because mine definitely did not work.'

 

[Arris Windrun]

Kirie

Kirie was right to assume - Arris did like her substances strong.

The haze rolled lazily from her lips as she watched the acolyte sign. Each motion tracked by her processor and translated in (almost) real-time. When Kirie said it was probably better that Arris didn't ask, the Talusian was inclined to accept that request for privacy.

But as soon as she asked about her plan, Arris stopped mid-drag as if a gun was suddenly pressed to the base of her neck.

"I'm fucked - but Mercy will kill you; all of us, if we fail. I just need time to think... To work out all the angles."

She hadn't a clue what to expect with Coruscant, but it wasn't...

Arris spoke - emulating the Emperor's voice just as she practiced.

The light in her eyes, if ever there was any to be found, died.

She took a loooong drag, burning the cigarette down to the roots in one pull, and exhaled through her nostrils in short order. With that done, she tossed what remained off to the side and drew another. For now, she was content to just roll it between her fingers.

Her eyes never quite returned fully to Kirie. "I'm... still thinking."

A need to change the subject. "Do you want to get--" As soon as she began to say it, she realized ending with 'get away from here' was probably the wrong choice of words.

"Come on," Arris nudged gestured with the jerk of her head. "Let's walk."

Without more than a thought, the technopath commanded the acolyte's binds to unlock and fall from her arms and legs.

"They can put them back on you later."

 

[Kirie]

Location: Coruscant Temple District
Tag: Arris Windrun

Kirie's eyes were focused on the red smears where the ISB agents had been. When they had been alive, Kirie had not noticed anything particularly different about them. They were just one of the many losers of this battle. But now she felt them, or rather, she felt their absence, and the particular moment they passed from this world to wherever was after. Nothingness, she had always believed, but it hadn't felt like a dissipation as much as a transfer. Something she could reach out and grab if she wanted. Her eyes drifted closed and the images of the departed souls danced across her mind's eye, accompanied by an ethereal humming that-

"Do you want to get--"

'What?' Kirie's eyes snapped open, and she struggled to bring her mind back to whatever Arris had been saying. She took another puff from the cigarette, coughed, then laughed. 'Oh, a walk, sure.' She gave a slow nod and fell into step beside Arris, walking alongside her like she was an old friend instead of a scary murdery Sith Lord. Normally, Kirie would have walked in Arris' shadow, small and unobtrusive. She had always resented having to do that- just like she resented the stupid ankle shackles that stopped her from fully extending her stride. Kirie looked at the floor and pouted at the clanking metal with displeasure, plodding along beside Arris, when suddenly the chains just fell off. Kirie stopped, shocked… Had she just…?

"They can put them back on you later."

'Oh…' Kirie's eyes dragged her gaze back up to Arris and blinked uncomprehendingly a few times, until her eyes seemed to clear. 'Okay. Thanks…'

Another drag. The cigarette was burning down to a nub now and threatening to burn her fingers. Besides, it had become less fun to smoke and was starting to hurt her lungs. She wanted to be rid of it.

Kirie waved the cigarette in front of Arris' nose.

'I need a bin.'

She paused a beat.

'What were you saying before?'

 

[Arris Windrun]

Arris slowed a tad as she noticed Kirie's behavior and found amusement in it. In her expressions, body language, and the careful way she (from Windrun's perspective, anyway) was careful to sign as if avoiding scrutiny. In a way, the coughing and laughter, too, was language - and it was great to hear KIrie.

She was about to advise the younger woman to slow her roll, until she noticed it down to her fingers.

Arris responded in bafflement when Kirie just waved the thing in front of her nose.

'I need a bin.'

One benefit of being a cyborg... Or rather, one benefit of being a cyborg named Arris Windrun, was her exact set of implants offered pristine substance control. Poison was, in practicality, a non-issue for her. In a way, it meant she could subsist on spoiled meat if she wanted. So it was nothing, then, for her to simply pluck the thing and eat it.

Did she do it to get a rise out of her? Absofuckinglutely.

'What were you saying before?'

"I wasn't." Arris withheld a snicker. "Just stay close and let the world flow through you. There's nothing else to it."

It brought a small pleasure to her mind, because only through another had she remembered why she started to smoke in the first place. It was easy to fall back on things like: 'I need it to get by,' or, 'It helps with the pain', or, 'Well, I can't just quit cold womp rat.' - She started because it was fun. Because altered states of mind were refreshing.

Because... "I love seeing more than I thought was there." She murmured.

Arris wanted to be there with her as they walked through Coruscant's wounds. She slowed her pace a little again, turned inside herself, and disabled the implant that regulated substances - and consequently, pain, and her adrenal system. The cyborg skipped a step as pain began to flood her, and drew deep on the rest of her cigarette.

Quickly, she lit another and dragged that one down to the root as if a party trick.

Though pain had started to press against her, reminding her of how awful it was to be alive in one way, she looked upon the smoldering cityscape and saw a vision of fire as waves, moving not in chaos but in sway. A dance with the forces of nature that guided it - invoked by hellfire at the push of an operator's button, maybe, but governed by things that would succeed them after they were all long gone.

She tilted her gaze slightly, just enough to spy Kirie. "How..." She grimaced, "Does it feel?" She wondered, both curiously and as someone who felt responsible in that very moment.

 

[Kirie]

Location: Coruscant Temple District
Tag: Arris Windrun

Kirie's eyes nearly bugged out of her head when she saw Arris eat the cigarette butt. She gasped, and pointed at Arris in disbelief, then she began to laugh hysterically, doubling over, the only sound the wheezing of her breath. After far too long, Kirie straightened and wiped a tear from her eye.

'Awesome! You're like a little trash compactor.' she snorted.

"Just stay close and let the world flow through you. There's nothing else to it."

Kirie nodded, even though she wasn't super sure what Arris meant, and followed her lead, still walking beside her, but this time making an effort to take in the things around her, like how this high up there was actually wind that wove its way through the towers, carrying with it debris and trash that she supposed could have been thrown out some window yesterday, or a thousand years before that.

She also picked up the flare of pain running through Arris, appearing seemingly from nowhere, couldn't help but watch her and feel it diminish when she polished off another stick. Fascinating, like she had invited the feeling to bring herself relief.

Behind her, the storm swirled in a synchronised dance with the flames, with the smoke that belched from the open husks of skyscrapers, with the twinkling lights that hinted at further devastation below. All of it the music of destruction. Beautiful, in its way, but terrible, final, wasteful.

Kirie looked back at Arris. She was an easier sight to behold, something that felt possible to understand, not like out there.

"How..." She grimaced, "Does it feel?"

'I'm scared I'm, like, bad… Inside.' Kirie told Arris.

She was silent a long while.

'It feels nice.' she signed. 'Makes me wish I was doing this at home. There’s this meadow, near my house…’ Kirie trailed off. ‘Yeah.’

 

[Arris Windrun]

Kirie

Somehow, being called a trash compactor was a little less amusing for Arris than Kirie found it, but the cyborg still cracked a smiled.

She took to observing the younger woman in her state of inebriation, watching as the world pulled her attention apart into a myriad of realizations and awe-inspiring spectacles. At least, that's what Windrun expected and hoped for. So when Kirie looked back and answered, that little smile of hers faded into a small, thoughtful frown.

Those words were terribly relatable. She, too, felt bad inside, and while she internalized a thought that she didn't necessarily know why Kirie felt that way, she believed they shared a fear.

Arris had no reply just yet, which was enough time for the sad acolyte to share another thought. One that struck her immediately. This was personal. Oh, chaos, that was scary. But wait - how was this different, less personal than what Kirie shared before? Their little connection over feeling bad inside. Well, it just was. Because sharing pain was different than knowing someone's past, someone's fleeting, bittersweet desire.

When Kirie trailed off, Arris just knew the door was left open. Even if a wary crack... And that was terrifying.

Arris saw two paths before her. One where she confided in Kirie her own experience with 'badness' and self-doubt, and the other where she put her foot in that door before it finally shut.

Fuck.

"My home," saying that already hurt her. "I... I grew up in a city. No meadow life for me. I smoked behind the speeder shed."

Fuck, wait. She wanted both.

"We went too far, but..." And Arris turned to look at her.

For a moment, the shame she felt was worn heavy in her eyes.

"It's not your fault."

Arris stopped.

"I can't apologize. I've done unforgivable things. To you. To Ne...Nilira... Tapani. Coruscant. The purge... Rox." Each a confession that led deeper into the self-pitiful misery of Arris Windrun.

That was when she finally realized something. Something she felt since the invasion, since realizing what the Covenant has become... Or what she failed to see it always was.

She turned further to face her, and looked down at her cybernetic hands. In her drug-fueled haze she could almost see them as flesh again. Her lifeless, cybernetic eyes of grey trailed up until they met living brown.

But in the Force, Arris Windrun projected a resolve that - even if for a passing moment - cut through the Darkness.

"I can't walk away again. I'll do better."

She needed to face her trauma head on. Easily said. Horrifying to consider. Paralyzing to attempt. Yeah, this was the kind of impossible suicide mission that had Arris Windrun written all over it. The Talusian thought of Rox, then looked at Kirie. Oh - this was a psychological disaster. Arris should've known better.

But.

No.

Change the subject.

"You really grew up in a meadow? Please tell me you weren't a farmer or something."

 

[Kirie]

Location: Coruscant Temple District
Tag: Arris Windrun

Arris explained, and Arris apologised, or, she didn't quite apologise. Arris made a promise, and Kirie fell into herself.

Don't talk to me about Nilira. She thought.

Don't talk to me about Coruscant.

Rox?

'Okay.'

The ground rippled around her. Far then close then far then close. She gripped the railing for support. Mercifully, Arris seemed equally unable to handle the current track of the conversation. They shouldn't be people who confess their since to each other, she and Arris. That had been a moment of weakness borne by the cocktail of substances rolling through her veins.

"You really grew up in a meadow? Please tell me you weren't a farmer or something."

'I did, a valley town called Cephis, on a planet you've probably never heard of.' Kirie told her. She dug around in her back pocket, pulling out a notepad with a sketched image of a squat house surrounded by angular trees, with high snowcaps rising in the background. 'And what's wrong with farmers?'

'I wasn't really anything. Father was a farmer, I helped him and worked at Mother's stall.' Kirie swallowed. 'I miss the wide open spaces. I suppose Coruscant feels like home to you, right?'

 

[Arris Windrun]

Kirie

Okay.

That... That hurt.

Maybe she didn't want to move on. Maybe what Arris really wanted was someone who would navigate her, without Arris ever needing to speak her mind. Maybe she wanted to be accused, rather than confess; and maybe it was a helluva lot easier to live her life in the corner, with only one way forward.

That didn't matter anymore. Kirie bit the change of subject and described a little of her home to her. Arris was surprised when she fished her pocket and pulled out a notepad with a sketch... So Kirie drew? Shit. That was unfair.

She was right. Arris didn't know her homeworld. But it looked beautiful, even as dust on parchment. Kirie grew up with a home and scenery. So how did she end up here?

Oh... So she was a farmer. Windrun offered a dumbfounded expression, more at herself than Kirie. She was a little embarrassed to clock her like that over an out-o-pocket musing.

The life she described was a foreign concept to the Talusian... A mother and father who wanted anything to do with her. A home. A way of life that sounded too good to be true. And in that moment of vulnerability, Kirie made the fatal mistake of asking Arris Windrun if Coruscant reminded her of home.

The cyborg's movement lagged and her expression sullened.

"No," she spat quickly as if forced to answer.

Arris sighed and shook her head.

Euphoria was unique because it didn't always render as happiness. It was clarity, too, and in her clarity - her altered state of mind - Kirie's question scratched at something far below the surface, something that was otherwise unavailable to Arris until now.

She smiled faintly, one of the few involuntarily times since becoming more machine than organic. Her eyes drifted to nothing in particular.

"Talus was a world with your life and mine. Snowy mountains, plains, we even had beaches. But I lived in one of the cities - the industrial district, never really left it until I left Talus." She began.

"Mm... My parents did their own thing, stopped seeing 'em when I was a teen. Said I was getting too big and eating too much of their food," she chuckled as if offering that was innocuous.

"The gang claimed me."

She pulled back her jacket to show a small lapel pin on the inside. A shen etched into dark metal, worn and scratched with time. Beyond that, a Black Sun brand on her collar bone peeked through from behind a cropped muscle shirt.

"I was a runner for most of my childhood." She was a child soldier. "Things were fine and then..."

Her eyes drifted back over to Kirie's mid rant, and her words trailed off when they made eye contact. A thing about clarity is it meant you saw things you weren't ready to face. The blonde saw her own muddled reflection in the younger woman's eyes.

It clicked.

"That ain't me."

From Kirie's perspective, the blonde's features softened, as if she was contemplating something intimate.