Private Pauper Troll

[Abishai Jade]

The lower city was grim. The puddled water in the alleys was purifying. Trash seemed destined to never be picked up by collectors that were paid to keep certain parts of the "lowers" cleaner than others. It was the sort of place where pipes were held together by luck and tape, and the people were held together by less.

Still, it was a place that Abi had come to call normal. He has pulled up a couple of crates just off a major thoroughfare, and set up a small game of chance. Des, a friend so long as the credits kept coming in, had played the role of confidence man, winning the first bet that he place on the cups as they shuffled back and forth.

Aging dock hands, cybers with hackneyed implants and ne'er do well drunks watched with foolish hope. The metal cups slipped back and forth on the crate, beneath them a small stone, purposefully chosen to give a rattle and thus more confidence to the players.

"Quick hands but yer eyes are quicker...creds burning a hole in my pocket...who's gonna try their skills against mine...come on now..."

"I'll give it a go," said a surly looking man who had clearly had too much pie, too many times.

Abi smiled grimly. "Ah...good sir...place yer bet..."

A small handful of creds were tossed onto the crate. Not much, barely enough for a bad sandwich. Abishai listened. And the man came through with what he was looking for.

*Middle cup..."

The words were as clear as if they were uttered out loud. And then, just like normal, they became real. "Middle cup..."

Abishai grimaced. And lifted the middle cup to reveal the stone beneath it. The man laughed, throaty, harsh and slobber spilling out of his mouth. "HA! I knew it. Pay up kid!"

Abishai slipped him the credits with a groan. "Lucky guess, lucky...guess."

"Weren't no guess! I could do it again," the man said, tossing all his winnings, his original credits and then finding more in his pockets to slam onto the crate, "go again!"

Abishai played reluctant, but proceeded to move the old metal cups around again. This time faster, more hand movements, but not always with cup movements. And then he stopped, hand hovering above the cups.

*Right cup..." He heard, again, the guy had called it correctly.

"Right cup..."

Abishai slowly lifted the cup, revealing no stone beneath it. The gambler yelled accusations of cheating. Abishai shook the cup, nothing came out...thankfully. And then he placed it down again.

"Alls fair friend...hope you can pay your debt..."

Nøva
​

 

[Nøva]

TAG: Abishai Jade


The Lower City wasn't a place you walked through. You rode it — like heat in your lungs, like static on your skin.

NØVA moved with it the way a diver moves with a current, letting the momentum choose her angles while her instincts chose her path. She vaulted a rail without looking, boots hitting the next ledge with a soft thud. A short run, two steps up a peeling duracrete wall, a pivot, and she swung herself over a drainage pipe to land on a lower platform.

She didn't think about the motion.
She fed on it.

Stillness was the enemy — the place where her thoughts backed up like sewer water and tried to drown her. Movement kept the noise quiet. Movement made her feel the world instead of the numbness.

Her breath misted faintly as she dropped into a narrow alley, catching a handhold on a broken sign just long enough to swing herself around a corner. Neon strobed across her face in passing flashes, glinting off the soft amethyst glow of her optics. The implants tracked everything: shifting shadows, rattling vents, the heartbeat of the City's machinery deep under the street.

When she reached the thoroughfare, she slowed for the first time.

Not because she wanted to rest — she never wanted that — but because the City exhaled in a way she recognized.

Noise.
Conflict.
Opportunity.

A crowd had formed around a makeshift crate-table, its metal scarred with decades of rain and bad decisions. A game was running — cups sliding, the rattle of a stone, the hum of desperate credits.

And behind the table… him.


Porcelain.


Smooth features, clean lines, the kind of face that didn't belong here unless it was running something. His hands moved with the confidence of someone who'd practiced in shadows. She didn't trust clean faces. Clean faces always hid dirt well.

She popped the cap off her vapor stick with her thumb, the magnetics clicking softly. One pull. The inhale hit her throat with a cold sting and coated her breath in a faint white haze as she leaned against the railing to watch.

The first round went to the fat gambler.
The second round detonated into shouting.

The man's voice cracked through the street, loud enough to shake rust from the pipes. He accused, ranted, stepped forward like he believed gravity gave him authority.

NØVA didn't bother straightening. She just tilted her head, amethyst eyes sharpening to a faint violet glow.

When she spoke, it was dry, even, laced with the kind of contempt born from a thousand nights in places just like this:

"Big guy," she called lazily, "if your brain ran half as fast as your mouth, you'd know you lost fair. Sit down before you sweat out whatever's left of your dignity."

The crowd snickered.
The man stiffened.

But he didn't swing — something in NØVA's posture made that very clear.

She turned her attention back to Porcelain, letting her gaze drag over the crates, the cups, his hands. The faint residue of misdirection clung to the air. She could smell it, could almost see the patterns twisting through the streetlight haze.

"You handle the cups well," she said, stepping closer with a slow, confident ease. "But your tell is cleaner than your trick."

Her eyes flicked up to meet his, violet catching the neon.

"Run it again."

Not a challenge.
Not a threat.


Just NØVA, curious — the way a predator gets curious about something that might be worth chasing.

​

 

[Abishai Jade]

His smile faded quickly when he saw the cybernetic chick rolling up on the show. Abi leaned back, and started to pack up the cups. "Well. It was a treat. Thanks for the opportunity," he said, ignoring the woman's request.

He stood, but a hand was on his shoulder. A surly, disreputable looking weequay was giving him a glare that told Abishai that he was not going anywhere. "Oh hey...maybe...I will run it again..." He was "helped" back down to sit on his crate, with a thud.

The cups moved again. Abishai eyed the woman, to see what her move would be. But what he saw was...not positive for him. Definitely optic implants.

Cark snarkin' gut wranglers...

The cups clinked. And he listened for her words the moment before the left her mouth. "Place your bet...stranger."

Nøva​

 

[Nøva]

TAG: Abishai Jade



NØVA didn't miss the way Porcelain's smile faltered when he clocked her optics.

Soft amethyst, faint glow, circuitry threading under the surface — the kind of eyes that made liars nervous.

Good.

She liked seeing what people looked like when the mask slipped.

He started packing up the game, fast hands suddenly eager to vanish. She didn't move to stop him, not at first; she just watched him with that half-lidded, unreadable stare, the vapor stick burning a thin blue line between her fingers.

Then the Weequay stepped in.

A big, scarred thing with that particular Lower City stink of cheap liquor and cheaper decisions. His hand dropped onto Porcelain's shoulder, pinning him with all the gentle grace of a hydraulic clamp. NØVA didn't intervene — she wasn't here to save him — but her gaze tracked the motion like a predator watching another predator claim space.

Porcelain was sat back down hard, and NØVA took a slow drag, exhaling it in a long white plume that curled lazily over the crates.

The cups moved again. He was good — better than most — and despite the tension rolling off him, his hands stayed steady.

He kept glancing up at her, searching for an angle, a warning, a mercy.

He wasn't going to find any.

"Place your bet… stranger."

The words left him with a strain under them, a forced neutrality she could practically taste. His mind was racing. His heartbeat ticked up. The game was still the game, but she was the new variable he had no data on, and that bothered him.

NØVA let the moment stretch just long enough to make him uncomfortable.

Then she stepped in closer, boots brushing puddled neon, vapor stick angled away as she leaned one elbow on the table's edge.

"You really should've kept smiling," she said quietly, eyes narrowing just a touch. "You wore that part better."


Her hand didn't reach for credits.
Didn't reach for the cups.
Didn't posture.


She simply tapped one boot on the ground — once — in a rhythm her optics locked into, and the tiny micro-adjustments of his hands gave her all the information she needed.

"I'll take the left," she murmured, voice low, calm, confident in a way that wasn't bravado but instinct sharpened by augmentation. "And if I'm wrong?"

Her gaze slid over him, slow and assessing.

"You still owe me a real run."

She wasn't here for the credits.
She wasn't here for the win.

She was here to see him exposed — his talent, his fear, his angle — and she wanted to see what he looked like when the City pressed its full weight against him.

"Go on, Porcelain," she added, just for him, a soft bite of amusement on the name. "Let's see what you really got."

​

 

[Abishai Jade]

He groaned internally. This was not a good place to be, everyone else watching had some air of controllability about them, but this one. She was dangerous. The Weequay was a thug, a brute even. But he was a dumb brute. She on the other hand, seemed to look right through him.

His eyes took in his surroundings. His previous exit routes were mostly still available. One of them didn't require any Force shenanigans to make good. But still...

Abi's eyes narrowed. He didn't much like getting beat up. But he also found it hard to say no to a challenge. It was his curse.

She bid. She guessed. He heard the pre-echo of her words in his mind. And he smiled before her picked up the empty cup.

"Sorry...compadre...nothing for you this time. Thanks for playing...Clanka..." he said, lopsided grin doing more of the work to say, 'gotcha' than it should.

The crowd about them murmured. Some suggesting he was cheating. Other's commenting on how they were sure she had picked right. Abishai just grinned and held his eyes on hers. His eyebrows flinched, just a little, betraying his nerves over what she was doing. But he did well, in his mind, to hold her gaze.

"Round two?"

Nøva​

 

[Nøva]

TAG: Abishai Jade



The empty cup clinked against metal, and the sound rolled through the gathered bodies like a quiet accusation. NØVA didn't flinch. Didn't curse. Didn't blink.

She just held his gaze.

Porcelain grinned at her. That little crooked, too proud of himself grin — but she saw the micro-flicker beneath it, the way his brow betrayed him for a fraction of a second. Her optics caught every twitch: pupil dilation, micro-tension in the jaw, the almost-imperceptible shift of someone ready to bolt.

He had tells.

Oh, he had tells.
And he knew she'd seen them.

He wasn't scared of losing.
He was scared of her.

Good.

The crowd muttered around them, shifting like a restless animal. The Weequay's hand loosened on Abi's shoulder, sensing something more dangerous than a hustle walking into the circle.

NØVA took one slow drag from her synth-spice stick, the vapor blooming soft and blue around her face before drifting off on the warm city air.

Then she stepped closer.
One boot forward.

Soft amethyst optics brightening a shade as they focused fully on him.

No theatrics.
No raised voice.
Just quiet intent.

"'Compadre,' huh?" she murmured, tone smooth, low. "And 'clanka.' Høw… cute."

She flicked the spent vapor stick aside — a streak of white-blue falling into a puddle and sizzling out.

"For the record…"

Her fingers tapped twice on the table. Not impatient — measured.

"…I don't mind losing."

Her head tilted slightly, just enough to make it clear she wasn't posturing — she was studying him the way a blade studies a throat.

"But lying to me?"

A faint smile pulled at one corner of her mouth.

"That's a habit I break in people."

The Weequay shifted uneasily. Someone in the crowd backed up a half-step.

NØVA didn't look at any of them.

She leaned in, elbows resting lightly on the crate, close enough that he could see the faint shimmer of her augment lines under her skin.

"Round two," she echoed softly, as if tasting the words he'd offered.

Then she said it again, quieter:

"Alright."

Her smile sharpened—slow, dangerous, not entirely unfriendly.

"Let's see if you can lie to me twice."

​

 

[Abishai Jade]

"Clanka...yeah...seems to fit."

His brow furrowed deeply. But his gaze did not waver. She threatened him, overtly, but he was just one Force push away from all of these fools being on their ass. They had nothing on him.

The cups moved again. This time faster. He moved his hands over them, switching hands, and switching cups. All the while, he made sure to make as much of a scraping sound as possible to hide the noise within the cup.

And his eyes stayed on her, watching, daring her to take her eyes off of the cups for even a second.

Finally, he stopped, after the crowd had become restless with how much he was working this round.

"Alright. Make your pick," he pulled his hands away from the cups, leaned back, and again took in his surroundings.

Nøva
​

 

[Nøva]

TAG: Abishai Jade


NØVA didn't look at the cups.

She didn't even pretend to care.

The moment his hands stilled, her boots stopped scuffing the ground, and her whole body slipped into that unsettling stillness she carried like a second skin — the kind that made people instinctively wonder if they should run.

She drew in a slow breath, letting the synth-spice linger on her tongue.

Soft-amethyst optics adjusted; micro-flares of violet light caught the sweat at his temples, the tremor in his fingers, the faint muscles in his forearm still clenched a little too tightly.

Her gaze locked on him — not the game.

"You really don't listen," she said quietly.

Not angry.
Not impressed.
Not even annoyed.

Just disappointed, in a way that stung more.

"You hide the scrape. You hide the shake. You hide the rattle."

A tilt of her head.

"But you don't hide you."

Her chin lifted the barest inch.

She pointed — straight at his closed fist, not the cups.

"That's my pick," she said. "Open it."

The crowd sucked in a breath. Someone swore. The Weequay stiffened, waiting for the explosion.

NØVA didn't blink.

"And spare me the mystic hand-wave. Your speed's wrong. Your pulse is wrong. Hell—your smell is wrong."

Her mouth curled into that razor-edged amusement.

"I've been around enough of your kind to recognize the stink."

She stepped closer, one precise stride that erased any space between threat and promise.

"Stone's in your hand," she murmured. "You want round two?"

A soft exhale. Vapor curled off her lips in a thin ribbon.

"Then stop lying."

The cups sat untouched between them, suddenly irrelevant.

​

 

[Abishai Jade]

He let her speak, uninterrupted. His jaw was clenched to much to get words out. His eye twitched, and his nostrils flared.

He had seen people like her before. Avoided them too. He was not picking this scuffle though. She was making this a thing.

She called him out for cheating. For lying. He wanted to roll his eyes and try his hand at explain street hustles to her. But perhaps they had cut part of her brain out when they put the implants in. How was he to know?

"Stone's in your hand, you want round two? Then stop lying."

He swatted the right most cup, it tumbled to the ground. But left behind was the small stone that had been there all along.

Hands slammed down on the crate, cups spilled to the side, and he stood. It all happened quickly, too quickly. He felt the heat rising in the back of his neck. His breathing had increased, his heart rate had shot up. "You wanna say that again, pinkie?"

The crowd backed up, hands resting on hips. He knew what that meant. And it was enough to get him to back down a little.

He broke eye contact with the woman. "Forget it," he said, while he stuffed his winnings into his pockets, kicked the crate aside and then pushed past the crowd.

Only when he exited the alley, and joined the small number of pedestrians on the street, did he dare to look back over his shoulder.

Nøva
​

 

[Nøva]

TAG: Abishai Jade


Abishai vanished into the street like he expected the moment to end there — expected her to let him walk off with his pride and his winnings and whatever the hell he thought that tense little stare-down earned him.

NØVA let him turn the corner.

Let him think the alley swallowed her whole. Let him believe, for exactly three seconds, that the storm was over.

Then she pivoted on her heel.

And ran.

Not after him — past him, cutting into a narrow service corridor like she'd been born inside the architecture. Boots struck metal, palms caught the lip of a rusted vent, and she vaulted upward into the skeleton of the city like she was climbing straight through its ribs. Her jacket slid off her shoulders, hanging loose around her elbows, revealing the violet-soft glow of her tattoos and the sharp lines of her augmented frame.

Motion fed the hunger in her bones. Motion cleared her head. Motion let her think.

He lied.
He flinched.

He had speed with no cybernetics — and that meant only one thing.

A Force-sensitive with a street-boy grin and hands too quick for someone who didn't want to be noticed.

Dangerous.
Interesting.

And she was in a mood.

NØVA dropped from a maintenance walkway, boots hitting duracrete without a sound, just as Abishai stepped into the thoroughfare. She landed directly in front of him — no theatrics, no warning — just there, like the city had spat her into his path.

She straightened, rolled her shoulders, and tugged her jacket into place just enough to frame the ink crawling across her collarbones. Her stance was loose, easy, arms crossing under her chest with a slow tilt of her head that said I picked you.

Soft-amethyst eyes met his.

Amused.
Predatory.
Inviting trouble.

"You walk fast for someone who folds that quick," she murmured, voice low, smoky, a blade sheathed in velvet.

One eyebrow lifted, the hint of a crooked smirk pressuring the corner of her mouth.

"You done throwing a tantrum, porcelain? Or you wanna keep playing the game you started?"

She didn't lean in.
Didn't threaten.
Didn't posture.

She just stood there — relaxed, confident, lit by the violet spill of a flickering holo-advert — looking at him like he was a puzzle worth solving, or a fuse worth lighting.

"Because I'm not done," she added quietly, almost playful.

"Not with you."

​

 

[Abishai Jade]

Abishai stopped with a start, glancing behind and then back at Nøva with a frown etched upon his face. How she had moved so quickly was near Force levels of speed. And her whole demeanour was...trouble.

Abi had enough trouble dealing with himself, let alone dealing with her.

"Yeah, well...you don't make decisions f'r me," he said, snarling at her insistence. And he turned at a right angle to walk to the other side of the road.

His pace quickened, almost skipping half-steps. Every few paces, he glanced over his shoulder, before ducking into another alley, and jumping up a couple of stories to land on a outcropping of duracrete that passed as a balcony on the low rent apartment he now hid beside.

A subtle probe via the Force clued him to the absence of residents. They were either out, dead, or the apartment was empty.

He looked over the ledge, trying to scope out if he had been followed.

Nøva
​

 

[Nøva]

TAG: Abishai Jade



She saw him jump.

And for a heartbeat, everything else vanished. The narrow ledge, the crumbling balcony, the hum of neon — nothing mattered but the spike of truth that hit her chest like electricity.

A Force-user.

She knew it. Had known it before he moved, and seeing him leap, so impossibly fast and precise… it was almost orgasmic in its perfection. Her ocular implants flared soft amethyst, pulsing violet in delight. She shivered — not from fear, not from heat, but from that sharp, dangerous thrill that came with being right.

Fething knew it.

She exhaled through her teeth, letting the synth-spice burn slow, letting the city's grime and neon fill her lungs like oxygen.

Then she moved.

Not walking. Not climbing. Flowing. Vaulting a drainpipe, swinging a leg over a rusted railing, twisting her body like liquid metal over the fire escape. Muscles coiled, cybernetic joints syncing perfectly, every motion predatory, confident, lethal. Her jacket slipped from her shoulders mid-leap, tank shifting, tattoos and circuitry glowing in the holo-neon. She didn't care who saw — she owned every inch of the path she took.

By the time she landed on the balcony behind him, she was quiet. Calm. Predatory.

Eyes violet, pupils pinpricks of amusement and calculation. She circled him, deliberate, slow, close enough to press tension, far enough to tease. Every small movement measured — every heartbeat of hers radiating that predator calm that made fools freeze.

"…Cute, playing hard to get like that…"

Another step. Slow.
Confident.
Controlled.

"As if you really thought I wasn't coming up here?"

A small, amused huff.

"Porcelain… come on."

She tilted her head, studying him, violet eyes glowing like she was reading code straight off his skin.

"Things were just getting interesting — it’s not like I bite…"

The grin that followed was slow, sinful, and absolutely a warning.

“Well… not unless I feel like it…”

​

 

[Abishai Jade]

He hadn’t expected her to follow...not like that. Not with the kind of predatory grace that made the air feel thinner, the neon harsher, his own pulse too loud inside his skull.

She landed behind him as if the balcony were built to catch her.

Abishai stiffened, breath caught halfway between inhale and escape, eyes snapping to the rusted sliding door beside them...the empty apartment whose lock had been broken weeks ago. He hadn’t planned to use it. But he also hadn’t planned on being hunted up a balcony by a woman who looked at him like he was equal parts secret and dessert.

Her violet eyes raked him. His heartbeat stuttered.

“…I wasn’t running from you.” It was meant to sound cold. It came out like a lie even he didn’t believe.

She stepped closer. Slow. Deliberate. Too controlled. And the Force pushed a whisper against the inside of his skull, warning him, teasing him, urging him to move before he froze entirely beneath her attention.

He backed toward the door without meaning to, fingers brushing the half-broken frame.

“Look, I don’t know what you think this is,” he murmured, voice tight, “but you’re…you’re getting the wrong idea.”

Her grin said she absolutely wasn’t. Abishai swallowed, throat barely working.

“We shouldn’t be out here.”

A speeder roared past...bright, loud, casting the balcony in violent strobe. Anyone below could look up. Anyone could see them. Him. Her. The cornered shape he'd become.

He pushed the door open just enough to slip inside...darkness swallowing the sound, stale air pressing close. No furniture. No lights. Just emptiness and shadow and a place where prying eyes couldn't trace the hunt unfolding on the ledge.

He didn't invite her. He didn't have to.

He lingered in the doorway, backlit by dying neon, breath unsteady as violet reflections danced along her edges.

"…If you're coming in," he said, quiet but steadying, "don't… don't get the wrong idea about that, either."

Nøva
​

 

[Nøva]

TAG: Abishai Jade


She didn't even pretend to hesitate.

The second he slipped into that dark, empty apartment, she stepped in after him — smooth, unhurried, like she already knew every angle of the place. Most people he could've shaken. Most people didn't scale walls like they were sidewalks. Most people didn't smell Force on the wind and grin like they'd found something worth chasing.

But she wasn't most people.

NØVA closed the door behind her with one hand. Soft click. No threat. Just a boundary.

"You keep sayin' that," she murmured, taking her time as she reached into her jacket — a slow, languid motion. "Don't get the wrong idea. Don't get the wrong idea…"

She pulled out a synthstik.
Tapped it against her palm twice.
Struck the lighter.

And then she went quiet.

That long, slow inhale — the one that always hit like a prayer and a sin at the same time — her lids half-lowering as the violet glow in her implants brightened, blooming with the spice. Smoke curled around her like it wanted a taste of her throat on the way out.

Only when she exhaled did she look at him again.

"Mm," she said, a small smirk tugging at her lips. "Sweetheart… you sure it's me gettin' the wrong idea?"

She let that hang. Delicious. Dangerous. Teasing.

Then she stepped past him — not close enough to touch, just close enough to feel — and flopped onto the broken couch like she owned the place. One arm draped over the backrest, synthstik between her fingers, jacket sliding off one shoulder in that effortless way she never had to think about.

"If momma wanted somethin' from you," she said, eyes glittering with that wicked, amused violet light, "trust me—momma would get baby."

Not flirtation.
Not threat.
Just fact.

She took another drag, tilting her head at him, studying him the way she studied a new piece of tech — curious, entertained, assessing every micro-expression he thought he hid.

"Relax, porcelain." A smirk. "I didn't climb half the sector just to jump you."

She flicked ash to the floor.

"Just wanna figure you out. That's all."

A beat.

"And I already told you—I break the habit of lying — stupid games, stupid prizes."

Her grin sharpened.

"C'mon," she murmured, leaning back, eyes glinting. "Sit. Talk. I promise not to bite…"

A slow shrug.

"…unless you're into that."

​

 

[Abishai Jade]

The moment the door shut behind her, something inside Abishai snapped taut, not with panic, but with the brittle, defensive clarity that came when survival instincts finally overrode confusion. He watched her sink into the ruined couch like she'd been here a hundred times before, smoke curling in violet-lit spirals around her, and the longer she lounged there the more everything in him screamed that this was wrong. People didn't chase him for fun. People didn't scale buildings, stalk alleys, or lock doors behind them unless they wanted something. Something specific.

And he'd been hunted before.

He straightened, breath steadying as he planted himself opposite her, as far from the couch as the small apartment allowed. His voice dropped low...not scared, not trembling, but edged with a sharpness born of being backed into too many corners for someone his age.

"Enough." He didn't raise his voice. He didn't have to.

"Who are you?" He stepped closer. Eyes narrowing with an increased intensity.

"Who sent you?" His gaze locked on hers, refusing to look away from that predatory violet shimmer.

"And why," he continued, jaw tightening, "do you care what I can do?"

He swallowed once, but he didn't retreat. The premonitions were useless now...too tangled, too loud, drowned beneath the pulse of her presence...so all he had was instinct. And instinct told him she wasn't here to flirt, or tease, or make small talk. Instinct told him she was here because she thought he was worth something.

"If there's a bounty," he said, quieter but harder, "you should know I'm not worth much. Not yet."

"So what do you want from me?"

He stood his ground, coiled, wary, and unwilling to let her write the narrative of why she'd followed him up here before he heard the truth from her own mouth.

Nøva​

 

[Nøva]

TAG: Abishai Jade


For three heartbeats, Nova just stared at him.

Then it hit her.
A sharp exhale.
A sudden, stunned grin.

And then—

She broke.

A laugh tore out of her, loud, incredulous and unfiltered, the kind that came from deep in the ribs. She slapped her hand against the thigh of her synth-leather pants, head tipping back as she sucked in a breath only to laugh harder.

"Oh—oh you're serious," she choked out.

"Oh my… this is what you thought—?"

She folded sideways on the couch, palm over her mouth, shoulders shaking with the kind of hysterical amusement she usually had to pay credits to get.

"Oh, porcelain… you just made my whole night," she gasped, wiping beneath one eye with a cybernetic thumb.

"This is premium entertainment. I should be tipping you for this."

When she finally calmed, the afterglow of the laugh stayed in her perverse smirk as she leaned back, legs crossing lazily again.

A final, breathy chuckle escaped her.

"Force-users," she said, almost contemptuously.

“You're all the same. Someone follows you without swooning and suddenly it's: Who sent you? What do you want? What can you sense? Are you here to kidnap me?"

She imitated his tone — uncannily soft, mocking, but not cruel.

Then she took a long, indulgent drag of her synthstik, violet smoke unfurling like silk.

"No bounty," she finally said, voice returning to her normal velvet-drawl.

"Trust me, if I had been here to collect, you wouldn't be standing there giving me the wide-eye routine. It'd be a different conversation entirely."

She looked him over again — slowly, thoughtfully — chin tilting.

"You're just… new," she said with amused disbelief.

"Clean. Polished. A Force-touched baby doll wandering into the gutter like you're on a sightseeing tour."

A dry scoff.

"For what? Credits? Thrills? Maybe you want a taste of the underside…. All because what? — the Temple didn't like you? The Sith too intense?"

She shrugged. "I'm trying to wrap my head around it."

Her eyes softened into mischief.

"And maybe," she added, voice dipping lower, "maybe I just find you too interesting to pass up..."

She flicked ash to the floor and smiled like she'd already written the ending to his sentence.

"Is that so wrong?"

Then she stretched out on the couch like she owned it.

"Now come on, porcelain. You wanted answers."

A slow grin.

"I just gave you one."

​