Private Sand, Meet Sea

[Arcturus Dinn]

Though his backstreet work on Denon was slow and methodical, word had begun to spread through certain networks of a truthseer lingering in the alleyways of the ecumonopolis. To some he was a demon, who spoke horrors into effect... To others a charlatan looking to make a few quick UCks. And to fewer still he was a prophet, capable of magnificent things.​

​

Arcturus was not aware of any of this, of course. He kept to his little stall, largely relying on Nwit or Nostremous to be his eyes and ears, and continued to whittle away at his projects of which there were many. Every now and then he'd turn and tend to a small collection of plants thriving despite the darkness which surrounded them, grown within pieces of trash which had been cast into the alleyway. One spiraled upward, gripping onto the durasteel walls of one of the buildings they were lodged within, another put its energy into its one bud, which seemed eager to flower. He kept another beside one of his knees, after all he was sat cross-legged in place, and without thinking he'd extend a hand out every now and then to run his fingers through its many leaves.​

​

It had been some three days since anyone had last approached his stall... Three days which had, in many ways, flown by for the Lorrdian. It wasn't his true focus, after all, it was simply secondary to every other task he was hoping to accomplish before the Nether stole him back once more.​

 

[Arlo Renard]

Perched high up on the edge of a rooftop, Kai surveyed the world below. Denon reminded him a lot of Coruscant, except grimier and with less polish. He could see why Dagon Kaze and Kyric were drawn here—the always-high crime levels kept the masked vigilantes busy.

But for the moment, Kai wasn’t looking for a thug to beat up. He had something different in mind.

As the wind blew through his white hair, he closed his eyes and let himself fall. Down he plummeted, until he stretched out a hand. His fingers extended, forming a fleshy cord that wound itself around a nearby gargoyle, turning his dive into a swing.

Reading street signs, he eventually grappled his way into an alleyway, landing on all fours upon a wall. He crawled further inside. There it was: the little ramshackle stall where, rumor had it, a soothsayer had taken up residence.

This was a bad area. Not the worst place on Denon, but not a good place to set up shop. Still, this diviner had already developed a reputation, despite only recently appearing on the map. Kai had an interest in fortune tellers and visions, so it was only natural for him to want to check this one out.

As he approached the stall, seeking a better view of the occupant, he froze. His eyes widened and his lips parted, his expression shifting initially from shock to horror.

It’s him!

Kai scrambled upwards, hiding in the shadows. His brain was ablaze with Gerda’s memories and Jorn’s testimony. All of it compounded to create a lurid sense of panic and anguish and rage, each passion hitting him all at once. The only thing keeping him from rushing into action was a needling sense of doubt, the lingering possibility that he was mistaken.

After all, it seemed too convenient. He’d been looking for the blonde girl and the red-haired boy ever since Gerda died. He’d found the blonde—it was hard not to, since she had become a political figure within the GA. But she was reformed now, with a family and a new life, and there was no sign of the redhead being in the picture anymore.

Yet here he was, or so it seemed. There was only one way to find out for sure.

Defying gravity, Kai perched somewhere up high, his spiderlike form obscured by darkness. But his mind reached out, touching the soothsayer’s.

He didn’t go any further than surface-level thoughts, but that should be enough. Gerda’s memory slipped from his brain into Arcturus’ like an eel slithering into a new pond. The man in the stall would find himself suddenly reminded of something that had happened a long time ago, an incident on a planet called Chaldea...

Once the invasive memory had been transmitted, Kai lay in wait, obscuring his presence in the Force as well he could with the help of his charm. If the soothsayer appeared confused and ignorant, he would know he was innocent. But if it roused his own memories from his perspective, then it would mean this was indeed the boy who had attacked Gerda with blood magic.

It would mean this soothsayer was a Sith and a murderer, and Kai could not let him leave Denon unless in chains—or dead.

Arcturus Dinn​

 

[Arcturus Dinn]

Lost in differing thoughts which consisted mostly of the task at hand, it took Arcturus a little longer than one might expect to pick up on the presence of an intrusive thought. It slithered upon him slowly, and imprinted upon his brain until all at once he was recalling that moment in time, with Ishani. Despair settled over him heavily like a weighted blanket at the reminder of not only the girl he'd lost but the life or death situation he'd been placed into back on Chaldea.​

​

Neither of them had intended to kill. Far from it... But when one among them had almost crushed the life out of Ishani, well what else could he do? He'd reacted on pure animalistic instinct, and the rest he could barely recall at all. It had been a blur, one of the few times he'd ever blacked out and reacted without sense.​

​

The boy shook his head, hoping to banish such thoughts from his mind. It would not do to dwell on it... To dwell on the mer. To dwell on Ishani. No, instead he focused on one of the few rings upon his finger and bolstered the strength of his mind, pushing out those thoughts and unknowingly the one who was placing them in his mind until it became a fortress of its own design.​

​

Then he returned to his work, his hand lowering to cup a small handful of sand hidden beneath the stall...​

​

Arlo Renard ​

 

[Arlo Renard]

It was him.

Kai couldn’t have asked for a better confirmation of the soothsayer’s identity. The memory had roused with it a cocktail of emotions—guilt, regret, resignation. He seemed to have conveniently forgotten that Ishani was the one who had struck first, or that they had come there to capture and rob the Finfolk in the first place…

For a moment Kai held his breath as the soothsayer pushed him out of his head, before he realized it was a careless dismissal. The Doppelganger’s blood roared in his ears, filled to the brim with simmering righteous fury and reopened emotional wounds. He killed Gerda. He killed my kin and now I can never go home again—

Plan. Strategy, he reminded himself. Since his target hadn’t noticed him yet, he had an opportunity to plot his course. He studied the stall. There might be hidden weapons or traps in there, or who knew what surprises.

Pretend you’re a customer and scope the place out first.

Kai crawled away and lowered himself to the ground at the mouth of the alley. Then, like any other ordinary teen, he walked down the dark corridor, his hands in his pockets.

The alleyway reeked of oil and grime. The soothsayer was bent over his work table when Kai arrived, stopping in front of the stall. It was starting to rain, though only drizzling at first.

For a few moments Kai just stood there. He normally communicated via telepathy, but the soothsayer had turned his mind into a fortress. Opening his mouth, the Doppelganger verbalized in a weak, raspy whisper.

“Are you the soothsayer?”

Arcturus Dinn​

 

[Arcturus Dinn]

Where once there was little of interest ahead of him, all at once a boy stood.​

​

Looking up from his work, Arcturus gave him a casual if somewhat dismissive glance. It was a rarity indeed that someone stumbled upon his stall unprompted. The Sandman was known to urge those he deemed curious toward him, guiding them toward his little shop of curios. The one before him was not one he'd directed, and yet all the same he seemed the right type.​

​

He was curious, his presence in the Force was strange and fluctuating. Part of him wondered if the boy wasn't some sort of illusion, though he knew better than to presume such especially when his mind was in such a defensive state.​

​

No, the boy was real. Unexpected, but real.​

​

"I wasn't aware that was a title I held," came his slow retort, learning for the first time that his presence here had been noted and passed along. Perhaps it was time to move on, then. The last thing he needed was for people to come looking for him, after all.​

​

There was something about the boy that felt off, even beyond his fluctuating presence in the Force. He felt a certain rage within him, a bubbling and boiling ocean that could not be fully banished nor harnessed. Arcturus wasn't the best at reading others, but this he could not ignore. It felt both alien and familiar all at once...​

​

It took him a moment to pick up on the underlying darkness, the stench which latched on to all who were made or twisted at the hands of the Sith. It had been some time since he himself had dabbled with such, longer still since he'd been in the presence of another Sith. If he could even deem himself one these days. There was no doubt about it, this raspy voiced boy had such a malevolent origin.​

​

He didn't voice any of these thoughts though. It did not matter to him who it was that had stumbled upon his stall, only why they were there.​

​

"What can I do for you?"​

​

Arlo Renard ​

 

[Arlo Renard]

The soothsayer had a dismissive, almost cocky air to him, but there was something artificial about it. False bravado, a mask worn over the face of one far less sure of themselves than they would like to appear.

“That depends on what you can do,” Kai replied, taking a small step closer. He looked around the stall as if perusing the goods on display, if there were indeed any.

As his blue-eyed gaze settled back on the soothsayer, he felt a bitter impulse rising up in him. It sat poised in the back of his throat like a bile-born toad, ready to leap out of his mouth. This man was a Sith Sorcerer, someone who had practiced blood magic. He’d probably studied other disciplines as well, alchemy among them. Kai knew he should have swallowed the question on his tongue, but…

“What do you know about Sithspawn?”

Arcturus Dinn​

 

[Arcturus Dinn]

There were indeed many objects upon the stall, and many more behind it, though to most it wouldn't seem like much of anything at all. Small pails of sand, strange crystals, what looked to be sun-bleached skulls of small creatures long since dead, a couple of yellowed scrolls... Even a vial or two, though what lay within couldn't rightly be deduced. A few more items which were so uncommon that at a mere glance they could not be recognized at all.​

​

Certainly nothing that anyone would seek, surely... Yet here the stall was all the same. Waiting for one who might appreciate what he had on offer.​

​

The Sithspawn's response had him tilt his head slightly to the left, apparently more interested in him now than he had been initially. He queried Arcturus on his knowledge of Sithspawn to which the boy merely shrugged.​

​

"The machinations of Sith," was his initial response, and as he spoke he began to reach into each of the different sand filled pails to remove handfuls of each kind, settling them one at a time into small dishes upon the top of the stall which could hold precisely one handful each. Without skipping a beat, he reached over to an incense cone upon a platter of its own and lit it without the use of any notable flame. Smoke drifted up from it, its scent different to all who inhaled it. Comforting and warm, enough to ease ones mind.​

​

"To some they are a magnum opus, or the swansong of a waning sorcerer. To others they are blasphemous, a blight that ought to be destroyed..." His gaze returned back to the boy as he said this, pinning him in place with his pale blue eyes. "I think we'd both argue such to be unjust, no? Does ones origin dictate their worth? Is nature or nurture the preceding factor in deciding whether something is good or evil?"​

​

The boy didn't seem evil, it had taken Arcturus a solid moment to even realize he was Sithspawn after all.​

​

"Are good or evil even real classifications?"​

​

Arcturus thought not. Man was a fickle beast, after all, no one was inherently good, no one was inherently evil. They were made up of tiny moments too fleeting to really comprehend or justify.​

​

The Galaxy loved categorizing individuals, though, didn't it? Jedi, Sith, Good, Evil, it was folly...​

​

Arlo Renard ​

 

[Arlo Renard]

As the soothsayer gave his little speech about good and evil, Kai slowly lifted his chin, his gaze turning defiant. He tried so hard to stay in control, to keep a lid on his need to punish this scrawny, pathetic little man, that he was almost trembling with the effort not to reach for his concealed lightsaber and hold it to the soothsayer’s throat.

It wasn’t what Arcturus was saying, so much as the fact that Arcturus was the one saying it. He was expressing the same sentiments echoed by Damsy Callat and all those who had gathered under her protective wing in the Sanctorium. But coming from the mouth of the one who had killed Gerda, it stung like a slap to the face.

"Are good or evil even real classifications?"

“Yes,” Kai hissed. “The greatest achievement of evildoers is that they are able to convince the galaxy that evil does not exist. But the most pathetic is when they believe their own lies.”

A prickling behind his eyelids warned him of oncoming tears, and that only made him angrier. Kai wanted to hurt Arcturus. He wanted to make him suffer. He wanted… he wanted to…

The Doppelganger took a step back, almost as if he were about to flee, and forced himself to regain his calm. When next he spoke, it was in a cool rasp.

“Can a Sithspawn be… purified? Washed clean of the taint of the Dark Side?”

Arcturus Dinn​

 

[Arcturus Dinn]

Somehow Arcturus had touched upon a sore spot. The boy was angry, visibly so, and tears had begun to well in his eyes. Slowly but surely he rose up from his cross-legged position, the simple robes he wore flowing down over his form.​

​

"So you believe that an individual can be wholly evil? No grey there, just darkness? There are many in this Galaxy that would look upon you, boy, and label you evil merely by your existence. But you aren't, are you? We all suffer from the fallacies of our own perceptions. We judge others based on what few acts we know they have committed, but a few acts do not make an entire being."​

​

There was more to his anger though. He was beginning to get the feeling that he'd personally slighted this boy, but he couldn't for the life of him figure out how or why that might have been. Arcturus could not recall anything truly bad that he had done in his past, for the most part he kept to himself. He'd even stood in defiance to his own superiors to ensure the safety of some of their enemies, namely younglings that otherwise might have been corrupted.​

​

No, the only thing he could think of that could draw such a response from someone was that which he'd just dismissed from his mind. That day with Ishani, within the Reef... But the boy before him did not look like one of the mer. He pursed his lips.​

​

"Have I done something to wrong you, boy?" he inquired, as the boy took a step back and tried to reign in his anger. He pondered his question all the same. Purify a Sithspawn? "As for your question... It would depend upon how deeply engrained the taint is. For one wholly borne of alchemy no, I do not believe there to be a way to rid them of it. But for one mutated after the fact?"​

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He nodded his head slowly. A painful procedure to be sure, one which would alter the individual in unknown ways. But possible? Yes.​

​

Arlo Renard ​

 

[Arlo Renard]

The situation was unraveling. Kai had never intended for it to become personal, or even philosophical, and yet here they were, arguing about good and evil, nature versus nurture, perceptions and reality. The calm and collected survey of the stall and the man who occupied it had dissipated like a waking dream.

Perhaps it was never possible for him to remain so detached in the presence of Gerda’s killer. His behavior had clearly made Arcturus suspicious of him. The best Kai could do now was try to salvage this…

But then came the verdict on Sithspawn. If Kai had been a mutant, there might have been hope for him. But he was not. The body he now occupied had been grown in a vat, and it was his spirit which animated the Doppelganger's flesh. His soul, once bound, could not be so easily moved to another vessel. Gerda had suffered that fate. Her body, damaged by Arcturus' blood magic, had given out, and she didn't have the strength to find another.

Kai’s brows knit together, his expression reminiscent of crumpled tissue paper.

“I wasn’t born a Sithspawn,” he whispered. “I was never born at all. They put me in this body, forced me into flesh, and now I am anchored to the Dark…” He swallowed and sniffled and tried his best to fight those tears that still threatened to fall, tears that made him feel like he was still a helpless newborn in the claws of his maker. “It’s never been about what others think of me. I found a place where people accept me like this. But I am tainted. I feel it. The urges. The hunger. I just don’t want to be hungry anymore…”

The rain was starting to pick up, a steady pitter-patter bouncing off the buildings they stood between, rattling against sheets of metal lying abandoned elsewhere in the alley. It brought out the stench of filth washing out of cracks and crevices in the pavement.

"... and I want the Sith to face justice."

Arcturus Dinn​

 

[Arcturus Dinn]

Arcturus' immediate verdict seemed to bring the boy despair. That hadn't been his intent, of course, far from it. He was a realist if nothing else, he wouldn't sit here and blatantly lie to the face of one seeking truths... But he certainly didn't want to cause him further distress. With a wave of his hand he sought to fan the slightest flicker of a flame which waned at the tip of the incense, causing more of the calming smoke to make its way toward the Sithspawn. Not that it seemed to be doing much for him.​

​

And yet even so, as the boy began to speak, to clarify, he couldn't help but feel as though there was something of a light at the end of his tunnel. It wasn't a large light, merely a pinprick, but it was something, and something was better than naught.​

​

"You were not born to this form?" he inquired, raising a brow. The notion of Spirits and the like was nothing new to Arcturus Thesh, in fact during his time in the Nether he'd kept contact with none save precisely one of those. Kal ... An individual he deemed a very good friend indeed. Kal had no natural body to speak of, and yet he and his kind could hop from form to form at a whim.​

​

Though every nerve in his body urged against it, Arcturus found himself stepping around the stall and approaching the boy. He placed a gentle, comforting hand upon his shoulder should he allow it, and managed a small smile. The first real show of emotion he'd given since the Sithspawn approached his stall beyond mere apathy. "Then all is not lost, friend. There have been methods throughout time with which individuals could vacate their bodies and occupy another. If you care not about this current shell you're locked within, I am certain another can be procured..."​

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Heck, even if they didn't do an essence transfer, there were options out there, but some he might not like. HRDs were formed with the consciousness of another, but that would take him from being organic to some metal thing... Arcturus did not much like the idea of that, but it was an option. Yet the transferring of a consciousness from one state to another did allow for other means, in the right hand.​

​

Once upon a time, a Sith had secured this boys spirit, whatever form that took, and thrust it into a corrupted body. It only stood to reason then that one could do the same again, only this time with a fresh body... It would take some work, perhaps more than Arcturus alone could handle, though he wasn't entirely unfamiliar with the process. Maybe Kal would have insights himself...​

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"There are always options. Ways to stave off this hunger you speak of. Ways to have you inhabit a fresh body... What that body might be would depend upon your preferences, of course. Organic, droid, something else entirely... But you mustn't lose faith - in yourself, that is. You've lasted this long. You've the strength to endure until the taint can be removed from the equation."​

​

If he was willing to give any of it a try, that was.​

​

Arlo Renard ​

 

[Arlo Renard]

For a while Kai was quiet, standing very still even as Arcturus walked around the stall and approached him. The soothsayer’s touch upon his shoulder was too much, however, and Kai instantly pulled away from him.

Much of what he said, Kai had already heard before. These were options he had already been offered by numerous characters, and which Kai had already dismissed as either impossible or abhorrent. Including Kal of Kaas, who looked down upon Kai for what he perceived as pointless angst, failing to understand how the situation of a Bamarri differed to that of a Shadow.

“I can’t hop between bodies like they're just suits of clothes,” Kai retorted. "Once a Bamarri has entered a new form, it's impossible to get out of. And even if it wasn't, I wouldn't accept your help."

Moving with superhuman speed, Kai made a grab for Arcturus’ collar. His other hand retrieved his lightsaber, igniting and holding it to the soothsayer’s throat. It happened so fast, he forgot to speak aloud, slipping back into the habit of telepathy—and revealing what he had truly come here for in the process.

<In the name of the New Jedi Order, I place you under arrest for the murder of Gerda Andersen via blood magic.>

Arcturus Dinn​

 

[Arcturus Dinn]

That hope was almost immediately dashed.​

​

Nope. No way to fix it. The Sithspawn would be forced to forever exist as such... While Arcturus didn't see such an existence as pitiful, or something to admonish, he understood why the boy might see it that way. Truth be told though he didn't have too much experience with sentient Sithspawn... Only really Melydia Gold who was one of his favourite people to be around if only for her unique perception of the Galaxy and her intrinsic ability to make friends with anything and everything she came into contact with. She had not allowed her state to diminish her or hold her back. That was admirable...​

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His thoughts were pulled away from friends he had left behind to the present with the rush of the Force pulsing around him. Before he could properly respond, he felt the heat of a lightsaber at his throat, and the boy at his back. And then the truth came to light, the reason for his anger. At first he was confused, the name wasn't one he was familiar with, but the mention of murder and blood magic made it blatantly obvious. He was speaking of the mer... The mer he'd killed to keep Ishani alive.​

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"You condemn me for the only act you know me to have made," he stated, with a disappointed sigh. He could have spoken up about the horde of Younglings he'd saved since, or the Jedi he'd released instead of bringing back to Korriban, or any of the other things he'd done in service to another despite his place within the darker side of the Force. But he didn't. Because he knew that the Sithspawn would not hear him, would not care. He was here for vengeance, and everything he'd done thus far loudly screamed as much.​

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"You send me then to my death."​

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But Arcturus was not ready for such. He had spent his entire life on the precipice of death, first at the hands of the First Order, and then as a slave in his own right, later while trapped upon worlds filled with horror where nourishment was never a certainty, and lately in the throws of the ever turbulent Nether. Even here on Denon... He was never far from death. He'd cheated it, he'd fled it, he would not walk quietly into its embrace.​

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Closing his eyes, he focused upon the Force and his body in unison... Then he slammed an elbow back against the Sithspawn's chest, bracing himself to dissipate the burning energy of the lightsaber in a concentrated pulse of Tutaminis. One hand rose, calling into existence the dagger which was never truly far from his person.​

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Arlo Renard ​

 

[Arlo Renard]

On a better day, in a less volatile state of mind, Kai might have argued that it wasn’t a death sentence unless Arcturus fought back. But given the circumstances, the boy was far too eager for violence, jumping at the opportunity to kill the Sith and have his justice.

Or rather, his revenge.

<She was like me. The only other one of our kind—>

The elbow hit him in the chest, forcing him back. Pain turned to shock as his lightsaber passed harmlessly through Arcturus’ neck.

Failing to notice the dagger in his opponent’s hand at first, Kai reached out with the Force and seized whatever he could from inside the stall. He flung anything not tied down at Arcturus, hoping to distract him. And then Kai would be upon him, lunging forward to thrust his lightsaber through the Sith’s chest.

Arcturus Dinn​

 

[Arcturus Dinn]

The weird mermaid...​

​

He remembered her more readily now. She had been angry, filled with hate and an intrinsic desire to kill Ishani. At least that was how his memory painted it. He didn't remember much else about her though, or the exchange. One minute he was Arcturus Thesh, the next... Well, a nameless drone succumbed to the darkness.​

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When the lightsaber passed over him, and his dagger fell into his grasp, he turned toward the boy. He noticed the disruption of the stall just in time to fling up one hand, casting a Force Wave from his center and out throughout the alleyway. With it he dispersed the sand he'd spent so long working on as it flew through the air at the Sithspawn's urging, sending it back toward the boy.​

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Arcturus knew better than to keep his eyes open then, or to breathe it in. He closed his eyes, held his breath, and waited for the sand to settle. In that moment he was the calm in the center of a sandstorm, his senses reached out to make up for his lack of sight, and he felt through the Force when the boy approached him with his lightsaber brandished. Dagger raised to hold it off.​

​

More than that though, Arcturus was betting on some of that sand reaching the other boys eyes, perhaps his mouth. Something... And should it? Well, there'd be a whole host of oddities going on within him. A sudden urge to sleep, an inability to see, the distortion of the world around him in the form of untamed illusions, and visions of a future which had not yet come to fruition. Any one of those could have entered his bloodstream, perhaps more than one if he was unlucky...​

​

Arlo Renard ​

 

[Arlo Renard]

Sand and other objects buffeted the area around Arcturus, the grains still lingering in the air as Kai advanced upon him. He grit his teeth, determined to run the Sith through.

At least, until the sand got into his eyes, at which point time seemed to slow down. Kai was still moving, but his body felt sluggish and uncoordinated. He was about to miss his target.

Eyes widening, he tried to slash Arcturus’ side instead, but whether the blow actually connected, he’d never know. The Doppelganger went down, landing in a skidding sprawl on the pavement somewhere behind Arcturus, thoroughly unconscious.

Arcturus Dinn​

 

[Arcturus Dinn]

He felt the singing burn of the lightsaber grazing against his arm as the boy sunk to the ground in an unconscious state. Despite the burn, the contact with the blade quick yet still lightning hot as the hilt fell to the floor with a clatter, Arcturus forced himself to keep his eyes and mouth closed, suppressing the cry of pain which rose up within him and ultimately escaped as a rather pitiful whimper.​

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It wasn't the worst thing he'd faced. It wasn't the worst pain he'd experienced, but it was still bloody awful. Only when the sand finally settled did he open his eyes and survey the damage. It was a cut that had burned through most of the layers of skin on his right forearm, and seeing definitely heightened the pain he was feeling. A sickening sensation rose up within him. His eyes darted this way and that throughout the alleyway, in search of some tincture or salve he kept handy. Most of it had been upended by the Sithspawn though.​

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"Kriff, kriff, kriff," he muttered to himself, before forcing himself to close his eyes and focus. It had been under the stall... Chances were it was still down there, buffered against the miniature sandstorm. He crouched down, fumbled through the scattered merchandise, and then finally closed his fingers around a small jar. He opened it quickly and slathered the contents over the burn. It wouldn't work wonders, it wouldn't solve the problem entirely, but it certainly soothed it. The rest he could tend to soon enough...​

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But first he had to move the body, and clear away any evidence of his presence here. No doubt some level of authority had been called to action after the Force Wave and sandstorm. He tossed a couple of loose credit chits at Nwit, who immediately scampered off to carry out his Master's bidding, meanwhile Arcturus lifted up the deadweight that was the Sithspawn. Around his feet the various pieces of scattered merchandise was beginning to right itself at the hands of strange little creatures made of a similar substance to Nwit himself. They scurried around, righting the wrongs of the boys.​

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"Leave the sand," he informed the ones who seemed intent on sweeping up the scattered grains which now littered the streets, "Just grab the pails."​

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Then he left them to finish up, carrying the boy in the direction which Nwit had ventured off in. He met up with the golem a few streets over, though the both of them stuck to the alleyways as opposed to the streets proper in order to avoid strange looks... You know, given the body he was levitating in his arms. Nwit stopped at a specific doorway, and held up a keycard. "Good work," he muttered in praise of the golem, as they headed up through the hotel in search of the room he'd secured. Once inside he set the boy down and began to check him over for any damage caused by their little scuff.​

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Once he was sure everything was okay, he left him there with the keycard. When the boy came to he'd be safe and sound, though any attempt at finding Arcturus within that same alleyway would prove fruitless. Arcturus was no longer on Denon at all...​

​

Arlo Renard ​