Private She’s Just Fluffy

[Corazona von Ascania]

Not one, not two, not three, but four people had expressed concern over Lula's weight when Cora had shown them pictures of the tubby racyon.

Which was why said portly creature was clad in a pink harness as Cora slowly guided her through the temple courtyards. She probably didn't need the leash - the blonde could easily catch up with her lumbering pet, but it kept the racyon from digging up flowerbeds and chewing on plants that she shouldn't.

Much to Lula's disdain, treats had been limited to twice per day, down from the usual five or more. It was a travesty, really. One that she protested by plopping herself next to the bush she'd been sniffing, refusing to move.

"We've only taken about twenty steps so far, Lula. Even you can't be tired."

Lula huffed in response, pointedly facing away from the Jedi.

Cora rolled her eyes.

"Alright, I suppose we'll enjoy the scenery for a bit. But after that, we are walking."

Lula tucked her paws beneath her.

Shan

 

[Shan]

"Animals are fickly creatures. Especially domesticated ones."

Shan spoke up from the side of the courtyard, sitting down amongst the grass as he seemed to be sculpting something through the grass. He was mostly just trying to perfect his control of the Force, or at least the elemental aspect of it. Taking a small chunk of earth and forming it into a small shape. Trying to make a small replica of the Jedi Temple.

He had meant to talk to Corazona for a while. Especially after the knighting ceremony but he hadn't been able to bring himself to do it. At the very least, the atmosphere was pretty relaxed and casual as the Mirialan lifted his head up from the dirt to look over towards the new Knight and her pet.

Though as he opened his mouth to speak, his own pet made its way out of his pocket, Sewer Rat climbing up to the top of Shan's head and perching itself there to stay at Lula. The rat was just here to watch and listen...For now, though it might decide to go climbing soon.

Corazona von Ascania

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

Cora glanced over to Shan and smiled - she hadn't seen him initially, still as he was and naturally blending into the foliage around them. She glanced to the earthen chunk hovering in front of him with curiosity, but then her gaze passed to Sewer Rat, then Lula.

Said racyon's ears swiveled in Shan's direction when he spoke, but she didn't move from her spot near the bush, nor did she notice the rat's fascination.

"I suppose we have more in common than we think." Cora chuckled.

"It's…been a while, Shan. How are you?"

Oh, they'd seen eachother since Thule, but they'd always been in the presence of others. The last time they'd gotten to talk alone was on the ship back, but things felt stilted and awkward.

Things still felt a little awkward, but at least they were both safe and alive. Their capture, and the circumstances surrounding it, was a difficult subject to broach.

Shan

 

[Shan]

"We have plenty in common with animals." Shan shrugged his shoulders at that, letting the earth replica of the Temple collapse into a bunch of well...earth and dirt, the noise causing Sewer Rat to hop off his head and start rolling around in the mud and digging through it. It had been found in some caves after all, so it enjoyed making tunnels.

"I'm fine though. Could be better. Could be worse. Colette has been helping to make things better though." He returned his own smile at that, trying not to focus on their capture from the Sith. It was still something that gave him problems. Though most of those problems weren't rational. Shan just ran his hand through his hair, letting out a small awkward chuckle.

"Not sure how Colette and I are doing right now though...She seemed a bit mad at me during your knighting ceremony. Congratulations on that by the way. I erh...didn't really know what to say to you at the time. Didn't feel like I deserved to say anything." The Mirialan glanced down at the hole Sewer Rat was digging, mostly to distract himself.

Corazona von Ascania

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

Cora watched the miniature structure fall into a pile of mud with idle fascination. Sewer Rat seemed quite pleased with his new playscape, eagerly digging around in the dirt and chittering adorably.

Figuring that they weren't going anywhere, Cora reached down to unclip the leash from Lula's harness. The racyon neither noticed nor cared, but there was a flicker in her eye when she caught sight of the rat playing in the soil.

"Thank you." She said, at a loss for how to respond to Shan feeling like he didn't deserve to speak to her during the ceremony. That struck her as odd; Cora wondered then if she'd done something to upset him. Shan had never been the confrontational type.

"She was mad?"

Cora frowned, looking from Lula to Sewer Rat, then Shan. "Did she end up telling you why?"

Shan

 

[Shan]

Sewer Rat carried on playing on in the mud, oblivious to the Raycon that was watching as it rolled amongst it all. The rat was having the time of its life, whilst Shan wasn't. Sighing to himself as Cora asked if Colette ended up telling him why and the Mirialan shrugged his shoulders.

"Not really. Haven't talked much since your knighting. We erh...Well...She just seemed off during it. I was talking to someone else, and then Colette came over and...I don't know how to word it. I've never been good with people's emotions. Colette just seemed off. Like she was jealous, but Colette doesn't do jealous. It made me wonder if I had done something wrong..."

With that, Shan just flopped backwards onto the ground, staring up towards the sky with a frown on his face. He would be lying if he said he didn't miss the time when things were simple but...he'd also be lying if he said he didn't like how things were now as well.

Corazona von Ascania

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

As Shan flopped to the ground, Cora settled beside him. She crossed one leg over the other hummed softly.

"You were talking to a girl if I remember correctly, yes?"

There'd been a lot going on during the ceremony. Cora had already been hyped up enough at the prospect of being knighted, but it had taken all of her focus to act appropriately cordial towards those who'd approached her. Still, she had glimpsed Shan speaking with a young snowy-haired woman.

Cora balanced an elbow on her knee and cradled her chin in her hand.

"At Makko's knighting ceremony, this girl Lossa came to congratulate him. They used to be involved on Denon, before Makko and I met, and she was the reason he came to the temple in the first place. She was gorgeous and didn't make any moves on him then, but I still felt really weird about it."

Lula watched Sewer Rat, pupils dilating at seeing the quick, sharp movements. Lazy as she was, there were predator instincts buried beneath layers of fat. She rose, shook her fur, and padded over to the dirt tunnels to investigate.

"I never thought of myself as the jealous type either, but…in that moment I was. I didn't have very nice thoughts about her, and I was a little cold. But she turned out to be very nice and friendly, and I felt bad for thinking ill of her."

Cora sighed. She'd veered a little off course in trying to talk about the nature of jealousy rather than how she'd personally dealt with it.

"All I know is that Colette seems to like you quite a lot, so maybe seeing you talk to a pretty girl she doesn't know made her feel a little odd."

Shan

 

[Shan]

"Ariana. Yeah. I thought it would be...good to try and introduce myself to new people." Shan sighed at that, rubbing the back of his neck as he listened to Cora talk about Lossa and Makko, a confused frown making its way onto his face.

"But...why would you care? Makko cares for you. And you're pretty as well." The term...gorgeous just seemed too much to Shan to use for someone though he carried on listening, folding his arms along his front as the Mirialan was trying to wrap his head around what Corazona was trying to tell him.

Meanwhile Sewer Rat was oblivious to the rather chunky predator following his movements, just digging small little tunnels that it could wriggle its way through and get ready to take a nap. Naps were all the rat would think about at the end of the day.

As Shan thought about things, he just let out a frustrated sigh, running his hand through his hair. "...She's silly if she thinks I'd care about some pretty girl more than her. Colette is Colette. She's the one I like. She's strong. Compassionate. Caring. Beautiful." The Mirialan was mostly rambling to himself, the thought of Colette thinking that Shan liked someone else got on his nerves. "Even if there is someone who might be...traditionally beautiful, there's no-one like her. She's...my...I don't know. I don't know what word to use. I'm not used to this. Not knowing things."

Corazona von Ascania

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

Why would you care?

Cora smiled faintly. She'd asked herself the same question at the time, but with distance came clarity.

"I'd just come back from Ukatis, so Makko and I weren't really together then. Not like how we are now."

Their relationship had been like a rubber band for the longest time. You pull and pull, then suddenly snap together. They'd been a lot of yelling. Lately, they'd settled into something less…aggressive, more comfortable.

Shan had been talking to a pretty girl that Colette didn't know. It had very likely been a harmless conversation, but the pieces were falling into place. Jealousy wasn't always rational.

A slow, genuine smile worked its way across Cora's face when Shan spoke of Colette.

"Just a hypothetical," She prefaced. "How would you feel if you found out that Colette was dating someone?"

Not that it was the same thing as Shan simply talking to another girl, of course.

Lula leaned down to sniff one of the burrows Rat had made. She raised one heavy paw, bringing it down to bat the dirt and collapse the tunnel.

Shan

 

[Shan]

Oh. Well if they weren't together...That still made no sense to Shan. "But...I mean...Colette and I aren't together." The Mirialan frowned to himself, trying his best to wrap his head around everything going on right now. All of this was confusing. Women were confusing. This was why he used to just focus on studying.

But then Cora asked her next question, causing Shan's frown to grow even more as he thought about it. "Well...Like I said. We aren't together. It wouldn't...make sense if I was upset over it. If anything, I'd be happy for her. She's a special person. She deserves someone to make her feel that special." Though the thought...did make him upset now that he thought about it. That was unsettling for him to say the least as Shan rubbed his chin, trying to figure out why he'd care. Of course, he liked Colette. She was special to him, but if she was with someone else...that would have been fine. Same way it would have been fine for him to-...Oh. It all clicked together now.

Meanwhile Sewer Rat was feeling like an earthquake was going on as the tunnel started to collapse around it, and it just started to dig as fast as its little claws could to move the fresh soil away so it could get to back to the surface and to the safety of Shan's pocket.

Corazona von Ascania

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

Shan said that he'd be happy for Colette - and Cora believed him. He was the type of person to find the joy in someone's success even if it meant that he'd be passed over in the process.

There was more to it than that, though. His frown deepened, his body language seemed uncertain.

"It's good to be happy for your friends." She agreed. "But you can feel other ways about it at the same time, too. If Makko started dating someone else, I'd…"

Now Cora frowned, because that line of thought lead to how she'd found temporary solace in the arms of someone else. She and Makko technically hadn't been together then, but she knew very well how he'd felt about her. The look of absolute heartbreak on his face was an image that would be burned in her mind forever.

"I think it makes perfect sense to be upset over it."

Lula stuck her nose into the pile of dirt as it begun collapsing, trying to sniff out her prey. She sneezed.

Shan

 

[Shan]

"...Does it make sense?" Shan frowned at that thought, wrapping his arms around his leg as he was trying to figure out his own emotions about this situation, shaking his head ever so slightly afterwards. "My father always seemed to be so angry when my mother was happy. I don't want to be like him. I don't want to be angry or jealous if Colette is happy..." These weren't really emotions that Shan put much thought into...so it was quite hard for him to wrap his head around any of it.

"It's just...I should only feel one emotion at a time. It's like how I felt during your knighting ceremony. I felt...ashamed, when I should have been happy. Irrational emotions are just that. Irrational." Shan ran his hand through that, trying to just figure out how he should feel. It felt strange trying to deal with emotions. For once, Shan would happily just fight someone instead of dealing with all of this.

Sewer Rat carried on just digging straight up to itself out of the ground, accelerating its process at the sound of something screaming (though to be true, it was sneezing) through the tunnel, as the Rat started to squeal. It's fight or flight instincts starting to kick in...and it was gonna fight!...AS soon as it got out of the ground.

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

Cora frowned in thought. She knew a little about Shan's past, hints that had dropped here and there. His father, she'd gathered, had not been a pleasant man. Knowing this, it made sense how he wouldn't want to be like him.

"It's like…you can be jealous without being angry, I think." She leaned back on her elbows, staring up at the sky while trying to gather the right words – if they even existed. "It's not a bad thing to feel jealous, it's normal. But if you let the jealousy make you angry and bitter, then it's a problem."

She winced there a bit, recalling her own behavior towards Lossa. Maybe this wasn't that helpful. "I can understand what you're getting at, though. I wouldn't want to be like my father, either."

"Why did you feel ashamed during my knighting?"

With her nose in the dirt, Lula stepped forward, each paw like thunder as it crashed down upon Sewer Rat's tunnel.

Shan

 

[Shan]

"But jealousy leads to anger and frustration. You think that something is yours, or that you deserve something. Which...isn't something people should feel. No-one deserves to be given something that someone else has." Shan grumbled to himself, running his hand down his face as he was trying to figure out his own words to use. Especially when Cora asked why Shan felt ashamed during Cora's knighting.


"I didn't trust you. Back when we were captured. I stayed behind because I was worried you'd want to stay behind if you didn't have someone to stay with you. I thought you'd happily have stayed if I wasn't there, whereas if you knew I was in danger, you'd have wanted to leave. I thought you'd want to be treated all...noble-like once again."

Was that good enough? Shan didn't know. Though he did turn his head over towards Lula, as Shan blinked a few times, pointing his finger directly at the Raycon. "...I think Chubla is trying to get my rat." Chubla was gonna be Shan's new nickname for Lula. At least, until she lost a bit of weight.

Corazona von Ascania

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

I didn't trust you.

Cora almost winced, but there was still visible surprise in her expression. It hurt to hear that, and she fell strangely quiet after Shan finished speaking. Her first instinct was to be defensive, to insist that of course she was trustworthy, how could he think that she wasn't? Weren't they friends?

That thought rose, peaked, then fell to a low simmer. Of course they were friends, that was exactly why Shan had expressed his concern - not to hurt her. He was worried about her, that she'd make a harmful decision.

"It…was nice, at times." She confessed quietly. "I would forget how upset I'd been at having been captured. Horace treated me so terribly, and Nwul made sure that I was comfortable. That I was protected. It was like being a proper princess for a little while."

It was nice to feel loved. A silly fantasy.

Cora had drawn her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. What was the right word to describe the situation she'd been in. Lovestruck? Stupid? Afraid? Valery and Kahlil had been helping her to untangle the manipulation that been done to her, but her own decisions were partly to blame.

She glanced over to Shan, feeling an anchor of shame sink slowly from her chest and into her stomach where it settled. It was a double edged sword; Nwul's favor had saved him as well, but he'd still been in danger.

"I was worried about what would've happened to us if I'd been disobedient. And yet, at the same time, I quite enjoyed being doted on."

The sudden shift in conversation wasn't enough to pull her attention completely to Lula, nor did she immediately recognize that Shan had called her by a nickname.

Cora lifted an elbow to balance on her knee, resting her chin in her hand as she turned fully to look at Shan.

"What was it like? Being a servant on Thule?"

Shan

 

[Shan]

Cora's reaction nearly broke Shan. It was the main reason why he had avoided mentioning it to her. It was the exact reason he felt so ashamed to have been at her knighting ceremony, but it was too late now. Shan had given his feelings towards Cora be known, or at least his distrust that there had been and it seemed like it had hurt her. The fact it hurt her went against everything Shan believed in. He didn't want to hurt people.

"...Exactly. I could see how Nwul treated you. How different it must have been to how Horace must have treated you. And it just...made me worried. I don't know how life has been for you. And how good it feels to be treated like that. But I know it must have been nice. Because it's the complete opposite to how I've been treated."

Shan rubbed the back of his neck at that, looking off to the side, a scowl growing on his face as he wasn't sure what else to say to the new Knight. Was he to continue being honest, even if it was hurting his friend? Or should he try and sugarcoat what he was saying? The Mirialan wasn't sure what answer would be right. Or even if there was a right answer. Since sometimes, there wasn't a right answer. A right choice. Sometimes it was just whichever choice would cause the least amount of pain.

"Honestly?...Being on Thule wasn't that much different to being back on Nar Shaddaa. Being used to heal people, being told what to do. The only difference was I didn't have my parents to go back to at the end of the day but...I still don't have that. So it's not overly different. I knew they were looking down on me, but that's something I've lived for years. It's not new to me..."

Meanwhile as Shan spoke, Sewer Rat carried on its climbing, as it heard more and more thuds through the tunnel as it hissed to itself. Climbing and climbing away from the sound to try and find freedom!

Corazona von Ascania

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

There was a shift in the mood. Cora inhaled slowly, smiled, and put a hand on Shan's shoulder. It look her a little time to work out her feelings.

"I can't imagine that was easy to say, but I'm glad that you did. I appreciate you being honest with me, Shan. I know some people think that I don't deserve to be a Knight, let alone a Jedi - but I'm going to keep trying to do the right thing as long as I’m here."

She gave his shoulder a squeeze, hand falling away as she contemplated his treatment on Thule and how it compared to Nar Shaddaa.

"It's good that you're back here. I know that the Jedi - myself included - appreciate what you do."

Only a few feet away, the ruckus caused by Sewer Rat and Lula had finally taken her attention. Cora frowned as she stood, dusting off her trousers with both hands.

"Honestly, Lula…"

With a sigh, she scooped the chubby racyon into her arms, curtailing her predatory behavior. She turned to Shan with a shrug.

"Not the exercise I had in mind, but…"

Shan

 

[Shan]

"Oh no. It was incredibly easy. That's just why I've been keeping it in. Waiting for the perfect moment to drop it on you."

Shan rolled his eyes, letting some of his sarcasm out at that, before sighing at Colette's response, rubbing his fingers across the bridge of his nose, as he tried to figure out what to say in response to her.

"It's not that I don't think you deserve to be a knight. Or a Jedi. I feel the opposite in fact. So I just felt awful for not trusting you..."

With that though, Shan turned his head over towards Sewer and "Chubla" again, blinking as the rat came sprinting out from its new hole, and clambered its way into Shan's robes to hide from Lula.

"Well. Now we've found out how to get her to exercise though. Just try and tempt her with food...I mean, you could always try to get a small mouse droid or something, and tape some food to it right?"

Corazona von Ascania

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

Cora's brows knit together, confused at first by Shan's sarcastic response. It wasn't one that she'd expected, but perhaps he hadn't expected her reaction either.

"Do you trust me now?" She asked simply.

Lula settled into her lap, paws tucked beneath her as she settled into a racyon-loaf. Her ears flickered and her pupils dilated as she followed Sewer's quick movements, but now she was too lazy to go after her prey.

"That might work," Cora mused. "I wouldn't want her to keep going after your pet, even if he's nimble enough to avoid her. A little mouse droid could work."

The blonde hummed softly as she scratched Lula between the ears.

"Maybe I could tie some t-r-e-a-t-s to a string and have her follow that…"

She glanced down to Lula, who thankfully hadn't recognized her favorite word.

Shan

 

[Shan]

The stress and frustration at having distrusted Cora was still on Shan's mind, which had been evident in the way that he had come out in sarcasm. Though he shook his head at Cora's next question. Did he trust Cora? Well...He sat there for a few moments, contemplating the idea in his head. He couldn't see any reason why he wouldn't. She had proved herself to him, at least in his eyes.

"Of course I do Cora. Otherwise I wouldn't be telling you all of this. And I would have jumped to get The Rat, instead of letting Lula hunt it."

Which was true as well. Shan might have gotten frustrated at the rat following him around all the time, he didn't want it to get hurt by Lula. The treat idea seemed good as well, as Shan gave another short nod at that.

"You could make some kind of training ground for her as well. And maybe use it to practice yourself. Use the Force to guide the...you know whats."

Corazona von Ascania