First Reply Spiritualist

[Hasuras Na-Sias]

It began in panic.

The same iron fist seizing her lungs and veins. The same rocks pressed against her brain matter. Same glimpses of something, always shifting, always intangible, always slipping whatever vain attempts she made to grasp it. Sias was hard to frustrate, but not impossible to.

She woke with a breath, a distinct ache in her finger joints where she had the sheets in a death-grip. She stirred in slow, infinitesimally small movements, as she brought her body upright. There was the taste of incense on her tongue too, still curling from where she lit it the night before. Lithe hands gently pressed into the edge of a silk duvet as her head sunk between shoulders.

Her eyes centered on a spot on the carpet then, probably dusted with cooled ash. A moment passed, she sniffed, and a hand wiped at her nose a second after.

And finally she was up, calling a shawl to her outstretched hand with the Force, and shutting her door with a considerately moderate click.

—

The warped stone of the marketplace made a satisfying little rhythm for her feet to follow. The air was cold, thin and smoked with meat cuts to where she considered briefly whether or not to grab Kull a bantha-steak as she hummed a line of poetry. She could've gotten a servant to do this. It was a simple enough request and they most certainly had herbal blends far superior to whatever brews she could acquire here. But seeking quality was never really the purpose of her outings.

"Ah, it's you." The vendor did well to hide the unease in his voice, much more than then the first couple times she'd seemingly appeared in front of his stall without warning, "Same as last time?"

He clearly still wasn't sure what to make of her. Tall, quiet, generally unsettling. But he practiced business well and treated her with only simmering curiosity.

Understandable curiosity, considering the rumors about her.

"Yes, would you toss in that bushel of lavender as well?"

She vaguely gestured to the dried flowers stapled to the vendor wall, before bringing up a hand and letting a few too many coins clink onto the wood counter dividing them

"This is-"

"I know what it is." She said, bringing up a hand to silence any moralizing efforts. "I would just like to take my purchase and my leave if you don't mind."

OOC: Just a tea afficandio who also happens to be a sith. Want your fortune read? Commune with the dead? Fight? Talk about herbal blends? Idk she needs friends.

 

[Andrew Lonek]

The marketplace felt like a hundred different conversations breathing down his neck, all of them in languages he didn't care to understand. Andrew moved through it with the same unhurried certainty he used when walking into a high-stakes meeting—head high, steps measured, coat swaying just enough to look like it cost more than most people made in a month.

The shades stayed on, black and mirrored, hiding the subtle data stream scrolling across his right lens. Atmospheric readings, thermal mapping, population density—habit, not paranoia. He'd heard the stories about this "seer," the kind of whispers that were equal parts fascination and warning. Most people filed that under superstition. He filed it under potential resource.

A crossroads. That's what he'd called it in his head, though the truth was messier. Too many variables, too many enemies, too many paths that ended in him dead, broke, or worse—irrelevant. He wasn't here for incense or fortunes. He was here because every good tactician knew when to gather intel from unconventional sources.

The stall wasn't hard to find. The air shifted before he even reached it—slower, heavier, curling with scents of dried flowers and something sharper beneath. People kept a few extra steps of distance without realizing it, like the atmosphere had drawn a line they wouldn't cross. Andrew stepped over it without hesitation.

The chair at her side was open. He made it his. The motion was fluid, unasked for, as if the place had been reserved since the market first opened. One arm draped over the backrest, the other resting on the table with calculated ease.

He leaned back slightly, the ghost of a smirk playing at the corner of his mouth.

"I'm told you can see what's ahead," he said, voice carrying just enough to cut through the market's noise without raising. "I could use some clarity."

He didn't explain why. He didn't need to. Instead, he reached up and adjusted his shades, scanning her space like he was still weighing the ROI of this little detour.

"Let's just say I'm… between roads," he added, tapping two fingers idly on the tabletop. "And I'm tired of guessing which one's going to get me where I need to be."

He let the words hang there, settling into the seat like he owned not just the chair, but the moment. For now, the market's noise faded. All that mattered was the answer he'd come to collect.


Tag: Hasuras Na-Sias