Private There's a Hole in Your Shirt

[Jalen Kai'el]

There's a Hole in Your Shirt
Coruscant, Jedi Temple
Tags: Thelma Goth

​

Jalen was absentmindedly wandering again, but for a different reason this time. Clutched in his hand was a hallikset, a gift from his brother Jasper. The blind child was completely absorbed in his instrument, tuning it's strings to his liking as he walked, the aura's of the people around him completely fading away. All that mattered was the stringed instrument he held in his hands. Smooth, hand carved, and bound together in a manner that spoke to the care and dedication of the individual who had made it. Jasper never told him where it was from, ruling out any possibility of meeting the one who constructed it. A shame, but it wasn't all bad. A part of the forger was imbued into the hallikset's very soul.

In his absent minded state, Jalen's head connected with something, causing the boy to fumble back. He just barely stopped himself from falling to the ground, even in spite of his sudden panic. He got a good feeling for their aura when he came to his senses. Older then him, but still young. A girl... and not human? It was strange. Her aura was certainly human-shaped, but it wasn't like any human he had ever met, or any near-human for that matter. Jalen wasn't going to ask. That would be rude after all. In fact, he really needed to apologize.

"S-sorry," he stammered, becoming flustered as he spoke. "I-I'll pay more attention."

He kept his head lowered, trying to keep his eyes from being seen, though very poorly. Jalen, after all, had no way of knowing where the stranger was looking.

 

[Thelma Goth]

I need at least a snack before training. But the mess is closed, I don't have a speeder, and no amount of candy bars is going to—oof!

Thelma smacked head-first into a person as she was turning the corner. While the person she had hit was stunned and staggered back a few steps, Thelma stood very still, as if frozen in place.

"S-sorry. I-I'll pay more attention."

She clenched her jaw around descending fangs, the itching along her gums and the acidic burn of hunger almost unbearable. The boy wasn't even looking at her. That was just as well. No doubt her eyes had gone hypnotic, too. But starving as she was, she wasn't about to feed from some kid.

"It's fine," she mumbled between her teeth, already inching toward the nearest exit. "I'm fine..."

Jalen Kai'el​

 

[Jalen Kai'el]

Coruscant, Jedi Temple
Tags: Thelma Goth

​

As Thelma assured that she was fine, Jalen was certainly not. In fact, he was petrified. It had started with the sound of a faint click; The clenching of a jaw. Then, the girl's aura became overwhelmingly that of a sensation he had not expected to be afraid of. She was hungry, but not like he was used to. It was the hunger of a predator looking down on their prey. Ripples of force energy ran down his spine, his danger reflexes attempting in vain to kick in. If her aura wasn't human, or near-human... what was she?

Sweat was running down Jalen's face now as he attempted to come up with a more rational solution, but he could really only come up with one answer: Sithspawn. Beings corrupted by the darkside. A class he had taken had talked about how many were capable of feeding off the lifeforce of living beings.

This raised a few concerns in his head. First, she wanted to eat him. That was bad. Second, he was blind, and no amount of feeling the force was going to help him navigate a non-organic space. Third, he was too terrified to even move. His skin had become a ghastly pale, his muscles as tight as stones plastered into wall. Had he tried to run, he felt his bones may simply shatter. This was a moment of fight or flight instincts, and Jalen's instincts chose neither.

Jalen couldn't feel anyone around either. He was on his own. This was it.

"P-please don't eat me."

 

[Thelma Goth]

Green eyes widened. How did he know? One hand flew up to her mouth, trying to hide her fangs. But he wasn't even looking at her, was he? In fact, he appeared to be quite blind.

Could he sense her hunger through the Force, then? Ugh. And she was normally so good at hiding it...

"Eat you?" She laughed awkwardly, self-conscious that her fangs were giving her a bit of a lisp. "What do you mean? I don't eat people."

Which was technically true. She had never killed anyone from feeding off of their memories. It wasn't a fatal diet. In fact, she was probably one of the few creatures in the galaxy who didn't have to kill other beings in order to be fed.

"I-I am a little bit hungry, just not for you. Heh. But, uh, I was just looking at your shirt," she continued, fumbling for something, anything to draw attention away from whatever he had glimpsed of her true nature. "It's got a hole in it. I could fix it for you, if you like. For free."

Jalen Kai'el​

 

[Jalen Kai'el]

Coruscant, Jedi Temple
Tags: Thelma Goth

​

"Oh... Okay."

Jalen frowned. There were more conflicting emotions in her aura, and her tone seemed to be that of fear more than anything else. And come to think of it, why would they let a cannibal into the temple? That seemed like something that the council would have on their radar. He was still tense, but eased up a little upon being exposed to these less hostile seeming emotions.

"I-It would be cool if you did that," he reasoned. "I-I don't have any money to get a new one."

His naïve nature slipped in. Realistically, he should have no reason to trust this person, but her emotions were enough to ease his fears a little, and now he was gripped by curiosity. If she wasn't Sithspawn, what was she?

 

[Thelma Goth]

Thelma was surprised it actually worked, but she wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. "Great!" she said. "Uh, do you wanna come back to my quarters? It won't take long to fix it. Unless you don't mind walking around shirtless in public..."

Jalen Kai'el​

 

[Jalen Kai'el]

Coruscant, Jedi Temple
Tags: Thelma Goth

​

"Oh... right," Jalen frowned.

No, he didn't want to walk around shirtless. People would see how skinny he was. He didn't want that, especially with how muscular his brother was. Jalen would probably get judged for not being as strong.

"Okay," he nodded.

A smile had formed on his face now. He was blindly trusting someone who probably ate people, but he was far too lost in his other concerns for this to come back into his head. When your thoughts become your world, it's hard to keep track of them.

"I'm Jalen," the boy introduced, still a bit timid, but visibly much more at ease.

 

[Thelma Goth]

"Hi Jalen. I'm Thelma."

She led the way back to her quarters, which existed in a state of organized chaos. "Okay, the door is shut," she said, grabbing a snack from her stash. It would hold off her hunger for maybe a few minutes, at least. "You can take your shirt off now."

Jalen Kai'el​

 

[Jalen Kai'el]

Coruscant, Jedi Temple
Tags: Thelma Goth

​

Jalen took off his damaged shirt, handing it to the older girl before blankly assessing her room. He saw nothing, obviously, but he saw very little signs of dirt, which usually had traces of life in it. Her space must have been rather organized, or at least well kept to some extent. The soft sound of chewing filled the air, but the hunger in her aura only faded only slightly. If she didn't eat people, and food did very little, what did she eat?

"Thank you," he finally said. "You didn't have to fix my shirt while you're hungry."

He tired to look like he was staring intently at her work, but he was really looking a good three or so inches to the right. Basically off into knowhere. Maybe he should ask her to describe it to him.

"Uh, can you explain what you're doing?"

 

[Thelma Goth]

"You didn't have to fix my shirt while you're hungry."

Thelma blinked at him, but didn't say anything. Her mouth was full of white cheddar popcorn anyway.

She scarfed down the rest of the snack and cleaned off her fingers before taking his shirt. Opening a drawer in her desk, she began to match the color of the garment to a thread which was approximately the same shade. "Uh... I'm picking out a thread that will match it," she replied. "And now I'm threading the needle on my sewing machine..."

Once she put her foot on the pedal, the machine began to whirr, punching the needle through the fabric. She figured that was self-explanatory for the blind boy, and focused on her work.

Jalen Kai'el​

 

[Jalen Kai'el]

Coruscant, Jedi Temple
Tags: Thelma Goth

​

"Oh," he frowned, trying to visualize what she was describing.

It didn't exactly help, but the whirring of her machine. As she worked, a realization had hit Jalen. She had ignored his thanks, became flustered when he mentioned her hunger... did he feel something she wanted to keep hidden? Now he felt bad. He didn't like stealing secrets. His face became flush red with embarrassment. He couldn't have stopped himself from feeling it, but there was a level of guilt there that he couldn't shake.

"I-I'm sorry," Jalen finally apologized. "Y-You don't want people to know, do you?"

 

[Thelma Goth]

"Y-You don't want people to know, do you?"

"Wh-What do you mean?" She paused in her work, turning toward him. "I don't want people to know what?"

Jalen Kai'el​