Private Tit for Tat || Alkor Centaris

[Acantha Malvern]

Alkor Centaris ​

Geonisis was characteristically warm, it ought to have been for a desert planet. The sun beat down wave after wave of glorious heat in its ancient and unchanged rhythm. Felruian relished it, as she always relished the warmth. The Confederate capital was far from what she considered home, it was temporary at best, but she had been here enough times to feel like it was at familiar to her now. Hell, she even had a small apartment here she had purchased after amassing enough income, and it was in that apartment that Felruian found herself on the warm evening in question.

It was a modest homestead. One room and a balcony, furnished with a bed, a desk and a single chair. She didn't even need the bed, the ragged aging wood with the rough woolen blanket atop the straw mattress was merely for show. The real reason she had invested in the studio apartment was the balcony. It had the fortune advantage of facing the rising sun. The Mistress didn't necessarily hoard joy from watching the orange dance across the horizon, nor did she take pleasure in watching the mirages fade and wane as the heat of the day settled across the city, but it was relaxing.

Every time she lowered herself into the battered wicker chair Fela could feel her tension melting away, like butter in a frying pan. It was quiet up here, with the only company she craved being the soft groan of a gentle breeze. All the people down below resembled children's toys, too tiny for even the smallest of hands to encompass. All in all, she couldn't have wished for a more perfect evening. Even the bottle of alcohol she supped at was seemingly perfect. It was satisfying to watch the condensation bead up and drip down the dark brown glass. This was how she liked it.

Alone. In peace.

​

 

[Alkor Centaris]

He spent the better part of a day straining and stressing about what to do. The woman had brought him a gift. In all his time as a killer, a solider, a warrior, no one had ever needed to give him anything more than their thanks. Even that, arguably, was too much. It was the responsibility of a man to do their job, and that was all.

So, for someone to feel the need to thank him beyond simple words placed him in a predicament. He didn't want this situation to turn out like the previous. He wanted to gift her something to make them even, and he wanted to leave so that the cycle would end right there.

His time spent among the Mandalorians gave him skill with technology. He spent hours laboring over a tech bench with gadgets and gizmos, learning how to make both weaponry and tools alike. When he visited Balmorra to check up on the Droid and Arms divisions of his company, he took schematics for a new series of Replicas and started playing around with concepts.

People often kept pets, and they lasted ten to twenty standard years. The sadness that came from losing those attachments often damaged people as much as it made them happy to have those creatures. It was the prototype idea to make something that would last as long as the owner, or Outlast them. Pets that could be passed down, remember information, even tell tales and keep historical records. They were protocol units at best, unarmed, but to make them appear seemingly as small, domestic animals- that was prohibitively expensive, and they had yet to devise a method to do so en masse.

Alkor took the programming and Artificial Intelligence into his own hands. For this gift, he had designed something that utilized synthetic flesh and hair to take on the appearance of a household cat. He had the creature tucked under one arm, shielded from the vicious heat of the Geonosian sun.

When he made it to Felurian's residence, he pressed the doorbell and waited.

Felurian Malvern

 

[Acantha Malvern]

Alkor Centaris ​

The sound of a bell rang clearly in her daydream, but for the life of her, Felurian couldn’t think of where it was coming from. A long few seconds passed by where the ringing echoed in her mind, imploring her to answer or at the very least acknowledge it. When she finally did, she came to the realisation that the sound was her doorbell. The noise was entirely new to her because nobody had ever visited before, but the moment she was dragged from her reverie was the moment she decided it had to go. How on earth people could suffer through that noise every time they had a visitor was beyond her. She much preferred the muted sound of a fist against the wooden door, the sharp and jarring tinkling of the bell was nothing short of irritating.

Still, despite her distaste at the unannounced visit, she could hardly leave them lingering on the doorstep. With no shortage of grumbling, Fela pushed herself out of the battered wicker chair and abandoned the balcony to answer the door. It only took her half a minute to walk the length of the small apartment to the door on the other side. The rather ingenious invention of the small portal set in the centre of the door gave her the chance to peek through and see who was waiting on the other side, but when she did…

‘Kark.’

She made no attempt to hide her displeasure, for standing on the other side was the one man she had hoped never to see again. Ever. For a moment or two, she contemplated simply leaving him there. Pretending like she wasn’t at home or… maybe that she was sleeping, but the realisation that her curse had been louder than intended dawned quickly. With a heavy sigh and no short amount of grumbling, Fela moved to unlock the door. The sound of chains scraping against wood echoed around the apartment, but it wasn’t long before the door swung open on its creaky hinges. ‘What do you want? I thought we had both agreed we would never have to see each other again.’ Fela never extended pleasantries to anyone, even less so to people she hadn’t the slightest admiration for, so it made sense that her tone of voice was icy and sharp. She was even more irritated that the only thing the two of them could seem to agree on, that they would never see each other again, had been violated by Alkor not even a month after they had sworn to it.

Seeing him again forced a sour look to overtake her expression, which she coupled with the rather huffy action of folding her arms across her chest. The ordinary thing to do would have been to invite him in, but she made no move to step out of his way.

​

 

[Alkor Centaris]

He reached under his arm and produced the white, gray, and orange fuzzball of a Droid, then held it out to her. For all intents and purposes, it appeared to be an ordinary housecat. He had roiled for long hours to make certain of just that. No one wanted a noisy, audacious Droid; or at least, Alkor would have hated to have a noisy, audacious Droid. Alkor generally hated Droids to begin with.

This one wasn't quite so bad. In fact, it only ever talked if given a prompt. If the woman he gave it to never needed it, and never asked for anything from it, it would remain no more than a cat that never aged.

The perfect, silent companion for a silent, loathsome woman.

Only, once she accepted the cat, she would find it had normal cat-like protocols. Even as much as bonding with and coming to love its owner. Or at least, emulate that kind of relationship. Alkor found that programming a Droid to show any type of compassion made it about as capable of complex emotion as he was.

"We don't," he agreed. "I didn't come here to see you. I came here to give you this. Now, I'm leaving."

Felurian Malvern

 

[Acantha Malvern]

The orange ball of fluff had gone largely unnoticed by Felurian, until Alkor held it out to her. Immediately, her face fell into a sour expression, and her nose scrunched giving way to confusion. The cat hung limply from Alkor’s arms, limbs swinging in a rather unnerving way. The Mistress recoiled, physically took a step back, then another. “What the kriff do you want me to do with that?”

It would have been so easy to just reach out and accept whatever he was trying to offer her. Yet, it was even easier to simply shut the door in his face, turn around and walk out to the balcony again where nothing could disturb her. She probably shouldn’t have even bothered answering the door in the first place. This was her punishment for that stupid mistake, and she would have to take it on the chin.

Felurian grimaced and reached out with both hands to lift the thing from Alkor’s arms. The soft fur underneath wasn’t exactly unpleasant to the touch, but she disliked the way its body seemed to be so… elongated. The thing chirped. Actually made a sound. Felurian physically shuddered, her raven eyes going wide with something akin to terror. Was this some kind of joke? Was it going to explode in her face or something? “Should I be worried this thing will kill me in my sleep? I mean, what the hell is it anyway?”

Alkor Centaris

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[Alkor Centaris]

Alkor paused.

"I don't know why I hadn't considered that," he muttered discontentedly as the realization struck. If he killed the woman, all of this would end. No more gifts. No more thanks. Peace. But, no.

"I saved your life," he said finally. "I did it because it was my job. That's all. There was no need for thanks. There is still no need. So, this is my response for your kindness."

He gestured toward the Droid.

"I didn't bother with any instructions or red tape. He's not hard to get along with. ASLAN, wake up."

The cat perked up at the sound of his name, and two bright blue orbs stared up at Felurian.

Felurian Malvern

 

[Acantha Malvern]

​

Felurian snorted at him and scrunched her raven brows together till creases formed on the bridge of her nose. Had his subtle words caused her to feel threatened? Not really, more irritated that he believed she would even allow him the chance to try and take her life. “Funny.” She snapped, still holding the ginger fluff ball at arms-length.

“Your idiocy is incredibly painful. No, it was not your job to save my life. It was your job to get rid of the slavers, and for all, you knew I was a slaver. You can’t deny that. So why did you do it?” Her sharp tone was still present as she spoke. “This gift is also unneeded, and once again places me in a position of debt to you.”

Despite it being some sort of acceptance, there was an edge of disgust to her ordinarily dull words. It was already painfully obvious that this circle of gift-giving was unlikely to have an end any time soon.

Suddenly, the thing moved. Twitched its head till two piercing blue daggers found a home on Felurian’s face. Her expression soured once more. “Is ASLAN what it is or what it’s called?” She drew it a little closer, whether by instinct or by choice it wasn’t clear, but in the end, the thing and Felurian were but an inch apart from each other. “Are you going to tell me what it does or am I expected to figure that out myself?” Honestly, the latter would have been preferable if only to get him out of the apartment, but she didn’t want to just be left alone with the thing either.

Alkor Centaris

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