Ripley Kühn
“Need anything else, sweetheart?”
The waitress called over from the counter, absent-mindedly jotting down the boy’s tab. The cafe was calming down from the rush of the afternoon, with only a handful of patrons seated around the building - an eye of the storm that would soon subside into a flurry of new customers barging in. De’nath was content to leave before the cafe was crowded to the roof with the...
folks that late-night Coruscant was so known for. He gave a quick murmur of “No thanks, just coffee,” before turning back to stare at the stone texture of his table counter.
Amur was a week into his stay on the planet, and he quickly acclimated to the night life, prowling the streets to hunt down thugs and hone his skills. It was an aimless way of living, and one a bit too dangerous for his liking - but something within him was called to it. Whether it was a grudge, his conscience coming to bite him, or something else - he looked upon such vigilantism as a kind of duty.
Still, he felt lost. Adrift. Confused. There was so much more he had to understand - but he couldn’t seek it out. He didn’t know where to look.
The one place he wouldn’t dare find himself in would be the monolithic organizations the Jedi had established throughout the galaxy. His old mentor had instilled this in him - he had left his own order, exiled himself to the boy’s home planet of Denon. He called his peers hypocrites, who betrayed their own code in a narrow, ideological possession. When he died, and De’nath began his search for answers, the words of his mentor had been buried in his mind -
no orders, no cults, no dogmatism. But what that left him, he was unsure of. And he had sent the word out, looking for potential teachers and guides, in hopes of discovering such.
The waitress whisked over and placed the cup in front of him, the boy giving a quick smile and a nod before turning his head back down to the table - left back to the murmurs and clangs of the customers around him. The cafe during the early evening seemed to be one of the only safe harbors from the bustling frivolity of Coruscant. It was rare to get moments of quiet, and while he was used to the clamor of city streets, he made sure to cherish such an ephemeral opportunity.
But then he heard the chime of the door, and a woman walk in. At first, he thought his brief moment of peace had ended early, swept away by an incoming hoard of new patrons - but as the quiet pressed on, and as he witnessed her scan around the room, he sensed she was more than just another customer. Part of him urged that he shouldn’t stick around to see if his intuitions were right, and he quickly downed his cup of coffee before moving to stand up. Yet, another part felt that the answers he had been searching for might just be found by waiting.
