Private Twists

[Darth Daiara]

The Nest- Safehouse
Zaavik Perl

Numb. She pushed through the door and reset the alarms, feeling nothing but numb.

Her core ached with the current that had been her punishment, blistering veins from Vesta's lightening hidden under her shirt. Music greeting her upon her entry, the familiar instrument washing over her like a warm blanket. She had gone out for supplies and plans and came back much later empty handed. She expected anger and tension, instead she found the promising calm of Zaavik's guitar.

She blinked, confusion breaking up the stoney facade she wore.

Careful steps lead her back into the room, the girl making no attempt to draw attention to herself as she watched. With his short black hair, he was almost unfamiliar, if not for the way his face zoned out when he focused on a tune.

Her abs twinged. She dropped her hand from the pain and knocked twice on the door frame. She knew better than to catch him unawares.

 

[Zaavik Perl]

No matter how many times he played it, nothing about it felt right. Memories of being the dumb kid in a music store playing the one lick he knew over and over resurfaced. Every note was played with the intention of chasing a sensation only one other ax had ever given him. Nothing he'd picked up before or since could ever compare. If there was one thing he would openly admit to having any regret about leaving behind, it would be that damn guitar. Ostensibly his real first love, now probably collecting dust somewhere.

It almost hurt.

Knocking pulled him out of a third rendition. Both eyes refocused out of an equidistant daze, blinked up a storm before zeroing in on the source. Anxieties which he'd been trying to tame with the instrument subsided partially when the object of them proved safe. For a moment or two he started, making a trepidatious face that spoke volumes of the mixed emotions a sudden ghosting like that can cause. A million things could have happened, and he didn't get so much as a call?

But she came back. Alive. Seemingly uninjured.

Zaavik carelessly tipped the guitar to the side, allowing it to loudly bounce and shamble against the floor. Those strings had it coming. They were contributing their fair share to his verging conniption, with the whole, not being his old caster, and all.

"I was worried you might have gotten into some trouble," he confessed, airing the unspoken frustrations and anxiety. He didn't come off as angry, although he might have been at least a little.

Noticing an apparent lack of anything other than the clothes she left with, he raised a brow. "Did find what you were looking for?"

No supplies couldn't have been a better indicator for something being off.

 

[Darth Daiara]

His sudden stress brought a lash of guilt through her, the calm she had walked into turning out to be an easily shattered illusion. She grimaced in guilt.

"Well, sorta," she answered cryptically, walking deeper in.

On one hand, she was relieved Vesta was still here. Relieved and ... miffed, really, for the woman's unexpected anger. The comments on shattered trust left everything feeling much less stable. She didn't know how to feel about that. She didn't dare bring up the words Vesta had spoken against him. He was already against Vesta himself.

Allyson's arrival had shattered the tenuous peace that had developed between the trio... Then there was their plans to attend to. Moreover, how they were no longer necessary...

"She's alive," she stated bluntly, not leaving him to squirm. "...Both of them are, though I only saw... mine..." She did not know what response to expect from him, so she braced for the worst.

 

[Zaavik Perl]

Of course she is.

Zaavik didn't say anything, made a face, turned around. Short, black hair disappeared, sinking behind the back of the couch as he slid down to a low, dissatisfied slump. No part of him could muster any relief for Allyson. He hadn't expected her to be dead, because he was certain he would have felt her go. Instead, he could only feel a lamenting frustration for a curse he couldn't be rid of.

"So you didn't get anything?"

Stupid question, and he knew it. They wouldn't be needing even half of those things now. Regret for not pushing to leave sooner flooded in. Every time he thought about it, he just knew that devil lord would find some way to ruin it, even if from beyond the grave. Though he'd hardly expected it to work out, it was still beyond the bounds of what 'disappointing' could describe.

"How long until you go back?"

 

[Darth Daiara]

Yeah. That was pretty much what she was expecting.

She swallowed past it all and circled around the couch, her movements stiff as she lowered herself to sit on the other end. "You mean... we? Zaavik, she's still the safest place for us. ... Especially if your Master is intent on hunting us down. You really think we can hide from her?" She reached out, a clammy hand laying over his.

"Vesta is strong enough to protest us. Stronger than us. ...Stronger than Allyson. We still need her." Even if it didn't sound as pleasant as building a hut in a jungle or shambling together a ranch on some blue-cowed farm. All of those things could lead to death if they weren't ready.

She wasn't ready. Her fingers tightened over his, clutching tightly.

"Nothing has to change. ...Isn't this good?"

 

[Zaavik Perl]

Although it seemed he was making a point of pouting in defiance, his hand reciprocated. The heart had a penchant for treachery lately. Zaavik let out a prolonged sigh. "We," he corrected himself apologetically. Silence didn't hold long as he felt some strange need to be quick on the draw. "I know, I know. I couldn't think of a safer place if I tried. I just don't know if I can-"

Prolonged contact sent something through him. Sudden dead silence afflicted him. The simplest of empathies were often the most telling. Expression contorted from apologetic to sour so quickly one might think he could've pulled something. No more talking at the floor. Zaavik turned his head slowly and made eye-contact with the severity of the solider he tried to leave behind.

"Why are you sore?"

 

[Darth Daiara]

Her heart began to race, his tone eking up her anxiety by small degrees.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

She swallowed it back, trying to play it cool. She wasn't able to fool him that first encounter at the temple, she didn't expect that she could do so now. He was annoyingly good at reading her.

Damn Zeltrons.

She held his gaze, refusing to squirm as she answered evenly. "Training." It was a half truth. It had been during a lesson that she had defied Vesta. It had been during training that she held her off Allyson and tried to scare the woman back. All for Zaavik, she would say. But that was a half truth too.

Allyson had really fucked with her back there.

Vesta set some things back straight. She pulled her hand away.

"A surprise session, if I had been good enough I could have avoided it. And I'll need to be. Allyson can bend light around her too. She nearly killed Vesta without even revealing herself. Imagine the jump she could get on me. I'll just have to get better." She rattled. She smiled tightly, reassuring him.

 

[Zaavik Perl]

No effort was made to contest her words, though he had a strong notion there was more to it than that.

Training. What a load.

If he had to guess, Vesta had come at her with some physical retribution for her leaving Korriban. That, or perhaps even something she said afterwards.

I'll kill her.

It was dubious, whatever it was. Knowing she was trapped under some manipulation of feeling too weak to go on without that woman hurt more than the secondary echoes of Aradia's punishment.

I'll fucking kill her.

No words.

Expression had faded back to a neutral. Only the subtlest, furtive twitches and off-movements of different muscles in his face indicated anything was bothering him. The extent was heavily downplayed. Aradia couldn't know what it made him really feel. Too many problems waited under that curtain.

A weak smiled offered a sign of acceptance. Relief, even.

"I'm just glad you're safe and didn't get caught up in something. You had me worried. Call me or something next time if you're gonna delta that long. Vesta or not." No part of that was insincere, although it omitted far more than twice its weight in genuineness.

 

[Darth Daiara]

A relieved breath hissed from her. She nodded, agreeing too easily to his request.

"Right, yeah. Course. I'll call you next time. S'my bad." The strained smile quirked upward, taken over by a showing of duper's delight. She didn't like lying to him, she just didn't know any other way. Honesty only made you lose the things you loved. She was not willing to lose him. She reached out for him again, her fingers circling over his own.

"I'm sorry we can't go yet. I know ... I know you'd prefer it. But it's not off the table," she reassured. "We'll keep looking-- we'll keep planning. We can use this time to our advantage. When I'm ready, we'll go." She pulled him in, trying to hug him across the space. There was a hole in her chest she was trying to fill with him then. She just didn't see it.

Her finger slid through his hair, the dyed ends a little rougher than the night before. "I promise."

 

[Zaavik Perl]

"Don't apologize," he implored half-heartedly.

One pull met another. Responsive exertion of equal force meant they met in the middle. They held an intermission within one another's embrace, though Zaavik's unshackled mind drifted far beyond the moment. Shielded thoughts of what he should do, could do, and would do, detracted from what he got out of it. To an observer outside his head, little if anything appeared wrong at all.

"By the way-" Zaavik gently tore himself halfway out of their tangle. A freed arm stretched to retrieve a datapad from the solitary end-surface. It retracted, placed the lit up screen halfway on Aradia's lap and his own. "You got a message. I didn't read it, but I think it's from your mo- from Kaalia."

Slanted frown accompanied a curiously encouraging tone. "I don't imagine you want to read it after what happened but- I think you should. She's worried about you."

Odd shift in attitude from the one who hardly treated Kaalia as if she was even human the last time they met.

Getting your ass kicked will do that to you.

 

[Darth Daiara]

Aradia blinked, her fingers twisting into his shirt to keep him close enough. They had had too many close calls lately. Not even Vesta felt like an entirely safe place. Only this room did.

She pushed that thought from her mind, accepting the data pad numbly.

"Kaalia?" She echoed, her voice hollow. She stared at the notification in disbelief, warped echoes of their encounter echoing through her mind.

You're a threat to this family.

Her face twinged in pain. She handed it back with a subtle shake of her head. "I already know what its going to say. I don't want to." She withdrew from him, the reminder of that bitter day locking her down. She had returned to him in no good state after that-- darker and more corrupt than he had ever seen her before. She couldn't work herself down from it. More than a few pieces of furniture suffered.

As far as she was concerned, Kaalia had turned heel and thought very little of her now. It burned, but she wasn't going to be spoken down to again.

"Are you hungry? We can get pizza..."

 

[Zaavik Perl]

"It might not be what you think," he suggested urgently. "She doesn't seem like the type to send you a message just for denigration or admonishment." Zaavik didn't know her nearly as well as Aradia did, obviously. Yet, still he went out of his way to assure her of something that he might have not known any better about. Readings someone character was yet another skill, though it had failed him in the past.

"No, listen, we'll worry about food later, I just really think you should give her the benefit of the doubt here." A slanted frown verged pouting. It came from a leftover hurt that never went away. Even after he'd found his blood relatives. It wasn't the same as finding your mother or father.

"I'll read it first if you want, or even read it to you if I have to. If you're right I'll stop, or you won't even have to look at it."

 

[Darth Daiara]

No.

The protest screamed through her nerve endings, every part of her feeling gross and small and wrong . In truth Kaalia hadn't been nasty to her. She had been disappointed, and she had been hard, but abusive?

That wasn't how Aradia remembered it. She had held darkness incarnate in her hand that day, and she remembered Kaalia's disgust staring back.

She would have snapped and walked away, but this was Zaavik talking. He didn't usually beg. She pulled out of her own inner turmoil long enough to notice the earnest seriousness in his face. Her brows pulled in at it.

She responded with gentle skepticalness.

"Why does this mean so much to you..." she propped wearily. That wasn't a no. "You hate Kaalia. She's a sith."

Was. But it was all the same to him.

 

[Zaavik Perl]

Better Kaalia than Vesta. It wasn't a hard choice from his position, not even close, but it wasn't quite his choice to begin with.

"You're Sith, too. I don't hate you." Bad example? Probably. He couldn't deny that the circumstances were too different to be compared. Zaavik tried a different approach, "She loves you," he attested. "Like it or not, she adopted you, and insists she's your mother." A forever's worth of envy resonated in tortured volumes in his tone. He would have killed for that feeling of family.

In a way, he had already received it if Joza Perl and/or Allyson Locke had anything to say about it. Never did anyone call themselves his mother, nor did anyone who knew her identity ever feel right to tell him about her. Two things so simple made him weigh Kaalia and Aradia's relationship heavier on the scale than anything he ever had. Was that an earned assessment? Was it really not the same?

If he knew the right answer, maybe seeing Aradia and Kaalia drifting apart wouldn't cause him as much vicarious pain as it didd.

"And if we're gonna, you know-" Times like these, having a naturally reddish Zeltron complexion was strength. It made the flushing on his face much harder to spot. "-be involved, I might as well try to get along with your mother, right?"

His face pleaded for grounds to stand on in order for her to hear him out. "You have a family who loves you, and is worried about you. Adopted or not, they care enough to reach out every chance they get. So much that Kaalia hasn't stopped since Ziost. Don't keep them hurting and wondering for anyone's sake. Especially not mine or Vesta's."

Something within him strangled the feeling of being a hypocrite before it could reach his conscience.

Another pause of many.

"You don't have to pick between us."

 

[Darth Daiara]

Her expression soured.

"You don't get it. You didn't see her that day. She doesn't like me anymore. She only wants me to be one thing, and its not gonna happen." She snapped back, shoving the holopad at him.

"You read it. You'll see. Ten credits she's chewing me out for being here. You'd think she forgets what we are. I don't even recognize her anymore." She grumbled into her arms, her spine slinking deeper into the coach.

"I'm not dealing with it."

 

[Zaavik Perl]

"You read it. You'll see."

"I will," he declared, eyes narrowing to slits.

So he did. Pupils drifted right, returned left, and so on for several silent moments. Perhaps a touch more than someone would expect. Zaavik was never a strong reader.

"I can only pray that this message is welcomed instead of met with hatred and resentment," he quoted.

"Everyone back home is still hopeful that your return will be-" he tripped up, lost his place. Regaining it took a stutter. "-sooner rather than later." Another quote.

He was insistently shoving the datapad into Aradia's chest before he even began to add his own word.

"Praying to hear from you soon," came the verbatim final line.

"None of what you think is in there. Come on," he implored. "See for yourself."

 

[Darth Daiara]

What.

Aradia fumbled as the pad was shoved back, and indignant snort catching in her chest. "That doesn't make sense. I-" Her brows furrowered as she read it over, not once but three times.

It was hard to absorb the words. They felt like a stark contrast to what she was feeling. They also contained a distinct lack of support for what she currently was doing.

She jammed it off and shoved it away. "S'bullshit. You heard her, she wants me away from the sith." She crossed her arms back over her and sunk down either lower. Her throat grew painfully tight. "You shoulda seen her Zaavik. The way she looked at me-- She thinks I'm lost. How could she think that," she exploded, sitting back up. "I'm right here. You know Im not, you know I can handle it."

 

[Zaavik Perl]

"You shoulda seen her Zaavik. The way she looked at me--"

Could it have been the same way Yula Perl and Dagon Kaze looked at him? Zaavik's unbothered visage faltered briefly. Subtle changes in expression were banished back to deadpan before they had a chance to betray him. When she came forward in exasperation, his deliberate calm meant he didn't even flinch. Eyes caught one another in slanted contact.

"I know you can, but if you don't think she does, maybe you just need to prove her wrong," he suggested.

The datapad suddenly lifted, flew across the air, stopped in Zaavik's hand with a thud. One press of an analog button the the screen flickered off. He discarded it to the side. Cool, metal fingers arrived under her palm, ran upward to interlock in the gaps between hers. "Maybe she was just hurt, or wanted to protect you. At the end of the day though, she said it herself; Despite everything she's still your mother. If she means it, she'll accept you for you."

That's how it worked, right? Truthfully Zaavik had no point of reference.

 

[Darth Daiara]

Aradia's frustration melted out of her, his gaze having a way of breaking it down making it lose it's edge. ... He was right, she guessed. At least when she applied the logic to him it held up. She had nearly taken part in an annihilation yesterday and here he was... not running or looking away.

He really did accept her whole heartedly.

She could feel it in her bones.

There were very few things in the galaxy she could trust like that. The longer he looked at her, the more her shoulder relaxed down from her ears. "This really matters to you," she stated, perplexed.

She didn't ask for an explanation, she didn't need it. He cared, so... "Fine," she relented, glowering for effect.

"But I'm not going alone-- watch her try to kidnap me or something," she grumbled under her breath. Her free hand rubbed at her face, her own dyed strands catching her attention and startling her. She still wasn't use to them yet.

"And we can't, can't be sloppy. She's in Alliance space now, you know. We'll have to wait till she leaves it. What if they're watching?"

Paranoid much?

...not really, now a days.

 

[Zaavik Perl]

"But I'm not going alone-- "

"What, you don't think I'd come with you?" he teased. Light, mischievous grin accompanied the rhetorical. It faded back to neutral once he returned to business. Zaavik said, "I wouldn't go through all this effort just to send you off on your own. I know this is difficult, I'm not gonna make you go alone." For once, supporting someone didn't feel like an obligation. Where Aradia was concerned it had become a genuine want. "And like I said, I gotta get on well with her now."

There'd be time to soak in how nerve-wracking that was later.

"We won't be. We'll take Vesta's ship, I cleared everything so it might as well be brand new as far as scanners are concerned. No unnecessary risks. We'll go in, see your family for dinner or something, and then we'll-" Hesitation tripped up his assurance with a pause. "-go back to Maena." The plan certainly sounded better in his head. No tangible holes, but going back to that magmatic world was still a point of contention.

That once obligation turned desire made it bearable.

"Don't worry so much, we've got this."