Brawln and Nawah

On the way to Bothawui, Brawln pulled Nawah aside to discuss her situation.

Brawln asked some questions calmly and Nawah got a sense that this was not a new situation for him. HC-7 translated, "Brawln would like to know - what are your feelings about the current situation? He senses that a moral dilemma is likely coming your way, as is usually the case for the blackmailed. We do not know your mother or your relationship to her, though, and are curious what your priorities are like. Is retrieving her the highest priority? Or not being manipulated? Or possibly even vengeance? Brawln is not judging you for any possible reaction you might have to the situation you are in - you saw how he reacted to his situation. But if possible, Brawln would like to know where you stand before we get too deep in here."

Nawah hadn't been withdrawn or anything after Honesty Hour and was found just about to enter her quarters. "Step inside so we're not blocking the hallway." Brawln followed her inside and she left the door open. Her room was about as well furnished as any other room on the ship, but there were at least a couple places to sit down. She took a seat on the edge of her bunk.

"It is as much of a normal relationship with a mother as anyone else, I suppose. I didn't see her as much as I should, especially when I was in my former line of work. Dangerous lines of work like that, you try to isolate yourself a little bit to prevent family from becoming a target. But retrieving her would be the priority. I don't know how this guy found out about me. The number of people alive who know about what I used to do, prior to today, is extremely limited. One doesn't exactly advertise these types of abilities, nor was it something that I did for money."

She shrugged at the mention of vengeance. "That isn't really how I tend to operate. He's found leverage over someone who has abilities he wants to exploit. It's dirty leverage, but at the most basic level, that's all it is. Once an opportunity presents itself or can be created to extract my mother from the situation, I would very much like a chance to question him about how he found out what he did. The more people who know, the more danger everyone on this ship is in. You make a career out of killing fallen Force users, you tend to end up on pretty bad terms with some powerful people. I've stayed alive by not letting most people know who I was during that time and then, when I retired from that, shifting gears completely to working in a pretty mundane job."

When Nawah described her relationship with her mother, Brawln seeed to be watching very closely. After she was finished, Brawln sat back and let out a stream of softer, more mournful sounding statements in Shyrriwook. HC translated - but with perhaps a bit too lively and jovial a tone given the subject matter. "A normal relationship? You'’ll have to forgive Brawln on this matter, as he hasn't seen his mother in more than one hundred years now. Perhaps you have an explanation of what exactly is entailed by a normal relationship? You might start by describing your most recent interaction with your mother."

Brawln seemed to be watching Nawah's response very closely, almost searching for something in it. "I'm sure, given your previous occupation, you're aware that your typical hostage situation doesn't lend the hostage a terribly high survival rate. If it comes to it, the rest of the crew aside, have you considered what lines you personally would be willing to cross to get her back?" Although his gaze remained intent, Brawln’s expression softened in sympathy for the situation Nawah was in.

"I apologize. I briefly forgot that your race is longer lived than most and, as a result, you may view time a little differently than I would," the woman replied with a soft nod of her head. "It is a loving relationship. We are fairly open with each other and talk regularly, or as regularly as we can with our hectic schedules. She works in finance, which is where I picked up how to handle a negotiation early on. My father was a military man and was killed during the war, so the family conversations are something that's important to her.

"I'm aware hostage situations don't often end well. It isn't the first time one of my missions has involved a hostage, though it is different being on this side of the equation. Usually I was one of them going in to negotiate for release or to free them myself," Nawah explained. "As to lines, I wouldn't sacrifice anyone on the ship to rescue her. My mother would never forgive me for that, to start, and trading one innocent life for another doesn't sit right with me. But if I have to kill the captor or her guards to free her if it comes down to it? I'll do it without a second thought. Given his position in the government, I doubt he'd face any actual justice for his actions in the Empire's legal system. He may be doing this with explicit permission."

She lightly shrugged her shoulders. "Basically, if I have to kill someone because they're trying to kill us I don't have a problem doing that. I prefer to knock them out, but I'm afraid the fact I haven't been running around hunting fallen Force users for years limits me to blasters instead of fists or staffs. I don't have the strength to get a solid hit in anymore. But it was always easier when I was fighting the fallen Force users, in some ways. They'd usually fallen so far that the chances of bringing them back mentally to a place where they weren't corrupted by the Dark side was so remote that killing them could almost be seen as a mercy." She paused and shook her head. "But I really don't miss facing down lightsabers and people shooting lighting bolts at me from their fingertips."

Brawln listened attentively and when Nawah was finished, his mournful tone came back into the conversation. HC said, again, a little too cheerily, "Well, I'm very sorry to see you have to choose between being manipulated and losing someone close to you. I suppose I can only hope I'd be so reasonable if such a situation fell to me. I hope you know that my services are available should you need them. Hopefully your mother is not held hostage any longer than is absolutely necessary."

Brawln sat for a moment quietly. He opened his mouth a couple times, as though trying to find the right words, but he seemed at a loss.

"Thank you, and I suspect I'll need your help with this. He's taken Rhen's friend as well, though he doesn't necessarily know that we know that," Nawah replied. That was a point in their favor, perhaps, though it did mean that they had twice the incentive to figure out how to beat this guy. "There is a certain amount of frustration in that I'm no longer in a position where I can just leap out and solve this particular problem with my fists, tempting as that might be. And even if I did want to try and blast my way through, I'm afraid most of my gear from those days was stolen right before the events at the Jedi temple. My old armor and weapons would come in handy right around now," the woman commented.

"Though that brings to mind something else. Why would the Mirror clean me out of my things and target me before I met you all? Do you think it is possible there is a connection between him and Iscandar?" Nawah asked. "The Mirror left mirror shards in my backpack, from what I can tell, before the attack on the temple."

Brawln reflected on what Nawah had just shared. "Ever since we were contacted by the Kaminoan, I’ve had no reason to think the Mirror's actions were anyone's responsibility but his own. This is quite a troubling rabbit hole if it goes anywhere. Any thoughts on what possible connections there could be between the Mirror and Iscandar?"

He furrowed his brow, thinking. "We may need to visit the Kaminoan after all. I wonder if the Force users might have any clues as to whether that voice we all heard could have come from someone other than the Mirror..."

He shook his head. It was clearly a thought he had trouble stomaching.

"I do not know, aside from the fact that Iscandar can provide credits and the Mirror likely needed credits to buy his medications," said Nawah. "But it seems like too much of a coincidence to me that my place was ransacked shortly before the attack on the temple by the Mirror and my mother had been kidnapped shortly beforehand."

Nawah shrugged at the thought. "I admit it might be a stretch. But the presence of mirror shards in my pack suggest he was sent after me before the attack on the temple, and the only other recent attack on me or my family was my mother's kidnapping prior to those events. The timeline fits, or seems to in my mind."

She considered the thought. "It is something to bring up with them. Rhen may have the most experience, but there is a chance one of the Padawans has learned about this topic more extensively."

Brawln grunted and spoke in guttural tones of concern. HC translated, "Well, if Iscandar is somehow associated with anyone involved with the Mirror, this situation we are in may be a lot more precarious than we had initially assumed."

Brawln motioned at a closed up wound on his chest and his tone became a bit more firm.

"You may want to engage in a bit more target practice before we get too deep into this."

Nawah grimaced a little bit. "I am sorry about that. I am afraid that not having regularly engaged in combat for the last several years has left me a little bit...rusty. In the past, I can assure you that would not have happened. I'll need to find somewhere to work on my aim on the ship. With something a bit less dangerous than a blaster." Shooting a blaster while on the ship, even in practice, was somewhat dangerous to do. There were limited places to really do that type of thing.

Brawln nodded, and then gestured towards Nawah, while making conversation in Shyrriwook.

HC translated, "Nevertheless, Brawln is glad he was able to clarify some things about your position on how we interact with this Iscandar person. He hopes you know that if you ever need anything on this, he's got your back. Hopefully, we will have your mother back soon."

Brawln stood, as if to leave.

"Thank you, Brawln, for everything." The woman stood up. The relatively small size of the quarters, combined with the size of the Wookiee and the relatively tall Mirialan meant that both of them standing meant it was a little crowded. "Oh, pardon me. But yes, hopefully we can rescue her soon and deal with Iscandar quickly." Nawah did step back as much as she could to avoid bumping into Brawln.

As Brawln awkwardly tried to extricate himself from the small bunk, Nawah couldn't seem to stop getting in the way. They both heard a low perplexed "uhhhh....?" from the direction of the door. Zio was standing outside with an armload of clean laundry, probably delivering it to Vesper to get snuck into people's rooms. Bothans don't exactly blush, but his too-stiff posture and flattened fur suggested that he thought he'd stumbled across something he shouldn't have. Flustered, he tossed a few clean shirts in Nawah's general direction, and said, "You know, I'm just going to let whatever this is play out on its own. I was never here! Bye!" He scurried away down the corridor.

Brawln called out, a little too late, a few little yelps of Shyrriwook, after which he quickly pulled himself from the room, muttered something in Nawah’s direction without looking back and walked off down the hallway without glancing back.

HC-7 was still in the room, looking back and forth between Nawah and where Brawln was a moment ago. "Brawln would like to bid you farewell," he said, a little uncertainly. "Oh, he seemed very insistent that you were talking, which I believe should have been obvious. Is...is there some kind of context to that exchange that I missed?"

"Zio assumed that Brawln and I were having a romantic encounter. That's why Brawln was being so insistent on it. You may need to go inform Zio of that. I doubt Zio understood Brawln," the woman replied.

"Oh! Of course. I'll make sure he is informed. I wouldn't want false rumors to proliferate on board the ship. " HC-7 sounded a little too gleeful at the prospect of explaining things to Zio. The droid started off in pursuit of the fleeing Bothan, leaving Nawah alone in her bunk.