Nawah and Vesper

It has been something of a difficult few weeks, to say the least. Nawah wants to find Vesper and, figuring he was most likely holed up in the cargo hold, the woman has made her way there. The wounds she had taken in the last fight are still present in the form of a few jagged-looking marks on her arms and a bruise that is starting to fade right square in the middle of her forehead, but thanks to the miracle of stimpacks, she is handling the situation just fine. The wounds wouldn't be visible much longer, she expected.

"Vesper, you around here?" Nawah asks as she enters the cargo area, taking in the surroundings. She hasn't really partaken in the early efforts to organize all of the random stuff that had been left in the ship, as she's had her own issues to deal with during those first couple weeks of long-distance space travel. She idly picks up some random wrench that has been left lying about and glances around to find a logical place to put it.

Vesper peeks down from a shelf just above head height on a Wookiee, where he is crouched between several neatly labeled boxes of tools and other hardware. As he moves, there is a sound like several small pieces of metal scraping against top of the the shelf. Perhaps he knocked that wrench off the shelf earlier, although he usually isn't so careless.

"I'm up here, Nawah."

Vesper is wearing ship-side attire - shorts but no shirt - and the story of the last few weeks is written on his body. He is missing several patches of fur. Fresh pink skin shows the places where Vic and the stimpacks have worked their magic, but it seems fur does not grow back quite so quickly. There is the place where the clone trooper's blaster bolt grazed his ribs; two inches to the left and it might have punctured a lung or boiled his heart. And there are the dozen spots where the improvised explosive's entangling gel spattered the backs of his thighs just above the invisible tops of his Bothan Shoes; the damage that had done was minimal, but washing it out of fur had proven impossible, so Vic had resorted to cutting the sticky goo out of Vesper's fur. The numerous curled whiskers on the left side of the Bothan's face show how close he came to being one of the Mirror's unfortunate victims up on the roof of the building on Kamparas where the Jawas took HC-7. The bare patches on elbows show his slide off the roof after the Mirror's calling card struck him in the temple. The memento of the hard landing that followed is a circle of pink on his chest where Vic shaved Vesper and cut him open to perform surgery to repair damaged organs and set broken ribs. Several scabbed-over spots on shoulders and head show the damage from the Mirror's booby trap. The burn on his neck is still an angry red, the only damage he hasn't entirely healed; an inch to the left or right and it might have cauterized a major vein or artery. One could forgive the young Bothan for feeling that the Force has not been with him at all, lately.

Vesper's face always lights up at the sound of Nawah's voice, at the familiar look and smell of a person who has shown him nothing but kindness and discretion (which any Bothan can appreciate in another species). And in this he remains unchanged.

"Can I help you with something?" Cheerful. Optimistic. Confident. Almost his usual self.

Almost.

On second thought, the fallen wrench might have been one of his Bothan signals. He is fond of telling people that a Bothan who does not want to be found will not be found; and if you hear one come up from behind you, it's because they want you to know they're approaching. Whether that's true or another of Vesper's fancies is hard to tell, but his Bothan fancies are usually true enough for him - even if they don't necessarily apply to the rest of his species. A tool misplaced by someone with a history of meticulously, stubbornly putting things in their place is unlikely to be an accident.

Alternatively, one could argue the Force was with the Bothan as those injuries had managed to avoid hitting the boy's vital organs. It just wasn't completely preventing him from injury was all. Or that was something that could probably be argued by a Jedi. Much like Vesper, Nawah is dressed relatively casually, wearing a pair of plain brown pants and white t-shirt. She isn't doing any negotiating with businessmen at the moment, and that meant the woman doesn't feel the need to dress in her normal professional or protective outfits.

She sets the tool down where it belongs, having identified the location fairly quickly, at the sound of Vesper's voice. It was only polite to put the item back where it belonged. She has her own sense of order that, while not as strict as Vesper's, is enough for her to recognize his own sense of order and to respect it.

The Mirialan looks up at Vesper and, instead of asking him to come down to her, nimbly pulls herself up on top of one of the nearby stacks of crates to bring herself a little more level with Vesper. "Out for a bit of a walk, stretching my legs a little bit. It has been a few years since I got hit quite that hard and I needed to move a little bit, you know? Too easy to stiffen up after getting patched up if you just lay around," Nawah explains.

She's concerned about the boy, but she doesn't want to come right out and ask how he's doing. Better to speak truthfully about her own injuries and see how Vesper takes to that. "You look like you're healing up pretty well there," she adds casually. The stimpacks had worked wonders, but the woman is wishing that they had the funds for some proper medical facilities on this ship, the way things were going. Of course, an insane experimental clone with possible Force powers wasn't exactly something anyone had planned on dealing with on top of everything else that had been going on. Otherwise maybe they'd have stolen a ship with medical facilities instead.

"It doesn't itch as much as it did," Vesper says by way of acknowledgment. "I feel bad that you had to leave behind most of your clothes, and Vic doesn't have any clothes at all. I know. I checked."

No mistaking the sentiment behind that.

Vesper withdraws into the shadows between the boxes. A few seconds later, he emerges from between the shelves behind Nawah. He's now wearing an oversized black shirt - almost a tunic - that covers all the bare patches except the one on his neck and the curled whiskers. He cinches the belt, which has an ordinary-looking blaster pistol hanging from it. When did he start carrying a blaster and where did he get it? It could have been buried in all the supplies in the cargo hold, although Firith didn't seem the kind of Jedi to carry a blaster - or even to pack one for a long voyage.

"I doubt you still have that letter I gave you? If you do, you don't need to keep it any longer. I don't think I'll ever be able to go back to Coruscant, and I doubt he'll come looking for me out here. With the Jedi temple destroyed, he has no incentive to silence me, and I'm sure he has his hands full staying beneath the Republic's notice, same as us."

Nawah doesn't actually question the blaster. It isn't like Vesper has a real lightsaber and there have been plenty of opportunities for someone with Vesper's particular skillset to acquire a weapon at any given time. Given everything that had happened, it would have been more surprising if Vesper hadn't picked up a weapon somewhere along the line.

She laughs lightly at the mention of the lack of clothes that Vic owned. "Well, what with that suit, I doubt he needs much in that regard," Nawah comments. "Though traveling in something like that sounds terribly claustrophobic to me."

"Nearly everything of mine was looted before I even got to the temple. I suspected it had to do with the disappearance of my mother back on Mirial but given the mirror shards that were left in my pack, that doesn’t make a lot of sense now. But pretty much everything that was left untouched I put into that pack before going to the temple to find Master Firith." She knows that in all of the chaos at least some of that has been mentioned, but with how busy everyone has been and the sheer amount of chaos, she isn't sure how much of that had registered with everybody. Or if Vesper had been there at that time. It was sometimes tricky to remember. "There wasn't much leaving of anything. Most of my monetary assets were wiped out, but not quite everything." She still has a few small revenue streams coming in through certain means.

"I've still got the letter though. Never opened it. Didn't seem right, given your instructions." A shrug is given. "And, in my experience, loose ends have a way of showing back up, though which party is the loose end may yet be determined. I'll hang onto it for now, unless you'd rather I read it or destroy it." The circumstances are one of those things that make her feel it is appropriate to honor Vesper's request on the matter.

"How are you holding up otherwise? We all kind of got thrown into this fire and I don't think most of us are the type of people who deal with this type of thing on a regular basis."

"The letter is moot. It was something of an insurance plan. The usual, really: 'If I go missing or turn up dead, there was foul play involved, and you can't trust Master Quiet.'"

An awkward laugh.

"How am I holding up? Not especially well, I'm afraid. I've spent my whole life training to be a Jedi, and as soon as I'm off on my own, it's like I've forgotten everything Master Zernvik taught me - how to use a lightsaber, how to control my emotions and impulses, and when to run away instead of fighting. He told me often that that last was his most important lesson. Reconnaissance has two parts - gathering intelligence and then getting that information into the right hands while it's still useful. If you stand and fight when you should flee, you'll just die before you can deliver your information; or worse, you'll be captured and forced to reveal information you should not divulge to our enemies. Years with Master Zernvik, and I never once found myself in a fight for my life. The one time it looked about to go that way, he told me to run, and I ran. I've heard that the scene was rather grisly." A grimace. "Zernvik spent some time in a bacta tank after that. They left him for dead when they discovered he didn't have the Mem-Stik they had been convinced he had stolen - because he had given it to me."

"Master Quiet didn't like that my first instinct was to run. He tried to force me to stand my ground, but I never did that for him." Another awkward laugh. "Now I can't seem to stop standing my ground - not that it's worked out for me or anyone else."

"It's kind of strange. The events at the temple were awful, but they were a kind of awful that we were kind of expecting - the Iktotchi and their prophecy, Master Zernvik and his Sith plot. The Mirror, though...he's really been getting to me. In the alley, and again back there on his ship, I could kind of understand just a little bit why fear can lead a Jedi to the dark side."

Nawah listens to Vesper speak, letting him get his frustrations off his chest. One of the things she disagrees with the Jedi about is having such strict emotional control. Still, it was how Vesper was functionally raised and trained, and Nawah doesn't see shattering all of that as a good thing. She knows enough to know that things like that could lead a Force user towards the Dark Side of the Force easily.

"The question to ask is why you chose to stand and fight. It is tough but forget about how you performed in the fight. Ask why you chose to fight instead of flee in those scenarios. There were technically escape options available if you chose to make use of them." Nawah has her suspicions about why Vesper is fighting instead of fleeing, but she wants him to give his answer first before she made any suggestions. The indirect admission of fear is noted by Nawah, but she wants to deal with one thing at a time. Asking Vesper two questions that require at least a little reflection at once is probably not the way to go. She'll wait on probing into that matter for the moment. Instead, she shifts her position so she can reach her arm around Vesper's shoulders to give him a light embrace from the side if Vesper allows it.

Vesper doesn't draw away. "I didn't want to leave my friends to fight alone." He says it like it's a startling admission, a secret shame. "I know that Jedi aren't supposed to form attachments. Uphold the law. Keep the peace. Protect the innocent. Those are all causes worth risking your life for. But not personal loyalty - friends, family, self-interest. That way lies the dark side. But it's so hard not to grow attached to people you spend so much time with. Master and apprentice. Padawan and padawan. Peers. Caretakers. Traveling companions. Maybe it's because I came to the Jedi so late in life. I was nearly five before my parents let them take me. Maybe younglings who come in younger have no trouble. Or maybe after what happened at the Jedi temples I'm just afraid that if I lose them and you the way I lost Zernvik, I'll be all alone in the galaxy - not even the last Jedi, but the final padawan. If I were a human maybe that wouldn't sound so horrible, but we Bothans are social animals, which probably doesn't help us resist the urge to form attachments we shouldn't. Whatever Master Zernvik told me, I was never really sure I'm cut out to be a Jedi. Master Quiet never thought I'd be one. But with so many of the Jedi dead and the rest forced into hiding, I guess now I'll never know for sure."

The Attachment Clause.

Nawah listens to Vesper's concerns and smiles at the young Bothan. "The attachment portion of the Jedi Code, from the conversations I've had on long voyages with Jedi, is one of the trickiest parts of the code to navigate. Take Nomi and Somi. Do you think Somi is unattached to her twin sister? Of course not. It's a ridiculous question. So don't look at the rules on attachments in that manner," Nawah said. Her voice remains soft, as she isn't really trying to lecture. Rather, she is explaining how the same question she'd asked Jedi before had been answered.

"A Jedi is to be compassionate and caring. A protector to those unable to protect themselves. But you can't be compassionate or caring without, well, caring about people or causes. Instead, do your best to accept that things change and that you need to let them change. Accept that sometimes you will need to make choices for the greater good, even though it may sadden you. For example, if we were fighting and you could save either me or a half dozen innocent bystanders, you should protect those bystanders. But if it is just our group, you are not going to head towards the Dark Side by caring about us and protecting us in the moment. Being friends and growing personal relationships with people isn’t the problem. It is not being able to let go and move forward, letting grief consume you, that is the threat."

Nawah pauses for a moment. "I'm not a Jedi, but I hope I've explained what I know of that lesson alright." She's simply had a bit more life experience than Vesper in terms of raw years. Not as much as some members on the ship, but more than at least the Padawans.

"Maybe you're right. I have no Jedi to ask for guidance, but Master Yoda often said we would know the dark side from the light when we are calm, at peace, passive - and I do find your advice calming. If this is the truth, if I must learn to stand and fight sometimes, then I should stop running away from what that means. I protect no one if I barely have a chance to ignite my lightsaber before I am taken out of the fight; I only end up endangering those who must come to my rescue - or at least using up their precious resources. I make them stand and fight to protect me. I didn't want to be Master Quiet's padawan. I never wanted any of the lessons he tried to teach me. But maybe I can learn one thing from him after all."

Vesper is suddenly gone, his shirt a pile on the floor next to Nawah. From the dark place where he had been hidden when Nawah arrived comes the rattle and scrape of metal on metal - like dozens of screws and washers and bits of steel being spread out on a table, ready for assembly.

Nawah listens to the sound of Vesper getting ready to put together whatever it is he was going to do. Armor? Weapon modification? Nawah isn't sure. Vesper had disappeared off to that little area he'd designated as his. She doesn't stay long; only a few minutes or so, before she hops back down, leaving the shirt where it was so Vesper would find it again.

"Let me know if you need a hand with anything," Nawah comments as she makes her way out, confident that the Bothan will hear her despite her not being able to see him at the moment.