Chapter Text
(10BBY)
She takes a deep breathe in, and lets it out. Most things have changed. The need to center herself as best she can in a galaxy where it feels like all has collapse has not.
“Hello? Is the doctor in?” An unfamiliar voice breaks her reverie, and Star pats down her front, getting up from her sparse cot to ready herself for the day.
“Come in.” She calls back, putting her blaster into her holster as backup, before she pats down her front to make sure that it wasn’t in immediate sight. She gets all sorts of types in her clinic whenever she sets up shop around villages and towns. It just comes with the territory— this far out in the outer rim, where even the Empire struggles to hold ground, though they try all the same. It’s a lonely life; but a manageable one. She pokes her head through her curtain that separates her sparse, temporary living quarters to her clinic area, and steels herself.
“Alright.” Star grimaces at the gaggle of various troopers- their white helmets an all too familiar, an unpleasant sight- that stood and sat on the cots she’d put up. She tucks her head back into her space, and then goes to her things, taking out her equipment. “Let's see what trouble you lot got up to this time.”
“We didn’t get into trouble.” The stormtrooper on the first cot disagrees with her instantly, taking off the bucket and revealing a blessedly unfamiliar face; a recruit, not a clone. “Our orders were to come to this backwater planet and make sure supply lines were stable. They should be grateful that we’re here at all. We could have left them to the pirates.”
“Of course you didn’t. That’s why I’m here fixing you up.” She remains placid in the face of his insults, examining his injuries quietly.
“Why don’t you have Bacta? Or stimpacks.” He grouses, wincing in pain when she moves his arm.
“Kaio.” A feminine voice comes from beneath another helmet, seeming embarrassed at his behavior. “He’s. Well, he’s from the core.” She says, and explains everything.
“I see.” Star raises an eyebrow, the only sign of amusement she’ll allow. “Something so dense all the way out here? That would explain the fracture, throwing that much weight around.” She explains to the trooper, earning a chuckle, and a bright red flush. “I take it you’re not, though.”
“Nope.” The young woman clicks her tongue. “I’m also from out here. Kaio just got high and mighty with the locals. He scared a happabore, it went on a rampage. He tried to calm it down.”
“With predictable results,” Star says, voice light, before she sets the fracture, the young man shouting in sudden pain. “Alright. With that out of the way…” She glances down to check her notes, before she begins to bind the injury. “I had to set that for you. Your body would have begun healing wrong by the time you lot got back to your station. It’s, what, a good couple moons over, isn’t it?”
Kaio nods morosely, rubbing at his shoulder in obvious pain. “Let that teach you not to ignore the locals warnings about livestock.” She chides. “Now, try not to jostle that if you can help it. I’ve only set the break, you could still well mess it up. I’d recommend getting off world, back to your base. A physician can help in a pinch, but not if you need to use that arm in the next few weeks.”
“Thanks.” The girl says for him, “I’ll keep him in check.”
With that, it’s onto her next patient. Most of them are polite, and some are frankly rude. Troopers like the pair of kids this morning are always a mixed bag of individuals, but there was a familiarity to them that always sat heavy in her gut, as it had every day since the Order had changed everything.
(19BBY)
“Now keep still, Princess.” Star says as she and Sky hold down the squealing girl and poor excuse for an ExplorCorps member in training.
The camp is getting made around them, but it’s late and they’re behind schedule. Vistarie, all of 17 years old, is not handling her recent promotion to this group well, but none of them are. There’s a war on. Star and her fellow elder members, whose masters are dead, or gone….well. There are too many padawans who need masters, and too many battles that need knights, or the simulacrum of them.
Hence why a group of individuals who should be, in Star’s eyes, Junior-Senior Padawans on their first mission, are instead trying their best to traverse this dustball in order to scout out appropriate pathways without arousing nearby Separatist intelligence with the presence of clones.
“On second thought,” Princess interrupts Star’s reverie with something too close to a whine, reminding her that not all of them would be padawans, before Star grimaces and sets her mind to work, “I think I’m fineEe,” She yelps as her shoulder is set back in place, Mouse finally able to get to his work, “Ow, ow, ow….” She complains loudly, Allure rolling her eyes tellingly.
“We told you that particular area was unstable and subject to fall.” Allure, Vistare’s second in command, reminds the younger, her expression set in a peeved frown. “Now we’re behind schedule.”
“I thought I could make the jump Razz did- so if you’re going to chew me out for not listening, chew him out.” Princess accuses the other teen, who gives her a smirk.
“Now, see, there’s your problem. I’m just better at jumping than you are.” Razz sticks out his forked tongue, and both Star and Allure give a sigh, mentally gearing up to break up a fight between the two 16-year-olds.
“What Razz means to say is that we all have our individual strengths. Just because we watched General Kenobi fight, doesn’t mean we can hold our own against a Sith lord.” Sky calmly interrupts, not wanting this fight to go on any longer than it had to.
“Sky’s right.” Nessie comes over warmly, Wreck close behind her. “Looks like Mouse finished up. Feel any better?”
“Mmnph.” Princess turns her nose to the side as she rolls her shoulder, testing it. “Seems alright.” She doesn’t ever bother with actual praise, and even the acknowledgement it was better than before is about as good as her compliments go.
“Allure,” Wreck’s expression is soft as he stares at her, trying to be gentle. “We were going to have to stop around here anyway. The next leg of the journey is over a pretty open area. We couldn’t have afforded to head out and have to make camp on the plains; we would have been easy picking for any aerial predator or separatist ship that happened to come across us.”
“We could’ve handled that.” Allure stares coldly. “We all have military training, and with rotating watches we’d be fine out there, and it could be good to spot separatist ships anyway- that’s why we’re here. Now we have to walk the desert tomorrow in the heat, because of—.”
“Illurie.” Star cuts her off by grinding the name out, frowning. “We’re on our own out here; all we can do is move forward, and besides. We all make mistakes. Let’s not chew each other out for them.”
“Maybe you do, Vistarie.” Allure matches her irritation, rolling her eyes and raising Star’s mental hackles.
“Well, it’s a moot point, since the tents are set up!” Nessie interrupts, not letting the two of them get started. “Why don’t we figure out dinner, mm? I don’t know about you lot, but rations don’t sound particularly appealing tonight. With the extra daylight, maybe we can find something local?”
Star and Allure glare at each other a moment longer, before Wreck and Nessie step between them, breaking up the fight before it could happen. Nessie’s blue eyes plead with Star’s, seeming to attempt to mentally convince her to drop it.
“Mouse, Razz.” Sky interrupts them again, scooping up the youngest member, his long and lanky build dwarfing the young human boy even further. “Let’s start looking around. Let them deal with this. Princess, rest up.”
The youngest girl lets out a dramatic sigh, before she calmly accepts the affectionate hair ruffle from the older togruta, the man’s endless patience reminding all of them of Master Ti.
Star lets out her breath, not letting her angry words out, releasing her anger into the Force instead. “That sounds like a good idea, Nessie, Sky’s right, we should do it now, before things get too dark. Allure, you’re in charge here, Wreck, back her up, keep an eye on Princess.” She allows herself to give up command temporarily to her second, the other woman nodding after another tense moment.
Nessie smiles at her, though, her expression illuminated by her glowing skin and the twilight. Star feels that distant ache in her again, as the two of them intertwine their hands, and take off towards the cliff face.
“I thought I saw something that looked like an herbivore species earlier on the cliff face.” She hinted, and Nessie rubs her thumb over the back of Star’s hand. “Could be a good meal.”
“Sounds like a plan, fearless leader.”
(10BBY)
Like most days, Star ends this one alone. Most people weren’t keen to be out after sunset, and so her little area always quieted down at twilight. Star rubs her face, a pang of loneliness running through her. It was always such a double-edged sword, doing this. On the one hand, she appreciated the contact, and the familiar warmth of the people that came into her tent for care.
It means that for once, she wasn’t alone, and in their company, she could feel the warm ghosts of the past around her, pretend that Master Tsuni is out and she’s on duty with her Squad, the young one but the one who was learning right alongside them. On the other, it always left her sorely reminded of the fact that she is alone, in actuality.
Once the hustle and bustle of the sick, injured, and concerned had come and gone…unlike when she was with her squad, any of her squads… she was always just left with her thoughts. Her clone troopers had slept close by; she’d shared a tent with various members of her ExplorCorps. Even under the stars, Master Tsuni had only been a few steps away.
She even missed Allure, for as much as the cantankerous bitch had annoyed her. A dull pang goes through her, remembering their last words, spoken in anger.
Star rubs her hands thoughtfully, before she stands up, and dusts herself off. There is still business to take care of. Counting and putting away her credits, cooking before it got too late and the fire would give her away to things in the night, and all that.
The tedious things in life would keep her mind off moping; but even at that thought, she could hear Nessie’s voice in her mind, reminding her that it’s not tedious, it’s ritual, and rituals were important to the body and mind.
…Nessie would have loved this sort of life, she thinks, and puts her face in her hand, removing her headscarf, feeling dirty black hair. “…I need to wash.” She mutters; putting the credits away in her coin purse for a run into town later, knowing this particular town had a bathhouse.
“Hello?” A somewhat familiar voice comes from outside her tent, and it rouses her from her thoughts. It’s feminine and seems uncertain, and so Star doesn’t bother with readjusting the headscarf. That she was dirty is to be somewhat expected, after all. And it isn’t like she’s particularly looking for…well.
(The brushing fingertips on skin, warm lips on her own, two hearts beating as one)
(Thoughts of the past, and things she should put out of her mind.)
“Can I help you?” She pokes her head out, and sees a white mask and outfit, the same as all the rest. It’s only due to experience that she recognizes between the voice and the small variations on the uniform (though, nothing like she remembers of the clone wars) that she recalls the girl from that same morning.
“You’re…Mirialan, yes?” She says, the uncertainty clear in her voice. There’s no point in denying it, and so she nods, a bit dumbstruck by the question.
“Well, yes.” She steps out slowly. “Why are you asking?”
The girl takes off her helmet, and it’s only in the twilight that she thinks she’d notice the vaguest tint of green to her skin. “Oh.” She says, surprised, unsure of what else to say. The Empire didn’t really like…well, anything that wasn’t expressly human, even near-humans.
“I…know; I’m only half, I can usually pass. Kaio’s the only one who knows.” The girl gives an embarrassed smile. “I just, I hadn’t met another Mirialan since my Da.” Star watches her carefully, and the girl shifts a bit, nervous. “Can I…ask some questions?”
Unable to find a reason to say no, Star gestures to her tent, and the trooper eagerly rushes inside. “I’m Tracee.” She introduces herself, sitting down on a cot, setting her helmet down next to her.
“Star.” She introduces herself with a stunned blink, before, offering her a hand, the two shaking quietly. “…what do you want to know, exactly?”
“Oh! Uhm.” The girl bites her lip, seeming to realize that she’d intruded. “Well. I just, you know.” She stammers, struggling for a long moment to think of what to say. “I…you don’t work for the Empire, right?” She checks, and Star snorts lightly.
“No.” She confirms solemnly. “I just work out here. Refusing to aid those in need isn’t my thing, either.”
“Well, then.” She looks at her hands. “My da, right…he’s, Mirialan. Or he was.” She trailed off. “He always told me that, when I was older, he’d tell me more. Or take me there.” The girl fidgets, and Star feels a pang of phantom sympathy.
“I’m afraid I have to disappoint you.” She murmurs, quietly. “I was…” She falters, rephrases. All traces of the Jedi must be carefully censored, and to be taken is a very curious phrasing to those who didn’t know the Jedi, and worrying to those that did, now. “I moved from the planet when I was very young. I don’t remember much.”
(A very bundled up Jedi named Qui-Gon had come to her planet, her parents, barely more than mist in her mind’s eye, had been ecstatic. She can’t remember getting her first tattoo, but she remembers it’s shape well, the outline of her star, in 5 diamonds. Representing her limitless potential, each diamond had a meaning that she’s long forgotten, and then she was taken to the temple.)
“But you have the tattoos.” She points out, and Star touches her nose quietly. “You know more than me at least.”
Star searches the girl’s eyes, seeing earnestness, and feels a sense that the girl was just... lost. Like Star herself.
“Why are you a part of the Imperial army?” She asks instead, and Tracee stiffens a bit.
“…Well… after da died, mum and I were on our own.” She mumbles, seeming a bit ashamed of herself. “I…well, they offer a lot of things we didn’t have. And, well, I think I can do good here.” She closes into herself some more, shoulders hunched. “…and I wanted to find out why my da died.”
That intrigues Star some, and she sits down on the cot opposite Tracee. “Mmmn.” She considers her options, and sighs. “And he died before he told you about Mirial.” She confirms, and Tracee nods. “You think those things are connected, don’t you.”
“He was killed.” Tracee agrees. “And, well, I think it does have to do with…well.” She moves in quietly, and speaks in a whisper. “He was talking about Fate, and someone else called it…the Force.”
That spooks Star, and she leans back, eyes wide. The girl was likely right, that it had been talking about that, that had killed her father. “I…” She pauses, considers. “That’s a very…dangerous, topic of conversation.” She agrees, tentative. “But…well, fate, is a core part of the Mirialan religious belief.” She scratches her head, trying to figure out what to say.
“And it’s tied with the tattoos.” She gestures to Star’s face, and the older woman blinks, smiling a bit awkwardly.
“Kind of, but not quite. The tattoos are…well, they’re more of a representation of how Fate’s treated you, or how you’ve guided your fate.” She explains, carefully. “It’s…well, it’s complicated is the nice way of saying it.” A kriffing mess that led to feelings of self-loathing, being cursed, or self-aggrandizement and righteousness was another. “Most individuals have their own interpretations.”
The other girl stares at her for a moment, lips pursed. “Religion… it’s usually not talked about, but it’s not really…dangerous.” She mumbles. “Plenty of my companions have talked about it. Why’s fate a dangerous topic? Is it…” She leans in again, conspiratorial. “The Force?”
Star taps her fingers against the cot. “Mmn.” She looks away, breathing out quietly. “Listen, alright? I… can see you’re curious. And…all I can say, at the moment, is that you’re probably right. Looking into…certain, interpretations, of fate, likely got your father killed. Especially if he expressed them in public.” She rubs her hands together nervously. “And I’m truly sorry about that, but…”
“But who killed him? Why kill him?” Tracee demands, standing suddenly. “He was a good person, he didn’t deserve to die, he was just…” She trails off, realizing that she’d spooked Star again, who slowly lowers her hand from her blaster, before she folds her arms.
“…” Star stares at the girl, before turning away, “It’s not just dangerous for you and I to talk about this.” She says, after a moment. “I’m pretty sure you know who killed your father.” She murmurs. “Well, maybe not who, but maybe that’s a blessing. What’s also a blessing was that, only your father was killed. The…individuals, who did it.” She rubs her thumb over the back of her elbow thoughtfully. “They don’t care who they have to kill to eliminate all trace of…well. Certain information. And I’ve seen that they kill children, friends, anyone who might know something.”
She looks at Tracee again, and the girl has gone very pale. “So,” Star continues, “If we’re both smart, we won’t mention…anything about this conversation, to anyone. If your friend Kaio hid that you’re half-Mirialan, to…anyone, looking into this…what else could he have hid for you? Alright?”
“Okay.” She agrees, seeming defeated, her expression a mirror of Star’s own.
“I’d get back to your squad before they notice you’ve gone missing.” She recommends, and it’s only then Tracee mumbles she’d made the excuse of getting some supplies for Kaio.
It’s well and good, then, that Star has ready-made emergency kits, and sends her on her way.
(19BBY)
“Okay Star’ika.” Crossbow calmly speaks to her from behind. “Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.” She confirms, staring at her targets, her blaster at the ready.
The battle simulation begins, and Star dives right back into things, one of many simulations she’d done that day. While it was…strange, no longer using her light saber, when she’d tearfully explained what had happened to Crossbow, her old friend had managed to pull a few strings, and helped her train from time to time.
He had been the best shot in their unit, and since that was all she was left with, well.
It goes well for about 5 minutes before she’s shot in the back, and she turns to try and deflect it…with a lightsaber she doesn’t have. She cries out, and drops her blaster, the training device clattering to the floor, as Crossbow turns off the simulation. “Star, are you alright?” He calls down, and she stares at her hand for a long second, looking at the burn on it somewhat miserably.
“I’m fine.” She manages after a long second. “I’ll be up in a second.”
She bandages the wound in the bathroom of the temple’s updated training area. The Jedi Service Corps had been militarizing a lot, and that meant that they had to be retrained from light sabers to blasters. She looks up at herself in the mirror, and stares hard at her tattoo. When she’d been picked up by Tsunami, she’d been overjoyed. The naval unit had a pretty intense theme, one that ‘Starfish’ had been a part of. To mark the momentous occasion, she’d updated her tattoo, to a nautical star, representing the balance of master and student, light and dark.
That journey was over, though, she thinks to herself. “I should fill it in.” She mumbles to herself, tracing the pieces of herself she’d stubbornly refused to ink on her face, picturing the depressing meaning of the black star; a dead star, one at the end of its journey, leaving ruined worlds in its wake. That was where she’d guided this. To pretend otherwise was… childish.
With a heavy heart, she returns to Crossbow upstairs. “You’re getting better.” He tells her, and she knows it’s genuine. “You should talk to Tsuni about this. She’s been adjusting to life after the Jedi too, you know.”
The thought of bringing her failure to her old master almost makes her heart burst. “I can’t.” She disagrees. “I just… I was what was left of her, and…I kriffed it up. I…well, I can’t face her, until I’ve righted my fate.” She put her face in her hands. “Thanks for the training, eventually I’ll get the reaction to use the lightsaber I don’t have anymore out of my system.”
Crossbow looks over her hand, the concern for the shallow wound a pretense to comfort her deeper scars.
The bathhouse is a lot more communal than Vistarie had been expecting. Some of the villagers recognize her, though, and they chat her up to distract her from the embarrassment of washing in such a communal area.
Many of the women and girls bathing have scars themselves, from working their land, fighting off local predators, but Star notices the curiosity in their expressions as they see her own. She takes care in washing her head, not necessarily a fan of dumping water on her head in the echo chamber of the tile room due to her extrasensory organs, however, that seemed to be the main way to do it.
“That looks like it was quite the injury.” It was the person who’s voice she was coming to recognize hit her, and Star yelped a bit, dumping the bucket over her head.
Tracee looks embarrassed at having scared Star, who slowly removes the cup from her head, giving the other Mirialan a side eye. “…It was,” She agrees, knowing what she was referring to; the massive circular burn scar on her lower back, down her behind.
Curiosity obviously has the girl’s mind captive if how her blue eyes kept dragging down to it said anything, and so Star gives up what she wanted to know. “… The other guys looked a lot worse.” She says, voice clipped. Admitting where she’d gotten it would open questions here, questions that the adults in the room likely could guess answers to, but the empire would be very interested in.
She’s not sure if she really believes that. The siege on that desert world had been a nightmare; she is one of a dozen survivors of an entire battalion. Tides had to knock Tsuni out; her master had been in such a state. The pain she’d felt then had come all the way back around to not feeling it at all, and so she and Tides had taken the lead when Tsuni was… unavailable for the emergency evacuation. It’d been her handling of that that had seen her named leader of her squad in the Service Corps.
“Must have been quite the battle.” Tracee notes, and Star nods, tersely, carefully washing off the rest of her hair, wanting to get out of there quickly. Once she felt that her hair was clean, she carefully wrapped it in a thin towel, her secondary ears getting a necessary reprieve from the communal room.
The other girl quickly matches her movements, grabbing a thin towel as well, and looks at Star in surprise. Star’s lips turn upwards, slightly, in a knowing smile, in spite of how strained she feels. The two leave the bathhouse together, Tracee dressing in civvies, and looking a lot less out of place next to Star.
(Typically, Mirialan’s in the temple would look out for each other. Mirialan Masters traditionally would take Mirialan padawans, and keep a close eye on Mirialan younglings. Star was an exception, but she didn’t begrudge the Mirialan masters who had chosen other padawans. She loved Tsuni and didn’t regret a second of it.
She still can recall the sensation of being on Coruscant, hands pressed over her all of her ears and tearfully unable to explain what was wrong. It wasn’t just that it was too loud; plenty of people had pointed out it was pretty quiet in the temple. Then-Jedi Knight Luminara had taken her under her wing, and showed both her and fellow Mirialan youngling Bariss how to manage the frantic input from all of the people on Coruscant.)
“You’ve never been told about anything Mirialan, have you?” She asks in a whisper, the two walking normally through the town market.
“… No.” She admits, embarrassed. “Da wasn’t around much. Mom was just...human.” She says that, means it in both the literal sense and the metaphorical sense.
“We have extrasensory organs on the back of our heads.” She explains, gesturing to where hers were.
“Ewwwwwwwwww.” Tracee makes a face, hand moving towards them, and Vistarie slaps her hand lightly.
“Don’t look for them- you’ll hurt them if you stick a finger in them. Yours are likely too small to notice anyway, you can catch them on combs.” She chides.
“What are they even for?” Tracee asks, still seeming a bit grossed out.
“They’re a cross between an extra set of ears and an extra set of eyes.” She loosely explained, before going with a veiled, hopefully sufficiently sanitized version of mentioning they were important to why so many Mirialans were force-sensitive. “…It’s theorized, they function by picking up on energy fields.”
“Oh.” She blinks, seeming to suddenly put pieces together. “That’s why my da always acted like he had eyes on the back of his head.”
“Because he sort of did.” She agrees, glad to hear that sort of connection. “But, uhm, well. They pick up a lot of…static, around large groups of people, the more people, movement, and things, the more intense. I’m sure if you’ve ever been to,” She pauses, corrects herself preemptively. “The Imperial center.”
“It’s like standing inside of a microphone!” Tracee looks at her, wide eyed, and smiles with a brightness that Star recognizes like a mirror. “I thought, I was just weird, and too sensitive. First time I went there I threw up, like, minimum, 5 times, after I took off my helmet.” She admits, freely, laughing a bit. “That’s normal?”
“I wouldn’t say I vomit every time I take off my scarf, but, well. Yes, Mirialans are sensitive to that. And because that room was a tile echo chamber full of bodies…”
“Ooooh.” Tracee snaps her fingers together. “Gotcha.”
It hits her then, that she had more or less told the teenager to go on her way and not come back, and she gives Tracee a side-eye. But she realizes, the girl isn’t even paying attention to that, trying to copy how Vistarie had her scarf primly wrapped around her head.
…damn her heart, she thinks, before moving over to the younger woman, and helping her tie it. “On most planets, it’s not an issue. Only on the highly populated ones, really. I just enjoy not having it be at full blast all the time, and I add it to my fashion so that enemies don’t think to weaken me by targeting it.”
“That…does make sense. I also prefer the helmet, but that’s also to keep me from looking a little green.” She pauses, walking alongside Star, before she apparently has to ask. “What’s the tattoo that comes out of it, on your back, supposed to be? A tree?”
“It’s supposed to look like a wisteria tree.” She agrees, quietly. That was what her name meant, after all. Vistarie.
It was on her back, to symbolize that that life was behind her, but it was also coming out of her burn, literally growth from pain. Each triangular petal represented someone in her life, each slightly different in how they were placed. Nessie, Allure, and Tsuni’s were all over her heart. After much deliberation she’d even included her former clone squad, tracing down her spine, symbolizing how they’d been her backbone, and had broken her.
“I thought Mirial Tattoos are on the face?”
“They obviously are?” She points at her own. “But you can get them in other places. Your whole body is a canvas, and all… a…friend of mine had matching diamonds on her hands.” She traces where she remembers Bariss’ tattoos to have been.
“Weird looking tree.” Tracee says after a moment and Star rolls her eyes.
“It’s made out of geometric shapes, it’s going to be abstract.” She explains quietly, before she begins to go about her day, trading in credits quickly. She always kept herself stocked in physical items over credits. Credits were worthless in the night on most of these planets.
“How’d you get the tattoo?”
“I do the ones on my face myself.” She explains as she traverses the market, the trooper making some of her own purchases behind her. “The ones on my back, I find someone else trained in it, and we trade favors, usually by tattooing them back.”
“Oh.” She looks to her face, examines it. “I was told you can tell someone’s life story by looking at their tattoos.”
“Eh.” Star shrugs. “You can tell pieces of mine. Only traditional families on Mirial itself fully tattoo themselves. I take the belief that putting our whole life history on our face is quite presumptuous. Leaves little room to grow, assumes that’s our whole life. The Mirialans I was close to only tattooed one part of their face, and it indicated something about their personalities and accomplishments.” She gently touches her chin, recalling Luminara’s tattoo, and how it represented how she was like a pillar, the shining example.
“What’s the star mean? I assume it’s not literal.”
“And if it was?” Star sticks her tongue out playfully. “It has a few meanings; I’ve changed it over the years. Right now, it represents…” She trails off, her easy smile dropping as her eyes catch white plastoid reflecting sunlight.
“What?” Tracee asks, concerned.
“Nothing,” She shakes her head, turning her back on the imperial troops walking through the city. “It represents a lonely path, a lone, cold star in the middle of nowhere.” She tries to crack a grin, feeling their eyes pass over her. “Similar to my path. Always on the move, pretty much always alone.”
Even in a room surrounded by people, she noticed, that the loneliness never fully went away.
“Star Ilayl, yes?” The voice, masculine, interrupts her thoughts, and she feels a cold shiver behind her. The touch of the Sith on this man.
“Yes.” She turns, quiet, bracing herself. He looks to be a normal imperial officer. He extends a courteous hand, and she takes it.
“I’ve been meaning to track you down for some time. When I heard you’d set up camp nearby, I knew it to be fate.” He lifts her hand to his lips, and kisses it, the sensation sending cold shivers up her back. He releases it, and she stands straighter. She recognized the insignia and pins on his uniform. “Lieutenant Bryth.” He introduces.
“To what do I owe this honor, Lieutenant?” She asks, voice purposefully even, lowering her hand in a careful display of control, avoiding being rude but not wanting to seem like she’s hiding something either. He outranks all of her contacts in the Empire; this is potentially a bad situation, but there isn’t any sign of that yet.
“Please, call me Wildur.” He requests, and she gets a sharp feeling of slimeball through the Force. If he had desired her to call him that, he didn’t need to introduce himself as Lieutenant, meaning he was trying to impress her with the title. She files it away in the back of her mind. “I had been hearing of your great work for the empire out here, in the wastes.” He gestures to the planet surrounding him, thinly veiling his contempt.
“Someone has to do it.” She agrees, careful. “And I enjoy the work.”
“Surely a facility would be better suited for your talents, though.” He says, and she shakes her head easily; this is a practiced response.
“I’m trained in field medicine, sir. Medical droids and bacta do the job better than me when they’re available.” She smoothly declines his unspoken offer. “The rub is, they’re not available in most places out here.”
“Yes, it’s hard to supply all these dirtballs.” He says, eyes still locked with her own, and she breaks the stare.
“Well Lieutenant, from personal experience, some of these dirtballs supply things like Caf, and I can’t imagine the Empire surviving without it.” She dryly reminds, gesturing to the stall she’d been heading towards. “But that’s why there’s people like me. Now, I have to get back to my station, your troops know what time I usually open.”
“I’ll allow you to get to work, then.” He nods his head at her, piercing blue daggers looking then to who was next to her. “Ah. Cadet.” His voice betrays how he seemed displeased to see her. “Shouldn’t you be with your squadron?”
“Oh, well, Lieutenant.” Tracee suddenly jumps to attention in her civvies, clearly having attempted to avoid notice, and Star realizes that it was very bad for her to be out here like this. “I was just….uhm.”
“She’s assisting me today.” Star speaks quickly, much quicker to the jump to help someone else than help herself, not wanting to put the girl at risk and knowing certain…biases, imps tended to have. “One of her comrades was injured, and enough troopers wind up in my care that I reasoned that it’d be a worthy use of their time for some of them to pick up field medicine. I told her that occasionally going in civilian clothes was a good way to remind the populace we’re on their side, to remind them we’re all on the same side.” She does believe that, and she hopes that helps the lie be swallowed easier.
“I see.” He returns to staring at Star. “It is a good idea to learn battle medicine, Cadet. Though, next time you wish to attempt such an endeavor, make sure to run this through the proper authority channels.”
“I’ll make sure I do.” Star promises, taking Tracee with her quickly to the merchant, paying more than double than usual for the caf and wincing as she realizes that she’d be short on rations tonight.
“So…am I your apprentice now?” Tracee asks as they finally get out of town again.
“I guess you are.” She rubs her neck awkwardly, a dull pang running through her. Hardly the formal ceremony that she’d been through with Tsuni, but it will do, in a pinch.
Wonders what her master might think of training Imperial scum, as sweet as this particular algae came.
There’s no answer in the emptiness of space itself, and Star returns to her duties.