Quid Habes, Part II

Posted on Fri Mar 30th, 2018 @ 10:36pm by Thane & Amare

3,087 words; about a 15 minute read

Chapter: Chapter V: Unbound
Location: Red Raptor, Nar Shaddaa
Timeline: After "Quid Habes", three weeks after the Battle of Jericho

OLD

The Human watched as Coda placed the crystal on the crate, its empyreal light fading to its previous state, thinking both on what the woman was saying and his own vision of their joint attack against Axion, knowing that the setting for that vision had in fact been of the great hall in his ancestral home. Or at least, how he had tried to remember Vaarthul, despite what had happened there in his youth. As ever, Thane wondered on if what the Force had shown him was a possible future, or simply a representation of what could be, mere imagery of the like only the perverse celestial infinity of the Force deigned to impose upon those who could touch it.

He made a note to meditate upon it later, perhaps after consulting with both Bomoor and his holocron master. And to perhaps not dwell on Coda's vision of the woman, if she had truly seen into him as he had her.

"Come with me," he said to her, "and I'll explain what I can."

NEW

He picked up the crystal and quickly passed it over to her, this time free of any vision or feelings. Content that she was following him, he claimed his coat from the crate and led her out of the cargo hold towards the rec room. As it was programmed to do, the room's lighting abruptly flashed to life, only juddering twice before settling. He gestured for the stowaway to take a seat, placing himself on the one opposite.

It wasn't the most plush chair she ever rested her bones on, but after the harrowing night Coda had, it was the most welcoming seat she had taken since stepping out into freedom. "Thank you," she said knowing her words were not enough to express how grateful she was to have this moment of respite.

"What you saw were shades, spectres of future and past, and of the potential of yourself and others," Thane said carefully, the fact he was already discussing the finer details of the Force to a stranger not lost on him. "What you saw, Coda, was the Force." He watched the Nautolan's visage as he uttered the words, a sceptical eye assessing her. "I'm guessing this is not something anyone has ever spoken about to you?"

"The Force..." Coda replied with a shrug and a shake of her head. The name sounded so ominous and monolithic. Just thinking of it sounded like puzzle box her father once gave her when he called it the Cube. She loved that old colorful cube. She wondered if the Force was something to explore and fall in love with too. "...I've never heard the word 'force' applied as a name like that before. I guess my masters never thought it important to tell me about your Force."

"What did your masters have you do?" Thane then asked.

It was a sore subject to think about. It was hard to talk about with a stranger, but there was something she felt inside that started to melt her fears slowly as she dwelt on it. That jolt she felt and that woman she saw made something seem to...click into place. Something that was apparently missing all her life. It felt like raw uncooked...purpose. For just a faint second, she perceived a kind of deja vu sitting there, gazing at Thane. She didn't know the man, but she was starting to become familiar with the feeling he invoked in her. That feeling led her to place the crystal down on the table between them.

"Cooking, cleaning, being a convenient warm body to strike when they lost money on the market or the gambling tables," she replied hoping that it didn't come across as seeking pity, even if her melancholy tone betrayed that intent to Thane. She already made her peace with those first two horrible years of slavery, and it felt good to finally be the one to share her pain rather than hearing someone else's. "But later they figured out I was good at numbers, and trusted me with their money. Then I had a new master, and she taught me about makeup and clothes and gentle words to understand men, to read them and help them better understand themselves. But none of my masters ever taught me to understand...me. No one ever cared how I felt, and it used to make me feel very angry. I hated feeling like that, and even surrounded by others watching my every move, I always felt alone. But now I feel like none of that matters anymore."

She gazed hard at the crystal and took a deep, slow breath. "I think for the first time in my life," she added, "you gave me a chance in that room to see things with new eyes." She gave in to her instincts and allowed her rarely used eyelids to close as she held an open hand up near the crystal. Her head tendrils lifted at their tips as the crystal began to shake and vibrate gradually slipping millimeter by millimeter towards her hand.

Thane watched the innate power within the woman with uncharacteristic widening eyes, and even a slight hint of trepidation. There was a rawness to her power he had not seen before in one such as Coda - not even in Bería.

"I think I met your friend, the Force, earlier," Coda said as the crystal halted its miraculous advance, but continued to quiver in place. "She saved my life when no one was there to help me."

Finally the crystal stopped moving, and then it instantly leapt off the table onto her waiting palm. She giggled with an almost childlike delight to have found joy in pulling the heirloom--her only remaining birthright in all the universe--to her without touching it. Knowing that what she did earlier to grab Chesto's blaster was in fact real and not some odd freak occurrence of gravity was absolute bliss strong enough to help her forget all her misfortunes, if only for a little while. It was indescribable how much it meant to know that something so powerful and amazing had chosen to work its magic through her, a lowly slave of all people. "I want to be friends with the Force too."

"Your power, Coda..." Thane finally said, speaking slowly, having let the Nautolan speak her mind as he admired her nascent talents, "you have a remarkable affinity with the Force, to touch it so easily and with such finesse, despite never having had it cultivated."

Examining her, he wondered how the Reborn Jedi had never detected her prior to her slavery, unless she even developed a natural means by which to obscure her presence within the Force. It was an ability most had to spend years cultivating, through deep meditation and repeated practice, but some - especially those talented in the dark side, Darth Bane had advised him - could do so naturally.

Yet another question.

"But the Force is an it not a she," he corrected, not willing to indulge another post-adolescent woman's irregular syntax, "and it is not your friend." Thane then considered that. "But it is always with you, around you. Within you, and all things-" He stopped his rhetoric. If he were to listen to his instincts, there would be time for such things later.

If he listened. If.

"There is something else I need to tell you," Coda said, her voice somber. "I didn't tell you everything I saw when you touched my hand. The sad woman whispered a word: 'Thane'. What does 'Thane' mean?"

At that, the fallen Jedi's chest seized, gripped by the grim darkness that had plagued him since that last day on Jericho. His throat threatened to clench, but Thane did his utmost to conceal any outward show of his pain - of his necessary guilt. "Thane," he said, managing to inject even a slight hint of friendliness into his tone and happy to let the subject of the woman be brushed aside, "is me. Until very recently, I served the Reborn Jedi Order as a Jedi Knight, a defender of the Third Republic." He watched Coda's eyes as he said his next sentence. "It was they who, more or less, helped me to understand this gift you and I both share. It was they who showed me the Force. Or at least," he qualified, "one facet of it."

He watched the woman for a few moments more as she listened to what he said. "Is that what you want, Coda - from me?"

The nautolan was speechless, her countenance drawing an expression of awe. "You...you really are a Jedi! But...how could I have any power? And--wait. You said 'until recently'. I don't understand. You're supposed to be a hero, right? Jedi save people. Why would anyone want to quit being a hero? Do you know how many children want to grow up to be like you?"

Thane scoffed and smiled an ugly smile, unbefitting a face of his age, partly at the thought and the fact he was discussing the merits of the Order with a relative stranger. "That title no longer has any meaning for me," he explained drily. "And the Jedi are most certainly not heroes. They have a narrow, jaundiced view of morality and the Force, using it to preserve the status quo and never challenging any of the true injustices of the galaxy. So contrived and pretentious is their view of good and evil, that the heroes you've read of have very rarely not strayed from the vaunted Jedi Code, in whatever iteration it now exists in."

The Caanan leaned back in his chair, and summoned Coda's crystal to his hand once more. This time, however, instead of glowing with a brilliant golden sheen, it appeared to crackle inside, a small ball of light seeming to dart around within its latticed confines.

"I left the Jedi so I could look beyond their skewed dogma, to seek out the higher mysteries they would outlaw in their childish fear." Thane released the crystal, letting it float away to hover between the two Force sensitives. "My friends and I have been pursuing a dangerous man of great power, who stole my family from me when I was young, and would leave many more dead in his wake. The Force as the Jedi see it is not enough to defeat him... but there are other paths; paths that would allow one to truly tap into their ultimate potential."

Thane's eyes focused on the yellow crystal, with a somewhat faraway expression on his pale face. "The Jedi would deny you that right, seeking to control you, to twist you into their ideal puppet. Whatever you may strive to be in this life, stowaway - never be a puppet." Attention flickered back into his eyes as they locked upon the Nautolan, and Coda's crystal came crashing back onto the table. "Never be a slave."

She couldn't agree more, but found it hard to return his gaze. Her eyes fell upon the crystal, and she asked questions of which she was fearful, yet deeply intrigued of what the answers might be, "Then if you have the Force with you, and you're not a Jedi, then...what are you? What path do you follow?"

The Human pondered that himself for a moment, actually somewhat pleased at the question. "My own," he finally answered, knowing all too well the answer was limited and told the woman very little, but until such time was right and she was truly interested, information of that nature need not be shared. Any further labels would likely only confuse matters more for her.

"And I implore you to do the same, stowaway," Thane continued as he now removed his gloves, placing both hands upon the table before him, the cybernetic final digits on his right hand clicking against the metal surface. "You spoke of transport off of Nar Shaddaa, of going 'home' and looking for your brother. I spoke too hastily earlier; we can give you passage if you wish, perhaps even assistance. Beyond that, though, I would ask you what it is you plan to do."

He watched the Nautolan's eyes as he spoke, examining their aquatic nature as best he could, somewhat grateful for his tutelage under a Selkath in these instances. "You did mention, after all, wanting to get to know the Force better."

Coda could pick up on his attempt at a hard sell. She had seen different shades of this before. Offers to sample drugs, or to accept large sum of money for sex that would "set her free" if she only cooperated, and even one proposal to buy her out of Chesto's club if she would agree to marry him. Each and every attempt was from a human male. They so often seemed to have a need to make tempting offers that were difficult to refuse, but Saucy had always intervened before she could answer any of them. Now she had the freedom to choose for herself.

But there was more to this than just another man trying to use her. Thane was most definitely not just another man. He was a true living Je--ex-Jedi with the power to take a person's life with a simple wave of a hand, or a blinding fast stroke of a lightsaber. Putting that foremost in her thoughts, she was starting to realize that the strange atmosphere she sensed when Thane first caught her in the cargo room may have indeed had something mystical like this Force he kept mentioning, but a few minutes in proximity talking with him made her pick up the trail of the true source of his intensity. It was something basic. Primal even. The human was radiating pheromones that had been assaulting her senses more than anyone she ever met in her life. It was apparent almost from the moment they met. If her senses rang true, then it meant he was feeling extremely intense about something...or someone. Normally, she could pick up on the flavor of the emotion his chemicals were projecting, but Thane was somehow masking them from her. The Force could even hide feelings?

"I..." she hesitated to answer, her mind filled with so many questions about Thane. His charisma, his scent, his eyes masking a furious demand for compliance. At first, she felt she had every reason to fear him, but now deep intrigue was slowly overtaking and stacking itself firmly upon that fear. She felt almost as drawn by Thane's offer as had that thorny underwater plant that shot a quill into her chest when she was a child. She almost didn't mind taking her chances with those projectile thorns again if it meant being able to touch the beautiful glowing flower it was protecting.

"...never had a plan except to find Capo, my brother," she said, her own emotions rising as if trying to match Thane's charismatic aura. She felt an odd arousal in her hearts. A strange shadowy compulsion that brandished itself as a tingling through her spine. She saw the answer she was looking for was right in her face: she wanted to be like him. She desired that presence, and that power.

"I used to think we could run back to Glee Anselm, but...there's nothing there for us," she added, her voice becoming shaky and dry. "No family, no home, no inheritance. And even if I knew where he was, I couldn't save him. Look how easy you took my blasters away. I...want to do that too. I want to...I want to make them pay!" she snapped as the blue color started slowly draining from her face.

Thane felt his hands clenching as he felt the rush of emotion stream forth from the Nautolan, her untamed potency within the Force assaulting his senses. Having begun to heed more of Darth Bane's teachings, he did not close himself to the outburst, but instead soaked it in, attempting to draw on Coda's frustrations to see more of her might and character.

It was remarkably exhilarating. Unlike the lunacy of the Whiphid on Tython or the brainwashed aggression of Axion's cultists, her fury was pure, genuine. It was a defined part of her, of her personality. Musing yet again at the enigmatic whims of the Force drawing one as potent as Coda into their midst, Thane saw the obvious potential in this stowaway, the raw talent. No doubt, it was these righteous emotions, born of the dark side, that had unlocked whatever dormant or masked talents she had.

And he could not let it go.

"I want to humiliate them," Coda went on, "I want to make them scared. I..." she started to feel tears well up from her eyes as she put a hand to her clammy forehead, beads of coldsweat forming. Her willpower had expired, and she was trembling like someone trapped in a meat freezer room. "...want to hurt them. I just want to..." she was finding it hard to breathe, and she started losing consciousness.

Thane felt the Nautolan's mind flailing, her emotions wavering as her young body seemed to buckle under all that had befallen her. He rose, swiftly darting over to catch her head before it fell as a dead weight upon the table as her consciousness finally left her.

Although he did not panic, as it had never really been in Thane's nature to be too invested in the immediate physical welfare of others, he was careful as he scooped her up from the chair. He called just slightly upon the Force to remove any strain on him and summoned the woman's lightsaber crystal into his pocket as he took careful steps out from the rec room towards the medbay.

Regarding the delicate features of Coda's face as he held her in his arms, he wondered as to the true extent of the suffering she had had forced upon her during her life, being only a few short years younger than him, entirely denied any of the mercies he had inherited, even after the loss of his family.

The would-be Sith placed the limp alien down with surprising grace onto the bunk in the medbay, and took a step back.

"All those things you want, Coda," Thane said softly, "will be within your power. You need only claim it."

TBC

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