Jak this is all your fault
Mar. 1st, 2010 05:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jade_sabreSo on last night's post (which is still open; it's lovely to stretch the writing muscles, even if I'm just producing mediocre stuff), ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jakia gave me the following prompt:
KOTOR.
And dragons.
HK-47 FINDS A DRAGON.
Or a unicorn.
MAKE IT HAPPEN.
Well this quickly spun out of control, so here you go, HK-47 finds a unicorn. The dragon story will probably be along tomorrow.
I blame the copious amount of reading I've been doing about sexuality, and the fact that the mentality of the PC of KOTOR is really--just--delicious to play with, for the way the story shifts from nonsensically humorous to suddenly not and then back again. IT'S JUST AN EXERCISE, OKAY.
It was one of those escapades early in the game that no one really liked to talk about unless they were drunk, because it hadn't gone particularly well for the females and too many genitals had been threatened for the men to feel comfortable mentioning it.
They were on Dantooine, the whole gang of them, Marein breathing in the fresh plain air while Carth fidgeted without something to pilot and Canderous lazily trained his gun on anything that moved. T3-M4 had stayed behind at the Jedi place, while Juhani and Bastila sparred and Jolee made snide comments that HK-47 usually followed up with "termination would be best" or something; Marein was trying to tune him out. Zalbaar was moaning in Wookie, something about plains being bad hunting ground, while Mission tried to cheer him up with tales of swoop racing (just think about the turns on these cliffs!).
"No, Mission," Marein said, her eyes closed, "you may not steal the innocent droid-dealer-man's swoop in order to try out a few tricks."
"You're not my mom," Mission huffed.
"She's right, it's too dangerous," Carth said, although he looked like he would rather join in on the fun.
"And you're not my dad."
"Snide Remark: You finally noticed that you are a meatbag with headtails and they are not?"
"HK--" an entire chorus of tired human voices chimed, with a bass line provided by Zalbaar.
"If you want to steal the speeder kid, just do it," Canderous advised, eying a nearby wildflower as if it might be a Mandalorian spy camera. Which, well, if it was, he would know.
"Canderous!" Bastila said, outraged as only she could be.
"Hey Princess," Canderous said, "we're not her parents."
Bastila strangely had no response, and her next flurry of attacks on Juhani was downright ferocious.
Marein sighed and opened her eyes, looking over to see Carth looking over at her, and then they looked away bashfully, and she didn't know why--it seemed like the sort of things two adults ought to be able to discuss, even if one of them was technically a Jedi Padawan just because she had Force powers and a life-bond to another Padawan-Knight-whatever-Bastila-was, and even if technically Jedi weren't supposed to...have attachments of a romantic nature--and she was still fuzzy on the details--but damn the details, they were adults, and she was tired of being treated like a child by everyone who came into contact with her. Sure, her memories of her early life were fuzzy--a mechanic's shop, mother laughing over dinner maybe, brothers perhaps?--but she'd hit her head pretty hard aboard the Endar Spire, and that didn't make her a kid. It just made her an amnesiac. And with the war, there were plenty of those to go around.
Of course, she was an amnesiac with extraordinarily strong Force powers and a crush on her pilot, who seemed to be at least as forgetful in the romantic department as she was. There had to be some way to start the conversation.
"Query: Are there any virgins in the group?"
She was pretty sure that that wasn't it.
And then she woke up to the fact that HK was not vocalizing her internal monologue (she paused for a moment, letting the shudder run through her) but was, in fact, gesturing towards a white blob in the distance.
"Rhetorical Response: No? Very well," he said, and blasted it.
"HK!" the chorus came, this time a little more indignant, as Mission bolted from her position, Zalbaar close behind her.
"Marein, if you can't keep that damn droid under control--" Canderous snapped, probably sulking because HK had gotten to shoot something and he was still aiming at a flower.
"HK," Marein said, "I told you about shooting without my express permission."
"Comment: Master, we discussed shooting only outside of a combative situation. As the unicorn was clearly threatening your personal sphere--"
"HK, it's at least a hundred meters away."
"--and you usually ignore such threats, as seen by your behavior towards the meatbag pilot--"
"I will personally rip out your vodorecodor," Carth said through gritted teeth.
"--I thought it best--"
"Then maybe you shouldn't think, until further notice." Marein could have sworn she saw the droid's eyes light up with maleficent pleasure at the thought, and amended herself. "Restrain your thoughts to those of non-violent behavior and how to practice it within the confines of Dantooine society until further notes."
"Complaint: Master--"
"It's still alive!" Mission called, waving, and so the rest of the group obligingly trudged over to where she knelt by the creature's side. It was large, white, and horse-shaped, which stirred no memories in Marein's mind, but she was used to the ignorance and looked to Bastila, who had spent more time on the planet and had hopefully studied its wildlife.
"What'd you call this thing?" Jolee said, halting, as the rest of them did, a few meters away, as if by unspoken agreement. It struggled to stand on four feet, and as it lifted its head the group could see two things: one, it had a large blaster wound on its chest, and two, it had a horn sticking out of its head.
"Response: A unicorn, a rare, peaceful--"
"A unicorn," Bastila and Juhani repeated, their voices soft, eyes wide with childlike wonder, ignoring HK's clinical and condescending description droning in the background. "They're very rare," the human Jedi said. "I wonder what this one's doing so close to civilization?"
"Dying, if we don't help it," Mission said, trying vainly to apply a kolto patch to its chest. "Can't one of you do something?"
Neither Juhani nor Bastila moved; Marein took a step towards Mission, and somehow ended up sidestepping into Carth.
"Steady--I've got you--" he said, catching her arms and helping her straighten. His hands lingered on her arms and she lingered in his "personal sphere" and neither said anything, because as much as she felt--pushed--into him, it felt equally wrong to act on the pushing. She shook her head, and he looked at her in concern.
"Headache," she said, and tried stepping towards the unicorn again.
This time Carth wrapped his arms around her until she was standing upright and said, "I think Marein's sick."
"I'm not sick," she said, trying to break free of him, but always being pushed back by some invisible barrier. "I just can't--walk--"
Jolee was chuckling, while Bastila was giving her an odd look and Juhani frowning a little. Canderous shook his head, heading for Mission, and said, "Look, just give it a shot of--" only to find himself sitting on the ground, blinking and, once he regained a sense of his surroundings, cussing impressively in Mandalorian.
"Bastila," Carth said, still holding onto Marein; she gave up resisting and relaxed, letting him support her while she met the unicorn's golden gaze. "What can you tell us about these creatures?"
"Um," Bastila said, "they're very rare--"
"And yet we don't see you trying to help it," Jolee said, still snickering.
"That is none of your business--" she snapped, flushing.
"Why are you all being so difficult about this? It's dying!" Mission cried, her headtails snapping. Zalbaar howled to back her up. "Can't you use your Jedi powers to heal it?"
"Well, that's the thing about unicorns," Jolee said, clearly enjoying the slow process of doling out whatever knowledge he possessed, "and no one knows how it works, and the effect varies from species to species, but..."
"But what?" Canderous snarled, still smarting from the ground.
"Well," he looked around to make sure that his youthful-if-not-young audience was paying attention, "they can only be approached by virgins."
This announcement was met with the whistle of wind through the prairie grasses. Mission didn't know whether to look embarrassed or shocked; Canderous's slow, deadly wolf smile started to appear in the whites of his incisors. Zalbaar, being young especially by his species's account, didn't seem to care, but Bastila and Juhani were still avoiding looking at anything and Carth's arms had tightened around Marein while his expression was more raised-eyebrows than anything else.
"Virgins," Marein repeated, because she figured someone had to break the silence.
"It's really quite interesting," Jolee said. "They don't seem to manipulate the Force directly, but the barrier still remains. Their presence on Dantooine--well, they raise all sorts of interesting questions about celibacy and its connection to the Force, and the Council has had--"
"Jedi aren't allowed to have sex?" Mission said, eyes wide. "I knew you guys were fuddy-duddies, but come on--"
"You're too young to understand the significance," Bastila said, "and besides, your experience is clearly limited--"
"Well if you're such a good Jedi, why aren't you helping?" Mission demanded, and the silence that followed was broken only by the flash of Canderous's smile.
"I," Bastila said, and then stopped, and then drew herself up with every bit of aristocratic Jedi manner she had within and said, "My personal affairs--"
"The pretty princess just doesn't want to want to admit she's rolled in the muck with the rest of us mortals," Canderous said, his tone particularly nasty.
"Oh, don't make it sound as dirty as that," Jolee said, with the ease of an older man enjoying the follies of the next generation. "I've had a woman in my time; doesn't make me a degenerate." Catching Carth's eye, he said, "Nothing like having one good one, eh?"
"Yeah," Carth said, and Marein could feel his voice rumbling in his chest, proud and sad, relieved and burdened by memory, and his grip on her loosened and she stepped away, making a show of smoothing her hair and trying to think of a distraction.
"Juhani?" she said.
The Cathar's whiskers didn't so much as tremble. "We should focus on relieving this creature from its suffering," she said, "and I unfortunately cannot assist."
"Well," Marein said, letting her hands drop, "I, uh, apparently can't help either--"
"You've had sex and you don't remember it?" This seemed to disturb Mission as much as the thought of Jedi having no sex at all.
"I can't remember much, Mission," Marein pointed out, "but when you're a soldier, sometimes you need to...blow off steam..." She wasn't a hundred percent sure of this (her memories of blowing off steam were nonexistent, though she knew that now she enjoyed a good callisthenic routine; the concept of "giving in" in her past seemed linked to things she was better off not knowing, and she trusted her psyche), but she resisted the urge to look at Carth for confirmation; besides, Canderous was laughing, and that seemed like testimony enough.
Zalbaar growled impatiently and gestured to the unicorn, which had limped to its feet but still looked dazed. "Z's right," Mission said. "Is there anything I can do to help it?"
Canderous tossed her the stimulus package he had tried to administer, and clambered to his feet; his expression was rough and his presence in the Force was bleak, but Marein didn't like to pry. It unnerved her enough to have these insights into her companions without having permission to have them. "Just apply more kolto," she said, tossing the few packs she found in her belt.
"They're resilient creatures," Jolee said. "Prized for the healing powers of their horns, but that's not been proven in centuries."
They stood around awkwardly while Mission did an inexpert job of covering the wound with kolto and bandages; Marein and Bastila did their best to coach from the sidelines, while Jolee drifted over to Carth and Canderous. Juhani attempted to use the Force to help Mission, but that seemed as effective as trying to approach it directly, and she stood quietly. It seemed odd, Marein thought, that only she and Jolee seemed actively comfortable about the unicorn's presence.
"Anyway," she muttered to Bastila, as Mission finished up, "I hope he was cute."
"Hm?" Bastila said, her eyes fixed on the unicorn.
"My mystery man," she said, trying to make light of the situation, but Bastila's gaze--always too perceptive, too knowing, even without remembering that they had a Force bond through which the trained Jedi could probably open every one of her secrets--was especially penetrating, and there was a distinct unhappiness in her eyes.
"Oh," Bastila said. "I'm sure he was."
Marein raised an eyebrow. "Really?"
"It answers a few questions," was all Bastila said.
"And yours?" Marein said, hoping to remind her partner that neither of them could keep a secret for long.
"Not cute," Bastila said sharply; she exhaled, and said, "Many things. Not cute."
"If you ever want to talk--"
"I think I got it!" Mission said excitedly, as the unicorn pawed the ground and nosed her. Marein felt its gratitude overflowing the barrier between the two of them, and then it turned and cantered off, as quietly as it had come.
"Well, that's a relief," Carth said.
"We should report this to the Council," Bastila said, but her voice lacked its usual authority. "They'll want to investigate why a unicorn strayed so close to--"
"Yes, but then the Council will ask all sorts of awkward questions about why Mission was the only one among us who could approach it," Marein said, watching her, sending out tendrils of the Force. "Do you want to face them?"
"Do you?" Bastila retorted.
"I'm new to the Jedi thing," Marein said. "It's not like I knew I was going to sign up for it."
"Rules are meant to be bent, anyway," Jolee said, and Bastila's spine stiffened and she turned away. Marein felt Carth's gaze on her, rather than seeing it, but resisted the urge to return it; he wasn't thinking of her, in and of herself. Where Canderous's mind had gone was anybody's guess, but he wasn't even bothering to grumble about letting the unicorn go; he was back to scanning the horizon, tapping his fingers against his thigh.
"We might as well be heading back," she said, and they did, but they were silent, and every time she reached out, searching for the tenuous threads that bound them, the threads Bastila sensed and manipulated so easily, she felt whorls withdrawing from her touch, and she understood the need for privacy, at least. Still, the silence was unnerving, and she cast about for some way to repair whatever damage had been done.
Or...at least ward off the quiet...
"HK?" she said. "You can talk again."
She felt several outraged meatbag gazes on her back, but the droid was already happily babbling about the inefficiencies of healing wounds, and Canderous snarled something about wounds not being an issue when you're able to land a killing shot, and for a moment normality, if not peace, was restored.
jakia gave me the following prompt:KOTOR.
And dragons.
HK-47 FINDS A DRAGON.
Or a unicorn.
MAKE IT HAPPEN.
Well this quickly spun out of control, so here you go, HK-47 finds a unicorn. The dragon story will probably be along tomorrow.
I blame the copious amount of reading I've been doing about sexuality, and the fact that the mentality of the PC of KOTOR is really--just--delicious to play with, for the way the story shifts from nonsensically humorous to suddenly not and then back again. IT'S JUST AN EXERCISE, OKAY.
It was one of those escapades early in the game that no one really liked to talk about unless they were drunk, because it hadn't gone particularly well for the females and too many genitals had been threatened for the men to feel comfortable mentioning it.
They were on Dantooine, the whole gang of them, Marein breathing in the fresh plain air while Carth fidgeted without something to pilot and Canderous lazily trained his gun on anything that moved. T3-M4 had stayed behind at the Jedi place, while Juhani and Bastila sparred and Jolee made snide comments that HK-47 usually followed up with "termination would be best" or something; Marein was trying to tune him out. Zalbaar was moaning in Wookie, something about plains being bad hunting ground, while Mission tried to cheer him up with tales of swoop racing (just think about the turns on these cliffs!).
"No, Mission," Marein said, her eyes closed, "you may not steal the innocent droid-dealer-man's swoop in order to try out a few tricks."
"You're not my mom," Mission huffed.
"She's right, it's too dangerous," Carth said, although he looked like he would rather join in on the fun.
"And you're not my dad."
"Snide Remark: You finally noticed that you are a meatbag with headtails and they are not?"
"HK--" an entire chorus of tired human voices chimed, with a bass line provided by Zalbaar.
"If you want to steal the speeder kid, just do it," Canderous advised, eying a nearby wildflower as if it might be a Mandalorian spy camera. Which, well, if it was, he would know.
"Canderous!" Bastila said, outraged as only she could be.
"Hey Princess," Canderous said, "we're not her parents."
Bastila strangely had no response, and her next flurry of attacks on Juhani was downright ferocious.
Marein sighed and opened her eyes, looking over to see Carth looking over at her, and then they looked away bashfully, and she didn't know why--it seemed like the sort of things two adults ought to be able to discuss, even if one of them was technically a Jedi Padawan just because she had Force powers and a life-bond to another Padawan-Knight-whatever-Bastila-was, and even if technically Jedi weren't supposed to...have attachments of a romantic nature--and she was still fuzzy on the details--but damn the details, they were adults, and she was tired of being treated like a child by everyone who came into contact with her. Sure, her memories of her early life were fuzzy--a mechanic's shop, mother laughing over dinner maybe, brothers perhaps?--but she'd hit her head pretty hard aboard the Endar Spire, and that didn't make her a kid. It just made her an amnesiac. And with the war, there were plenty of those to go around.
Of course, she was an amnesiac with extraordinarily strong Force powers and a crush on her pilot, who seemed to be at least as forgetful in the romantic department as she was. There had to be some way to start the conversation.
"Query: Are there any virgins in the group?"
She was pretty sure that that wasn't it.
And then she woke up to the fact that HK was not vocalizing her internal monologue (she paused for a moment, letting the shudder run through her) but was, in fact, gesturing towards a white blob in the distance.
"Rhetorical Response: No? Very well," he said, and blasted it.
"HK!" the chorus came, this time a little more indignant, as Mission bolted from her position, Zalbaar close behind her.
"Marein, if you can't keep that damn droid under control--" Canderous snapped, probably sulking because HK had gotten to shoot something and he was still aiming at a flower.
"HK," Marein said, "I told you about shooting without my express permission."
"Comment: Master, we discussed shooting only outside of a combative situation. As the unicorn was clearly threatening your personal sphere--"
"HK, it's at least a hundred meters away."
"--and you usually ignore such threats, as seen by your behavior towards the meatbag pilot--"
"I will personally rip out your vodorecodor," Carth said through gritted teeth.
"--I thought it best--"
"Then maybe you shouldn't think, until further notice." Marein could have sworn she saw the droid's eyes light up with maleficent pleasure at the thought, and amended herself. "Restrain your thoughts to those of non-violent behavior and how to practice it within the confines of Dantooine society until further notes."
"Complaint: Master--"
"It's still alive!" Mission called, waving, and so the rest of the group obligingly trudged over to where she knelt by the creature's side. It was large, white, and horse-shaped, which stirred no memories in Marein's mind, but she was used to the ignorance and looked to Bastila, who had spent more time on the planet and had hopefully studied its wildlife.
"What'd you call this thing?" Jolee said, halting, as the rest of them did, a few meters away, as if by unspoken agreement. It struggled to stand on four feet, and as it lifted its head the group could see two things: one, it had a large blaster wound on its chest, and two, it had a horn sticking out of its head.
"Response: A unicorn, a rare, peaceful--"
"A unicorn," Bastila and Juhani repeated, their voices soft, eyes wide with childlike wonder, ignoring HK's clinical and condescending description droning in the background. "They're very rare," the human Jedi said. "I wonder what this one's doing so close to civilization?"
"Dying, if we don't help it," Mission said, trying vainly to apply a kolto patch to its chest. "Can't one of you do something?"
Neither Juhani nor Bastila moved; Marein took a step towards Mission, and somehow ended up sidestepping into Carth.
"Steady--I've got you--" he said, catching her arms and helping her straighten. His hands lingered on her arms and she lingered in his "personal sphere" and neither said anything, because as much as she felt--pushed--into him, it felt equally wrong to act on the pushing. She shook her head, and he looked at her in concern.
"Headache," she said, and tried stepping towards the unicorn again.
This time Carth wrapped his arms around her until she was standing upright and said, "I think Marein's sick."
"I'm not sick," she said, trying to break free of him, but always being pushed back by some invisible barrier. "I just can't--walk--"
Jolee was chuckling, while Bastila was giving her an odd look and Juhani frowning a little. Canderous shook his head, heading for Mission, and said, "Look, just give it a shot of--" only to find himself sitting on the ground, blinking and, once he regained a sense of his surroundings, cussing impressively in Mandalorian.
"Bastila," Carth said, still holding onto Marein; she gave up resisting and relaxed, letting him support her while she met the unicorn's golden gaze. "What can you tell us about these creatures?"
"Um," Bastila said, "they're very rare--"
"And yet we don't see you trying to help it," Jolee said, still snickering.
"That is none of your business--" she snapped, flushing.
"Why are you all being so difficult about this? It's dying!" Mission cried, her headtails snapping. Zalbaar howled to back her up. "Can't you use your Jedi powers to heal it?"
"Well, that's the thing about unicorns," Jolee said, clearly enjoying the slow process of doling out whatever knowledge he possessed, "and no one knows how it works, and the effect varies from species to species, but..."
"But what?" Canderous snarled, still smarting from the ground.
"Well," he looked around to make sure that his youthful-if-not-young audience was paying attention, "they can only be approached by virgins."
This announcement was met with the whistle of wind through the prairie grasses. Mission didn't know whether to look embarrassed or shocked; Canderous's slow, deadly wolf smile started to appear in the whites of his incisors. Zalbaar, being young especially by his species's account, didn't seem to care, but Bastila and Juhani were still avoiding looking at anything and Carth's arms had tightened around Marein while his expression was more raised-eyebrows than anything else.
"Virgins," Marein repeated, because she figured someone had to break the silence.
"It's really quite interesting," Jolee said. "They don't seem to manipulate the Force directly, but the barrier still remains. Their presence on Dantooine--well, they raise all sorts of interesting questions about celibacy and its connection to the Force, and the Council has had--"
"Jedi aren't allowed to have sex?" Mission said, eyes wide. "I knew you guys were fuddy-duddies, but come on--"
"You're too young to understand the significance," Bastila said, "and besides, your experience is clearly limited--"
"Well if you're such a good Jedi, why aren't you helping?" Mission demanded, and the silence that followed was broken only by the flash of Canderous's smile.
"I," Bastila said, and then stopped, and then drew herself up with every bit of aristocratic Jedi manner she had within and said, "My personal affairs--"
"The pretty princess just doesn't want to want to admit she's rolled in the muck with the rest of us mortals," Canderous said, his tone particularly nasty.
"Oh, don't make it sound as dirty as that," Jolee said, with the ease of an older man enjoying the follies of the next generation. "I've had a woman in my time; doesn't make me a degenerate." Catching Carth's eye, he said, "Nothing like having one good one, eh?"
"Yeah," Carth said, and Marein could feel his voice rumbling in his chest, proud and sad, relieved and burdened by memory, and his grip on her loosened and she stepped away, making a show of smoothing her hair and trying to think of a distraction.
"Juhani?" she said.
The Cathar's whiskers didn't so much as tremble. "We should focus on relieving this creature from its suffering," she said, "and I unfortunately cannot assist."
"Well," Marein said, letting her hands drop, "I, uh, apparently can't help either--"
"You've had sex and you don't remember it?" This seemed to disturb Mission as much as the thought of Jedi having no sex at all.
"I can't remember much, Mission," Marein pointed out, "but when you're a soldier, sometimes you need to...blow off steam..." She wasn't a hundred percent sure of this (her memories of blowing off steam were nonexistent, though she knew that now she enjoyed a good callisthenic routine; the concept of "giving in" in her past seemed linked to things she was better off not knowing, and she trusted her psyche), but she resisted the urge to look at Carth for confirmation; besides, Canderous was laughing, and that seemed like testimony enough.
Zalbaar growled impatiently and gestured to the unicorn, which had limped to its feet but still looked dazed. "Z's right," Mission said. "Is there anything I can do to help it?"
Canderous tossed her the stimulus package he had tried to administer, and clambered to his feet; his expression was rough and his presence in the Force was bleak, but Marein didn't like to pry. It unnerved her enough to have these insights into her companions without having permission to have them. "Just apply more kolto," she said, tossing the few packs she found in her belt.
"They're resilient creatures," Jolee said. "Prized for the healing powers of their horns, but that's not been proven in centuries."
They stood around awkwardly while Mission did an inexpert job of covering the wound with kolto and bandages; Marein and Bastila did their best to coach from the sidelines, while Jolee drifted over to Carth and Canderous. Juhani attempted to use the Force to help Mission, but that seemed as effective as trying to approach it directly, and she stood quietly. It seemed odd, Marein thought, that only she and Jolee seemed actively comfortable about the unicorn's presence.
"Anyway," she muttered to Bastila, as Mission finished up, "I hope he was cute."
"Hm?" Bastila said, her eyes fixed on the unicorn.
"My mystery man," she said, trying to make light of the situation, but Bastila's gaze--always too perceptive, too knowing, even without remembering that they had a Force bond through which the trained Jedi could probably open every one of her secrets--was especially penetrating, and there was a distinct unhappiness in her eyes.
"Oh," Bastila said. "I'm sure he was."
Marein raised an eyebrow. "Really?"
"It answers a few questions," was all Bastila said.
"And yours?" Marein said, hoping to remind her partner that neither of them could keep a secret for long.
"Not cute," Bastila said sharply; she exhaled, and said, "Many things. Not cute."
"If you ever want to talk--"
"I think I got it!" Mission said excitedly, as the unicorn pawed the ground and nosed her. Marein felt its gratitude overflowing the barrier between the two of them, and then it turned and cantered off, as quietly as it had come.
"Well, that's a relief," Carth said.
"We should report this to the Council," Bastila said, but her voice lacked its usual authority. "They'll want to investigate why a unicorn strayed so close to--"
"Yes, but then the Council will ask all sorts of awkward questions about why Mission was the only one among us who could approach it," Marein said, watching her, sending out tendrils of the Force. "Do you want to face them?"
"Do you?" Bastila retorted.
"I'm new to the Jedi thing," Marein said. "It's not like I knew I was going to sign up for it."
"Rules are meant to be bent, anyway," Jolee said, and Bastila's spine stiffened and she turned away. Marein felt Carth's gaze on her, rather than seeing it, but resisted the urge to return it; he wasn't thinking of her, in and of herself. Where Canderous's mind had gone was anybody's guess, but he wasn't even bothering to grumble about letting the unicorn go; he was back to scanning the horizon, tapping his fingers against his thigh.
"We might as well be heading back," she said, and they did, but they were silent, and every time she reached out, searching for the tenuous threads that bound them, the threads Bastila sensed and manipulated so easily, she felt whorls withdrawing from her touch, and she understood the need for privacy, at least. Still, the silence was unnerving, and she cast about for some way to repair whatever damage had been done.
Or...at least ward off the quiet...
"HK?" she said. "You can talk again."
She felt several outraged meatbag gazes on her back, but the droid was already happily babbling about the inefficiencies of healing wounds, and Canderous snarled something about wounds not being an issue when you're able to land a killing shot, and for a moment normality, if not peace, was restored.
