The Dark Lord Returns

(( My heartfelt gratitude to the player of Darth Ragious, as ever. ))

Aittera stepped out of her as yet unfurnished flat to head toward the nearest taxi stand. It had been a couple of weeks since her meeting with Khor to discuss the terms of surrender the truce between herself and Darth Ragious.

She'd been establishing new contacts while looking at job possibilities locally with security firms and privately owned companies. Not that she'd take a job like that, of course, she told herself. Something about a security job felt too normal or safe to really consider seriously. But it made her feel busy enough to justify whittling away at her savings and kept her mind off of Selus during his increasingly prolonged absence. Look for a job, talk to someone, drink, sleep, repeat.

She was trying not to think of exactly these things when Ragious came to her thoughts, as if the image of his face leaning forward towards her had just been waiting for this moment to remind her that so much else in her life had gone awry since they first met.

As if summoned by her thoughts, his force image appeared beside her at the taxi stand, dressed in the same plain black tunic, pants and boots he'd worn during their last encounter.  "You know, when you call out for me that loudly, it is very hard to ignore you."

Aittera nearly jumped at the sound of his voice and turned to look at the force image after a quick glance around to see if anyone was looking in her direction. She spoke quietly to keep from being overheard by potential passersby. "I didn't call. Go away!"

"I'm not the one that was thinking at me.  And rather loudly.  So instead of fighting, why don't we talk things through so that you can go back to ignoring that I exist."

She moved away from the taxi stand to a railing so she could talk to him without looking like a totally crazy person by putting her back to the very public space she'd been standing in. He moved with her, walking through a passing Nautilan who remained completely oblivious to the Sith's projected image. "I just...thought about you. I don't know why."

"Because with all the other upheaval in your life, I'm a constant."

"A constant annoyance?" she replied with a smirk, joking as much as not. "It's probably because you started it by blowing up the other constant in my life."

"Face it, I'm the closest thing you have to a best friend right now.  And why haven't you just bought another ship?  You could have done that instead of buying that flat."

"I'm renting the flat. I can't just buy any other ship. I want my ship. It's what it turned into that I can't seem to---Why am I trying to explain this to you?" She was more irritated with herself than anything else by the way she'd almost admitted to her worst enemy of all people. He wasn't her friend, and she just didn't open up like this to anyone, and yet, she found herself saying, "I can't even figure out how I'm going to explain this to him."

"Then why not buy another ship and make it into your ship.  Or, you could ask nicely for me to give you one of the freighters I've confiscated for you to remake it your own."

"It's not the same. It's about what that ship represented." The internal debate she's had several times with herself over the subject returned, clouding her blue eyes with a storm of emotion as she looked out over the horizon of floating buildings above Nar Shaddaa.

"I didn't even name it right away. It was just a ship." She wasn't speaking to Darth Ragious anymore, and his voice almost startled her all over again when he spoke once more.

"What was the ship's name anyway? We never salvaged it." He seemed to be doing two things at once, but something in the way he was looking at her made it seem as though he was treating her as his priority.

"The Devious Hope."

"That seems like a fitting name for your ship."

A dark smirk on her lips. "I bought it to be a coffin."

"Is some part of you upset that you didn't die in the attack?"

Aittera scoffed, and a breath later, she was chuckling. "No. No, this...one has nothing to do with the other. I bought the Hope with my bereavement pay and wrongful death settlement payout."

"I was going to say.  You must have realized by now that regardless of any threats I made, I was never going to kill you."

She looked over at his image with a short nod, drawing herself out of the past and back to the present. "Just turn me into another Renn'a?"

"You've been listening to the Alderaanian's lies again.  I do not know why everyone uses her as some kind of insult.  Renn'a is a beautiful, intelligent, cunning, sexy woman.  She and I share something that is both special and meaningful and the way you all choose to denigrate her, it is...angering."

Aittera smirked at him. "Pisses me off every time you call Selus my Cathar like he's my pet."

Ragious gave her a deadpan stare. "Like he wouldn't put on a collar for you."

"What makes you think that's not what I was referring to when I mentioned her?"

His image shrugged. "So have you told him you moved out on him yet?"

Her good humor dissolved. "What makes you think the flat isn't for both of us?"

"You would have furnished it if it was."

"I could be waiting for him to help--" She sighed with an irritated scowl. "I just need my own space."

"There, was telling the truth so hard?  I don't know why you always insist on fighting me.  All I want is to be good to you."

"No, you want me to be one of your women, and I don't belong to anyone."

"If it was only about you being one of my women, I'd just take you again.  You know I probably could after all."

"Then, what is it?" She found herself genuinely curious, though later, she'd ask herself what the hell she was thinking by asking.

"If I said what I suspected, you'd go back to fighting me.  And I'd rather keep up the illusion of friendliness between us."

Suspicion clouded her features as she studied the image of his face. "I'm not even sure why I am talking to you." But she did know. Much as she hated him, she at least knew where she stood with him and how she felt about him. That was more than she knew when it came to anyone else these days - especially the too-long-absent Selus.

"I should go. I'm meeting a friend for lunch."

"You're such a liar.  But I suppose I should get back to the attack I'm overseeing."

Aittera bristled, trying to push away thoughts of dying Republic soldiers. "I'll try to think quieter."

"You have only but to think of me and I'll be there for you, Aittera."  His image gave her a bow and disappeared, leaving her alone with the thoughts she'd been working so hard to avoid.