Ask Reassurance

[Merian Sere]

Ocean’s End Cantina, Dubrillion
159 ABY


It would become a tradition, if they weren’t careful. But if she closed her eyes, the chatter and the soothing rhythm of the crashing waves almost let Merian forget she was again waiting on the same man in some chic cantina on a freshly-conquered world. Almost.

The cold was the biggest giveaway. Not that it was cold cold, mind you, but sitting at some fancy oceanfront cantina on an ocean world came with certain expectations, and this was not it. Anything short of tropical missed the mark. This place was nice enough, but Dubrillion wasn’t anything like Iloh. Even their oceans were easily told apart by a practiced eye like Merian’s, one colder, calmer, its currents unperturbed by Iloh’s thousand thousand islands. The thought brought her a smile. Despite persisting worries, it was hard not to be proud of the maneuver she’d drawn up and pulled off during the invasion.

Another wave crashed. The water surged and rose to reach Merian’s ankles, came to a standstill for a second before withdrawing again. She’d picked a table for two just far enough out on the beach, and when the tide rose the ocean came to lap at her feet. A part of her wondered whether Kellan would like it or find it annoying. He may not like the sea as much as she did, and for all Merian knew he’d become a pilot to get as far away from it as he could.

Oh well. If he wanted an indoor table, he ought to have arrived before her.

This time it was her who’d asked him out, though anyone who’d ever spent five minutes with Merian knew she wasn’t the type to ask someone out for drinks without some kind of ulterior motive. Her hands went over the simple white dress she’d opted to wear like she was pressing her uniform before a parade. A nervous sigh. At least an Imperial captain likely wasn’t the type to flake after giving his word.

 

[Kellan Solari]

Kellan had been near adulthood the first time he had come face-to-face with any body of water larger than a lake. When he had at last planted his bare feet in an ocean for the first time and watched the waves tirelessly sprout, swell, break and crash in endless repetition he had found the experience almost overwhelming. The ever-present roar of the tide seemed to chase his thoughts inward, stranding him in muted contemplation. Ankle deep the primordial indifference of a force that took no notice of his fears, desires or will cast the young Imperial adrift in thoughts of his own insignificance.

It hadn't been precisely the state of mind he had anticipated fresh off a military conquest. Dubrillion, like the others, had fallen in the face of an Empire renewed and his role in the operation had not been inconsequential, despite what the steady tidal thrum may have suggested to the contrary. It had been Alpha Squadron’s efforts that had seen the jamming array destroyed and restored communications to the Imperial forces. The victory that followed had been almost total, the remaining defenders summarily killed, captured or routed.

In the aftermath, among the flurry of debriefs and after-action reports, an invitation from Merian. He could only guess at how she had ascertained his presence on Dubrillion. Of course when your quarters reside aboard a Star Destroyer, it didn’t take a mind as keen as hers to deduce your whereabouts. Forty millions tons of durasteel Galactic diplomacy was hard to miss. He had accepted the offer immediately. Despite his initial misgivings around the order of knights, he found in Knight Sere a kindred soul.

He stepped up to the table and gave a warm nod. He was barefoot, long naval books tucked over one arm, his hip-flared trousers rolled up ridiculously past his ankles. Dressed in a crisp double-breasted tunic of Imperial gray, he might have struck the casual observer as the galaxy’s most primly dressed castaway.

“Merian.” he smiled easily. “Glad to see you made it out of the scrap in one piece."

He eased into the chair next to her, face turned towards the stiff ocean breeze. Dubrillion had been a milk run in comparison to actions such as Bastion or Ord Trasi. But out past the break, watery curls of smoke stained a silken sky. Kellan exhaled.

"There have to be easier ways to get cocktail reservations.”

@Volene

 

[Merian Sere]

“Right, easier,” she confirmed. “None quite so nice.”

Merian let him sit, returned his smile. Him showing up only eased part of her nervousness. She needed to ask something and she feared she wouldn’t like the answers he would give her. For a moment, she did just like him, turning to the breeze, letting it relax her. She closed her eyes, even threw her head back a little. The smell of saltwater.

“I could say the same for you. You’re at risk every time,” Merian eventually answered. “Would you believe I didn’t kill anyone who wasn’t turning their back on me?”

Shit. Even as the words left her mouth she regretted them. While true, and while she wouldn’t deny pride in cracking the Superlaser facility open, there must have been a way to phrase it more soldierly and less like a cold-blooded murderer. Especially when she intended to ask about her branch’s questionable reputation.

“I mean, in the facility,” she quickly caught herself. “I heard about the jamming array. Never even noticed comms were down. Your wing responded to the jam before I even surfaced,” she almost laughed. Her eyes found his. “I hope someone told you how impressive that is.”

 

[Kellan Solari]

He watched her as she spoke, his expression even and impartial. At the knight’s mention of her own restraint, he noted the momentary flicker of discomfort reflected in her eyes. The reaction was keenly familiar to Kellan, as he suspected it would be to anyone who had seen extended action. Such experiences calloused one’s soul and despite the necessity of such hardening for survival’s sake, more often than not left alienated you from your fellow being.

“Good evening.”

Kellan turned towards the voice to find a primly dressed waiter standing over them. An organic waiter in place of some service droid? The pilot gave Merian an approving nod. Tasteful. Very tasteful.

“May I take your drink orders?” the waiter asked, producing a pair of holosheet menus and setting them on the table between the two Imperials. “Regrettably, our dining options are limited due to the recent unpleasantness, however our inventory of spirits and libations is largely intact.”

There it was. A hairline falter in the man’s thin veneer of civility. Even his practiced courtesy carried with it a venomous sediment all to clear to Kellan. Men such as he couldn’t understand. How could they? Their lot was stark but simple. To be conquered, to survive or to die. Whereas for those such as Merian or Kellan, it was to kill. They parceled their humanity out one action at a time. For those that perished, it was a small mercy not to witness themselves reduced in such a manner.

Kellan didn’t want the man’s understanding and wouldn’t have taken it even had it been offered. He smiled sourly, gathered the unseen menus and slid them back across the table towards the waiter.

“Two whiskeys. Neat.” he said flatly before glancing over towards Merian. “You don't mind following established protocol, do you Merian? At least for the first round.”

He waved the waiter away and watched a knot of gulls milling idly through the sky.

“Thanks for the kind words. Though rumor is that your lot did all the heavy lifting this go round. Your name in particular has been floating around some pretty swanky conference rooms. And rightly so. About time someone on the lines got their share of the credit. Being caught unaware by that jamming array is an embarrassment to High Command.” He chuckled to himself. “Can you believe it? The Grand Marshal himself screaming into dead comms. Some general is going to ride out the rest of their career policing hyperlanes for this one. Bah, I doubt it’ll get much mention beyond the scope of the After-Action Report unless he wants it to. Too many eyes masked in expensive bactalderm creams to blacken.”

He sank into a brooding reverie. The waiter reappeared and stiffly delivered their drinks before retreating back towards the cantina. A sheet of tidal foam brushed his toes, pulling him from his thoughts. He lifted the glass and smiled towards Merian.

“Another system, another toast.” he said. “Here’s to getting what we want and never what we deserve!”

@Volene

 

[Merian Sere]

The waiter’s shift in attitude was unfortunate but understandable, all things considered. He hadn’t been unpleasant to Merian until now. She didn’t exactly pass for a native, but with her civilian dress, the ilohian pearl earring and the seashell comb holding her hair in place, she looked the islander part much more than the imperial one. With Kellan there were no such mistakes. The boldness amused her, like he actively wanted to rub it in their faces. Of course, likelier was that he’d had a busy day and no time to change in the spiral of after-action. She wouldn’t have bothered either, in his place. Let them think what they would.

“I’ll drink to that,” the knight replied with a slight smile. Naturally she didn’t mind following protocol. Strange question to ask a military member in general and Merian specifically. A reminder he didn’t know her that well still. “Here’s to not getting what we deserve for a long, long time. If we’re so lucky.”

She downed her drink. How quickly he’d changed that about her, too. Well, he’d vaguely broached the subject, and the drink emboldened her, so she went ahead and asked.

“Us knights don’t deserve much good, says the news,” she brought up. “What about you, Captain? What do you deserve, after this? What do you want?”

 

[Kellan Solari]

With Merian he found levity a hard sell. To Kellan, she seemed always pressing, ever-searching. He wondered how such a tenacious curiosity served her within the ranks of the Imperial Knights. Had such idiosyncrasies guided her down a mystics path in the first place? A shiver of vulnerability slaked through him. He felt unmanned by her questioning but not altogether undesiring of it.

“Who’s the arbiter of what we deserve?” he asked. “I don't think I could tell you that. We’re engaged in something ugly, regardless of its necessity. In the end, my fate is tied into the outcome of this struggle. All of ours are.”

He picked up his glass, fingers delicately encircling its lip. He turned it and watched the amber liquid inside, backlit by the unruly jade of the ocean, streak from one side of the glass to the other. A wan smile.

“As to what I want?” he began thoughtfully. “I imagine I want the same things any man wants. Peace. Purpose. Atonement.”

He set the drink down, untouched. He looked out towards the purpling horizon, thoughts a dappled collage of the past and present.

“You know, back on Ryloth, before I had seen the galaxy, I was certain of so many things.” He shook his head. “But the more I’ve seen, the less certain I’ve become of those truths.”

He turned to her, searching her face for something he could not say.

“What about you, Merian?” he asked. “What is it you want? Does the Force influence what a person wants? What they deserve?”

@Volene

 

[Merian Sere]

She nodded along. He was right, of course, Merian often had the same unpleasant thoughts she couldn’t voice. They were in too deep, all of them. Sometimes she couldn’t help but think it was deliberate. War for purpose, rather than the opposite. Keep the machine on edge and the troops in line. Victory at all costs. Else yesterday’s victims will have your fate in their hands.

Maybe it really was what they deserved.

“Truths aren’t truths if you can’t be certain of them,” she said, frowning. “But now you have my curiosity. What are these truths you speak of?”

Her eyes went to his untouched drink. She’d already finished hers and truthfully she wished for another. What did she want?

Iloh. A family. Belonging. Her place, behind the frontlines. Maros.

“I want to serve until there isn’t any service left to do,” she answered. “Until the wars are over, the Empire is stable, the Resistance is crushed, our borders secure, traitors rooted out, our people at peace... Then, the ocean.”

Somehow, she felt the captain would relate. His own answer surprised her. If he wanted peace, in any sense of the word, he’d picked the wrong profession.

“And another drink,” she added. A shameful smile. “Emperor’s sake, what have you done to me?”

 

[Kellan Solari]

As she spoke, some indefinable ache resonated within Kellan. Duty, honor, strength; her words evoked all the familiar vanguards of the Imperial esprit de corps. The same qualities that he, as a younger man, had built his personal ethos upon, that had guided nearly every decision that had brought him to this very point. Now they seemed to fade and thin within him like a late-morning mist.

He took in the archipelago’s darkening crescent chain of isles. In the thickening gloam, a patchwork of light in those areas the Empire had seen fit to restore power. Order returning from chaos. He buttoned his fears beneath that reality. Whatever doubts he harbored, the mission remained true as it ever had. He believed that. He had to.

He took up his glass.

“To the Emperor’s newest ocean then.” he toasted before throwing back his drink. He broke into a sputtering cough but nevertheless signaled the waiter, circling one finger in the air to indicate another round of the same. The waiter’s briny expression as he turned back towards the cantina went unseen.

“Truth be told, the open water has always made me uneasy.” he managed to wheeze. He gestured skyward. “Probably why I took to the black. Did you grow up near an ocean? What was life like for a Force adept child in the old Empire?”

@Volene

 

[Merian Sere]

“Near,” Merian held back a laugh. He was so close. “You could say that.”

She’d grown surrounded by the ocean, a warm embrace that provided her people with food, safety, riches and transportation for as long as their ancestors could remember. Merian had learned to swim before she could walk. Kellan’s mistrust of it was hard to empathize with, as much as intellectually she understood that being from Ryloth gave him a perspective much different than her own. But how could someone ever feel more free than in open water?

“Well, then a special thanks for overcoming your feelings long enough to enjoy the evening.” The shadow of a smile. It was rarely more than that, with Merian. Another wave, and the water rose to their ankles again. “Next time can be in a desert, for fairness. Grand Marshal willing.”

She couldn’t help but notice he avoided her question about those truths he was no longer sure of, which only reinforced her impression that it was something bordering on treasonous he didn’t yet trust her with. Fair. Instead he asked again about the Force, and though the memories were painful Merian decided to satisfy him this time. Wasn’t this what she’d wanted to discuss, in the first place?

Spoiler: Merian’s theme

“Not so different, if you can hide it like I almost could,” she opened. That was something she wasn’t ready to share, how she could have stayed on Iloh, how her family sabotaged that future so she could become a noble Jedi knight. Maybe she never would.

“But the Empire... well, it had an interest in finding the most of us possible. I suppose it still does, if a bit less so than when training was all about cannibalizing your own. The Sith care only for the strongest,” she said, neutral as fact. “If it means four of every five acolytes must die for the most powerful to emerge, then that is the way of the Dark Side. The weak need culled. As for the child...”

Merian closed her eyes, like reliving it. Not too long. “You’re afraid, but that is a good thing. You have no friends, only competition eager to prove their ruthlessness. Your masters use pain to bring out the best in you. It’s unbearable... and necessary. Not only to harness your powers, but to learn to respect your betters, too. Those who survive are promised the galaxy. Command over lesser beings who will bow to your every whim. For might gives you the right to rule... that much hasn’t changed, at least.” Even their current Empire could hardly pretend not to believe in the right of conquest.

It was then the waiter returned with the second round Kellan ordered. It was an odd clash, having her dark recounting interrupted by something so mundane. But the man didn’t stay long. Only minutes ago Merian had asked for that drink, but now it stayed untouched by her hand.

“All this to say, I understand the mistrust,” she resumed when he’d left. She looked for something in Kellan’s eyes, a confirmation she wasn’t making a grave mistake by answering his question. “I wish it were different, and things have changed much, but these lessons... they stay with you. Truth is, I’ll never be rid of the Sith. Like early scars. They never really fade.”

 

[Kellan Solari]

”Some hide their scars. Some wear them proudly.” He gave his head a solemn shake. “But for the rest of us, they’re the only thing holding us together.”

It wasn’t until the waiter’s intrusion that Kellan realized just how raw and disarmed he truly felt. Like a fresh wound, exposed and voltaic. Sharing in her vulnerability was exhilarating, intoxicating and wildly terrifying. He hadn’t spoken so openly to anyone in…well, had he ever? How many had he let past the affected bravado? The sardonic indifference? Names and faces came and went like the tide itself. Mostly dead and increasingly forgotten. Receding phantoms fraying at their edges.

A crash of waves and the fanning of seafoam brought his thoughts back to the present.

“Who can say where the distrust stems from, Merian?” he asked. “I used to think I hated the Sith because of their cruelty. But maybe it’s more than that.”

He took up his drink and rested the glass atop his chest, as though to anchor himself there.

“Turning pain to strength? Who of us hasn’t done that?” He took a sip and watched the break. “Hell, I know I have. Life on Ryloth was ugly. Brutish. The anger I took from those experiences carried me a long way.”

His eyes swept across the curling rind of beach. He was struck by how serene it all seemed now. Pastoral. Figures tracing the shore, as though the the violence of the past several days had never happened at all. It was absurd enough to be humorous.

“All the way here, in fact.” he turned back towards her. “Maybe we loathe the Sith because they resemble parts of ourselves we’d rather not admit to. And as for the Imperial Knights? Sins of the fathers perhaps.”

“By the Emperor, what’re they putting in these drinks?”

@Volene

 

[Merian Sere]

Merian only nodded as he spoke. Her eyes had come down to his chest, avoiding his. She hadn’t known what to expect after her boneheaded rant but it hadn’t been acceptance. Much less understanding, and in such generous words. Only the sins of the fathers weren’t nearly as distant as he implied.

She lifted her gaze when she felt strong enough to withstand his. Thrice she breathed in like she was about to speak, but nothing came. The silence lingered.

“I think I misjudged you,” Merian finally said. She knew it on Ord Trasi, but this was something else, like in another life the pilot could have been one of them. “Do the others feel this way?”

Hard to accept she could have carried unfounded worry so long. It wouldn’t be the first time. Or perhaps Kellan was just that, a kindred soul, a saving grace.

“You’re not an habitual drinker,” she remarked after another short silence. “Nor do you seem the type with a vice. So how do you cope?” Her brow furrowed. Back to normal.

“It’s flying, isn’t it?”

 

[Kellan Solari]

He drained his glass dry and felt his throat ignite, not altogether unpleasantly. It was true, he didn’t share a TIE pilot’s typical penchant for drinking. Despite often accompanying his fellow pilots to the canteen, he often did so armored in a fabricated joviality. Joviality built solely for the sake of appearing ‘normal’ amongst his peers, at least until the drinks took hold in earnest. A pathetic, alienating and all-too-familiar dance.

“Could call it coping. Some would say avoidance.” he gestured his empty glass vaguely skyward. “When my father died, I couldn’t get off that rock fast enough. My family had no history with the Empire. No loyalty to it. But my family was broken, so I traded it in for another.”

He saw his mother’s face wrenched somewhere between hatred and heartache. His years at the Academy and those that followed had been a confusing cocktail of self discovery and delusion, idealism and fervor shaping his sense of self. Life in the Emperor’s Navy was one of honor and danger, but in those responsibilities he had discovered new sources of strength to draw upon. Much of the time he was only dimly aware that he was being molded, conscious of only the fact that all his choices and past experiences had led him to this point.

He dug his toes into the coolness of the sand.

“It didn't feel like just a job. At the time, it felt like survival. Grounded, it’s difficult to tell who I’m meant to be.” he admitted. “But there’s clarity in that work. A sense of inertia that has nothing to do with piloting itself.”

Another tidal swell. A moment of conversational lull punctuated by the surf. He shook his head sheepishly.

“I don't know. Maybe when things get too ugly, it's just easier to strap yourself to an ideal. I used to look forward to each hop. Each and every job. It was all so personal. How kriffed is that? But now?” He shrugged. “Now I just look forward to this.”

@Volene

 

[Merian Sere]

He could reformulate all he wanted, Merian’s expression shifted into a proud, teasing smirk, knowing she’d struck true. Only it didn’t last long before he returned the favor and she was grave again.

“Neither did mine, on Iloh,” she admitted. “Except they traded me in. To the Jedi,” she added. “Of course, the Empire had something to say about that.”

Even a few moments ago, the woman might have gone on instead of leaving it there, but she’d monologued enough already. Kellan would get tired. And besides, it wasn’t like her to mope this much.

So instead she followed suit and downed her second drink. It made her head spin. She wasn’t used to it, either. But it felt good. The opposite of regret.

“Well, one adoptee to another, I’m glad you chose us as your family,” Merian said. “Does that make me your big sister?” She couldn’t tell whether she was actually the older one of the two, but wielding the armor and lightsaber on the frontlines sure made her feel that way. Then again, maybe he should be the older one, watching over her in his fighter like a guardian angel.

Survival. Inertia. The unassuming words that threatened to choke her up again. She wasn’t ready for him to reflect her experience so deeply, so succinctly. Which begged the question: how many like them were there, across the IAF, just cruising along with their eyes closed and without raising a thought?

“Yeah,” she weakly let out. “Like a speeder bike. Always forward, else you lose your balance.”

That was when the waiter chose to make a reappearance for main courses. Merian went with the shrimp dish, with extra kingberries as they didn’t have sunfruit. The Empire may have molded everything about her, they’d never change her palate. The very ilohian mix of seafood and tropical fruit she was raised on.

She let Kellan order—and requested a third round—before she continued.

“Oh? What’s ‘this’? Drinks, or did I change your mind on the ocean so quickly?”

 

[Kellan Solari]

I’m glad you chose us as your family.

Despite their shared candor, something in Merian’s offhanded remark struck him deeply. With a flush of embarrassment, he realized that she put to word perhaps his most earnest of desires and in doing so had uncorked a wall of emotion that threatened to pour out like an estuary. Kriff sake! Had he always been so fragile? He forced a smile and hoped his composure would buy the bluff and follow suit.

“Hell, I couldn’t ask for a better family Merian.” he managed. There was a remote understanding that the reaction she had drawn had brought him to the border of profound self-realization, but the fear of being found out pressed him forward. “And that’s what I meant by this. Us. You and I. When you dragged me out of that busted Interceptor, I thought we couldn’t have been more different. But the further along we go…”

His throat coiled and his eyes stung with a choleric burn.

“It’s just good to have someone to talk to, is all.” he added abortively.

The waiter arrived and when it was his turn he ordered another drink with a compensating gusto. The prospect of dulling such unwieldy feelings bolstered his enthusiasm to such an extent that even her choice of seafood didn’t phase him.

“I’ll take the same!” he announced. He sat back, proud of having regained his composure. Merian had expressed her doubts to him, true enough. But beneath it, he sensed an unyielding resolve that ran through her like a Beskar rod. He felt compelled to match it, even on a strictly superficial level. “I’m warming to the drink, sure. Jury’s still out on the ocean. But I’m willing to learn. I’d bet there’s a lot we could learn from one another. What’s your favorite thing to do in the ocean?"

Another vintage smile. Easier now.

"I mean other than eating the repulsive gray bugs that we pull out of it.”

@Volene

 

[Merian Sere]

Merian half-frowned, like noncommittally vexed.

“Well, there’s catching the repulsive grey bugs,” she pointed out. “Some of us still do it by hand, though that’s mostly for tourists. I’m something of an expert. Now I even pull them out of TIEs.”

She looked down to his grey tunic with an insolent smile, waiting for him to get it and raising a hand in mock surrender. If she’d read it right, he’d welcome her lightening the mood. He tried his best to be subtle with it, but she was Force-sensitive. And she didn’t find him repulsive.

“Forgive me,” she laughed, more proud than apologetic. “I feel the same. And you did save my life, there. I was bound to return the favor.” Any way possible.

And despite her best efforts, she was serious again. But she’d never properly addressed it, either. At the time, she’d put everything into getting them out, and she’d refused to think back on it ever since. As it turned out, the galaxy had plenty of repulsive bugs to go around. Not that Merian would eat a Killik if her life depended on it.

Her hand went to the center of the table, there for him to take if he wanted it. Fast and steady. She could be inertia. She could be survival.

“We all need a little help sometimes,” she said. “That’s why we’re an army.”

Okay. Enough of that.

“Favorite thing in the ocean. Hmm, well there’s sailing, handfishing, diving for pearls... but I’d have to say swimming. Knowing it’s nothing but open water for miles in every direction.” Yes, she liked that answer.

“What about you? What can you teach me? Aside from flying.”

 

[Kellan Solari]

A peel of laughter as he slouched into his chair, as though physically stricken by her good-natured barb. The offered conviviality was a path back towards the comfortably familiar, a way out of the nettlesome tangle of emotions he’d found himself mired in.

Kellan gladly accepted her life preserver.

“I’ve been called worse by better.” he submitted. “I think you’re right though, y’know? That is why we’re an army. Trust. Loyalty. When you asked what sorts of truths I’d reconsidered after leaving Ryloth, I think that’s part of it. I left ready to give my all for the Empire. For what it meant to me. For its ideals. But the further along I get, I realize it’s just like everything else. People.”

His hand closed over hers reflexively. In itself, the gesture seemed as natural as anything else and Kellan felt no awkwardness attached to so intimate a display. Whatever feelings were being cultivated within him for Merian were entirely unique to him. He was of course aware that she was a woman, an attractive one at that, but he found himself steeped more in admiration for her than attraction. And though he wouldn’t have been able to voice the feeling, there was the sense within him that harboring anything akin to romantic feelings for Merian would somehow constitute a downgrade of what he truly felt for her.

He gave her hand a desultory squeeze and withdrew his own.

“Adrift in the middle of the ocean as a good time, eh?” he whistled and shook his head. “Well at least you’re easy to please! Still, no progress without struggle. I can swim but can say I’ve never been diving. If you’re willing to keep me from drowning, I’m willing to learn.”

“Now, what could I teach you? Let me see.”

He glanced at her empty glass and flashed a goading smile.

“Temperance?”

@Volene

 

[Merian Sere]

Theme​

For someone who’d offered her hand, Merian was almost surprised that he took it. Kellan’s hand was warm, warmer than hers, and as she held it and held his eyes Merian felt these butterflies rise up in her, like those first few times after she’d fallen for Maros. She felt guilty for each of their fluttering. She hadn’t meant it like that, but since she’d offered she could hardly back out now. Thankfully he withdrew before long, leaving the knight relieved and wanting. She imagined sinking into his arms. Would they be as comforting as his words tonight?

“Temperance?” she protested. “That’s rich. You’re the one who made me drink in the first place.”

Their plates appeared before them, along with the third round which Merian downed right away, leaving the waiter to bring back the glass after serving Kellan. Maybe this way she could excuse the feeling. The plates were gorgeous, full and artistically arranged. Each shrimp was almost as big as her hand.

Merian didn’t waste any time. It wasn’t quite like Iloh, nothing was, but shrimp was shrimp.

“You know, it’s very rude, what you did,” she said through a mouthful. “Very inefficient. You ordered last, you’re supposed to get something different so we can both get a taste of the other’s. You’re intelligence now, you need to think of these things.”

She waited for the conversation to hit a lull before she addressed his other point.

“Rather adrift in the ocean than adrift in space,” Merian said. “At least one of them’s propping you up to breathe. But diving after three drinks, what could go wrong?” she laughed. “Perfect plan for their fishermen to bring back two corpses with tomorrow’s haul.”

She thought it over, the time of a bite.

“One corpse,” she rectified. “I am very good at this.”