Ask Rock Bottom

[Quin Leonkri]

Quin felt his attention jerk back into the present as Vayla said his name. But even without her directly addressing him, he still probably would have been just as intrigued and mortified when she revealed her suspicions about Lemon’s master.

“B-but it doesn’t make sense! How can that be?” The Padawan couldn’t understand. “How can Lemon be a Jedi if her master turned to the dark side? Wouldn’t she be all- all Sithy or something? That’s impossible!” Master Mirror had to be getting something wrong. Quin would trust her with his life, but this… this was getting to be a little too much. When he’d met Lemon, she’d only been training for a few months. From what it sounded like, Cerean Orion had turned to the dark side a long time before, so how was it possible that Lemon was on the light side?

“They have to be different people. It just— it doesn’t make sense.” Quin’s shoulders slumped. If it was true… had Lemon been hiding who she was all along? Or was Vayla revealing this because she saw how attached he’d become to the Togruta? He didn’t know what to think anymore.

“Let’s get to finding Sars, Master. Every minute we waste here is a minute he has to get away.” Quin suddenly felt the urge to leave. He didn’t want to believe that either Lemon or Vayla had been lying to him, but now he was thoroughly convinced that one of them had to be. Who it was he didn’t know, but he would make sure to find out.

@Die Shize

 

[Vayla Mirana]

Spoiler: Music OOC

All Sithy.
Is it silly?
To think.
A Jedi.
By Sith.

One might assume.
A Jedi would be Sith too.
So is the master a grey Jedi?
That silly trope is not quite right.

Neither is a rigid definition of ‘sides’.
No, lore is lore; here a certain kind.
Dark side does not assume the Sith.
Light side does not assume the Jedi.

There was more than one way to fall.
Jedi have fallen to Sith though not all.
There are those fallen and then falling.
Whatever you are...you lost your calling...

Quin could not be blamed for his disbelief.
A killer in prison to electrocution’s degree.
Cerean killed for whatever the real reason.
Even Vayla doesn’t know; needs to find him.

Whether Jedi he is, Jedi he was—Sith now is?
For however long he spent training his Leh’Min’.
Vayla and Quin, they need to find him, answers.
Before more than Padawans end up hurt…or worse.

In a prison Vayla had mentioned to Quin.
The death had been by electrocution.
The Sith are known to electrocute.
The Jedi have their Judgment too.

“Before we leave, Quin, understand something.”
Vayla can tell how upset her own Padawan is.
“I know this is much to take in. It is troubling.

Falling to the dark side may not be overnight.
Cerean...may remain today in name as a Jedi.
If yet a Knight removed—from the public eye.
Enough to take in an apprentice—on his right.

Was Jedi with me—but I speak of Leh’Min’Ayd.
The deeper one falls then the more it will show.
Officially he has done nothing as far as I know.
Cerean—odd lessons—killed in prison—and yet

He may for now straddle the line between them.
The dark and the light. Which means our young
Friend, Leh’Min, is more confused than I can guess.
Worse...she is herself in danger of making a descent.

Cerean may believe his methods are ever for the best.
But in the end he will take both of them to their deaths.
If he is Jedi, Sith, on the line or is now for the dark side.”
She trails off, taking a breath, ear’s twitch, eyes into eyes.
“Quin…the deeper is Cerean the same may go for Leh’Min.”

That was yet the master’s lesson to her Padawan.
Falling to the dark side didn’t just mean you were gone.
Sometimes it meant that those with you also become lost.
Because you can drag them into the pit with you, into the maw.

Vayla can sense her master’s presence every now and then.
It is faint, aimless in direction; but a blur of a Force signature.
It is not the kind of sensation to determine whether dark, light.
It is more like that feeling of being woken—like a thorn in a side.

Whether Quin was feeling calm again or not.
Vayla receives a notification on her datapad.
Focusing on another topic, she turns it on.
Messages—new intel—she slides a hand.

“You are ever on point with it, Quin-Quin.
Sars Valt is…as your family mentioned.”
Master Mirror offers datapad—a pivot.
“An unscrupulous slug—as proven.”

Vayla’s own sources corroborated.
“He is using illicit profits to fund this."
A Shadow has her methods for information.
More importantly is what’s onscreen—images.

Spoiler

“Spero Station. It is a research facility.”
Spero is yet not of Sars Valt's company.
And is itself a scientific research entity.
But the holonet didn’t have much on it.
“East of here. Not inside. Outside the city.
Whatever they are researching, that’s our key.”

Vayla closes her datapad and prepares to leave.
“We may have caught a break, maybe our best lead.
Something we can use, not as blackmail, but for Valt Ventures.
For Sars Valt. To find out what he is up to. And find Cerean in turn.”

Eyes into eyes.
Jedi’s into Jedi’s.
Electric, Master Mirror's!
“And we will do it together.”

[EXIT VAYLA]

@Sicadorito