revivalproject | Open Log [2]

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Open Log [2]

WHO: Altair Kallig & You
WHERE: Greenhouse, various other areas, hotel
WHAT: Work, play, and exploration!
WHEN: Nov 6 - Nov 8
WARNINGS: None! Will update if this changes.

[Greenhouse (Nov 6)]

He wouldn't go so far as to call it his favorite place, but tending to the greenhouse has become somewhat of a standard activity for him. Tending to his alcohol project, which he's decided to continue, as there had been truth in what he'd said, that where there were sentient beings, there were beings looking to have a good time and relax with a drink. What he'd shared with Eli and Thrawn was certainly passable, wouldn't get you in trouble in slave settlements or even on Korriban, but he was determined to at least make something that would be accepted even on Dromund Kaas.

If only in the seedier cantinas, rather than the Nexus Room. Not even the poorest of the Kaas City elite would accept a drink that didn't come from a bottle with a brand name on it, after all, even if it should taste better, and only the elite were accepted there.

Honestly, the work made him miss his home.

Dromund Kaas had been rainy and hot and miserable with lightning that could completely obliterate a person had it not been for the spires, but he had loved it. The Sith playing their games, the politics, the interesting intricate webs of lies that had been so fun to observe, to see where they'd go.

Sighing to himself, he pruned back yet more weeds trying to overtake one of his favorite plants, small with pink leaves, with berries that tasted as sweet as candy, and yet somehow had a cooling effect when eating too, as though they were frozen. This was enjoyable work, but also left him with a lot of time to think.

But then, that was the truth of all of his time here- whenever he was alone, at least.

[Exploration (Nov 7)]

Trekking across unfamiliar lands is something he's used to, too. As an apprentice, he'd been sent across the galaxy. He'd set foot on Balmorra, on Tatooine, Nar Shaddaa... As a Lord, he'd traveled even further. Taris, Quesh, Hoth, and many other places. Still, there is something more unsettling about this place. Even more unsettling than the blighted Taris, even with all its Rakghouls.

Calling it similar to what he'd felt as Ziost died came close.

Like something entirely wrong in the Force.

Of course, that could just be the effects of Ziost, following him even here.

Still, it is important to explore. A Sith like him who thrived on information couldn't be ignorant of his surroundings, after all.

So he wanders, veil in place, though as he stops here and there, writing down notes in the notebook he'd been oh-so kindly given, he does wish he had some goggles or something, so he wouldn't have to keep the notebook so close to his body to glance down from beneath his veil.

Something to ask the Agrii for, at some point. Assuming he can get them to understand. Assuming they don't give him something entirely garish if they do understand.

[Hotel (Nov 8)]

The hotel seems a risky place to be, at the same time as it is technically the safest, considering the amount of people that seems to be gathered there. Technically, Altair does very little in the hotel. He's found himself a room that he's managed to get mostly cleaned up. At least enough to make it habitable, even if it more or less is only to sleep.

He's managed to find himself something to block the door with too, when he's off in dreamland, and he's set up something like an alarm system that will warn him of intruders, though it's simple- only a light item that will break if it falls, set up so that if someone manages to get the door open, he'll be alerted and can take appropriate action.

After their forced bonding time in the ships, he has taken to sleeping clutching his dualsaber like a security blanket, not wanting to find himself accidentally separated from his weapon.

Still, when he's not in his room, he can most often be found in the lobby or sitting near the wall on the stairs, and now that he has the materials to do so, he spends his time working on a needlepoint project.

Glancing down beneath his veil to see what he's doing.

Hardly convenient, but he's not ready to give up the veil either.

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Krista spends most nights in the Hotel, but not because she likes it. She tends to push her luck, in fact, showing up as late as the dwindling sunlight will let her get away with, and then trudging straight up to her room without really talking to anyone. She crashes in her hammock, sleeps for a few hours, and then is up again at sunrise to head right back out into another weird new day.

But, as tired as she is this evening, seeing the familiar form of Altair near the stairs again is enough to make her pause. For a second, she worries that he's hurt or something... But then she realizes he's just huddled over a project, and the stupid relief she feels is enough to get her to actually go out of her way to say hi to him.

She hugs her own hardcover journal close to her chest as she hops up the stairs, stopping one or two steps lower just to get somewhere near eye level. She's got a small smile on her face as she greets him in her usual, quiet voice.

"Hey, funny running into you here again."

"Krista," He greets, with a small smile of his own, lifting his head as though to look, even though his eyes are covered as always, "Greetings. And I suppose it is... It always seems to be here, doesn't it?"

Only twice, but still. The lobby, the stairs. He hopes that won't become a running theme for their meetings- even if there certainly are stranger circumstances in which he's met people. A lot stranger circumstances, in fact.

He sets his project down in his lap- barely started, but it seems to be intended to be a profile portrait of a woman who is most certainly not human.

"Are you doing well?"

"Yeah, I'm doing okay."

She nods at the question, though her eyes have clearly followed his project. She even tilts her head to the left and to the right while she still responds, not at all hiding that she's trying to figure out what it is she's looking at.

"A lot less despair, anyway. That's been good." And next, bluntly (and curiously), "What're you working on?"

"Glad to hear it," He says, and certainly means it, too.

He has sort of worried about her, in all this chaos, already considering her a friend. Who else will he make jokes about beings that are all leg with, after all, or bad poetry about frustrations about stairs.

Her question about what he's working on earns a slightly smaller smile, and had his eyes been visible, it would have looked like a sad one.

"An embroidered portrait of my apprentice, Ashara. Assuming I have enough, or can get enough, materials, I was planning on making one of each of my crew back home."

She's tallying up each little kindness in the back of her mind. She won't bring attention to it, probably, but she is counting. She's glad that she wasn't just making up how well they seemed to get along last time.

Whatever explaination she was expecting out of Altair, it apparently wasn't this--she looks surprised, and then a little sad herself, even though she can't see his expression.

"Aw, that's... Really nice."

But that sounds... dumb, so Krista mushes the fingers of one of her hands self-consciously against her mouth, looking back up at where she assumes his eyes would be.

"It's... I'm trying to think of a better word. But that's good. A good project."

A Sith wasn't supposed to have connections. A Sith was supposed to see others as disposable. But that wasn't him. It never had been, and it never would be. Other Sith saw that trait of his as a weakness, but he saw it as a strength.

He smiled slightly, tracing his fingers over the needlepoint project, "... I miss them already. I know they're managing without me, but..."

Ziost, again. Always Ziost. Ashara had been with him, there on the orbital station. How was she doing? How was everyone else? It's... A concern.

"It's the same for everyone, of course."

He shrugs his shoulders, dismissing his own feelings, and pats the spot beside him, "Sit with me for a while? It's good to have your company."

She definitely understands. It's a feeling that has only grown for her the longer she's been away from home, and it's a little jarring, suddenly sharing the sentiment with someone she has, objectively, only known for a short time.

But it's important. Some deeper, ancient part of her knows that she should follow it. Being asked to sit makes so much sense that she doesn't even question it.

"I was just about to ask," she admits, smile returning. "Glad you beat me to it."

As she climbs the next couple of steps, she opens her book and rifles through the early pages. As soon as she's sitting down, she holds it out for him to see a set of pages where, nestled among meticulously scribbled notes, are illustrations of seven different figures.

One of them is huge compared to the others, a muscular man with tusks protruding from his mouth, and a large hammer balanced over one shoulder. His drawing is one of the only two with any color, skin accented blue. Other figures include an adult woman and a teenage girl, both slender and beautiful, a sad-looking boy with a face covered in bony ridges, another boy with pointed features and red-tinged skin, and an inexplicably normal-looking human man.

The final figure, easy to miss, is a pid. Young, standing on its hind legs, holding a sword that kind of looks like it's made of lightning. Some artistic liberties have probably been taken with these, as Krista is not a portrait artist or anything... But, still, there's no mistaking it for anything other than a pig.

"See, these are my guys, from back home. They're one of the first things I put in here, in case I forget about them later or something."

He leans over slightly to look down from beneath his veil, and he smiles. If there is anything strange or unusual about her group of friends to him, he doesn't say it, or show it. He's not human himself, after all, and through his travels has met and interacted with many alien species who look a lot different than him.

"They look like a good group of friends."

Reaching beside himself, he pulls out a notebook, hidden between himself and the wall. It's absolutely a garish nightmare, but it is what the Agrii saw fit to give him.

"I understand your concern, too."

It's one he has himself. Flipping open his notebook, which he technically asked for to take notes and keep records, he holds it out for her to see. He's drawn his own companions, despite only having awful scented gel pens to work with. The alien woman he's working on making an embroidery of, a man with a bone mask over a very obviously alien face, a large muscular creature with a face sort of like a deep sea anglerfish, and two ordinary-looking humans- one small and kind, the other slightly younger and looking gruffer, with a tattoo on one side of face. There's also a droid, that he's drawn looking very nervous.

"Drawings are a little faster than embroideries, so..."

He trails off, then shrugs his shoulders. Honestly he was just impatient to have physical reminders of his crew. At the top of the page he's drawn on there's also some writing- having written the Sith Code down, just in case.

She has to cover her mouth not to burst into surprised (albiet quiet) laughter at the sight of the notebook. She knows that the Agrii don't exactly give people the most ideal iterations of things they ask for (the large hunk of natural chalk sitting up in her room is a testiment to that), but it's such a stark contrast compared to the fairly respectable person holding it up that she can't not find it innately hilarious.

But, thankfully, she can only focus on the journal for so long before pictures come into play. Despite the pastel colors, she quickly zeroes in on the pictures, a lot like hers.

"Oh, look...!"

Exclaimed as if Altair somehow hadn't drawn them himself... She leans in, reaching over, very gently touching the page where there isn't any ink to accidentally smear.

"That's... I can't believe it." Mostly that someone else out there is worried enough to also draw their group of friends, but the variety on the page. They look like a group she'd meet in the Dreaming, not all that far from her group at all. Curiously, she points to one with the mask.

"Who's this guy? His face looks cool."

"It's garish, I know," He says, with a touch of laughter to his own voice, "But it still serves its purpose."

Too colorful for Altair's liking, but beggars can't exactly be choosers, either.

He pulls his veil forward a little without pulling it up to see where she's pointing, and then smiles, "My apprentice, Xivhkalrainik, though everyone calls him Xalek."

Xivhkalrainik was a rather long name. And most had difficulties pronouncing it. Xalek had just been more convenient.

"He's a Kaleesh. They're a very war-like and ritualistic people, and honor is very important to them. Xalek is not really one for words, but he is dependable."

"Boy, I sure glad you followed that up with a nickname, because I was gonna say..."

But 'Xalek" seems easy enough to remember, at least. She nods along, absorbing everything he tells her as if there was going to be a test on it later--and then points to another one, the woman.

"What about this her? She's the one you're embroidering, right?"

She's genuinely curious--but she also glances back, to see if he does that thing with his veil again.

"I'm told my species can have long and complicated names, too."

He was pretty sure that was true for any species, really. Some had long, complicated names. Some had short names. Some were just plain unusual. He had an ancestor named Aloysius, after all, and that was really, really weird to him. So archaic.

Altair does pull the veil forward a little again, and the smile this time around is fond.

"Ashara Zavros. She's something special. Stubborn. Headstrong. A bit awkward and forceful at times. Not at all like that at other times. She'll charge up to a problem and when it doesn't immediately solve itself, she'll growl and grumble and yell about the world being unfair, she'll give up and ignore me for a day or two... Then she'll go right back to finding her own way. Spreading her wings. Moving forward along her own path."

Sometimes the two of them argued. They didn't see eye to eye on a lot of things. But Ashara had chosen to come along with him. She'd chosen to follow him, with all his darkness, with all his fear and his insecurities. Because she believed in him. And he believed in her.

"She's my apprentice, but honestly I've learned more from her than she has from me."

“I guess I’m not one to talk...”

It’s in regards to names, but what does that mean? She shakes her head and focuses on the page anyway, listening to what he has to say about Ashara in contemplative silence.

“She sounds... Kind of like...” She tries, for a moment, to try and think of who in her friend group best fits. Bridget? No, no, not nearly brave enough. Anton? No, he’s a big baby too, and after another moment, she stops to laugh, because, “Oh, I guess I’m thinking of me.”

Speaking of that, she looks back over at Altair., “Hey, can I ask you a dumb question?”

"You do remind me of her a lot," He admits with a small smile. It's obvious that this isn't a bad thing though. His tone of voice suggests that it is, in fact, a very good thing. He touches the drawing of Ashara gently, careful not to smudge any ink. He misses her, much like he misses all the rest of his crew.

It's been a long time since he's felt so alone.

He raises his head when Krista asks if she can ask him a question, then tilts it to the side slightly, "Of course. Go ahead."

She’s kind of surprised to hear him agree. It just seems like a lot of compliments in a row. Maybe Altair is a lot less tricky than she’d thought (and, maybe, it’s kind of rare that people seem to like her this much right off the bat).

“What’s your, um...” She leans back so that she can gesture over the front of her face. “The thing you’re wearing. Is it for something?”

Yeah, she might not be sure whether or not she can call it a veil.

The question does spark a bit of fear in him, not shown in his expression, but his shoulders draw up slightly, his body language slightly tense. It's been some time since he's feared someone discovering his true species, really, but the fear is instinctual more-so than anything else. After all, he is no Lord of the Sith here. Only himself.

"It is," He confirms, with a slight nod of his head.

"I just can't tell you what it's for without revealing things about myself that I'd rather be left a secret. At least for now."

Had they been where he is from, he'd be okay with it. He'd kept his veil off at times at home, after all. He'd never hidden his species from his crew, and most citizens of the Empire who cared to look into who he was, also knew. But here? Here he would rather keep it a secret. Especially knowing he's not the only one of his species present.

She doesn't consciously realize it, but she picks up on the body language. Whatever this is, it's kind of a big deal--and his explanation only has her nodding in quick agreement.

"Oh, I get that. No worries." Honestly, she's happy that he even bothered to explain why he didn't want to talk about it. She presses her lips into a thin line before adding, "I'm the same way, so. There's some stuff you've just gotta be careful about."

Funny enough, she's never actually met anyone during her world-hopping adventures that have posed a danger to her... Except for maybe Tabby, but Tabby probably would have tried to eat her even if she wasn't magical.

That said, she actually lets out a small laugh. "I was actually just asking because it looks like kind of a pain to see over."

"It can be," He agrees, relaxing slightly when she doesn't press for an answer beyond what he gave. His body language becomes less tense, shoulders lowering, and he even manages a slight smile, "At least for things like this."

He makes a slight gesture to the notebook, his needlepoint.

"I can see you though, even with this. Not with my eyes, obviously. But I can sense where you are, I can sense that it's you, even if you hadn't spoken to me. Probably other things too, had I been the type to pry- but I rarely am."

Not with friends, anyway. With enemies he'll take as deep of a look as he wants.

"Had I not been able to sense my surroundings I probably would have walked myself off a cliff by now. So the veil isn't as big a bother as it could have been."

But then, had he not been Force-sensitive, he wouldn't be wearing it, either.

"Whoa, really?" It looks like this is blowing her mind a little bit. "Wow, that's... Kind of creepy but also like, really cool!"

She can see and sense some things, but those things always seem to be too specific and too vague all at the same time. She finally closes her book, leaning back against the wall just as a sudden idea hits her.

"Oh, shit. So you probably know that I'm not--" She stops herself, frowning. Her brow furrows as she starts thinking too hard. "--or maybe you don't? I don't know..."

"So far as creep factor goes, I'd say it ranks fairly low," He says, with a hint of humor to his voice, "I got the idea of doing it from a species called the Miraluka. They are born without eyes, and so rely on the Force to see for them. It was not quite so intuitive for me, at first, as I am no Miraluka."

His veil too, was in a style similar to what the Miraluka wore, though he wouldn't get into that- he doubts it would be an interesting topic to discuss.

He tilts his head then, "... If there is something about you one would not know from looking at you, that you would prefer being kept secret, I can assure you that any such thing is safe with me."

Honestly, the only things he's been able to sense are things like mood- which he can sort of tell even without relying on the Force, and that she's not human- though she's not of a species he's interacted with before either. That hardly matters to him, though. Krista is just Krista to him. That's all that really matters.

Well, she at least appreciates the way he’s going out of his way to promise he can keep a secret. She sighs a very teenager-y sigh, actually relaxing back against the wall this time.

“Nah... I mean, I would appreciate that, but I’m more annoyed that I went way out of my way to pretend to be a normal human when you basically knew that I’m not the whole time.”

They can go back to Miraluka in a second. Krista needs to pretend to sulk.

"I understand. Pretending you're something you're not can be very difficult."

He should know. After all, he's lived nearly four years now, pretending to be something other than he is. Not only playing at being a different species entirely, but parts of his personality too. There are definitely parts of him that wouldn't be had his situation been anything but the cards that he had been dealt.

He lets her sulk, sitting in silence, before speaking again, "Honestly though, where I'm from, being able to pretend to be human wouldn't be a bad thing. So I suppose I'm a bit jealous there."

Even if not necessarily human, he'd give a lot to be a different species.

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Open Log [2]

Hotel

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