Office by Alex Penny
Apprentice to Bi'ev. You don't need to know anything else.
(( Ebon Hawk. @Tazhezyst ))
I decided to decorate my Master’s ship for all of that Life Day nonsense.
It’s put him on edge. I suspect he figures it’s a prelude to something lethal or violent.
That, of course, means that I’ve done it right.
I can’t believe he never changed the access codes. I also can’t believe he sits there and listens to me talk about synthweaving for hours; it’s boring, and I’m eventually going to run out of even made up little tidbits to mention.
Admittedly, I’m rather surprised I haven’t been shocked or told to leave yet. Stars, I wonder if he thinks I’m serious—oh well, if it keeps him thinking I’m a nice looking, harmless, docile servant, all the better.
I was quietly (that being at my own request) given the title of Darth some weeks back.
I do not like to brag, and certainly have no intentions of putting on a big production about it, but it is somewhat nice to not have to take any idiocy from—well, nearly anyone now.
While I do know that it shouldn’t bother me as much as it does, I dislike people insisting that Rutian Twi’lek are any shade of blue. Rutian encompasses very specific shades of blue, as anyone involved in the slave trade (or who has been a slave) would be well aware.
Rutian denotes any Twi’lek with a skin color in shades ranging from dark blue and aquamarine to teal and turquoise; notice that the latter three do contain some measure of green undertones. The more green, while still appearing blue, the more expensive. Of course, all of those shades are pricier than a ‘normal’ Twi’lek, and cheaper than Lethan, but lately there has been an influx of either unscrupulous slavers, unwitting buyers, or deluded former slaves that believe that that ghastly pale, common bluish color is somehow “Rutian”.
I find it rather insulting. While I am not the rarest shades of blue, I am a rather nice, dark, even blue and, thus, Rutian.
I can see how a slaver could make a quick few extra credits by pulling one over on an unsuspecting or uneducated buyer and, frankly, it would serve them right to be taken for a ride if they couldn’t bother to research first.
Regardless, I do see it as a bit of a—flaw—of mine that hearing that sort of minor misinformation bothers me, and that it bothers me as a matter of semantics, not because it’s discussing my own people as property.
Ah well, we can’t all be perfect, can we?
I met one of Lord Ixor’semo’s friends a couple of nights back.
Uncultured, tattooed, loud, probably uneducated Lethan man.
What a shame he ruined his looks with those gaudy, uneven looking tattoos; you’d think someone with such a desirable skin pigment would be less prone to wanting to mar it with drawings. Perhaps he believes it will make him less desirable to slavers, or perhaps he’s little more than a child with a marker and a blank wall.
The man was friendly enough, of course, despite only introducing himself as Kaz, but so—low class.
On the positive side, he wasn’t a drunk, doesn’t appear to be a regular spice user and, despite his lack of social refinement, does appear to have his head screwed on straight. I do wish those hunter types would realize that they are allowed to wear things that don’t have gas cylinders, small engines, and dirty metal bits attached to various parts, however.
Division comm chatter has been more quiet than usual as of late which, given the recent circumstances surrounding Darth Arannek, is not surprising; I would imagine that Achai is busy scraping up the remnants and reassigning the few Agents of Arannek’s that remain to tasks that are likely less horrible in nature.
As for my Master’s behavior, it’s hardly changed. He comes and goes as usual, we have tea, he talks at me (and occasionally does ask my opinion on something, usually related to his ghastly clothing), and I have been aiding him in going through a backlog of datacrons and the occasional holocron.
Interesting enough work, I suppose.
Augmentation kits seem to have made me rather wealthy, not to mention selling a near closet-fully of gaudy, ugly violet robes.
It’s almost a pity that I’ve got nothing to spend it on. Now that I’ve said, that, of course, I’d be willing to bet that the hyperdrive on my ship blows out or something else equally expensive falls into my lap in the form of an invoice.
Somewhat tempting to see if I can convince Bi’ev to sell me a Darth title.
Silly thought, that. He’d either find it amusing or insulting, and I don’t know that I’m willing to place a bet on amusing.
I seem to have a female admirer of sorts.
She’s rather intimidating; large Pureblood woman.
Evidently, I’m enough of a gentleman and reasonably decent looking. I can’t argue with that, though I just consider the former basic social skills.
She had asked to catch up, as we hadn’t spoken in some time. We ended up at the Nexus Room cantina, and ran into a few people we both knew, most notably Agent Worms. She introduced us to another agent, Caspira, I believe. Obisen stopped by later, though we rarely talk. He seems to be a bit—odd around me, as if I somehow make him uncomfortable.
A few others came and went, though I can’t recall who.
After several hours of conversation, and my being rather oblivious to the silence and blushing (Honestly, how DO you tell if a red skinned alien is blushing if they also have red blood?) she mentioned that she was quite taken with me, couldn’t believe I was single, and found herself highly confused as she did not typically find herself attracted to men.
Let alone alien men.
Rather flattering, really, though she seems the sort that might be able to crush skulls with her thighs. If nothing else, she is decent conversation on a friendly level and doesn’t refer to me as ‘alien’.
In one sense, I could say I’ve picked it up from my Master, but that would be just a bit of a lie.
Quiet observer has always been where I end up, it’s how I grew up, how I got through the Academy, and how I function as a Sith.
I am always simply there, and usually unnoticed or discounted.
Even that woman who is continually sniffing around my Master’s agent hasn’t seemed to notice when I’m present; that’s actually a bit of a blessing, considering how utterly unpleasant she is.
Watching things unfold within the Division has been interesting; most of them are more than willing to speak freely when I’m around as they’re usually unaware of it.
Lord Setekh asked me if I knew my Master well.
He followed that up with, “I’m curious, should there be trouble between some under Darth Arannek…your Master strikes me as the type to stay out of it mostly, yes?”
This doesn’t bode well.
Time to fall back into the background and watch.
In the past week, via my Master, I have learned the following things:
I did remember to wish him a happy birthday, though his reply was along the lines of me only being pleased he was one year closer to the grave.
It’s not entirely incorrect, so I did not argue.
The only benefit of my Master using me as a sounding board for complaints is that I know just about as much about what’s going on in his life and the lives of those around him as he does.
It’s starting to make me feel like the normal apprentice—though I have been a Lord now for some time.
I don’t know what he’s going to do with that supposed Jedi he had that Agent drag in. I can’t imagine he thinks he’s going to turn it; knowing him he’ll just keep it as a personal torment battery until it starts to get boring.
On the other hand, it wasn’t an exceptionally skilled Jedi if all it was doing was empire building on Nar Shaddaa.
Hopefully, I don’t have to deal with it; I dislike dealing with his cast offs and side projects. Most of them are dreadful, dreadful people, even by Sith standards.
That aside, I’ve got to do something about my robes. I found the most horrid looking things I could just to see if anyone, particularly strangers, would bother pointing out to a Sith Lord that he was dressed like a colorblind madman.
As it stands, only people I know have mentioned it. I thought Obisen was going to cry over how gaudy my robes are.
I am not, perhaps, the most outwardly stereotypical of Sith. I’m slow to anger, much to my Master’s dismay. I rarely raise my voice unless it’s necessary to actually be heard. I tend to be quiet, sociable, and generally friendly.
That suits me just fine, most Sith that I’ve met saunter about coming off as idiots anyway, using nothing more than the—it’s not even mystique, just word association—that goes along with someone saying the word Sith.
Many appear to be little more than spoiled brats with a nice weapon.
Yes, yes, galaxy pardon me if I’ve better things to do with my time than swagger around a cantina (or worse, Vaiken Station) asking others if they’d like to see my lightsaber, dance on tables as though I were some spiced up idiot with the most banal idea of fun, or give me free drinks or “suffer the consequences”.
Thankfully, most of those with whom I associate share the same disdain for what amounts to common galaxy trash.
That said, I will never understand why some people think it’s necessarily a good idea to get mouthy with Sith, especially older, obviously more powerful Sith. That’s just flat out stupidity, whether the one talking back is Sith or not.
One of my Master’s other apprentices seems to have had an issue with running his mouth the past couple of weeks; he’s quite lucky his Master doesn’t have the same temper as Darth Arannek. They work together. Loosely. And side by side with Arannek, Bi’ev comes off as calm, rational, and somewhat forgiving, which says quite a bit.
Etisacaar, I was certain, was angling for Arannek to kill him yesterday. Maybe he was. I know he was in a bit of a state.
I tried to get him to shut up—Etisacaar, that is—before Arannek changed his mind to bypass Bi’ev and deal with him directly, and it only resulted in one of Arannek’s apprentices telling me that it was a waste of time to try and ‘defend’ Etisacaar. Doing so would only add me to the list of things to obliterate, evidently.
Being that I am not an idiot and do actually store some brain matter in my lekku, I told Darth Arannek that I would go and find my Master for him, since I typically know his patterns and where he is when on comm silence.
I’ve no idea what happened, but my Master is still alive and Etisacaar is still alive. I suspect Arannek is still livid, though. In fact, I doubt it’s even over Etisacaar’s somewhat embarrassing public behavior at this point. It may just be over the fact that Etisacaar was so openly—not even defiant, just the fact that he had the nerve to talk back and argue instead of knowing when to simply say, “Understood. It won’t happen again, my Lord.”
I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t love to know how Bi’ev talked his and Etisacaar’s way out of the brunt of Arannek’s temper, but I’m not dumb enough to risk my own Master’s temper by asking.
