Ask Direction

[Lilith Vye]

Life felt aimless now. There wasn't much she did anymore, and not much she felt motivated to do. If she went out and fought now, she knew that she'd ikely fall prey to the Dark Sides whispers again.

She still hated the hutts. She still wanted them to all die and... she pushed the thoughts aside.

Her training under Oren helped yet her setback seeing Talak had made it feel more like a blur. At least she hadn't drawn on the Dark again, that was a small light at the end of the tunnel. But Oren was busy, and she had distanced herself from him to avoid being a distraction.

Still, there was something to focus on. She clicked on the small datapad in front of her, trying to work out everything she could for her visitor who'd requested a mod for his new eye.

Lilith leaned back in her chair when she heard footsteps just outside her ships door. Her ship was her home and so it was the only place she'd agree to do some work. The door was open to let fresh air in, and so when she spoke her visitor more than likely could hear her, "An ex-Sith doing modifications to a Jedi's cybernetics. I don't know, sounds like a bad idea doesn't it?"

@Nefieslab

 

[Maxims Tionson]

Max had to admit that it probably was a little bit odd for a Jedi Master to be spending time with an Ex-Sith but... well people who had their own past with the Dark Side made up about half of his current crop of friends so he didn't actually find it that odd. He probably should still find it odd but he wasn't ever that concerned with how he should live his life, just that he lived it without breaking his own beliefs.

He smiled a little bit as he wandered on into the ship.

"I don't know, sounds perfectly reasonable to me." he responded as he walked on it with a small bag in one hand, "You have any idea how long the waiting lists are to be seen by 'officially licensed eye-specialist programmers'? Very. Very long, Lils."

Walking into the ship proper, he set down the bag atop a table close to her and shrugged a little bit as he pulled out a bottle of red wine he had purchased from Naboo. He read the label a little bit.

"Ten years old... that was a good year, right?" he asked casually as he set it back down for her with a grin, "It's poor manners to be invited into someone's home and not bring a gift."

@Dread

 

[Lilith Vye]

Did he... just call her Lils?

No, she must've misheard him. No one called her Lils.

"Maybe I should get into the business then," she mumbled, musing the idea for a second. "Meh, too boring." And she could get much bigger payloads from slicing. Perhaps she should go back to a life of crime? Target big companies and avoid causing misfortune to the little people... or maybe not.

Her eyes flicked to the wine as he placed it on the table, a small hint of disappointment in them the moment they landed on the label. "Piss water doesn't get better over time," she said bluntly, though a faint mischievous smirk betrayed what she planned to do next. Her hand outstretched and a bottle of wine from her cabinet flew into her hand.

There was already a small glass in front of her, obviously, that looked very used, which she filled with the wine first. Then she pushed another small glass towards him, filling it too before placing the bottle back on the table. "Now this is good wine," she said, downing her own glass in a single try. She looked back to her datapad, though a thought accrued to her as she typed, "Don't worry, I could do this hammered and high out of my mind, it'd just take me longer," she added with a shrug.

@Nefieslab

 

[Maxims Tionson]

Hehe Max could already tell that she loved her new nickname and why shouldn’t she? He was doing his best here to make sure they were more relaxed around each other. Despite not seeing anything too odd about the whole scenario, he knew well enough that she was nervous. Hopefully she wasn’t nervous about the actual tech side of things but he wouldn’t blame her if she was.

Eyes weren’t typical mechanical things people operated on.

“Oh I’m sure you would get bored of it.” He agreed with a shrug, “Surgical maintenance – or whatever it is called – feels like a niche market too. How many of us could there really be after all?”

Pisswater?

He raised both eyebrows and placed a hand over his heart in mock shock and horror as she insulted the wine he had brought with him. Honestly? He had no idea if it was a good wine or not – he barely drank these days so she was probably a better judge of the stuff than he was. These days Max only knew that there were whites, reds and roses… everything else was kind of just beyond him. Taking the offered glass however, Max raised the glass in a toast.

“Here’s to your skills then.” He toasted and took a drink before shrugging a little bit, “My palate is very uncultured… I think it’s good?”

Might be he needed a cybernetic tongue at this rate but those were thoughts for later. He wasn’t exactly swimming in invitations to wine tastings after all. He tapped at the cybernetic eye with a finger as he set his glass down.

“So do you need it in-head or should I pop it out?”

… that was an odd way to say that, granted.

@Dread

 

[Lilith Vye]

"Might be more than you think," she said. "Especially in the Jedi," she added half-jokingly, though moments after realized it might be a little insensitive. Stupid, she thought. She still felt guilt for what she'd done to Oren.

Though her mind was soothed a little at the Jedi's mock-shock and disappointment and it did prompt a small smile from her. She poured another glass for herself, toasting him back and downing half the glass. Downing wine was probably extremely unattractive and it didn't leave her feeling that great, but she couldn't careless. If she didn't suspect the spice might tip her the wrong way, he probably would've arrived to her being karked up.

"Out," she said, pointing to a small square device on her table. There was a divot in it for him to put his eye in. "But," she paused, looking back up to him for a second though her eyes contact faltered a few times. "I don't want credits for this job. If I do this I want information. Nothing that might compromise you or anyone I just want to know..."

Lilith hesitated, taking another sip, "How are the Jedi doing?"

@Nefieslab

 

[Maxims Tionson]

She… actually kind of had a point with that one actually. He chuckled a little bit as he thought about the number of Jedi who ended up with cybernetics. Although there were only a few of them who had lost eyes at this point, it was very clear that being a Jedi was a hazardous occupation for sure and sometimes that meant replacement parts were required.

“Well so long as our mechanic is good – I’m sure we’ll keep on going.” He assured her with a wink, sensing her darkening mood, “Don’t you worry about us old boys. We’re tough.”

Him and Oren? They had to be tough.

There was a storm around the Galaxy and around the Jedi Order in particular and they needed to be strong to weather it. Unlike the governments of the Galaxy, the Jedi couldn’t afford to bend with the wind when it came to the storm. They needed to be strong enough to stand fully in it’s wake and hold their ground.

Change was fine, natural even, but changing to suit the madness and chaos brought out by the Sith was something a Jedi could not do. Activating the release, he set his eye down in the divot she had in the table ready for it.

“Nothing fancy.” He assured her, “Just some maintenance for now I think.”

Taking a sip of the wine, he had to admit it was much better than the vintage he had brought with him. Swirling the liquid in the glass for a moment, he watched as it moved before smiling ever so slightly.

“We are in a precarious place – the losses at Ajan Kloss were shocking and horrible but… survivable.” He admitted with a small frown, “Steps are being taken to avoid a repeat but I can’t help but feel as though the political arena is where the war has moved to. And Jedi and Politics? Ah well we don’t mix well but we’ll have to try and adapt. I know I am with… less success than I would like but fewer pitchforks and torches too.”

He hadn’t told her anything secret and nothing that she probably couldn’t have pieces together from the recent broadcasts, just enough that she would know his own opinion on it all.

@Dread

 

[Lilith Vye]

Lilith smiled meekly at Max. She knew he was trying to reassure her but she wasn't entirely sure if anything could lift the guilt she felt. And once she was on the thought pattern, more and more things she felt guilty for surfaced. She wasn't sure how to control or stop it.

She nodded quietly when he reiterated what he wanted done. The eye beeped to life as it connected to the square device, and Lilith plugged her datapad into it to upload the files. When it came to programming, even when your software was, in theory, done correctly, any sort of maintenance almost always had hicuups. It was the nature of coding.

Still looking at her datapad, she continued to listen to him and the state of the Jedi with a frown. "If the Jedi aren't good at politics, can you not recruit politicians to do the politicking for you? Even if you only convince one at first, its a start," she said, looking up now that her thoughts had drifted into something more productive, thankfully. "And what about less direct approaches? Slicing... or developing tracking software of some kind. Something to give a leg up. What I'm saying is, if you could find out about a Sith plots ahead of time, maybe you guys could indirectly undermine them. That include both in the grander scale of things and in the political world. I'm not a politician either..." She paused, looking away, because she felt something stir in her. "I...I hate them, but I know how to deal with them."

For a second she paused, typing something on her datapad. Both because she had to and because she still felt uncomfortable, unable to really deal with her emotions. At the same time, a thought occurred to her. "I... sorry. I know what the Jedi do is none of my business."

@Nefieslab

 

[Maxims Tionson]

Having his eye removed was an odd experience when there was no pain attached to it when, his mind, obviously thought that there should be some. The lack of an eye was... less disorientating than it perhaps should have been. It was far less disorientating than it would be someone who hadn't lived a few years without even the most basic replacement eye in it's place. Still, his left hand traced the lines of his eye socket absently as he reclined in the chair as Lilith worked.

She was good at what she did, even if she likely hadn't ever fully trained in the field. She was doing very well for someone who had focused on... other pursuits for so long. And she looked healthy, which was a good sign in a person trying to pull back from the Dark Side.

"The trouble with getting a politician to help guard us against political fallout is the same issue that comes up when people have issues with the Jedi and Force Sensitives in general; they don't understand." he took another sip of the wine, "They can sympathize and they know how to be political, sure, but at the end of the day we need to learn to be able to stand up for ourselves in any arena, the political one included."

Max set his wine glass down and reached out to place it atop one of Lilith's own, gently. He smiled at her.

"Lils... I might not be about to spill all the Order's secrets to you but I trust you. Feel that you genuinely want to help us and that's... well it's a welcome feeling to be sure." he assured her, his smile brightening slightly as he pulled his hand back from her's, "Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt your work or your train of thought. Slicing is an idea I've never had before myself mostly because I have about as much skill at it as I do ice hockey."

Meaning none.

@Dread