Not the Saska You're Looking For!

[Cassandra Saska]

Cassandra Saska used to feel tied down to her family's life and business back when they were shipping freight on the Curvy Lady. She'd been ticking the years down to her eventual escape to an Academy where she could learn not-Small Business Management or not-Accounting, so she could start to handle her own life and achieve true independence. Then, they'd been made unwitting couriers of contraband weapons, and her door of opportunity had snapped shut just as she was about to put her foot through it.

Now, she was trapped on a ship in a convoy of Rebels and their outlaw Jedi allies--and not even on a ship that mattered! She and her parents had been relegated to some dumpy little ship on the fringe of the convoy, where they'd likely be the first to die when they were found and shot into vapor by Imperial Star Destroyers. This on account of the Jedi considering Cassie and Carol useless and untrustworthy. At least, that's what Cassie had heard when Zeke had explained that the Jedi were being uptight over security because of "Sith"...whatever those were.

So Cassie found the only choice she could truly make to affect her life was what kind of instant breakfast ration she wanted to eat. No matter how many times she made it, it came out too thick or too runny, and no matter what flavor she chose they all tasted the same to her. She'd dumped some in a bowl with a randomly measured amount of water and sat down at their tiny folding dinner table to wait it out. Her mother came through and hugged her from the side.

"Cassie, I'm going up to the bridge to offer my help to the Captain. I can't just sit around and do nothing again today. Your father's gone to that main ship, Whaladon or whatever, to do Jedi stuff. We'll be back later. Try to have some fun, okay?"

"I'm not a child," Cassie whined petulantly as her mother kissed her good-bye. The door hissed open and shut, the heating unit beeped, and Cassie retrieved her thoroughly unappetizing morning meal and sat staring moodily into the steaming bowl. She'd exhausted all her entertainment. No Holonet, no Holovids, and she'd beaten all her datapad games. She scooped up some of the ration as their doorbuzzer rang. She slopped it back into the bowl and threw the spoon in after it.

"WHAT!?" she yelled by way of greeting. "Just...come in!"

[Siyndacha Aerin]

In response to the ‘WHAT!?’, she began:

“I’m looking for…”

But apparently that wasn’t loud enough or the voice on the other side of the door was deaf or impatient or something, because right then a ‘Just...come in!’ came on the coattails of the ‘WHAT!?’ and Sindy blinked, markedly. Most people answered their door. Most people were polite, mostpeople…

…and then the door wooshed open. The pixie-girl’s eyes snapped right through to the inside of the living quarters, quickly examined what was visually available to her from her current standpoint and gathering only one person (an unfamiliar one at that!) in her visual search, she blinked in mild surprise, yet again.

“I’m looking for mister Saska.”

She held her gaze steadily on what appeared to be the only girl in the room.

“And you don’t look like a mister at all, so… in that case, I must have the wrong room! Sorry!”

And with haste unusual for a simple mistake, haste more correct for embarrassment of a different kind, the eighteen-year-old Aerin girl turned heel and began walking away.

[Cassandra Saska]

Cassie sighed and ran a hand up into her blonde hair to support her head.

"Dad isn't here, he's on the Whalathing doing Jedi crap." She sighed aggravatedly as the door started to close on Sindy. "What did you want?" she yelled, mostly to make sure she was heard.

[Siyndacha Aerin]

Sindy turned heel even faster than she had originally and lunged to stop the door from closing completely, just barely succeeding in not having her hands chomped by the door. After a few seconds and considerable grunting on Sindy's part, the door relented and opened up again, taking the invitation of what was clearly both a rude individual as well as Mr. Saska's Daughter seriously and scooting inside the quarters before the door shut on her entire body.

"So you're Cassandra."

Sindy stated, rather correctly whilst folding her hands in front of her and smiling. It wouldn't do to be anything less than civil, even if the person you were faced with was rude.

"It's um... it's nice to finally meet you. I'm Siyndacha... or Sindy. Which is easier to not screw up. Mast... er, your dad's only (as far as I know) student. Oh and it's not the 'Whalathing'... it's the Whaladon."

[Cassandra Saska]

Cassie slowly ate a spoonful of her awful, so-called breakfast as Sindy wrestled her way back inside, all the better to disguise the smile at the other girl's discomfiture.

"Yyyyyeah, I knew that. I was trying to be silly." she said slowly, reluctantly scooping a little more of the liquid ration. She was being derisive and mean, but didn't want to say so. "You can call me Cassie. Guess its fair if we each have easy-to-say nicknames."

Her standing orders were to be nice to her father's Padawan, but Cassie didn't want to. Much as she wanted a friend, her dad's apprentice was not how she wanted to start. The warning had been that Sindy would be going everywhere with her Dad...that Cassie could "finally have that sister you wanted when you were four". Well, fourteen years later and Cassandra Nicole Saska was quite happy as an only child. Friends didn't count if you had to share your parents with them.

"And yeah, you're the only one. Mom and I aren't thrilled about having to have a bunch of tag-a-long Jedi interns about, so Dad agreed to just one." She let her spoonful of ration plop back into the bowl. Cassie wanted to tell Sindy where she could stick her activated lightsaber, but the blond-er, shorter-haired girl looked like a weaselly snitch. Cassie made an attempt at diplomacy.

"Sorry about yelling. Been a bad day already, for only being ten minutes in. What did you need?"

[Siyndacha Aerin]

Sindy drew her bottom lip in-between her teeth and ruffled a hand through her white-blonde hair. There were about a million things she could say to this girl, ranging from very polite to very much not-polite and she couldn’t exactly pick on her like she picked on Ben because she was certain it would not garner the same reaction on account of the fact that this girl didn’t immediately come across as a hide-saving chicken.

How in the wholewidegalaxy does Ben not know what a chicken is? Geez, I thought that was obvious to everybody!

“Well, to be honest, I was under the impression that there was supposed to be some form of training today, but that must have been a grievous miscommunication. Here I am and here he is not.”

She set her eyes back on the other blonde.

“Can I tell you something? Let me tell you something: your dad is a million times nicer than my dad. Like, phwoar. Major, major difference.”

[Cassandra Saska]

"Yeah, Dad's hard to piss off," Cassie agreed through a grimace at her latest bite of breakfast. "In eighteen years I haven't made him raise his voice yet. Which is something, I guess. Not that I like to regularly make trouble for him, just that I've never seen him lose his cool." Ok, now things felt awkward. She ate a little more to cover the silence, but couldn't suppress a negative criticism of the food. "Right, well, I dunno why he went over there, he was gone when I woke up. Maybe some emergency thing, or you guys were supposed to do a lesson later. Did you get the time wrong?"

[Siyndacha Aerin]

Sindy shook her head.

"Highly unlikely. The last time I got the time wrong on something was when I was still learning to read chronos."

The pixie-girl's eyes narrowed and her voice lowered conspiratorally.

"Maybe this is a sly trick. Maybe he meant to stick us together."

[Cassandra Saska]

Cassie blinked, then looked up at Sindy with naked surprise on her face.

"I'll bet he did! He's so sneaky sometimes! He used to politeness-judo people into doing stuff all the time when we still had a business! This is so like him! Because he's only direct when he's fighting with lightsabers, apparently." She put her hand on her forehead and elbow on the table to support herself and stirred her breakfast about, watching the spoon carve a trench and make a big ball. Too thick today. "He says you're gonna go everywhere with us. You're not moving in, are you?"

[Siyndacha Aerin]

It was Sindy's turn to blink and be surprised.

"Um... no? I mean, I'm pretty... no, in fact, almost absolutely certain that you and I would both know if such a thing were happening."

The Cularin girl's eyes shot briefly to the side, very briefly occupied with a thought. Then she looked back at Cassie again, her brow furrowing in query.

"You wouldn't happen to know a Ben Merasska, would you?"

[Cassandra Saska]

"Oh, thank goodness," Cassie said a little too enthusiastically. She was so happy not to have to deal with Sindy all the time. Her happiness and relief were short-lived as Ben came into the picture. "That coward was ready to sell us out to the Empire to get himself out a situation," she said with open disgust. "I think he only saved us at the end 'cause Dad showed up and killed the leader of the Stormtroopers he gave us up to. Dad made me apologize for freaking out on him, and maybe I did keep on grilling Ben about it longer than I needed to when we were safe, but I almost died. I think I have the right to be mad about that."

[Siyndacha Aerin]

Sindy grinned.

“Yes, that’s definitely Ben. What a chicken-butt!”

Her eyes rolled and she sighed.

“He came to retrieve me to bring me to the Wheel and between jumps we came across this derelict vessel and the Novgorod was there at the same time and Ben freaked out because… oh, I don’t even know and he was dodging their tractor beam left, right and centre and then they sent fighters after us and… oh, geez. He could have almost gotten us blown up by our own allies.”

The Jedi padawan shook her head.

“He’s an easy target, though. I swear I spent half the time in transit picking on him, due to intel from my cousin who knows him somehow… probably through his ex-wife’s sister, who is like the closest thing I have to a sister, since I have no siblings at all. She’s a really good engineer and right now she’s stationed on the Novgorod. I saw her and the captain giving each other googly-eyes.”

Sindy paused for a second.

"So, what do you do around here?"

[Cassandra Saska]

"Up until yesterday afternoon I was playing games on my datapad, but I beat them all a few times already so I'm tired of them. Right now I'm not doing anything. You guys don't get Holonet or anything so I can't do any of what I used to do back when I stuck to the butt of Dad's business. Got no books to read 'cause those datapads got left behind in the attack that caused us to have to come here in the first place." She ate some more of her crappy ration. "I can't even eat decent food. This sucks, and not in a good way. I hate that we even have to be here. I wish things had stayed the same."

[Siyndacha Aerin]

"At least you're alive."

Not that those words were any consolation whatsoever and she knew it.

"At least you're relatively safe and not in the clutches of the mightily evil Galactic Empire."

Those words weren't much better either. Sindy's head cocked to the side and she observed Cassie for the briefest of moments before a look of surprise flashed up on her face.

"Say, I bet I could teach you a whole ton of things. Prove you're not dangerous. Help you become what might pass for useful in this place. My brain is chock-full of mechanical stuff, intergalactic law, language and... uh, other things."

She eyed the other girl's ration with a slight measure of distaste.

"Maybe even get you something better than... tree pulp soup. And as for things still being the same, I wouldn't be here if Papa Marezius was still alive."

[Cassandra Saska]

Cassie sighed. Sindy was trying to be helpful, and she knew it, but nothing the Jedi girl had said was of any consolation, and she had her doubts about how much weight a Jedi intern had with the higher-ups. Presumably her Dad had gone to do all of what Sindy was now discussing, so she decided to put her faith in him--what little of it she had left.

"Okay," she said, sighing again. It bore none of the hallmarks of acceptance or gratitude or acknowledgement. The word hung worthlessly in the air like the filler it turned out to be. "Who's your Papa Marezius?" Cassie didn't care about it in particular, but felt like Sindy had too many points on her, already. The platinum-blonde Padawan already knew who Cassie was and had apparently attended a ton of formal schooling. Cassie wasn't gifted in the Force, to her knowledge, had the most basic of home-school education, and had lost her chance at Academy about a month and a half before it was time to go there. She didn't like feeling small this way. She wanted to know who she was dealing with. "That was your Dad, or your Grandpa, or...?"

[Siyndacha Aerin]

"Maternal Grandfather."

Sindy looked away and cupped her elbows with her hands.

"My own father has wanted to be free of me since my mother passed when I was two, but Papa being a Jedi in a long male-line family of Jedi was able to have some sway with my Father. Father blamed me because she took her life due to postpartum depression. He still saw fit to train me to follow in his footsteps, as a lawyer for the family, his family..."

She turned her eyes back to her master's daughter.

"...did I mention my paternal grandfather is the head of the mob? Anyway, when Papa died, Father wasted no time in ridding himself of me. Practically paid me to leave once Papa was no longer standing in his way. My uncle and cousin offered to take me in, but that was still too close for him."

She smiled then.

"I'm not bitter. I might be considered crazy by some people, being a Jedi instead of raking in the credits as a lawyer, but it's better this way."

[Cassandra Saska]

"Damn, that's really awful!"

Cassie hadn't expected this, not from someone so bubbly and hyperactive as Sindy. Well, then, that explained the heavy education on galactic law and all the rest. She couldn't imagine being in a family that didn't want you, but made you do like they did, anyway. It seemed an awful double-bind to Cassie. We don't want you to be with us or do what we do, but do it anyway. We hate you for it. "Just...wow. I'm so sorry." She realized suddenly that she meant it and went to change the subject. The daughter of Saska wasn't ready to dispense pity today.

"Hang on, if you're a lawyer, why are you working with machines? Is that your sister or whoever on Novgorod that showed you that?"

[Siyndacha Aerin]

A small giggle escaped from Sindy, then a rupture of laughter.

Oh, gods... you're going to think..."

Stifling her laughter for several moments, the laugh and giggles eventually calmed to the point where she could communicate her answer to Cassie's question.

"...well. Um. Let's see, here."

She folded her hands in front of herself once again and cleared her throat. In deadly seriousness, she said:

"The machines, they speak to me."

A sly smile slipped into one corner of her mouth.

"Papa taught me a little and let me dissect a lightsaber when I wasn't even ten yet."

Then the other corner of her mouth perked.

"Then I learned to understand Verpine and they were most of what I knew but... the fact that machines are basically living things to me makes me like a Verpine, if not better. Or worse, depending on how you look at it."

[Cassandra Saska]

Cassie knew Verpines. After a bad run-in with pirates, a crew of Verpine technicians had made the Curvy Lady serviceable again, and they'd done in it in an insanely short amount of time. Cassie had a lot of respect for Verpines, and the fact that Sindy could make this claim made her forcibly stop some of that respect from transferring to her. She sighed and sagged in the chair.

"Machines talk to you," she repeated, entirely deadpan. "Not like a protocol droid talks, but like...droid whisperer. Is that what I'm to understand?"

Saying it out loud like that made it sound absurd, and Cassie stayed comfortably inside her little well of suspicion towards Sindy that let her hold the other girl at arm's length. At the same time, though, Cassie burned with jealousy. She couldn't think of a single thing she could do so uniquely or well.

[Siyndacha Aerin]

Siyndacha deadpanned in return:

"Yes."

Then in all seriousness:

"More aptly, a technomancer."

A small, slightly furled and confused look appeared on her face.

"Outside of the Jedi, it just makes everyone single me out as a weirdo." Then she smiled fondly. "Except my cousin Ordon, the 'handsome social butterfly' that all the girls ogle dreamily..."

Sindy rolled her eyes and made a disgusted face.

"...thanks to him I know more theoretically about sex and pleasure than I would ever have wanted to know."

[Cassandra Saska]

Cassie's head pulled back a little from the spoonful she was trying to force on herself. Her eyebrows shot off and her mouth skewed aside in a look of utter confusion.

"You don't transition well, do you?" she asked. Machines to sex in nothing flat. "I don't suppose you made that leap because you've got a little pleasure machine that talks dirty to you? Are Jedi allowed sex toys?"

[Siyndacha Aerin]

Sindy shuddered noticeably.

"First of all - gross. Secondly... no I don't. Thirdly, that is something I'm happy and thankful to say that I don't know and I'd like more than anything to keep it that way. I don't even want to know who is copulating with whom."

[Cassandra Saska]

Fancy grammar and clinical talk. So she's accomplished and she's boring. Cassie decided to just go ahead and eat in silence. Talking to Sindy was infuriating right now, and she suspected it may forevermore be infuriating. Maybe she'd finally see her Dad get mad or raise his voice. She ate a lump of ration. Cold. Re-heating would just make it even harder to eat than before.

A sudden wash of utter hate came upon her as she stared into her bowl of mud, feeling a huge lump in her throat and the tingling heat of unshed tears in her eyes. It was a week and a half at least since the Lady came under attack and a little less since she'd been nearly killed and through all of it, somehow she and her parents still hadn't settled to just talk about it. Cassie threw the spoon onto the tabletop and hid her eyes, trying to breathe like her father did. It didn't come close to helping.

[Siyndacha Aerin]

That was unexpected.

Wow, you're an idiot, aren't you?

Sindy frowned, willing the critical inner voice to shut up.

You never could make real friends. Look, you're just upsetting her. See, this is why we don't talk to people. You only piss them off.

Go away.

You know I'm right, missy. Look at her. She doesn't even want to look at you.

I'm not listening to you. Not listening. notlisteeeeeeeniiiiiiiing.

"I... I'm sorry. I... oh, geez. Did I say something wrong?"

She grasped for words, the right words, but when people started being emotional, the right words, in fact most words just started to pack up and leave.

"I... do you want me to go? I should go. Are you okay? I should go..."

But she couldn't will her feet to move. She was weighed down with a palpable uncomfortableness.

[Cassandra Saska]

"I don't care," Cassandra whispered hoarsely. "I don't give a damn what you do. My whole life is over. I won't get to go to school, or have a career, or marry, because I'll be here in this stupid convoy where I don't have any skills with my dad's know-it-all, do-it-all intern." She threw the bowl into the sink and ignored the way her cold breakfast spattered the wall, slouching back in the chair to look at Sindy. Her eyes were red and her face was marked with tear tracks, but there was no mistaking the sharp edge of her glare for what it was: anger, and jealousy, and hate. "Actually, yes, just get out! Go to your damned whaleship and practice breathing or droid speak or something! Just get out of my hair." She stood abruptly, knocking the chair down with a loud clatter, and stormed to the refresher.

[Siyndacha Aerin]

When Cassandra got up, bolted into the fresher and slammed the door behind her, Siyndacha Karolle Aerin was frozen. The angry sobs that door muffled... well, the white-blonde girl could hear them, but at the same time she couldn't hear them. They existed, they were audible and very real, but they didn't quite register in her brain. Not quite.

Ohdearohdearohdearohdearohdearohdearohdearohdearoh dear...

"...ohdearohdearohdearohdearohdearohdearohdearohdea r..."

It started as a mumble.

"...ohdearohdearohdearohdearohdearohdearohdearohdea r..."

And only got nominally louder. Her hands wrung themselves, weaving around each other, grasping, pulling and all over she shook as she seemed to run half-on-autopilot to get to the door. In a split, her motions changed as she smacked a button near the door with the palm of her hand while the other occupied itself with worrying at her hair, her collar, rubbing on her pantleg. When the door didn't open, she only pressed the button harder and faster, over and over again, which only served to make the speaker crackle over and over but she didn't notice in her frantic state.

As the tirade frenzied tirade continued, the mantra changed.

...openopenopenopenopenopenopenopenopenopenopenope nopen...

"...openopenopenopenopenopenopenopenopenopenopenope n..."

And changed.

...needgetoutneedgetoutneedgetoutneedgetoutneedget outneedgetout...

"...needgetoutneedgetoutneedgetoutneedgetoutneedget outneedgetout..."

Before, by pure chance, she unknowingly happened upon the button that actually caused the door to open, but it would be moments more of jamming the doorcomm button before she would notice... and when she did, she fled into the corridor and promptly began pacing back and forth, back and forth, backand forth, backan dforth, backandforthbackandforthbackandforthbackandforthba ckandforth to exhaustion.

The bulkhead found her eventually, or she chanced upon it, back-to and slid to the deck, huddling her knees up against her chest and gnawing at her knuckles, eyes wide and rocking back and forth, backand forth, backan dforth, backandforthbackandforthbackandforthbackandforthba ckandforth, mumbling incoherently.

And there she remained, for the time being, a mere three feet from the present abode of the Saskas.

[Carol Saska]

So, the bridge didn't need anyone who'd served as a co-captain or first-mate in a civilian capacity, but they'd check for her and see if there was some smaller ship in the convoy that she could work on. Carol knew the offer was more to be polite than to offer any real hope of work, but she could accept that. She still had the tally of their possessions to work on accumulating, so they could begin to put their lives back together. The Jedi had been friendly enough to offer her a datapad full of ship specs via Zeke so she could shop around for replacement ships. Plenty to do, but it wouldn't really solve the problem of being cooped up all day in the family quarters. The communal rooms of the ship were even worse, because it seemed nobody used them. This ship's skeleton crew probably only ever worked, ate, and slept.

She envied Zeke a little, but not much. His problem was exactly the opposite. He was swamped with stuff to do. Meeting Council members, fellow Jedi, teaching classes and then his Padawan's personal training, too. He'd told Carol a name: Siyndacha Aerin, Sindy for short, and given her a description of platinum-blonde hair cut short and intelligent eyes. The part she was most curious to see was the description of her behavior.

"You'll know her when you see her. Whatever she'll be doing, she'll be going about a hundred thousand kilometers per second."

And Carol found it absolutely true. She stopped a few paces from Sindy, still mumbling and rocking her body as fast as she could make them go, clearly in the throes of a panic attack. Carol approached cautiously and took to her knees.

"Sindy? Can you tell me what's wrong?"

[Siyndacha Aerin]

She continued rocking for a good minute or so after Carol Saska came to tend. The woman remained unacknowledged save for her query slowly creeping its way through the fray to the nugget of her buried awareness.
And when it got there, she abruptly stopped, the query echoing, bouncing around in her brain, seemingly broken into pieces and then, yet, together again.

…what’s wrong?

...can you...

Sindy…tell me…

...can you...

…wrong?
…wrong?
…wrong?

Fist still wrenched in-between her teeth at the knuckles, her teeth dug in, then slid off her fingers and snapped shut, her lips glissing over them as her eyes popped wide and she (mostly) cut off a high-pitched scream of delayed surprise. Her teeth ground into each other as the sound ran its course within the bounds of her mouth until it ended and she began heaving deep breaths in and out. A hand was clutched to her chest as she heaved.

“Cassie… too many emotions… angry… unpredictable…”

In the midst of her words, a somewhat normal response to the unexpected outburst of Carol’s daughter flowed: tears. She swallowed, as her breathing had begun to normalize.

“...you… you need to talk to her. Master Ezekiel…him too. I think she feels useless, unpurposeful here. She…”

Sindy took a deep, shuddering breath, her hand finally falling from her chest and her knees relaxing. She leaned against the wall, as if utterly weary.

“…she hates it here.”

Sindy finally looked at the woman who had shown concern for her.

“I think, too, that she is jealous of me, if I gauged her words in respect to her reactions right. Which I cannot even begin to grasp at all. I don't understand why anyone would be jealous of me for any reason, Mrs. Saska."

[Carol Saska]

Carol grimaced at the apt description of her daughter. Anger had been her daughter's default reaction to all the bad news they'd had to give her, and rightly so, Carol thought. Zeke had said he'd had a plan for it. Maybe this was it, and it backfired. Carol moved to sit next to Sindy against the wall and let out a breath as she considered it.

"I don't like it here, either, and I can identify with her feeling useless. We're civilians in a group of guerillas. We can't fight, we can't sneak, or plan, or fly, or drive. There's not a lot of use for my own skills here, so we feel useless and we want to change that. I think Cassie's jealous because she grew up without siblings and now she's suddenly got to share her dad with you. Plus, he's teaching you skills and powers that he's not teaching to her. It's a sore spot for her. So she's confused, and hurt, and yes, very angry. She's also at a phase where she's ready to rebel against me and Zeke and get out on her own and try to live under her own authority. She's reluctant to speak to us, and it doesn't help that we're both busy trying to make it work here."

[Siyndacha Aerin]

Sindy's face fell, briefly, before recomposing as mostly neutral, save for a scant furrowing of her brow.

"I understand." She drew in her bottom lip and both eyebrows crept upward slightly. "I don't know how I can relate to... Cassie... if I'm just going to get screamed at. I want to try..."

She smiled in the tiniest way, still somewhat rattled.

"...I like it better when people are at least okay, if not necessarily content. Though content is always, always better. It just makes things easier. I mean, I know so many things that don't even require a connection to the Force. I could help her if she'd let me. Or maybe..."

She shook her head.

"No... I don't know if that would be a good idea...."

[Carol Saska]

"This is pretty high stress for us right now, Sindy," Carol said patiently. "Zeke has a ton of useful skills for the Jedi, and he's used to this sort of guerilla thing from the Clone War, so he's fine. I was a civilian during the war, and no fighting ever occurred near where I was living at the time, so this is new to me. But I have skills with accounting, logistics, and a bit of piloting and command, so I'll probably fall into place somewhere along the way. But poor Cassie has no skills or formal education besides our home schooling, and she was going to go to a college soon and find all those things for herself. Now she feels robbed. And here you are, so accomplished already...everything she hopes to be someday, that she believes was taken from her. It was jarring to her, and it's not your fault. She'll adjust, or else we'll find some way to solve her problem and you two won't have to deal with each other anyway."

Carol finally stopped to breathe and sigh and offer a tiny, rueful smile. "I'm sorry you caught the brunt of her temper. I imagine that was meant for me or Zeke. We'll speak to her tonight, so it'll be okay. Don't be discouraged. I'd like to get to know you a little myself, since I'm gaining a sort of part-time adopted daughter in you."

[Siyndacha Aerin]

A small smile managed to reassert itself on her face - in reality, she was forcing it to a degree. Even a forced smile helped with feeling okay again and if anyone could use feeling okay and put together and sane, it was Sindy. She nodded, processing and understanding Mrs. Saska's words. Thank the Force she was as nice as Master Ezekiel.

"Okay." She nodded again. "Okay."

Her eyes slid to the side, glancing the short way down the corridor to the room Cassie was hiding in, having screamed Sindy right out of it. A visible shiver ran through the pixie-haired padawan and she dragged her eyes back to look on Cassie's mother. She chewed on her bottom lip, and blinked a few times before saying anything else.

"Um... would you know if real siblings fight like this? 'Cause I was the only one with my parents, so I have not even a single clue. My cousins are all much older than me, too."

[Carol Saska]

"Oh, yes. I have a brother, and we have fights like this often enough. We've even come to blows a few times over important things like this, and about worthless, insignificant matters as well. These things blow over soon enough. I imagine Cassie's already feeling bad about how she treated you. Just don't expect to hear an apology anytime soon. Her pride is a big mountain and she takes her time to climb it."

Carol offered a half-smile of condolence. "Let's let her cool off. Anything you want to do? I was going to go find caff and maybe a snack, then go on picking out ships that we might be able to obtain in place of our old one. I hear you're good at machines. I'd like your input, if you're feeling up for it."

[Siyndacha Aerin]

Sindy blew out a long breath, the feeling of panic becoming more and more subdued as the conversation progressed slowly, gently, and she digested the little notes on understanding Cassandra Saska. She would be making a honest attempt at being more prepared, more considerate of the other girl's space and where her head might be at in the future. The extent of her jealousy and hate of her present circumstances was quite a different animal from the negatives she had encountered in her life before. Not that she hadn't experienced jealousy from others, but it had never been so... blatantly obvious and in her face.

All in all, she was glad to hear that it wouldn't always be that way - that it would 'blow over'. She shook her head at Mrs. Saska asking her if there was anything she wanted to do, then prompty nodded with what almost compared to her typical day-to-day enthusiasm and fervour.

"That I can do, Mrs. Saska." The thought of doing something that was very familiar and therefore very comfortable did a lot to calm her even more. "And... and food wouldn't be a bad idea, either."

Her stomach grumbled, just then. She grimaced slightly, in a better smile that had started to take control of her lips. She relaxed the grip she had around her legs and began to stretch them out, lifting her arms to stretch toward the ceiling.

"Oh, I knew I was forgetting something! See, even my stomach agrees."

[Carol Saska]

Carol rose up with a slight grunt, pushing herself off the wall and waiting for Sindy to do the same.

"Did you even eat breakfast this morning?" she asked as they made their way down the hall. "That's not a hunger that snacks can kill. Is it because the breakfast rations are bad? Cassie won't eat them and she complains about being hungry all day. I know the galley isn't really open until lunch, but let's see if they'll let us get something anyway. Otherwise, there might be a vending machine somewhere, if you've got a few credits."

[Siyndacha Aerin]

N"I must've forgot. It happens - I get so focused on things that it just pushes everything else out of my head."

Sindy dragged herself up to her feet, feeling vaguely dizzy for a second after the rush of emotional overload and the way it had made her feel almost sick. She stood, hands flat out, palms faced to the deck, and breathed in and out, blinking a few times. Feeling herself again, she caught up with Carol Saska, her steps more of a quick rush than the almost bouncing rush that was often characteristic of the young woman.

"Okay... we're all good now." She said, more for herself than for anyone else's benefit. "About the breakfast rations? It isn't bad, it could be a lot better, but... I've had worse. Not often - well, that was before I came here - but I have! Most of the time, honestly, I don't get all that hungry until very late morning and then I just... wait until lunch."

Master Ezekiel's wife wasn't hard to keep up with, and her first encounter with the woman was much better than she expected - compared to Cassie - but Sindy had learned to chalk that up to humans just being... human. After she calmed down in some cases, that is.

"Sometimes, though, I think I even miss the vegetarian fare the the Tarasins had to offer back home. And learning - trying to learn - Tarasinese was an interesting experience."

[Carol Saska]

"So you're multilingual. What else have you got besides Basic?" Carol could speak Huttese, not that it was something she bragged about or enjoyed doing, but they'd run across enough Hutts, Toydarians, and Rodians that spoke the language that it'd become necessary. But counting in Huttese! Curse their eight pudgy fingers! Carol paused in an intersection of the hallways to get her bearings and let Sindy reply.

[Siyndacha Aerin]

Sindy stopped along with Carol, thinking about what she knew as far as languages were concerned. On one hand, there was what she spoke, on the other hand, there was what she only understood and had to suffice making reply in some fashion other than the language at hand. If there was a written form, a native alphabet, that definitely helped.

"Well, I get binary. It goes with the territory, I guess," She started. That was true enough, but in reality it often went deeper than that. "I mean, I don't speak it, per se, but I get it. Papa sort-of got me on to High Galactic - I like the alphabet better than Aurebesh. I guess I understand a lot more than what I speak, because there's really a lot of languages that are just difficult or impossible to speak with human vocal chords. As in...Cheunh is nice, it's pretty, but it's difficult because I'm not Chiss. And forget Shyriiwook."

She laughed.

"I speak basic, and a bit of this and that, here and there. Rodian, Durese, Hapan, Bothese... you know, just stuff. And Bocce."

[Carol Saska]

"We got a droid once that spoke Bocce," Carol answered, picking out the right way and stepping off again. "We used it for a while and wound up selling it on Tattooine after we hired a guy who spoke it." Wow, that was a list of accomplishments that had even Carol impressed and a little jealous. She could see how Sindy got under Cassie's skin so fast without trying. They passed a group of engineers emerging from a lounge ahead, each carrying a paper cup of caff. Carol stuck her head in the door and found that they'd left plenty of food and caff behind as well. After a quick negotiation to clean up the room in exchange for the leftovers, Carol sat with her own cup of caff and a sticky breakfast pastry, huddled around a datapad with her husband's Padawan.

"Okay, so we used to have an Action VI," Carol explained. "We supplemented it with a Lambda shuttle and did our small deliveries and passenger drop-offs with that. I'd like something similar to that, for familiarity, but we need better speed or more fighting power. I am not even about to get another ship yanked outta my hands."

[Siyndacha Aerin]

Sindy had grabbed a berry muffin and a glass of water, not at all going for the caf - subjecting her master's wife to what caf did to her already energetic, fast-spoken self would have plain well not been nice. Not to mention the fact that she didn't need to extra oomph that even such a simple stimulant would give her, as there was nothing she was doing right now (or in most cases) that would require prolonged exertion. She slipped into a seat next to the older woman and huddled with her over the datapad.

When Mrs. Saska explained that they used to have an Action VI, she nodded, the specifications of the standard, nonaugmented Action VI came to the forefront of her mind. She considered the size of the vessel, its speed, and the lack of armament, among other aspects. But...

"What do you mean by 'similar'? Size, shape, manufacturer, cargo capacity? Does it have to be the same size or bigger, or is somewhat smaller fine?"

She remembered, tearing her eyes away from the 'pad, that it was generally accepted you were supposed to look at the person you were talking to, when you talked to them. Which is what she did, her eyes settling on the space that was... well, not Mrs. Saska's eyes, but maybe her eyelids, or her eyebrows. Maybe even her forehead.

"I'm supposing that you would at least like to maintain a size such that you can still have a shuttle. Is this correct? Also, if this is so, do you have any specific requirements for a shuttle?"

[Carol Saska]

"Yeah, that'd work best. The more familiar, the better. I want us back on our feet in a hurry, so we can get some normal back in our lives."

Carol instantly regretted the statement, wincing and checking Sindy's face to see if her feelings had been hurt again. "Well, not that this isn't necessarily normal, but for us it's new, and strange, and dangerous, and..." The older woman laughed nervously, feeling thoroughly embarrassed. "Well, it just isn't our normal," she finished, deciding that she was done digging her little hole.

[Siyndacha Aerin]

Sindy blinked, then smiled.

“This isn’t my normal, either.” She admitted. And while that was true, her usual normal couldn’t be her normal anymore. It was detrimental to… well, many things. Regardless, this new life was still taking a lot of getting used to. You didn’t just toss a person like her into a starkly different set of circumstances and simply tell her to adapt. It was taking a lot of time, and a lot of the time she did start to feel acutely lonesome, even with a mouse-droid to keep her company. “To be honest, aside from Master Saska, you, and Cassandra, I’ve barely talked to anyone that hasn’t been, well, an electromechanical construct since I got here. Not that I don’t like electromechanical constructs, it’s obvious that I do, but…”

She breathed in deeply, and immediately let out that breath in a heavy, deflationary sigh.

“...I’m still much more used to having people around. I mean, there’s people around, but I’m used to having at least one or two people that… want to talk to me.”

She had lost one of those very people with the death of Papa, and aside from that there had been Ordon, but he had always lived on another world and it was only so many times a year that she had seen him. Sometimes there had been Uncle Al, but not in a long time.

[Carol Saska]

Carol decided that she'd better not get used to Sindy telling heartbreaking stories. So far, the girl had been a long string of them, and she didn't want to become jaded towards the girl's unique hardships as a Jedi, only child, and machine-savant. Carol sipped her drink and sighed, swirling the cup to idly blend the sweetener and caff a little more and fill space while she collected thoughts.

"Well," she said at last, looking up to meet Sindy's eyes, "I'll talk to you anytime, because I want to. I'm sure we'll find no end of fun things to talk about. We can adapt each other to this crazy Jedi life. And we'll bring Cassie in on it, and adapt her to it, and you, and before you know it you'll be sisters and up to no good." Her eyes widened a bit and she blew out a breath as she made a sudden, surprising realization. "I don't know that I could even punish you for making trouble. You could just Force power your way out of almost anything I tried to do to you both. You could break out of your rooms, reconnect the holos and computers with your mind..." She shook her head. "Wow. I hope Cassie doesn't turn out to be Force-sensitive. But I do." Carol laughed a little. "It'll be the terrible twos all over again."