(B) “Let’s Talk About That.”

[Nomi Jonan]

Nomi’s hard brown eyes had glinted when Alec tossed the smirking look at her, but the dark hilt on her belt and the familiar one in her grasp kept her grounded. She was currently more invested in keeping her focus on him than she was in winning the staring match or the sarcasm game. She kept her free hand near the darker hilt, wondering for a second what life would be like knowing you were raised and trained by power-motivated liars.

And their code literally beat into them that everything the Jedi did were the lies! How did they believe anything?! Something about the sharpness of her Master’s chuckle and agreement made her feel more anger at the Sith and empathy for Alec than anything the older boy could have said for himself. Unfortunately Alec was Sith too, so…

She shrugged off the the boy’s Adrian comment without trying to glance at either of their expressions. “I know; it’s like he knows about everything. Cool huh?”

She knew they’d made it to less than half a mile from the obnoxiously small gap in the canopy that Adrian had somehow angled their shuttle into — not that she’d given her master the satisfaction of commenting on his landing skills when he’d hustled them directly outside into the sticky wall of unbroken vines and jungle in front of their faces.

Anyway. As the jungle had gotten thicker again, it took longer than she liked to pick their way back to the shuttle while maintaining her stare on their new prisoner boy.

“Heads up.”

When they made it, the sleek shuttle wall was just as abruptly right in front of them. A ramp hissed and lowered for them when she gestured her wristcom in a certain way. She didn’t dare look away from Alec to glance at Adrian, but Nomi figured that he’d have intervened by now if he hadn’t wanted her to actually bring their new friend to the ship.

[Adrian Lynd]

The brush got thicker, he was almost surprised to see the shuttle as they entered the small clearing just big enough for such a craft. He ground his teeth together for a moment, the Master had been here before which meant he was without a doubt a former Sith. How could one leave a life of power for one of weakness and service?? He did not claim to know or understand. The young boy's mind however was occupied by the sight of the landing ramp extending at the motion of Nomi's wrist. There was nowhere to go. He could not betray his thoughts by allowing them to enter the forefront of his mind lest she be able to read them. Action.

"You too."

Before the final syllable escaped his mouth his lightsaber sprang free and flew into his hand in a single motion the cuffs flew off and he struck aiming for Nomi's wrist he rolled backwards towards the boarding ramp and was set to leap up when...

--------------

Both of Adrian's lightsabers instantly ignited, the dangerous blue blades threatening the young man immediately, he saw a flash of hesitation in the young man and exploited it he raised his blades and Alec was lifted off the ground and slammed into the belly of she shuttle. The young sith's blade fell silent and he dropped forward unconscious, blood oozing through his hair from the top of his head.

Adrian glanced over to Nomi.

"Fuck. Was not expecting that..."

[Nomi Jonan]

HEY—!

The faint blue glow contained in the rim of her hilt emitter sprang to a full Guardian lightsaber blade with single SNAP, even as the nearly-twelve year old’s eyes flashed her shock. How.. She’d been watching the stun-cuffed Dark boy and guarding his hilt—and she knew how those cuffs felt!—HOW?! —Assess later.—The Padawan girl abandoned her protest. Her hilt slammed up towar—

—Plasma!—Fire sliced into her—her everything—whiletheForcecuffsandherbodyandherhandswervedbadlyfrommomentumandhitthegr—groun..ounnn..owwww..wch… right before her mind betrayed her into agonized molasses stupidness that almost made her miss the motion and twinned sound of two more blades springing on. Her master— slammed Alec into the hull over their heads. Fine. Nomi relaxed and blinked angstily through her dissatisfaction at her own performance. She was going to have to fix that later.

The lithe eleven year old folded her arm protectively against her chest and rolled gingerly onto her side. She glanced at the cauterized remainder of her left wrist where shocked new nerve endings fired an overload of dismayed signals to her brain. The sensations somehow tricked her system into feeling like the point of her elbow slammed into something frozen that sent odd stripes of numbness and shocks through her arm and shoulder, the back of her hand felt scraped raw, her palm itched like her skin was made of healing fractures, and several of her fingers felt like they were breaking. And on fire.

Nomi breathed sharply through her nose and got up before her freeze response could set in. “Not cool.”

She stuffed the nausea feeling and any unhelpful emotions back into the pit of her stomach and scooped Alec’s lightsaber back up with her good hand. It went back on her belt.

Dark brown eyes flicked inquisitively to the limp Darksided boy, then her master. “Not cool!” she repeated.

She collected the stun cuffs from the ground. They were deactivated but intact. She could tell from the slight ‘ready’ response that the restraint was prepped for use as normal. She felt shaky at that. Nomi passed the stun cuffs to her master without letting herself glance at him or form a question.

She found her hand and quickly picked it up without letting herself look at it yet. Inside the shuttle, she snapped a bacta pouch open from the first aid cabinet in a familiar one-handed motion and got the thin blue gel transferred into a bag with the hand. The skin looked much paler than hers was supposed to. That was uncomfortable, but she obviously knew not to worry about it.

Half of a second bacta pouch went into the bag; that should be sufficient. Nomi quickly sealed it and put the bag in the cold unit before she stopped to look at it longer. She turned around and passed the rest of the second bacta pouch to Adrian with her almost-steady hand, her eyes finally scanning the unconscious boy and his slowly dripping head. She took a third bacta pouch with her and slid into the copilot seat while her master got Alec situated; and hopefully secured.

Nomi glanced at her bad wrist, her arm folded carefully in her lap against her stomach near the unopened first aid supplies. It wasn’t even bleeding or anything, but the idea of starting to treat or disinfect it made her grimace and feel upsettingly small. She rubbed her temple with her good hand.

Adrian returned to the cockpit. Nomi glanced at him. Her arm hurt and she felt so tired.

“Dibs on you telling our brothers.”