[center][b][I]Kinsa & Venren[/b][/I][/center]

[i]"Tick, tock, tick, tock..."[/i] Kinsa muttered. 

Relaxing on her hard and uncomfortable bedding, she kept a neutral expression on her face. It was no surprise to her when the barrier to her cell was brought down and an Imperial soldier nearly dropped a tray with food onto the dull, cold metallic floor. The sight brown mix of mysterious meat and musky-smelling paste made her expression shift, for a split moment, into one of disgust. She sat up and the reached for the tray. She crossed her legs and rested the tray on top of them, neatly. Once upon a time, she would have hesitated to use her bare hands to eat, but today was different. Much like that day before, and the day before that, too. She had also learned to eat slowly, not to mention learning how to ignore the horrid taste of the food.

For minutes she ate in silence until she was done, then she drank all the water left in her bucket. Then she heard her barrier go down, and she perked up. A young Jedi was there.

It was the second time Venren had woken up in his cell, and the third he had been dragged in there. He still didn’t have any idea about the timeframe, how long he had been out this time. Or where he was and why, for that matter. Still, he wasn’t bleeding his guts out anymore and he could move his arms again. He got up to look at the area outside of his cell. He had seen there were other ones but had not had the chance to look closer at them before being dragged away by the Sith torturer. 

The first thing he saw when walking out was a twi’lek in the cell right in front of him. One of the other Jedi the Sith mentioned! He walked up to the cell quickly, the only reason he didn’t run was the he didn’t know how drugged he was and didn’t want to fall on his face if something turned out to still be in effect, like last he awoke. She looked somewhat familiar, though he didn’t know her name. 

“Hi! You’re a-“ Venren was stopped in his excitement as he noticed the other prisoner was in Sith robes. He looked at her for a moment, and then at himself just to be sure. He was still in his two grey tunics with one side torn up and brown with dried blood. 

His roughly ragged clothes caught her eye, and Kinsa found herself staring at them for a short moment, before her gaze lifted to his eyes and she raised an eyebrow. 

"I'm a what? Don't mind the robes, I'm not a Sith." She said, sighing and leaning her back against the wall, her head inclined up toward the ceiling and her golden eyes closed.

"You sound... Somewhat familiar, too." She softly mumbled.

Venren relaxed visibly, but did not go back to being giddy as he had been at first. He sat down where he stood and didn’t raise his gaze from the floor in front of him. 

“It’s possible we may have met before.” He said. “My name is Venren, by the way. Do you know where we are?”

"No," She replied, then opened her eyes and looked at him straight in the eye, and continued, "the Sith here don't like to share the important bits of info. Well, maybe Lord Namore, but... I'm not even sure that those are true. You can call me Kinsa or Kinsakwi, your choice." 

"Kinsa? I do recognize that name. I think we trained on Coruscant at the same time." Venren said. That was one mystery solved at least, but while he could place her now, he still hadn't actually known her. He sighed as he continued.

"And well, since you've met more Sith than the Trandoshan, you probably know more about what's going on than I do."

Kinsa shuddered at the mere mention of Sish, and she instinctively balled up her left fist and pressed it against her chest, right hand over it in defense. "D... Don't mention that Lizard-" She said, voice shaky all of a sudden, "He- He's a brute." 

"I might know more. Two of my friends are around. I'm not sure about one's whereabouts, but the other is still alive for sure. I can tell you that there's an arena, med bay, a lot of hallways and a lot of torture rooms."

Venren just nodded. Seemed like she’d met the torturer too, and he could understand her reaction. He didn’t much want to talk about that particular Sith either. His own experience was already clouded, placed in between periods of unconsciousness. It might have been a horrid nightmare, if it wasn’t for the fact that he woke up in the same cell and in the same torn tunics. The few facts Kinsa gave him though felt like some ground in what felt like one long, horrible and confusing day, but that was probably longer than that. He hadn’t noticed how knowing nothing scared him until he found himself calmed by slivers of information like ‘other live prisoner’ and ‘lots of hallways’. It was a start. 

“They would have to be brutes to require [i]a lot [/i] of torture rooms.” He said with distaste. That, or the place was huge and there were many to interrogate. Not able to think of much else to say, Venren went quite after that. Most questions seemed like stupid questions to him now, but he would rather stay where he was with this person he almost knew than go back to sit in his cell. 

A minute of silence passed, and once Kinsa finally noticed that Venren wasn't going to go away, she turned towards him and gave her best to try and smile. "Venren," she said, "I'm sure I know you from somewhere. Do you know Xid by any chance?"

Venren looked up from the floor with a jolt.

“You know Xid?” He said, not acknowledging that he’d been asked a question, though his reaction could be considered answer enough. “He was my friend through the entirety of my training, I knew he was at the Temple but I couldn’t find out what had happened to him, no one knew anything. Do you know something about what happened to him?” He quieted down quickly again as he realized that he was blabbering about personal relations in the home of Sith. 

Kinsa perked up as soon as Venren had and a tiny smile found its way onto her face when he told her of his relationship with Xid. 

"Of course I know Xid," She said, "I took care of Navi for months while he was away in who-knows-where!" Her smile grew, but it vanished once she heard Venren's last question. She brought her knees up to her chest and hunched over slightly, her chin resting on her right knee, a somber and guilty expression on her face. 

"He's somewhere around here." 

It was clear from her expression that the answer was not going to be good news and Venren felt chilled. Still, he had already realized that it would be unlikely for Xid to just turn up perfectly fine after having disappeared during the destruction of the Temple. 

“Well, then at least he is alive.” He said simply after having looked stunned in surprise for a while. Even if it might turn out that this place was no better than death, Venren still felt relieved. It was easier knowing, even if it meant he had all the more reason to be worried about his friend. “Somewhere. What does that mean, exactly?” He asked while looking around the rooms again. 

"How would I know that, Venren? I only know he's around because a Sith Lord told me he's suffering. Where? I suppose in another cell block.. I'd love to know more, but I don't." Kinsa said with a sigh, avoiding eye contact with her eyes glued to the floor in front of her.

“Well that’s Sith for you.” Venren said, it was just like them. He looked at Kinsa who stared at the floor and wondered if she’d been here since the attack on the Temple, and what effect that was likely to have on someone. He sighed. “What is it that they want from us?”

She shrugged and she looked at him, briefly, from the corner of her eye. Her lips turned into a frown, of which the corners quivered lightly. 

"I think they want to break us..." 

"That would make sense" Venren mumbled "the questions didn't seem to matter." Whatever plans the Sith had with them though, he doubted they would ever tell their prisoners. 

He looked at the doors leading out of the cell-block while Kinsa kept quiet. Silence overpowered them after that.