[center] 17:42 GST Aboard Kaggath,[/center] Zanna gave a small sigh of relief as she entered the Kaggath, glad to be away from the fighting of the temple. Now she was in her element, and she relaxed a bit. For a very short time. Her stress levels skyrocketed as she learned that not only were the punishments regarding murdering other Sith essentially nonexistent, but she was also forced to share a communal room with all the other Sith that weren’t attached to masters. She didn’t let the other Sith see that of course. Before her careful facade of nonchalance could fall apart, she quickly left the room. [i]This isn’t good. Not only will other sith be more tempted to[/i] not [i]bother with subtlety and just try to stab me, the ones in my ‘communal’ room would probably just stand there and watch.[/i] While she was fretting, she wasn’t paying attention to where her feet took her. When Zanna looked up again, she was in the hallway where the Sith Lords and their apprentices would sleep. [i]Each with their own room.[/i] She thought, somewhat bitterly. Looking up at the sound of someone’s limping steps, her eyes widened slightly at the state Jayda was in. For a moment, she didn’t say anything. “Did he give you those too?” She had seen Sish’s ‘lesson’ to the Zabrak. “It doesn’t concern you.” Jayda growled, her face scrunched up in pain at what mere words had caused. She already knew the full extent of her injuries. It didn’t help her struggle to control her anger had made her much more sloppy and that was enough reason to get to her room soon, her figure too close to the verge of collapsing as it was. Weakness wasn’t something best shown on the outside though when she was alone, it was never a worry. Now, it was another matter. Her hand raised to steady herself against the wall while her clothes looked beyond merely sliced and gaping holes revealed both new and old wounds littering her body underneath. The fresher ones were mostly lightsabers but it seemed a few blaster shots had by passed her guard, something rare, and cut across her side, shoulder and lower left leg. It was part of the reason she was struggling to walk right. Pausing, she continued to glare at the red skinned woman. “What do you want?” Zanna didn’t immediately respond, looking over Jayda’s injuries with a critical eye. After a few moments, she reached into her robe and pulled out a small jar, filled with a blue cream. “You can save your pride for later. Anyone can see that you won’t make it to your room. I’m going to get close, to help you get to your room. When we get there, I’ll help you put this salve on. It will help you heal faster, and hide those injuries from Sish.” She put the jar back into her robes, raising a hand to forestall Jayda’s denial or questions. “I’m not doing this out of the kindness of my heart. We can help each other. I saw how Sish threw you around without putting the slightest effort into it. I can help you with that weakness. Using the force is my specialty. In return, I want you to teach me how to duel better with a lightsaber. It’s [i]my[/i] weakness.” She approached the Zabrak, moving quickly as she saw Jayda slowly crumbling. Propping her up, Zanna looked about, keeping the distaste of having an impure’s blood on her locked far away. It wouldn’t do to let Jayda sense that. “Where’s your room?” She asked, while noting all she could pressed against Jayda. [i]Two hearts? Interesting. One’s about to burst, from the feel of it.[/i] Jayda had prayed she would've been able remain upright, but her body had other plans. Instead her leg gave out as her eyes widen in surprise, her claws scraped the metal on her way downward. For a moment she was certain she was going to land on all fours and nearly colliding face first with the flooring. Instead a body, the Sith, slid under her arm and stopped it. The Zabrak flinched when she came into contact with the woman, her teeth bared as she looked feral enough to lash out. However she knew she couldn't or she would've crumbled. At hearing the exchange offer, Jayda glared at the sith, studying her for something deeper. "Such a small price for a large favor. How do you if I'll even make it through the day? Or it would even be worth it?" She didn't mention her suspicions that the sith could possibly not allow her to make it past the day. The laws of killing each other was clearly obsolete among the ship's residents and Jayda aimed not to be among the victims, her eyes never leaving her unwanted aid. The Red Sith was ready to drop Jayda in a heartbeat if it looked like the crazy bitch would attack her. However, all she did was ask questions. Zanna chuckled at Jayda’s suspicions, easily guessing what the reasons for her unwavering eyes and questions were. The same reasons she was extremely stressed and wary herself. “Relax Zabrak. If I had wanted to kill you, I would have already done so. We both know that you couldn’t fight off a child right now. You’ll make it through the day. Simply because if you die, he goes on living and finds a new apprentice, and you never get to kill him. I don’t know why you hate him, and frankly, I don’t care. But you won’t let yourself die until he does, anyone can see that much.” “And you’re right. This might be a complete waste of my time. But I trust you more than I trust any of the other sith, only because I know you need me to teach you better Force skills. You need me, for now at least, and thus you won’t be trying to kill me during our training sessions. And you can rest relatively assured that [i]I[/i] won’t try to kill you because I need you to help me fix my weakness. Besides, you’re learning from the lizard. As much as you hate him, you have to admit he’s effective at killing. And I do have one more request that I’m fairly sure you’re going to reject immediately, but we’ll get to that when we get you to your room. Where is it, by the way?” Jayda had considered pushing the red skinned kasluat* off but thought better of it. At least until they made it to the room. She pushed a little more weight upon the sith, the only blood on her was from the earlier Jedi as Sih hadn't beaten her enough to draw it, not concerned with messing the woman's appearance. Her arm reached out to point to her room. "There. Just help me to the room and I'll mend on my own, I don't need your help." Her feet stumbled slightly, mind dimming slightly from her exhaustion, her body sparked with fresh pain causing her to pause unexpectedly. “Yes, you don’t need help. And I’m dark blue, not bright red.” Zanna replied, biting back her irritation at the damn impure Sith’s stubbornness and helping Jayda to her room. As they reached the door, the red Sith tried to open it. Rather than let her open the door, the Zabrak tried to shove her off. Zanna gave up trying to be nice. She launched her own mind against Jayda, slamming into the Zabrak’s mental defenses and stalling her mid shove attempt. Jayda froze. Her body tensed and twitched, feeling like ws crawling on her brain. Her nerves recoiled in instinct as she tried to force herself away from the Sith, her muscles refusing to listen to her. Her eyes lit up with realization at what the Sith had down, mentally chiding herself for her weakness, as she tried to hobble a makeshift defense. For a while (at least that was how it felt during the mental battle), Zanna pushed against Jayda’s mind, finding no purchase to make Mind tricks work. After a few minutes, the Red Sith found a chink in the inexperienced sith’s defense and slipped through, freezing Jayda in place. She leaned over to hiss into her ear, wary any other Sith finding them in this delicate situation. “If you promise to stop being so damn [i]stubborn[/i]. accept my help and the original deal and at least consider my next request, I’ll let you go and we may be able to get you into your room before you collapse, we attract unwanted attention, or both.” She released Jayda enough to talk. Jayda felt her anger boiling underneath, her skin tingling with it, yet she pushed it down. Stifled it for now and tried to push, feebly back, only to realize she wouldn’t be freed. Many things could’ve happened, from her being forced to slice her own throat to being puppeted back to her room where death was much easier, but all the scenarios in her mind ended in death. There wasn’t a single one that didn’t. She mentally jerked at hearing the Sith’s breath passing into her ear sending fear down her spine for the moment. Her hearts increased rapidly in pace with each word the Sith uttered. When she felt the invisible fingers release, her tone became low and dangerous, though there lacking threat power behind it. “Do I really have a choice?” “No, not really. I don’t want to be here forever because of your damn pride, so I’ll just leave you to crawl until someone who actually wants to kill you. If you accept we’ll go into your room, I’ll put you down, and then we’ll work on getting you in better shape.” Zanna replied, still hissing quietly in Jayda’s ear. “Fine…” Jayda submitted, her head leaned back into her chest as she ceased fighting. However she was already still struggling to retain use of her hand, ready to send it into the sith’s lower neck should the chance present itself and get even for the humiliation at being forced into this position though she only had herself and Sish to blame. “Get me into the room before someone decides to finish what the Jedi started.” “I’m in your head, remember? I’m not going to let you slam your hand into my neck. Besides, you’ll get your revenge when we train. I am terrible at lightsaber combat.” The Red sith reminded Jayda. Zanna opened the door, guiding the Zabrak to her bed before letting her go, both mentally and physically. She cautiously reached into her robes again, ready to dodge if the Zabrak tried anything, and pulled out the Jar from before. “Can you even move enough to apply this yourself?” Jayda reached for the bed with her arm, settling herself into a slouching sitting posture, then began answering the Sith. “I’ll figure a way to. I can’t mend all of them else Sish will become suspicious and you’ve already witness how that turns out. The stuff has to be applied to the new lightsaber and any blaster wounds before I went back into the temple. The only problem would be reaching the ones on my back. I encountered a Ataru Jedi, so he manage a score on my back and aimed to crippled. Sadly, for him, it didn’t end that way.” She placed out her hand for the jar, gesturing for Zanna to pass it and continued to talk. “Speak about the other part of this deal and quickly.” Zanna shrugged, handing the jar over to Jayda. It was her master, she knew him best. “I want to share this room with you. Before you start yelling ‘No!’ let me finish. I don’t have any alchemy supplies, they’re all in Nyiss’s quarters. I obviously don’t want to kill or manipulate or enslave you, as I could have easily done all of that when I had you in the palm of my hand. You can have my lightsaber every time we end up sleeping at the same time in here, locking it away from me however you see fit.” “I’ll even sleep with some sort of noise making device around my ankle so you know whenever I’m moving if you’re that paranoid. Besides, this gives us a quiet place to practice your Force powers at any time, rather than one of us hunting the other down. You’re doubtlessly going to get injured more by Sish, and I can make more of that salve and stronger variants of it, ensuring you’re never this weak again while on this ship. Something you can surely see the benefit of. Any other rules you’d like to add for me to stay here?” Jayda took the jar, setting it down, then started to peel away what remained of her robe. She removed the top layer off easily as there was little left, mostly shredded beyond salvation which made her sigh. There would be need a very clever excuse to why she was no longer wearing it. She no longer lingered on the matter when she heard the sith’s next part of the bargain, her expression immediately scowled at the suggestion despite the offers of crippling herself to make the offer better. Clicking open the jar after she removed her last layer, her scars were easily seen on display. Some new, most old, mingling over the very surface of her body until they seemed to make a primal designs of sorts. “And how do you intend to keep Sish from learning of your stay here? As much as he wants me to interact and experience other apprentices, I get the lingering sense he doesn’t want me to do anything stupid to keep myself from getting killed. A fact by letting you stay would definitely be. Not to mention I rather not have my room filled with poison which you might have an immunity for as I can see many ways you can do that without needing your lab.” Zanna’s eyes widened in surprise as she saw the scars. [i]By the Force…[/i] She was taken from her surprise as Jayda replied. The sith composed herself, rolling her eyes at the last statement, before answering each statement. “Don’t try to keep it from him. Just tell him the truth. I can teach you how to better use the Force than he can, you can teach me how to fight better, and this was one of my requirements. You added several rules to assure that I wouldn’t murder you.” Zanna shrugged. “Failing in that, I assume you can lie well enough to convince him. Say something along the lines of ‘I saved her life, so now she’s sleeping in my room to protect me’. Like what the wookies have.” Jayda became rather aware at Zanna’s reaction, though she expected it, and fought the desire to cover up. It was a full history of Sish’s lessons and misery, depicting her as a survivor during his hardest attempts to break her. It didn’t kill her but it didn’t make her much stronger than she was already, a bitter acknowledgement in her mind. She naturally countered the all too shoddy explanation and reason. “And how does this wonderful deal come about in being brought up without clear flaws on my part, namely without showing I didn’t learn from his lesson.” She spat the last word out in disgust, then continued. “As for the life debt, that doesn’t matter much unless it’s cultural or race base, something Zabrak don’t have. In his eyes, it could easily be seen as ‘honorable’ which is a Jedi thing. Something that will likely get me killed rather than concrete your little plot.” Zanna bit back a growl of frustration. “I don’t even know what his ‘lesson’ was so I can’t come up with something that he’ll believe. If you’re worried about flaws, simply make it so that I approached you while you were walking towards your room, and you knew you could kill me at any time as you’re the better lightsaber duelist and have solid mental defenses, but you could use work on the finer points of the Force while I could use help with lightsaber combat. If you’re worried about the life debt looking ‘honorable’ say it never hurts to have another loyal servant, especially now that the laws are lax. [i]That’s[/i] a suitably Sith thing to say. As for your constant paranoia that I’m going to kill you, I want you to listen very carefully to what I’m going to say.” Jayda looked spectacle about any of the apprentice’s suggestions working as she mulled over the information, trying to make it. Sish might’ve lacked finesse in politics, but survival and less complicated things would’ve not escaped his notice. Else she would’ve escaped his lessons far easier. His last lesson was about sloppiness. A fact she didn’t learn was something Sish would be furious at, his next lesson far worse and likely leaving her bleeding this time. Inhaling, Jayda didn’t speak. Instead she continued to selectively smear the blue goo over the freshest wounds, careful to avoid ones there before she reentered into the temple. It helped he rarely forgot things and her attention detail was almost flawless. “[i]I don’t want to kill you.[/i] If I wanted you dead, you would have slit your own throat a few minutes ago, and I would be in another part of the ship by now. I don’t want to manipulate, genetically experiment, torture, interrogate, rape, or whatever else you imagine I might be trying. I applaud your paranoia, it’ll help you survive this ship, but you have to admit what I’m saying is true. If I wanted anything other than this deal from you, I would have taken it while I was in your mind.” Jayda’s actions paused within mending herself, her head snapped to the list, not liking the mention of all the terrible options she could do. When the red skinned woman finally finished, she spoke. “His lesson was about being sloppy, a matter I didn’t learn which will make his next one more an example of what he means and will draw blood. As for why you want to bunk here, I take there’s a deeper reason to it which likely means life or death. Else you would’ve been hiding away in the labs, working until you fell asleep as the excuse, rather than ask me of all the apprentices to bunk with. I’ll figure the flaws into the lies but there’s one thing about Sish, he is easy to lie to but doesn’t mean he’ll believe it. I learned that the hard way.” She paused for a moment, debating about how to mend her back or if she should risk just hiding it, then passed the jar over to Zanna. The lid closed. “The mental training he would believe though he might end up wanting to observe it, something I can’t figure a way to discourage him from without looking guilty of something. As for the deal, I’ll set the rule and results including how often you can have access to this room and when. It won’t be a permanent situation which means you won’t be sleeping here all the time, just a day on and few days off. If you can’t survive that, then nothing I can teach you would matter.” She shifted in her seat and moved back, scooping back against the wall where her wounds touched the cold metal. The natural reaction to the tender injures flickered across her face and melted quickly, her face normal once more. “You’ll stay here once a week while we’re on the ship and always in my presence. You will not have any lab equipment or lightsaber, I’ll end up confiscating it before hand. As for sound device, I don’t think that will needed. If you can sneak up on me, I’m getting lazy with my skills. Any attempt to dominate my mind, outside lessons, then I’ll send a lightsaber through your skull and end you. Is this clear so far? As for the lightsaber combat, you won’t question my methods or the fact it will be Soresu, a purely defensive form.” Already Jayda was readying bracing for the Sith to become rather pissed and end her life in a fit. Her hand, the one out of the way, closed about her lightsaber with the intent to counteract should things go wrong. Zanna listened impassively to all the rules Jayda established. She hid her fury at how this filthy little impure talked to her down deep, where it wouldn’t be released until the time was right. [i]I may have misjudged you….never again.[/i] She noticed the pain, though only for a split second as it was gone almost as soon as the Zabrak let it show. The Red Sith sighed as she saw Jayda’s hand on the lightsaber, running a hand through her short hair. “Dark side preserve me you are the second most paranoid person on this ship. I’m more interested in surviving than killing, so if you say Soresu that is fine with me, though I will be practicing my preferred Ataru form. And with the Sith, it always means life and death. Now turn around so I can get your back. You can’t train me if just leaning against a wall makes you flinch.” Jayda was surprised how well her negotiations went though she had a feeling if she slipped up, Zanna wouldn’t have much trouble making her her jedonslu** in the worse way. Some sith death was too short a punishment for being weak and it wasn’t something she was willing to experience herself. Eyeing her for a moment longer, the Zabrak leaned up and flipped herself about though her hand still itched to hold tightly to her weapon when she released it. It was a risk. She leaned her body from the ship’s wall and twisted about, exposing her spine. Her hands gripped the covers while she waited for the touch and possibly vibro blade to be slipped into her ribs. Zanna took the salve, spreading it liberally across her hands. When she finally reached out, noting the terrible damage the lizard had done to his apprentice, and the shame in her posture. The Red Sith’s fury was diminished slightly in sympathy for the Zabrak. She stopped immediately when, as her hands touched the Zabraks’ back, Jayda tensed and stiffened. “Relax I’m not going to try to…” Zanna trailed off, realizing another reason for the sudden reaction. Her next words were quieter. “You haven’t had any friendly physical touch in a long while, have you?” She began to gently spread the salve across the worst of the wounds on Jayda’s back. “No… He was the last to touch my skin. After that, I won’t risk any more pain again from anyone. So, yes, I’ve not had ‘friendly’ physical contact for over two years.” The Zabrak said, feeling the cold tingle from her wounds spread from contact. She couldn’t help the reaction as it was a normal as night and day to her now. Sish’s treatment had made it difficult to allow any sense of contact against her bare skin, her body temperature rose and mind was rapidly becoming aware how much Sish had injured her. These wounds, however, went beyond the surface and sank into her core. Zanna was quiet for a while, continuing to gently spread the salve. [i]Hatred. That’s all that keeps her going. Impressive.[/i] “Then why let me? I mean, lets face it, I had to fight you tooth and nail just to get you to let me help you to your bed and listen to my proposition. So why let me? We’re soon to be reluctant roommates and training partners, not friends, and despite my constant and logical evidence to the contrary, you seem fairly certain I’m going to try to kill you at some point. So...why?” “Why didn’t you just kill me? It would’ve been so easy as I couldn’t fight back and one less threat in the future, a fact you can’t deny. You could’ve easily went to any of the others who have their own bunks and make another offer, yet it was me you came to. “ Her head twisted about to look at the sith, her eyes fired up with a mix of hatred and determination. “I’m not afraid of dying. It’s letting him live is what I will not allow and I will feel the breath exit his corpse when it does end. However to do that, I need to live pass anyone that get in my way. That means training in areas I lack and you can provide. If you think it’s anything else, you’re dangerously mistaken.” Zanna met Jayda’s eyes, willing herself not to look away or show the fear that went down her spine. [i]Oh yes. I won’t underestimate you again.[/i] She finished spreading the salve over Jayda’s wounds then stepped away, screwing the lid back on. She tossed the jar onto Jayda’s bed before turning to leave. “Keep the jar. You’re going to need it in the future, I suspect, and I can always make more.” Zanna paused in the doorway, looking back at the Zabrak. “I respect your drive. But don’t make the mistake of assuming my own desire to fulfill my goals is any less. I’ll see you when it’s time to train.” With that, she left. Jayda waited until the sith was completely gone. Her eyes watched and finally turned away, rested on the jar nearby. Her hand reached to clasp the jar and examine it, her words speaking to no one. “We’ll see which of us kills the other first in the end than.”