Mar was still tempted to shoot the bastards in the back, he knew without a doubt that he would have used to. To demonstrate it he grabbed one of the pistols on his hip, he caught the stare Tanya gave him and raised his hands in mock surrender. "You know I wouldn't do it." He walked over to her so he could get a better look at her neck, examining where the man had traced the knife down her neck. "If he had left a mark on your neck, then we might have seen trouble." He shrugged as he turned to cross the street, while Tanya was as tough as a Mandalorian and pretty much as stubborn as one he noticed that she was walking decidedly closer to him than she had been before and her right arm was ready on her pistol ready to draw. He really needed to get her some form of melee weapon, something other than a lightsaber that just screamed look at me! I'm probably a Jedi and have a massive bounty on my head!
They walked in silence for several minutes before Tanya spoke up. "How comes you didn't shoot them?" Mar turned to face her, slightly taken aback by the comment. It was uncharacteristically cruel for her. Obviously being back here had her on edge.
"What do you mean?" He stepped slightly closer to her as someone came walking towards them, preventing the alien from walking between him and his ward.
"The Stars, why didn't you just shoot them?"
"Did you want me to?" The question was sincere, it wasn't rhetorical. Mar stopped walking as he turned to face her. "Did you want me to shoot them?"
"Well, no but... they could have hurt me." When she said this she looked down at the ground, away from his faceplate. Whether out of shame, embarassment or genuine sadness was the question.
"If they moved to hurt you, I would have dropped them where they stood." She looked up at him when he said that, he couldn't read his face for once. Jedi powers would have been pretty handy, he wasn't going to lie. She rarely used them nowadays, and he understood why but they were bound to be useful on occasion. "I won't let anything happen to you, but did you want me to shoot them anyway?"
There was a moment of silence between them, in the distance the unmistakable cracks of blasterfire as two rival gangs likely went toe to toe against one another. The few speeders that inhabited 3030 could be heard too for miles due to their condition. He didn't press her to speak, he was in no hurry. This was her mission, something she needed to do and he doubted that this would be the only test she faced in this forsaken pit of humanity and whatever other lifeforms crawled through the muck.
"I don't know, kind'a. You know what the shabuir you were hunting wanted to do to me when you first came here?" The use of the Mandalorian word in the middle of the sentence only slightly lightened the mood, he noticed now her fists were clenched and he caught the sight of a distinct tear in her eye. He didn't stop it though, she needed this. "I was eight. I was scared, and I was alone. I had watched everything I knew-" Her voice was starting to rich in pich slightly, and was becoming jagged... broken. "-Everything I loved torn to pieces for betraying the Republic-"
Still listening, but also cautious Mar was scanning the horizon as she said that, the last thing he wanted was for someone to hear that and recall the infamous Jedi Plot to then put one and one together before trying to get rich on an exceedingly rare bounty. "and then, this... this gangbanger felt that a little shop was his for the taking. That my life was his." She dropped her head, tears readily flowing.
Mar put his hand on her shoulder as she finished and used his right hand to lightly lift her chin up to face him. "There is a saying. Ke barjurir gar'ade, jagyc'ade kot'la a dalyc'ade kotla'shya. Have I told you what that one means yet? Or can you figure it out?"
She shook her head, and he just smiled at her.
"Train your sons to be strong, and your daughters to be stronger." He could already see some of the same joy he had seen in the speeder return to her face. "You are far stronger than most others your age Ad'ika. Ni kar'tayl gar darasuum, for as long as I draw breath nothing shall happen to you and you will become strong. I am here in Thirty-Thirty for you, we can deal with the Stars later. However if we were to do so now, it would hinder our process as we would be fighting Stars at every turn." He removed his hand from her shoulder, however was slightly taken aback as she then jumped forward and embraced him into a hug.
Normally he wouldn't show such signs of affection in public, but he allowed himself to hug her back for a moment before clearing his throat and leaning back. "Now, come on. I know the perfect place to get information, Zams Brothel."
Tanya raised her eyebrow "Is now really the time to get back into the game Mar?" She then let out a laugh as they started walking towards the brothel. He slapped her on the shoulder playfully.
"You know well and good, that four things make people talk-" He raised four fingers waiting for her to recite the four like a child in school.
And she did, raising a finger as she mentioned each one. "Drugs, Money, Pain and Women." He gave her a thumbs up before turning his hand to his side.
"-Exactly right, now we're going to somewhere where all four come into play."
"I thought Zams Brothel didn't let people take spice-" He turned to face her, his helmet tilted in the most questioning posture he could muster while wearing a helmet. "-I may have been eight when I was last here but I still heard things, that I kind of remember. Of course I had no idea what a brothel is but it's a handy little bit of information." She held her head up at that and stuck out her chest a little obviously proud of herself for remembering.
"While you're right and they don't allow spice, they allow the most potent drug of all. Taken by most adult beings across the galaxy!" He raised his arms up at this in an over-extravagant gesture, he didn't even need to look at her to picture the moment she suddenly realized what he was getting on about, and she merely muttered one word.
"Alcohol."
Mar nodded. "Exactly, the most commonly used truth serum in the entire galaxy."
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