The Stowaway

[Michael Cline]

The soup froze on his lips as he held the spoon there for what was most likely entirely too long a moment as he thought of a clear way to answer that, that also didn't say too much. He set his spoon down and smiled.

"I'll be honest with you, Zela, I haven't known the Captain well for long. We were friends of friends, until recently - but I do believe we're here to help. If that brings some hope back to you and your people? Than I'd say it's true, yes."

Helping. The thought felt heavy on his head and odd on his lips. There's a difference in doing something because it's expected of you, or because it's best for you and doing something for someone else. He hadn't been required to come down to the planet with the Captain, he could have stayed on the ship. After what he experienced when they first arrived, the weight of emotions and nearly losing himself to it, it probably would have been safer, so why had he come. Curiosity? Some nebulous pull toward adventure? Or just because the Captain had asked him, and he felt like it were the right thing to do?

He'd told himself it were in his own self interests, but ever since coming to Scarif he'd known that wasn't true. This was about following the Captain here, about seeing where this led, and after having met Zela and discovering the plight of her and her world, about doing something to better their situation. It had been so long since he'd experienced it he had forgotten what helping someone else actually felt like.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

She held back from connecting with him out of respect. Held herself from touching his thoughts and inviting him into her own so that they could commune and ponder - internally - the myriad of reasons that they were on Scarif now.

Instead, s'Il allowed a gentle smile as she sat across from Michael. She took simple pleasure in her meal, and ate in silence.

After a few spoons of broth and noodles, the Lupine looked to the cloudless sky above, giving a small bit of thought to her next words.

"Has anyone you know of been past the walls and into the Spire proper?"

[Zela]

"No one I know of," was the quick answer. And it was the truth. Zela had never known a soul that'd been into the actual old and crumbling spire.

She let her attentions turn once more to the redhead, regarding him with a critical eye even as she ravenously devoured her meal.

The noodles were cooked just so, and she sucked them through her lips with a passion borne of desert desperation. Food didn't usually come this easily out in the wilds of the Scarif wastes, and she wasn't about to let this good fortune go to waste.

"You two are together by chance then," she mumbled out through a particularly large mouthful before swallowing.

"... yes?"

[Michael Cline]

Michael had sat his soup back into the bowl, his appetite had vanished now, the deep thoughts he found himself being drawn into weren't good for his digestion, it appeared. Had it been a chance occurrence? There was so much talk among the Force sensitive about the Will of the Force, about destiny and paths - that even with his limited training and knowledge it had been impossible to entirely avoid. His... brother, Ezra, for lack of a more immediately hateful word, had gone on and on about the Will of the Darkside, of the future of the Sith Order in his ridiculous attempt to win him to his side. Michael had rebuked the stance, laughed at it in both anger and pity - but now, through all of this he was left wondering.

He had gotten on the wrong ship entirely through accident, a ship that just so happened to be the vessel the Captain commanded, on their way to this planet - to these experiences. For the first time in a long time Michael was genuinely left shaken, he let himself open up with the Force, as alien as that feeling had come to be to him. He had always had trouble opening to it, struggled with finer points of it's use. It always felt like a gate he was just behind, occasionally peaking through the cracks of, and catching the conversations that would slip through. He glanced at Captain s'Ilancy with stark uncertainty.

"... I'm not sure I know anymore, to be honest."

[Zela]

She watched him with a strange sense of curiosity, but her attentions were soon enough returned to her meal, and Zela redoubled her attack on her food. It wasn't often that she ate so well - usually it was sand beetles roasted over a sputtering campfire with little to no seasoning. This however was a feast fit for a king of the Scarif Dunes, and she took hearty advantage.

"That's fair," she managed to get around a particularly large spoonful of broth and noodles, "... who knows what the Gods of the Fates decide is best for us all."

Another few hurried bites, and her bowl was nearly empty.

"I'm sure that Scarif isn't where you wanted to be," she continued, "... but maybe you're meant to be here."

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

It was an interaction that she took a particular interest in, and slowly taking a few levels from her own bowl, s'Il let her eye travel from Zela to Michael. The woman's invocation of gods was peculiar and rather thought-provoking, but it was the last bit of speculation that arrested her musings fully.

The Force was a living thing, and what it chose to weave into each of their own personal lives was something that wasn't always understood in the immediacy. And for as much as the other woman's words were directed to Michael, they resonated deeply with the elder Lupine equally as much.

Was Michael meant to be here? Was he meant to find himself aboard her ship? A small kernel of a thought was beginning to form in her thoughts in that moment, and she found herself biting her lip in thought. Her brow furrowed, and s'Il let out a long, low breath as her gaze finally swept away to cast over the stalls and merchants that surrounded them.