It was a busy evening at the Tenbriss Ya-ir household when Bril Teg Arga rang their door. He was dressed in clean robes, thoroughly showered from his earlier training in the day despite expecting fully the possibility of more sweat, hair neatened, saber polished. Still he had to resist the urge to fiddle at the hilt on his hip, the slightest nerves escaping him. After all, Mister Ruka was a Master of the Force, truly, and Mister Corazon was also such in his own right, and he had so much he wanted to learn from them. To impress them.
A slight hiccup, however, as he reached to the chime and found the door swishing open before he made contact.
“Kriff–” the Mirialan exclaimed, stopping short, thankfully, of running into him. “Bril! Kriff. Hey, ay, I was just gonna comm you.” His scarred features twisted all up, brows a crevasse furrow, violet eyes guilty. “I have to go put out a frangin’ – I gotta do a thing, with a thing before these people leave the system because then it becomes galactic marital law and kriff me, and…yeah. I’m really sorry. I know I ditched you last time, and just– sorry, ay…”
With wide eyes and his hand frozen in the place where the doorknob had been, Bril looked to one half of his new master pair with a stunned expression. The frustration and worry radiated off him in waves. What was going on?
“O-Oh. It’s okay, Mister Ruka. Is… Mister Corazon here? Is it okay if I go in?”
Ruka gave a sigh, and reached to put a hand on Bril’s shoulder. “No, ay, it’s not okay to run out on you, but buncha these adults can’t frangin’ act like it.” He pulled away and waved the Zabrak in. “Yeah, though, ‘course, our home your home. Cor’s out but settle in.”
So said, the Mirialan leaned back through the still-open door, calling over his shoulder. His accent thickened quite a bit.
“Ay! Noga, Leda! Bril aqdje. Niire dobre, ay? Zacalle njosez.”
Replies in the same language could vaguely be made out, something that made Ruka glare.
“Niire,” he repeated, stronger. “Jeti!”
“Okay, okay, ay!” a male-ish voice called.
Ruka huffed, then smiled at Bril. It was more of a grimace, which was beginning to seem common on the Mirialan.
“Shouldn’t take me more than an hour, ay? Go on, we got food, you eaten? Eat something. Be back. Tey ahmo, ninezmi!”
“Tey ahmo,” two hollered back before his new Master was sprinting off down the hall like he – very literally – had a ship to catch.
Bril titlted his head upon hearing his name spoken in what he presumed was Mirialan. He’d yet to uncover the language’s secrets, currently only having short greetings in his lexicon. But one day he’d learn it.
After Mister Ruka departed, Bril closed the door behind him and turned on his heels to gaze inside the home. He kept his hands folded behind his back, nervously twiddling his thumbs while he looked around. Their home was beautiful. Every time he saw it, a new curiosity revealed itself to him. One of many benefits of wealth, he supposed.
Bril’s looking around eventually met two pairs of eyes, one dark blue and one gray navy, staring back at him. Two Mirialans sat in the living room, one sprawled on the couch and one tucked up more in an armchair. Both sat up more as he closed the door.
And kept staring.
Despite knowing they were Master Ruka and Corazon’s children, it wasn’t as though they particularly looked childish. They didn’t look much younger than him.
Bril would have looked around to spare himself of the awkward tension building with every second that passed during their staring, but he could sense that they were the only people present. So, trying to play it cool, he lifted a hand in an accompanying wave to his sheepish smile.
“Hi, Bril here,” he blurted out. Definitely not cool.
Two thick sets of eyebrows went up and down, visibly judging whatever the hell that was.
“You don’t say…” the boy began, before his sister poked one socked foot out to kick his long legs extended to sit on top of the caf table. “Ow, ay, I mean. Yeah. We know. Yo, Bril.”
“Hey,” the girl said plainly. She set her datapad aside. “I’m Leda. Since we’re doing this?”
“Noga.” The boy saluted with two fingers.
He had … no idea what to say to either of them. He was the youngest of his immediate family, and as such had no experience relating to people younger than him. But, he’d have to say something, right?
“Soo,” he began, tentatively, “What do you two usually do for fun?”
The siblings shared a glance, and he knew enough of being a sibling himself to know there was an entire conversation being had there. Noga scratched at one of his earrings. Leda adjusted her skirt, shifting to fold her legs under her now someone else was present. When they looked back it was distinctly with an air of taking pity.
“I play huttball. I also like comics and holozines, outside of school, anyway,” Noga went first, and the way they spoke, it seemed practiced, rehearsed. Knowing their noble parent, and the situation they were in as children of clan leaders, it probably was.
Leda chimed in routinely after, “It’s the same for me on comics, but I’m not really so into sports. I like makeup, shopping, and outreach. Whaddabout you, ay?”
“Huttball, huh? Cool! Never played myself but it seems fun. I used to be a pro shockboxer for a bit before I joined the Brotherhood, so martial arts are one of my big hobbies. And research. And spending time with my girlfriend, Minnow. Watching holofilms and shopping and stuff like that.
You two would probably get along, Leda. And it doesn’t surprise me that you care about helping people, too.”
The sudden deluge seemed to shove their boats out into water, as if their little spiel wasn’t usually met with such… enthusiasm. Leda’s cheeks ruddied easily, like he had seen Ruka’s do, so maybe suffering a compliment was genetic.
“Maybe,” she allowed to the part about his apparent girlfriend, blowing by the other bit.
Noga, inversely, had on a more pinched expression, a sour edge to it Bril’s senses couldn’t help but pick up. He crossed his arms, now also letting his pad slip aside.
“Pro where? I ain’t ever heard of you,” he commented, and then, lifting a brow, “ya gonna stand around weird the whole time, ay?”
He smiled at Leda while rubbing the back of his neck. He hadn’t intended to make her feel embarrassed, but he supposed that was better than the awkward impression he’d been making thus far.
Noga, on the other hand, didn’t seem to be taking to him well. He tilted his head upon hearing his comment. “Well, that’s no surprise. Being on the pro circuit just means that you get paid via large credit prizes and can earn better sponsorships, and are licensed with an athletic commission. I fought in an arena called the Belkada. Went undefeated before my responsibilities here became too demanding to do both.”
Bril stammered a bit when the boy commented on him standing there, and he nodded before quickly taking a seat on the couch across from the two of them.
Bril’s explanation only served to tighten Noga’s jaw, a flat, “Cool. Sucks to be you, huh? Not doing both now,” before he stood up just as the Zabrak sat down, brushing past the couches and towards the open kitchen. “You want a drink or somethin’?”
Leda, whether Bril caught it or not, rolled her eyes mightily.
“Soda,” she called.
“Oh, um. I wasn’t—” But Noga had already stepped into the kitchen by the time he got his words out, so he decided to change the topic before he offended him more.
“A water would be fine, please.”
He looked to Leda. “So, what kind of outreach do you do?”
Noga clattered around the kitchen a bit while Leda cringed somewhat.
“I mean– I don’t. Really.” She looked stymied, a mixture of frustrated and embarrassed. “Yet. It’s just… something I’m interested in. We’re still in school. S'not like there’s a lot ‘sides volunteering. We help with the stuff here our parents run but like.” She gave him a look, as if to convey something obvious and significant, and then snorted. “Well, maybe ya don’t know. But nobody gives a frang about a couple teens without powers or pro whatever runnin’ around with clipboards.”
“Ay, don’t start, Leds.” Noga placed a water glass down in front of Bril, which his sister leaned over to pick back up and stick a coaster under that looked like a white silken doily. He flopped back into the cushions, all lanky lines, and gnawed off the cap of one glass bottle of fizzy orange, then passed it to his sister before repeating the process for his own.
“Well, If you’re anything like Master Ruka, then I’m sure it won’t take long for people to start seeing as more than ‘teens with clipboards’. But that can be very frustrating, I’m sure. I’m not that much older than you, so I remember what it’s like to not be taken seriously because of my age.”
He shook his head. “I’m still getting plenty of that.”
Looking up to Noga when he brought the water, he thanked him before lifting the glass to have a sip. Notably, his hands were gloved, mostly to keep him from accidentally triggering his psychometric abilities, but it helped from keeping a grip on the glass which had become moist due to condensation.
His little speech seemed to assuage a bit of rancor, whether due to his sympathy or the comparison to Ruka, though both their faces scrunched when he called their papi ‘Master.’
“So weird,” Noga muttered, sipping his soda. “Yeah well, you doin’ things. All that cool fancy important frang. It probably get better for you quick, ay.”
“Are you cold?” Leda asked, eyeing the gloves. It was pretty warm in the apartment, enough so that Bril probably felt stifled in his robes, on account of Melissa. Still. “Can turn the heat up, ay. Unless they for fashion. Dad has tons of gloves. I got a few but they fancy.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “Ostensibly, yeah. But people in the Brotherhood tend to speak with a serpent’s tongue.”
Upon noticing Leda looking to his gloves, Bril shook his head. “Oh, no. It’s quite warm enough already, thank you,” he replied, taking care to remain polite, “I wear these because it keeps me from … um. It keeps me from accidentally triggering this power I have. I’m still working out how to control it.”
Whether he actually explained what this power was would depend upon how the siblings reacted. Things had been tense thus far, and he didn’t want to give them more of a reason to dislike him.
Both siblings were nodding along to the bit about how Brotherhood types spoke, clear distaste in their faces. Noga opened his mouth to comment but stalled it to let Leda get her answer, and then both were exchanging somewhat wary, but also curious, looks.
“What kinda power?”
“There’s a Force ability called tal vordrax, or psychometry. It allows me to pick up traces of information about an object’s ‘history’ with the Force. Mostly what the people who used or owned it in the pasy experienced with it–what they felt, what they saw, heard, and so on. But sometimes it’s like I am the object? It’s weird.”
Neither sibling seemed confused exactly by what he said, having some understanding of things their parents did. But their faces did turn more quizzical.
“And what’s that got to do with gloves, ay?” Noga asked. “Ain’t it just…” He waved at his head, and then gestured to all of Bril.
“Papi has visions, or they can both just sense stuff, is it that? But only objects?” Leda added.
“So, we can just sense things, yes. But that has more to do with being able to feel living things around us. If a being’s life force was like … the heat of a flame, we can feel that through the Force.
Visions, though, are usually visions of the future. More often than not vague details that we have to work through, which is hard because the future is always in flux. Always changing like flowing water.
But psychometry allows me to see the past when I touch an object. That’s concrete. But sometimes it happens without me intending to, so the gloves help me manage it easier until I learn how to control it fully on my own.”
Noga’s head tilted. “So like… anytime you touch something…? How come you ain’t getting like, feelings from that glass then?” He pointed at the water he’d gotten Bril, which the Zabrak had drank from. “Do you get it when you lie down and you face touches the pillow? Off you own clothes? The toilet?”
“Ew! Noga!” Leda said, and then her face contorted into disgust, clearly thinking something even worse. “Skjaka ma kabol!”
Now Noga’s face pinched. “Leda! Why.”
“As if you wouldn’t think it!”
Well, that certainly was a string of questions. He looked back to Noga with a bemused if not somewhat tickled expression, lifting a hand to rub the back of his neck as he contemplated how best to explain what in fact was a very good question to ask. Once he had it, he snapped his fingers.
“So, you know how all the time, you’re not really paying attention to most things around you?” he asked, “Like, you get the important parts, but you probably aren’t actively thinking about breathing until I brought it up just now. Well, it’s kind of like that. The more mundane, every day stuff doesn’t trigger it unless I want it to. But things that have stronger … hm. Imprints, I guess you could say—those things can trigger a vision.”
At least by the time he stopped talking they looked like they were imagining less gross things with bodily fluids and strangers. He got some slow nods instead, understanding.
“Soooo…you could get the toilet seat,” Noga snorted. “You’d just have ta try, ay.”
“Unless it’s a really imprinted shitter,” Leda muttered into her soda, looking away but lips twitching, and Noga laughed.
A polite smile and nod came in response to their toilet comments. “Fortunately, I haven’t found myself in that situation. The details would be … messy, to say the least.”
That garnered him a giggle-snort from Leda and a groan from Noga, who flapped a hand at him.
“Ayyy,” he complained of the joke. “Well that’s… Cool, I guess. Bet it be useful for investigating and stuff. Especially crime scenes. Tracking people, figuring out who used a weapon, yadda.”
“Don’t forget personal stuff,” Leda added. “Like ‘22. His girlfriend can’t tell him what happened to her cause she got amnesia so he uses her purse to see her get mugged and then hunts the dude down.”
Noga nods along, and to Bril, clarifies, “Holozines.”
Bril paused for a moment, considering Noga’s answer. “There was a branch of Jedi Sentinels long ago who used the Force to investigate and solve crimes,” he noted, “I guess I never considered using it that way. I’ve mostly used it in my research.”
“Why don’t you two show me some of your favorite holozines?”
The Mirialans exchanged a glance, then shared shrugs. They got up almost at the same time and went down the hall out of the main living area, some elbows and mutters being exchanged along the way as two teenagers crammed last each other to get to their respective rooms.
Bril was left to himself for a moment in the Tenbriss Ya-ir home, a few sodas and his water his only company besides the furniture itself.
Bril sat with his hands in his lap, occasionally reaching to have a sip of his water while he waited for them to return. A sigh of relief escaped his lips. Things seemed to be taking a positive turn, now. Why did talking to two teenagers make him more nervous than going on missions?
It was only a couple minutes before the teens returned, Noga appearing first, coming around with a small stack of holozines in his hands to sit back down. He raised one eyebrow visibly at Bril’s awfully proper positioning.
“Y'good, man?” he asked, as Leda soon padded back in too. Her stack was thinner than Noga’s, and she clutched them in her lap as she sat next to her brother then on the couch, bringing her closer to the group than the opposite arm chair.
He didn’t immediately respond at first, staring off at nothing in particular.
“Hm? Oh. Yeah, I’m fine. Just a bit nervous,” he replied, smiling with his eyes only.
Both teens exchanged a look at the admission, more of their demeanor not easing then so much as shifting. Noga sat up some from his slouch, and Leda leaned forward with a gentle tone.
“Nervous? What’s up, ay?”
He lifted his shoulders in a shrug that he hoped, in its feigned insouciance, would actually help to ease his nerves. It did not.
“Just … you know, worried about making a good first impression.”
Another shared glance.
“You got some important meetin’ after this?” Noga asked, having set his comics aside. “I bet you be fine, ay, you seem,” he gestured vaguely, “…smart. Speak…well.”
“Polite,” Leda added, encouraging. “You look g– uh– put together.”
He cracked a smile while shaking his head. “Perhaps I could have explained myself better,” he replied, “The meeting is happening now. With you two. I’m Ruka’s friend and student, yeah, but he didn’t have to take me under his wing like he did. As far as I’m concerned, getting to meet you two is an honor, and I don’t want it to seem like I take that lightly.”
That got some visible reactions out of them. Leda flushed muddy red like her father did, stuttering an, “O-oh,” and cringing slightly from her let me help you attentive pose that apparently wasn’t needed. Noga, meanwhile, coughed, striving for something more casual if a little stilted.
“Oh, well, that’s– nice of ya, ay,” he managed, years of Cora’s lessons coming in handy. “It’s definitely– appreciated. Your appreciation, I mean. For Papi. And us too I guess.”
“Yeah,” his sister agreed, having something else to latch onto, “He’s always helpin’ people and he do so much and get so much frang back– all his other ‘apprentices’”, there was a sudden sneer on her tattooed lips, and a fission of some real hatred in her to his senses, “ain’t turned no good. You showin’ respect. That’s better.”
A pause.
“Kinda weird to be a ‘honor,’ but eh, ay, sure. You wouldn’t be here with us if Papi didn’t trust you t'be.”
“Why is it weird?” he asked, genuinely curious. “It takes a lot of trust to introduce someone to your children. Plus, Cora has told me about you two during our conversations about family. What’s not to appreciate?”
“It– cause it’s. Y'know,” though evidently he didn’t, which left them in the awkward hell of trying to explain their feelings which they’d entirely expected to be understood, “it’s… y'know. Ay, nevermind.”
Noga tugged at one of his gauges, and Leda, cringing in awkward, attempted rescue.
“So here’s the comics,” she said, and lifted her tiny stack to indicate them. She turned them and carefully laid down one from the pile, one that was obviously newer, even still smelling like fresh print. The cover depicted several characters over the backdrop of a starscape and several moons.
FURY EARS
Vol. 224
“Fury was always my favorite…uh, kinda just ‘cause she was a girl hero when I was little, but like, she’s awesome too.”
“Yeah,” Noga joined back in, grinning sheepishly. “We used to give her so much crap about Fury being LAME but that’s cause I was a dumb kriffin’ kid and Papi just was goin’ along with me I think, tryna play with us? She’s actually a cool character, pretty kickass.”
Bril smiled at them both before turning his attention to the comics.
“Yeah, I understand,” he replied, “My older brother and sister used to tease me in similar ways, too.
What are her powers?”
“Ay, you the baby too? Lame,” Leda sympathized with a huff, shooting her brother a look. “Even if it’s barely by a year.”
Noga stuck out his tongue and flipped three fingers up in some gesture. “Still counts.”
“Zcepi.”
“Ka nvje.”
Leda rolled her eyes and elbowed slightly around him to flip open the flimsi pages of the comic, pointing at a panel that was obviously action shots. To Bril, it was actually recognizable as martial arts forms.
“Fury doesn’t have any powers. That’s half of why she’s so cool. She just kicks ass and helps people, ‘specially the downtrodded. I mean, ay, issa comic, yeah? So it get silly. She fights with her ears and tongue too, like the name, see? Sure that’s not really real but it’s still awesome.”
The masked Gungan on the page indeed twisted between enemies, spinning kicks and elbows delivered before a knockout punch with a tongue and a whirlwind of ear jabs.
Bril observed the illustrations carefully for a minute or two. “That is really cool, yeah. And it’s drawn, like, really well,” he replied, voice raising with apparent intrigue. “That element of fantasy is cool, though. Like this holofilm I watched a few months back, about the adventures of Inte'yana Zoans. He’s an archaeologist who goes on adventures. Stops bad guys from stealing precious artifacts, saves the world sometimes. Stuff like that.”
“Show me some more? I’d love to see,” Bril replied with a smile. He leaned forward a bit closer to have a closer look. The three of them spent the better part of two hours looking at and discussing comics, up until Ruka came home. When he did, they shared with him what they’d discussed, and Ruka invited him to stay for dinner.