The Knotted Lekku

[Dutch]

Winner: TOTM; July 2015

Weeks after the Horror on Taris...

---

The Knotted Lekku was a dive cantina. Not the grimy and diseased rathskellers of Tatooine or Nar Shaddaa though. No, this establishment was nestled comfortably into Coronet City’s bosom. A lounge for the likes of nobility and senators as much as ship captain’s and the rare Jedi. Somewhere someone can stop to rest, to recover from nameless heartbreak and career threatening shame. The natural wood doors a rarely seen delight, opened manually with a rustic scrape. A change from the usual wooshing of powered ones. The interior just as warm and welcoming as the doors, the smell of expensive liquor and heady cigar smoke instantly fills the senses. The walls and booths were all of the same Northen Hills pine, noted by the darker and more knot-filled wood. Lights were few, and only hung above a few selected tables. The only other source coming from the dotted holo-tables, their eerie blue a contrast to the others’ dark yellows.

At the far wall there was the bar, seats fairly empty but dotted with the occasional character. A man with general’s stripes nursing a whiskey, a rodian with his wide-brimmed hat set low to hide his guise. The six-armed droid bartender sported a dashing bow tie and monocle, a painted on bristly mustache adding to his dapper demeanor. It hummed a tune mechanically as hands busied themselves pouring drinks and scrubbing glasses. A few twi’lek women, possibly sisters of differing shades of purple moved from the bar to the surrounding booths and nooks, where boots and knees were the only show of whoever sat within; as faces were hidden behind carved wooden awnings draped with curtains.

“Your friend is waiting for you;” Piped a frail looking twi’lek woman that stepped from behind the two Jedi. Purple skin would seem faded and fetid, as if plagued by some disease. Despite this ailment, her smile was wide and genuine. Kind eyes beamed at the two men as a dainty hand gestured to nook at the furthest corner of the Lekku.

“Two Jedi, one ‘hoary white’ and the other ‘probably of a filthy appearance.” The waitress giggled lightly and raised an eyebrow at them. Before they could move though, she stepped between them and placed a hand on one of their chests. She looked back to the nook, then back at the Jedi.

“Your friend, he needs help.” She whispered. “For days he’s been there, drinking and staring at the holotable. The owner never kicks Jedi out, he likes when you guys hang around. Cheap security, he says.” The twi’lek rolled her eyes, then sighed. “But your friend, he looks more like he needs protecting.”

She stepped away, and turned to the bar to call the droid tender to her.

***

Levin sat at the very center of the booth, the only light shimmering from the holotable before him. Over and over the same scene played, a first person view from an Imperial war droid on Taris. Its blaster gunning down the regular trooper, the droid turned a ruined corner to reveal Levin. Eyes wide and pupils fully dilated, teeth bared in an insane smile as he smashed his broken and mangled right fist repeatedly into a dead Sith’s face. His robes were entirely shredded, Levin’s body a morbid show of plasteel plates and bloodily wounded flesh. The droid shot Levin twice, then the feed was cut as the Jedi lunged at the war machine wickedly fast.

The Jedi stared at this scene, robes wrapped protectively around him to hide most of his skin. The hood of his cloak covered most of his face in shadow, with only his lightly bearded and freshly scarred chin and mouth was revealed. One hand was held defensively within the folds of his robes, while the other clutched the glass bottle of some palely iridescent red beverage. The alien script on the bottle did little to reveal its contents. The last two fingers on his left hand were held straight by thin metallic hinges and bars that clinked lightly against the glass. A pocked and freshly received blaster wound sat ghoulishly over the back of his hand. Levin would raise the bottle with a slight shake to the hand, and take a long drink from it as his friends ducked into the booth with him. With a pained growl the bottle was lowered, and the robed sleeve wiped glowing red booze from his beard.

“You received my message.” Levin greeted bluntly, perhaps underwhelming for a man thought MIA on Taris. Still clutching the bottle, he gestured drunkenly to the booth at either side of him.

“I’m glad you came, Locke. Jaidan.” He started, and gave an uncharacteristic small grin. “You’re both overdue for your yearly exams.”

[Rugs]

The way Locke saw it, a bar was always a perfectly reasonable place to meet. He’d met in hundreds of them across the stars, from the back corners of overpriced speakeasies that made Coruscant’s elite feel like they were secret agents meeting to hatch some daring plot, to some ramshackle dives that were barely more than fancied-up shacks.

The Knotted Lekku, disturbing a thought as the name evoked, fell comfortably between the two extremes. No one would ever mistake it as a ritzy place, but it was welcoming. That was fine for Locke.

“Least our friend has good tastes, eh?” he said with a half-smile to his Echani comrade as the door creaked open before them. “Much better than passed out in some gutter on the side of the road.”

Truth be told, Locke couldn’t find him within himself to blame Levin for disappearing after Taris. The battle itself was bad enough, but the Rakghouls, pouring from every crevasse in the broken ground…

Locke shivered.

Even he had taken some time to recuperate after the battle. He’d not even been directly involved in most of the fighting, and the experience left a weariness that lingered in the bones. Still, he couldn’t stay holed away at Seraphim forever, and while he’d not yet been worried enough to go hunting for Levin, he and Jaidan mutually agreed it was time to bring the Councilman home when they both received the message.

It was hard to miss Lev’s presence almost as soon as he stepped into the bar, but it was different. Softer, perhaps? It was a subtle thing, but it was there.

“Hey now,” he said, cracking a stupid smile as the Twi’lek woman recounted their descriptions, “I got trimmed up and everything for this.” But her words were concerning, to a point. It wasn’t like Levin to sit around and sulk in the dark of a bar.

Locke thanked the woman and went, with Jaidan, to Levin’s table. It was hard, he had to admit, to see Levin as he was, but it was more relieving to see him whole.

The councilman’s words nearly made Locke chocke on his own spit. “We come screaming across the Galaxy thinking you’re dead and it would turnout to be a trap to do a checkup,” he said, smirking. “Clever dog.” The smile slowly faded, and some concern touched Locke’s eyes as he watched the video play.

Has he just been watching this? He gave a worried look to Jaidan.

“It’s… good to see you again, though, Levin,” he said. “No one had a clue where you’d ran off to. Some started to whisper worries about the worst, but…” He shook his head. He never believed those rumors, worries that Levin might have fallen in battle, or worse.

“Well, it’ll be good to put those to rest, at least.”

[DreadPirateMike]

"I'd happily fetch him from a Hutt's back end, so long as it meant he'd made it off Taris."

He wouldn't have necessarily figured Coronet City for Levin's sort of place, but regardless, it hardly took something this important to get Jaidan on a shuttle to Corellia. His master had been born here, had returned here upon attainment of his Knighthood to take the green. And though Han had made the decision to continue actively working with the Order on Coruscant, Green Jedi business had nevertheless brought him back here frequently, with his Echani Padawan in tow. At a time when his curiosity had far outstripped his minimal autonomy, Jaidan might spend weeks looking forward to a chance to wander Treasure Ship Row. Coming back here now, years later...it was a little like coming home.

Of course, this particular excursion into the Blue Sector was no field trip...though he had talked Locke into making their way here from the spaceport via rocket tram. And upon arrival at Levin's requested meeting place, the gnawing sense of disquiet brought about by the ominously private manner of the Jedi Master's return abated, if only a little. If Levin was here, as the message had claimed, then he and Locke were very much of a mind on how to proceed, but only now, as he took in the warm and very public ambience of this place did the wary soldier in him entirely let go of the possibility this was some trap making use of a faked transmission. This was a poor place indeed for an ambush. And the hostess' greeting sealed things with an amused snort.

That sounded like Levin, alright. Hoary, indeed.

"He'll get whatever help he needs." he assured the woman. "But while my filthy friend and I work out just what that is, we'll thank you for some of whatever he's been having."

Finding out just what manner of hooch a man had been driven to (Not that he could think of any favorable scenarios involving the words "Levin" and "bender".) was a fine way to gauge just how bad things were without the need to pry, and while it might not always be the most objectively effective diagnostic tool in his repertoire, it was nevertheless one of his favorites. And right now, he hoped Locke was right about Levin's taste, because a quick glance told him all he needed about Levin's condition. He couldn't say whether the dismay or the confusion hit him first. He'd seen this man take no fewer than a half dozen blaster wounds like the one he saw now, and been left uncertain whether they'd even been noticed before they were gone. And yet...it wasn't just to the naked eye that Caelum seemed different now. That instinctive twinge of caution he always felt around the man was absent. Much as he liked and respected Levin, Jaidan had always regarded himself as only mortal and fallible, therefore unable to escape a certain discomfort in the presence of a being who had always seemed as unyielding and absolute as the lightsaber he carried. Until now.

"Corellia isn't exactly Korriban, Levin." he ultimately replied, frowning in confusion as well as concern at the holo recording. Where had this footage come from? "But we all know, it wouldn't have made any difference, once we'd heard the call."

Finally, he allowed himself a small smile of relief, however qualified, as he slid into a seat next to his friend.

"Now, I'm not certain I trust you with diagnostic equipment right now. But if there's a story you care to tell, I'm sure we'll both gladly listen."

[Dutch]

"Three weeks..."

Mumbled Levin drunkenly. He brought the bottle up for another swig, but this time sustained the draft until the contents were completely drained. The haggard Jedi idly tossed the empty to Locke, seeming to not care whether his friend caught the bottle or not. Almost as if on time, a light knocking rang in the nook to herald their waitress. The sickly sweet twi'lek smoothly ducked under the curtain with a well-balanced tray perched atop thin fingertips. Two bottles of the same glowing red liquid. The light purple glass of them shone eerily blue from the holo that still played on repeat. Yet despite the frightening image, she didn't flinch from the sight. Instead merely placed the tray on a flat surface of the holotable, and thumbed a couple keys on the console.

Within a small cube at the corner of the table, Levin's tabbed popped up and two more lines of the same bottle were added. A golden credit-chit with the Republic insignia popped up above it, and the digital sound of coins clinking happily jingled as the balance went from a couple hundred credits to zero.

"I never knew the Jedi meditative retreat funds were so expansive."

The waitress giggled, and winked at Locke before receding back into the dark path between tables. Levin shifted to lean forward, strained and careful. His free hand clutched the neck of the bottle before he leaned back into the comfortable pile of cushions at his back. Levin didn't drink yet, instead he sat and listened to his comrades. Their voices felt unusually muffled, with presences distant to his mind it felt as if Levin could only partly listen to them.

"Korriban?" He muttered, a small shake of his hooded head given. "No... Ossus, I think. Couldn't have run off if I had tried. Three weeks in a kolto tank. Three weeks to be well enough to make contact"

Levin coughed, a brittle hack swallowed by the sound-dampening curtains. He gave no more clues to where he had been, instead choosing to bring the new bottle up for a long drink. The booze was placed back on the table, where Levin remained leaning forward.

"Story? There's no story, Jaidan. No need to tell it either." Levin rolled a dial to cycle through a dozen holos from the holonet, letting them cycle until one popped up at random.

There Levin stood, his robes still intact and armor barely scratched. Eyes the same pair of bloodshot-whites and fully dilated pupils from the first shown holo, they stared blankly forward as the berserk Levin launched himself forward to sink teeth into a different Sith's neck. One hand gripped the darksider's wrist to keep lightsaber at bay, the other pulled ropes of entrails from the woman's gut. The view would shake as it fled Levin, turning a corner to a larger reflective glass. The reflection revealed yet another Sith war droid, its single eye a baleful red as it watched its own running parallel self. Only for the glass to suddenly shatter as Levin burst through it, and the holo cut to static.

"I have no memory. Of anything that happened on Taris." Not a complete lie, but not the complete truth. There was the memory of the duel with Novus and her apprentice. There was the knife. Then darkness.

"I hear... it was bad."

[Rugs]

The bottle smacked loudly against Locke’s palm as he caught it, more out of reflex than active thought. He looked at the thing for a long moment, then sighed. Locke was hardly one to judge another Jedi for their alcohol consumption habits — and it appeared Levin at least had decent tastes, thank the Force for that — but something felt uniquely off about seeing a Councilman so… pitiful.

“So I guess this gives me a free pass next time you catch me out cavorting around, eh?” Locke’s smile wasn’t as forced as he expected. Somehow, the Twi’lek waitress coming to drop yet more booze off for the Jedi Master helped, even as Locke silently wondered how much money Levin had blown in this quiet little corner of Correllia. “Or, perhaps you can finally stop giving me grief about over that time I got busted when I was a padawan, eh?”

He elbowed Jaidan in the ribs, smiling stupidly. “Not my fault I worked a good disguise at 16, eh? I’d say it was a good Investigator practice, but no can’t ever live that down.”

Despite his efforts to lighten the mood, Locke’s smile never really reached his eyes, and the gloomy mood never seemed to leave he table.

Levin spoke of being held on Ossus. Locke’s brows rose. “Ossus? I thought that was a dead world, after the supernova a few hundred years ago.” Had the Sith set up there? An interesting nugget of information, if Levin’s recollection was accurate, but hardly the most immediate concern.

That presented itself in the form of another holorecording, this time of Lev terrorizing some Sith soldier in his murderous rampage.

Locke’s stomach turned as the healer ripped the woman’s innards out, even as some part of him recognized that she was an enemy combatant. But does she deserve that? No. No one does…

Are you any better? Burning Force only knows how many people?

He shook his head. Not the time, nor place — not when he needed a clear head to help Levin out of whatever funk he was in.

“I think Jaidan would know the intimate details better than I, seeing that he was out in the field,” Locke said with a deferential nod to his Echani companion. “But even from the command post and orbit, I can say this much — we didn’t expect the Rakghouls. I didn’t see them up close, but I heard men scream as they died…” He shook his head again.

“The world’s lost,” he said after a short silence. “And I fear the war’s only about to grow worse.”

[DreadPirateMike]

"As you say, Levin. No need to tell it." Jaidan offered, but his gaze had shifted from both the stricken Master and his grisly fixation as soon as the hostess had returned to offer him an alternative. Specifically, with the tray, though the warm and gentle demeanor of the woman herself was captivating in its own way. But the bounty she carried...Pride of Kor Vella. One of Han's favorites, as he recalled. And it answered his question about Levin. If a man was going to drown himself in a whiskey bottle, it may as well be Corellian.

Popping the cork off off the bottle not set aside for Levin's personal use, he silently filled the two tumblers that had come with it, and slid one to Locke. His valiant attempt at levity hadn't seemed to quite do it, even for him, but perhaps a bit of liquid cheer would help him better than it seemed to help Levin. In any case, it was certainly a fond grimace with which the "hoary white" Jedi knocked back his own first round; he'd long ago decided that assaulting yourself with the hard stuff was like jumping into cold water. If you were going to do it, best to just jump in with both feet and have done with it.  And, of course, ascertaining that the drinks weren't in any way drugged answered ANOTHER question about Levin's situation.

"Suffice it to say, it wasn't quite the birthday I'd hoped for. And my expectations weren't terribly high going in."

Well, that wasn't entirely true. Mass slaughter certainly wasn't something he ever looked forward to, but if he'd been there to do his part, and Taris had been the turning point, where the Sith advance had finally ground to a halt, that would have been some birthday present indeed. And for awhile, victory had seemed within their grasp...well, that day would come. In the meantime, he knew he was where he was supposed to be, doing what he was meant do do, and he hoped the same held true for his friend the Investigator.

"We'll have it back." he concluded aloud with a shrug. "The Sith had it little better than we did. Let's call that a start, and leave it there for now."

With that, he poured himself a second glass, and turned back at last to the screen, watching the carnage silently, hardly relishing the experience, but not allowing himself to flinch from it. Something much, much worse than combat stress had befallen their friend on Taris. It would take skill beyond what either he or Locke possessed to determine exactly what. Hopefully, that skill was to be found on High Charity, or at the Temple, for it didn't seem to have wholly relinquished its hold.

As for what happened after Taris, that was a quandary in itself. As Locke indicated, no Jedi had taken Levin to Ossus. And if he'd been in Sith hands, how was he here now? Formidable as the Healer may have been at any other time, he hadn't fought his way past the Anchorhead Ladies Auxiliary in his condition. And the Sith Order certainly hadn't simply allowed a prize like a Jedi High Councilor to go his merry way. Not unless...

No story?

"Novus." he said at last, before pausing to take a sip from his tumbler.  Before he'd put it down, he'd shot a brief but direct glance at Locke, trusting eye contact to convey the full extent of his meaning.  "It was reported that you'd dueled Novus and her apprentice."