#awol2renagade

[hannagoldworthy]

Renegade 6

(So, some filler. Barriss and Merrin are starting to hash out their relationship, peace between Death Watch and Black Sun is hard-won through an act of chemical warfare, Savage has a truly awful, no good, very-bad day, and Feral has given up on trying to understand anything that's going on by this point. There is talk of interaction between pregnancy hormones and Falleen pheromones, but nothing terribly explicit.)

For a week, the two organizations of Death Watch and Black Sun danced around each other, setting and breaking camp, squabbling over tent space, trading baubles for alcohol, eying each other distrustfully over cultural disputes involving masks.

Thankfully, Barriss seemed largely forgotten in the hubbub. And that was good, because she wanted to be left to her own devices as much as possible; it was hard enough to adjust to a medical swing-shift schedule again without being watched as if she was in a fishbowl.

She tried not to stomp as she finished up the last few duties before she was allowed off. Her feet were killing her after twelve hours of standing, and she just wanted to curl up on her cot in the storage corner of the med tent and go to sleep. However, she only managed an hour’s nap before she awoke again, shivering violently after a vivid dream of the Geonosian hive tunnels as they had been at night, cold and still. Barriss frowned; those nightmares were triggered either by an intense feeling of chill or exposure. And, as she was on a warm jungle planet, she had to feel exposed, which rang true, considering she was also in a camp full of potential enemies. Stars, but she missed being in the middle of a cuddle pile; she’d always felt safe when with her family.

Well, she was still exhausted, but she wasn’t getting back to sleep anytime soon…the tiny Ahsoka Tano in her head whispered that she might as well check what was cooking in the mess hall. Barriss swung her legs over the edge of the bed and inserted her feet into her boots, only to find that her boots were uncomfortably tight. With a sigh, she rubbed her feet; her extremities had always had a tendency to swell up a little under barometric pressure changes, so, on top of everything else, a storm had to be approaching. Grand…just grand. She tied her laces loosely, and set off to the mess tent, hoping they had something warm that she was permitted to eat so she could grab something and return to bed before any torrential downpour hit.

When she arrived, Merrin sat alone at a table, nursing what appeared to be a cup of hot cocoa and a massive headache. Barriss kept an eye on her as she went through the serving table, getting a promisingly spicy-looking vegetable soup and her own mug of cocoa, which proved to be the real kind, made with rich, ground cacao beans and not the instant stuff the Jedi Temple had had to make do with…where were they getting this stuff? Sliding into the seat across from Merrin, Barriss said her customary prayer, and began eating, knowing that Merrin would be willing to share if she wanted.

“…I don’t know how you can eat, with the rain coming,” the girl groused after a moment.

Barriss shrugged. “I weather storms better when I eat something hot.”

“You must file your horns, then,” Merrin replied miserably, pressing the side of her cup against her forehead instead of drinking it. “Must be nice…”

Barriss tried to wrap her head around the logic of that statement. “I don’t…have horns?”

Merrin seemed to be trying to understand her. “You don’t, because you file them. Obviously.”

“I’ve never had horns. Mirialans don’t have horns, we just have hair.”

The girl searched her face for evidence of dishonesty; upon finding none, she smirked, and then winced. “You would be considered a rare paragon of beauty on Dathomir. A select few women of my race are born without horns; the rest of us either file them down to nubs small enough to be covered by hair, or have them removed at birth.”

Barriss stopped moving in the middle of a mouthful of soup, suddenly feeling as if her stomach was full of heavy stones. “And which of those two are you?”

Moments later, the two hurried over to the medtent as thunder rumbled ominously in the distance. Barriss ushered Merrin into a cot and drew a curtain, sending a medical droid to fetch what she needed as she began to gently palpate Merrin’s head.

The girl had a circlet of eight tiny gray scars where horns should have grown, concealed in her white hair. The wounds had delved deep into the bones of her skull; judging by the nature of the damage, Barriss thought that they had been plucked or pulled out, like a dentist might do with teeth or a torturer might do with fingernails. Horror pooled in Barriss’s gut…someone had done this to Merrin when she was a baby.

“I was used to fighting through this on other planets,” the girl said by way of explanation. “It snuck up on me here, but I promise I won’t be as childish as I was being when you found me. I’m sorry that you had to see…”

Seized by a sudden maternal impulse, Barriss pressed a kiss to one of the worst scars, allaying the pain with a subtle application of Force Healing. “You have nothing to be sorry for,” she said, hoping her voice wasn’t too harsh from the onset of tears. “This is…where I come from doing this to a child at that age would be considered an unforgiveable cruelty. You deserve so much better than to have to feel like this for so long.”

Merrin stared at her with the same look on her face that Maul could get when abruptly shown affection for no apparent reason. “It is a warrior’s burden. I am not weak. I can handle it.”

“A warrior has enough burdens without having to endure needless suffering,” Barriss replied, taking the tube of gel she had sent the droid to retrieve. “I’m going to rub in a little of this on each scar, and you can take the tube with you and do the same when they ache again. Come to me when you are almost out, and I’ll get you more.”

Merrin allowed her to work for several minutes in silence. Then, her poor little shoulders shook with a sniffle she could not repress, and she clutched Barriss’s, stifling the sound of her sobbing in her waist.

Barriss stiffened at the unanticipated contact – Merrin never touched anyone if she could help it – but ran her fingers through the girl’s hair. “Shh,” she murmured, hoping she was doing this right. “You can stay here for the night on observation; I won’t leave until you’re feeling better.”

“Thank you, Mother…I mean…”

“It’s all right.” She’d been hesitant to let the child call her that, since she had failed so many others under her protection; but, for all her failings as a student, a general, and a doctor, she was fairly certain that she could not accidentally harm Merrin as much as Merrin’s former leaders and parents had purposefully. And, well, Barriss had somehow acquired a husband and in-laws almost completely by accident and still managed to do right by them as much as she could; she might as well lean into this relationship as well. “You can call me Mother if you want…just, not in front of anybody else, for now.”

Merrin smiled tearfully against her navel. “Mother Barriss…it has a nice ring, no?”

***

“This segregation is completely unnecessary,” asserted one of the larger Black Sun wives, bursting into the command tent in the middle of a strategy meeting, one week after the crime syndicate had been recruited into this shared enterprise.

Ziton Moj, the former captain of the guard and only active Black Sun Vigo, glared at her hard enough that his normally green face became blue as she stormed up to the table. “Ziidra, it is pouring rain outside! You should have more consideration for your delicate condition…”

“Shut it, squirt,” she spat, plunking what appeared to be a gigantic perfume bottle down right in front of Savage and shoving her index finger into Viszla’s visor. “You are the one who insists that we stay in separate camps for fear of pheromone contact. I can tell by the cowardly way you hide your face behind that metal, even though you have obviously been informed that we don’t gas our own people if we can help it.”

Maul found himself barely holding back a laugh at the perplexity with which Viszla stared at the large, pink-painted claw in his face, and received what appeared to be a look for his quiet entertainment.

“I have been told you consider it rude,” Viszla stated in the diplomatic way one would address a precocious child. “But, my lady, you’ll forgive me if we aren’t willing to trust the honor system on that.”

“I’ll do nothing of the sort. Has anyone told you why we consider it rude?”

Moj’s eyes widened. “Sis, please tell me you aren’t…”

“I said shut it.” Ziidra gestured to the bottle. “This is eau du Falleen, no doubt a rare sight in your prudish little beskar republic. It is made by distilling our pheromones considerably, to the point that they would have absolutely no effect on us during mating season. Outside of mating season, however…”

“Ziidra NO!”

The painted claws depressed the spritzer on the bottle before any further objection could be made, and chaos reigned in the command tent.

***

They were all of them disallowed from the medtent, save only for Moj, his closest lieutenants, and Savage, who had violently emptied the entire contents of their stomachs over everyone around them and who were currently being dosed with anti-emetics. Viszla, who had been directly across from Savage and thus took the worst of the barrage, folded his arms as the rain gradually rinsed his beskar, glaring at Maul, who had experience in dealing with the Black Sun and who had thus remained clean of both perfume and vomit.

From inside her ornamental, pink sapphire-encrusted re-breather, Ziidra grinned like the tooka that ate the songbird. “As you can see, dear sir,” she said, imitating Viszla’s patronizing tone perfectly, “Falleen pheromones cause immediate nausea in anyone who is biologically unreceptive to breeding. This includes Falleen outside of mating season and mammals which are with pup.” She nodded cordially to Maul. “Congratulations, by the way…both on the impending babies and the fact that you were able to land that gorgeous broad.”

Maul blinked. “Who?”

Ziidra frowned. “The yellow and black one? Is she not your woman?”

“He is my brother.”

“Aw! It’s sweet that you’re supporting him through his transition and his pregnancy!”

“MY WHAT?!” Several crashes rang out in the medtent as Savage got up in a panicked frenzy.

“Sit back down!”

“WHICH ONE OF THOSE WITCHES GOT ME PREGNANT!?”

“…What? Savage!” Barriss’s voice was steady. “Calm yourself, I’m sure that’s not…”

“YOU CALM YOURSELF! I’M NOT READY TO BE A MOM!!”

As a medical droid sailed bodily out of the medtent to land dazedly seven meters away, Ziidra regarded Maul closely. “I thought sexual dimorphism was expressed in your species by skin color and height.”

“It is, to a certain extent. Savage has a normal male color pattern, and the height is the result of…”

“KARKING WITCH MAGICK!” Savage thundered out of the tent, dressed only in the largest examination gown they could find. “Where the KARK are my clothes?!”

“Being laundered because they are saturated with the perfume,” Barriss replied, sounding every bit as weary with the situation as Maul felt. “Get back in here!”

“If they didn’t want me running around the camp BARE-ASSED to get some EXPLANATIONS, they would not have GOTTEN ME PREGNANT!” Savage roared hysterically. “MERRIN!”

“Savage, the weather could drown a…Savage!” As the incensed Nightbrother barged off without care for the mud or his bare feet, Barriss stared Ziidra down with a truly magnificent ferocity that Maul felt privileged to see. “This is your fault. You did this. And if you do it again, I will remove any and all significant Black Sun tattoos from your person when you go into labor, my gods as witness!” And then she trudged after Savage in the rain, muttering the entire time.

The Falleen noblewoman shot Maul another look. “That’s…actually a fairly creative, and serviceable, threat. How much would it be to buy her off of you?”

“She’s not for sale.”

“That’s a wise decision; she’d be worth a lot more than I would be willing to pay.” With one well-pedicured foot, Ziidra nudged Viszla, who had collapsed silently into the mud, the jolting of his body indicating he was laughing uproariously with his external vocoder muted. “Now do you see why we try not to do this to each other?”

Viszla held up an index finger, coughed a few more times, and then removed his helmet, revealing the redness of his face. He tried to keep his face sober for two seconds before falling onto his back, crying with laughter. “How is this my life?”

Ziidra rolled her eyes. “You’re lucky we aren’t in mating season, or else we’d have ended up in a territorial bar brawl with a body count,” she said, stumping over to where Viszla lay. “As it is, we are trying to avoid pheromones almost as much as you are. We are not going to try and control you…can you trust us at least that far?”

Viszla studied her extended hand, and slowly took it, allowing himself to be hauled to his feet. “For now. I’m still instructing my people to shoot to kill in the event that you betray that trust.”

She smiled predatorily. “Smart boy.”

Of course, that had to be the scene when the Pyke Syndicate envoy Maul had been expecting for days touched down just outside the camp. The odd little Oba Diahans filed carefully out of their ship, bowed low in greeting, and blinked owlishly when they did not get a direct response.

“Have we…missed something…?”

***

“I thought the greenie was a vegetarian,” drawled Gillespie, the old Mandalorian cook.

Merrin bristled, her hands lighting with green flame. “She is not a greenie, she is a Mirialan, and her name is…”

Feral laid a hand on her shoulder before she could do something irreversible to Gillespie’s innards. “He?” That earned a shake of the head. “She?” Another shake of the head. “Uh…they?”

“Close enough.”

“They, know her name, Merrin,” Feral continued. “And they know she never eats the meat, but she does eat the eggs.”

“Said vegetarian, not vegan.”

Feral winced in a way that he hoped looked like a placating smile. “I’m a carnivore; it’s all the same to me. Anyway, we were hoping that some more nuna chicken could be served instead of the mystery meat. Barriss can only eat meats of very specific animals if they are cooked in a certain way…”

“She slops down the beans and fruit and coffee just fine…I ain’t changing the way I cook for some prissy lady with expensive tastes.”

“MERRIN!!” Both Dathomirians jumped, and Merrin clambered behind Feral, putting him in between her and a thoroughly soaked, utterly irate Savage Opress, who for some reason was in a medical examination gown and nothing else. He jabbed a finger at Merrin, who gaped in horror at his state of undress. “You little…explain to me, RIGHT NOW, just WHY I am PREGNANT.”

Feral’s brain was kind enough to halt the flashback to Savage’s lecture when he had tagged along on a rancor hunt at the age of five. It was not kind enough to supply anything else to fill the resulting void. “…What?”

Merrin seemed just as confused. “Beg pardon?”

Gillespie threw a handful of some aromatic herbs in the air like confetti. “Congratulations, it’s an offspring. Get out of my kitchen.”

“I AM NOT LEAVING THIS KITCHEN UNTIL SOMEONE TELLS ME WHY I AM PREGNANT!”

Rook Kast chose that precise moment to enter the mess tent, raised her eyebrows, and brought up her commlink. “Hey, Saxxy, way to go!”

“What’d I do now?”

“Your boyfriend’s…”

“I DON’T HAVE A BOYFRIEND!” Savage squished the commlink on her wrist just enough to stop the conversation without hurting her. “BUT I WAS RAISED IN A CULT OF MEDDLING WITCHES WHO WOULD LOVE AN OPPORTUNITY TO SCREW WITH MY BIOLOGY!”

“Savage, for pity’s sake…lower your voice,” Barriss groaned, rubbing at her temples as she, too, entered the mess tent. “You are not pregnant.”

He stared around him, wild-eyed. “You heard what she said…”

“She was mistaken. Falleen pheromones have a violent interaction with Humanoid Growth Hormone, which is, yes, something that occurs naturally in pregnancy, but it can be produced at other times as well.” Barriss laid a hand on his arm, and moved so that her face would be the nearest thing he could focus on. “Whatever the Witches did to you made you overproduce HGH…nothing more.”

Savage took a deep breath, glanced around him, and cringed. “I’m…I’m sorry.”

“Nah…I’d have probably reacted the same way, to be honest,” said Gillespie.

Barriss turned Savage, glowering at Kast as she unsubtly checked out the large Nightbrother’s displayed behind, and positioned herself to preserve his modesty. “Let’s just get you back to the medbay, Savage; you’re going to need another shower.”

“Don’t like showers.”

“Really? You’ve been taking a long one since you stepped out in this deluge. I’d think you’d be half drowned by now.”

Rook watched them go, and when they were out of earshot, she pulled out a backup commlink. “False alarm. Your boyfriend’s not knocked up, he’s just on steroids.”

“…Kast. I was brushing my teeth.”

“Oh good! That’ll make you a little less unappealing!”

“I am replacing your armor with the haunted beskar from my mother’s side of the family.”

Feral rolled his eyes and leaned on the table in front of Gillespie, intending to bring out the kicked-rancor-kit expression that had won him many extra meal portions as a boy. However, Gillespie shook their head fondly, and patted his shoulder.

“I can manage a bit more poultry…didn’t realize this was the sort of crap she puts up with.”

“Thanks.”

[stagofwar]

Ah, fluff. Gotta love it. And Barris had best get used to the new title, she’s gonna need it soon. Otherwise, Savage... I’m so sorry. Truly, you deserve better.

Renegade 6

(So, some filler. Barriss and Merrin are starting to hash out their relationship, peace between Death Watch and Black Sun is hard-won through an act of chemical warfare, Savage has a truly awful, no good, very-bad day, and Feral has given up on trying to understand anything that's going on by this point. There is talk of interaction between pregnancy hormones and Falleen pheromones, but nothing terribly explicit.)

For a week, the two organizations of Death Watch and Black Sun danced around each other, setting and breaking camp, squabbling over tent space, trading baubles for alcohol, eying each other distrustfully over cultural disputes involving masks.

Thankfully, Barriss seemed largely forgotten in the hubbub. And that was good, because she wanted to be left to her own devices as much as possible; it was hard enough to adjust to a medical swing-shift schedule again without being watched as if she was in a fishbowl.

She tried not to stomp as she finished up the last few duties before she was allowed off. Her feet were killing her after twelve hours of standing, and she just wanted to curl up on her cot in the storage corner of the med tent and go to sleep. However, she only managed an hour’s nap before she awoke again, shivering violently after a vivid dream of the Geonosian hive tunnels as they had been at night, cold and still. Barriss frowned; those nightmares were triggered either by an intense feeling of chill or exposure. And, as she was on a warm jungle planet, she had to feel exposed, which rang true, considering she was also in a camp full of potential enemies. Stars, but she missed being in the middle of a cuddle pile; she’d always felt safe when with her family.

Well, she was still exhausted, but she wasn’t getting back to sleep anytime soon…the tiny Ahsoka Tano in her head whispered that she might as well check what was cooking in the mess hall. Barriss swung her legs over the edge of the bed and inserted her feet into her boots, only to find that her boots were uncomfortably tight. With a sigh, she rubbed her feet; her extremities had always had a tendency to swell up a little under barometric pressure changes, so, on top of everything else, a storm had to be approaching. Grand…just grand. She tied her laces loosely, and set off to the mess tent, hoping they had something warm that she was permitted to eat so she could grab something and return to bed before any torrential downpour hit.

When she arrived, Merrin sat alone at a table, nursing what appeared to be a cup of hot cocoa and a massive headache. Barriss kept an eye on her as she went through the serving table, getting a promisingly spicy-looking vegetable soup and her own mug of cocoa, which proved to be the real kind, made with rich, ground cacao beans and not the instant stuff the Jedi Temple had had to make do with…where were they getting this stuff? Sliding into the seat across from Merrin, Barriss said her customary prayer, and began eating, knowing that Merrin would be willing to share if she wanted.

“…I don’t know how you can eat, with the rain coming,” the girl groused after a moment.

Barriss shrugged. “I weather storms better when I eat something hot.”

“You must file your horns, then,” Merrin replied miserably, pressing the side of her cup against her forehead instead of drinking it. “Must be nice…”

Barriss tried to wrap her head around the logic of that statement. “I don’t…have horns?”

Merrin seemed to be trying to understand her. “You don’t, because you file them. Obviously.”

“I’ve never had horns. Mirialans don’t have horns, we just have hair.”

The girl searched her face for evidence of dishonesty; upon finding none, she smirked, and then winced. “You would be considered a rare paragon of beauty on Dathomir. A select few women of my race are born without horns; the rest of us either file them down to nubs small enough to be covered by hair, or have them removed at birth.”

Barriss stopped moving in the middle of a mouthful of soup, suddenly feeling as if her stomach was full of heavy stones. “And which of those two are you?”

Moments later, the two hurried over to the medtent as thunder rumbled ominously in the distance. Barriss ushered Merrin into a cot and drew a curtain, sending a medical droid to fetch what she needed as she began to gently palpate Merrin’s head.

The girl had a circlet of eight tiny gray scars where horns should have grown, concealed in her white hair. The wounds had delved deep into the bones of her skull; judging by the nature of the damage, Barriss thought that they had been plucked or pulled out, like a dentist might do with teeth or a torturer might do with fingernails. Horror pooled in Barriss’s gut…someone had done this to Merrin when she was a baby.

“I was used to fighting through this on other planets,” the girl said by way of explanation. “It snuck up on me here, but I promise I won’t be as childish as I was being when you found me. I’m sorry that you had to see…”

Seized by a sudden maternal impulse, Barriss pressed a kiss to one of the worst scars, allaying the pain with a subtle application of Force Healing. “You have nothing to be sorry for,” she said, hoping her voice wasn’t too harsh from the onset of tears. “This is…where I come from doing this to a child at that age would be considered an unforgiveable cruelty. You deserve so much better than to have to feel like this for so long.”

Merrin stared at her with the same look on her face that Maul could get when abruptly shown affection for no apparent reason. “It is a warrior’s burden. I am not weak. I can handle it.”

“A warrior has enough burdens without having to endure needless suffering,” Barriss replied, taking the tube of gel she had sent the droid to retrieve. “I’m going to rub in a little of this on each scar, and you can take the tube with you and do the same when they ache again. Come to me when you are almost out, and I’ll get you more.”

Merrin allowed her to work for several minutes in silence. Then, her poor little shoulders shook with a sniffle she could not repress, and she clutched Barriss’s, stifling the sound of her sobbing in her waist.

Barriss stiffened at the unanticipated contact – Merrin never touched anyone if she could help it – but ran her fingers through the girl’s hair. “Shh,” she murmured, hoping she was doing this right. “You can stay here for the night on observation; I won’t leave until you’re feeling better.”

“Thank you, Mother…I mean…”

“It’s all right.” She’d been hesitant to let the child call her that, since she had failed so many others under her protection; but, for all her failings as a student, a general, and a doctor, she was fairly certain that she could not accidentally harm Merrin as much as Merrin’s former leaders and parents had purposefully. And, well, Barriss had somehow acquired a husband and in-laws almost completely by accident and still managed to do right by them as much as she could; she might as well lean into this relationship as well. “You can call me Mother if you want…just, not in front of anybody else, for now.”

Merrin smiled tearfully against her navel. “Mother Barriss…it has a nice ring, no?”

***

“This segregation is completely unnecessary,” asserted one of the larger Black Sun wives, bursting into the command tent in the middle of a strategy meeting, one week after the crime syndicate had been recruited into this shared enterprise.

Ziton Moj, the former captain of the guard and only active Black Sun Vigo, glared at her hard enough that his normally green face became blue as she stormed up to the table. “Ziidra, it is pouring rain outside! You should have more consideration for your delicate condition…”

“Shut it, squirt,” she spat, plunking what appeared to be a gigantic perfume bottle down right in front of Savage and shoving her index finger into Viszla’s visor. “You are the one who insists that we stay in separate camps for fear of pheromone contact. I can tell by the cowardly way you hide your face behind that metal, even though you have obviously been informed that we don’t gas our own people if we can help it.”

Maul found himself barely holding back a laugh at the perplexity with which Viszla stared at the large, pink-painted claw in his face, and received what appeared to be a look for his quiet entertainment.

“I have been told you consider it rude,” Viszla stated in the diplomatic way one would address a precocious child. “But, my lady, you’ll forgive me if we aren’t willing to trust the honor system on that.”

“I’ll do nothing of the sort. Has anyone told you why we consider it rude?”

Moj’s eyes widened. “Sis, please tell me you aren’t…”

“I said shut it.” Ziidra gestured to the bottle. “This is eau du Falleen, no doubt a rare sight in your prudish little beskar republic. It is made by distilling our pheromones considerably, to the point that they would have absolutely no effect on us during mating season. Outside of mating season, however…”

“Ziidra NO!”

The painted claws depressed the spritzer on the bottle before any further objection could be made, and chaos reigned in the command tent.

***

They were all of them disallowed from the medtent, save only for Moj, his closest lieutenants, and Savage, who had violently emptied the entire contents of their stomachs over everyone around them and who were currently being dosed with anti-emetics. Viszla, who had been directly across from Savage and thus took the worst of the barrage, folded his arms as the rain gradually rinsed his beskar, glaring at Maul, who had experience in dealing with the Black Sun and who had thus remained clean of both perfume and vomit.

From inside her ornamental, pink sapphire-encrusted re-breather, Ziidra grinned like the tooka that ate the songbird. “As you can see, dear sir,” she said, imitating Viszla’s patronizing tone perfectly, “Falleen pheromones cause immediate nausea in anyone who is biologically unreceptive to breeding. This includes Falleen outside of mating season and mammals which are with pup.” She nodded cordially to Maul. “Congratulations, by the way…both on the impending babies and the fact that you were able to land that gorgeous broad.”

Maul blinked. “Who?”

Ziidra frowned. “The yellow and black one? Is she not your woman?”

“He is my brother.”

“Aw! It’s sweet that you’re supporting him through his transition and his pregnancy!”

“MY WHAT?!” Several crashes rang out in the medtent as Savage got up in a panicked frenzy.

“Sit back down!”

“WHICH ONE OF THOSE WITCHES GOT ME PREGNANT!?”

“…What? Savage!” Barriss’s voice was steady. “Calm yourself, I’m sure that’s not…”

“YOU CALM YOURSELF! I’M NOT READY TO BE A MOM!!”

As a medical droid sailed bodily out of the medtent to land dazedly seven meters away, Ziidra regarded Maul closely. “I thought sexual dimorphism was expressed in your species by skin color and height.”

“It is, to a certain extent. Savage has a normal male color pattern, and the height is the result of…”

“KARKING WITCH MAGICK!” Savage thundered out of the tent, dressed only in the largest examination gown they could find. “Where the KARK are my clothes?!”

“Being laundered because they are saturated with the perfume,” Barriss replied, sounding every bit as weary with the situation as Maul felt. “Get back in here!”

“If they didn’t want me running around the camp BARE-ASSED to get some EXPLANATIONS, they would not have GOTTEN ME PREGNANT!” Savage roared hysterically. “MERRIN!”

“Savage, the weather could drown a…Savage!” As the incensed Nightbrother barged off without care for the mud or his bare feet, Barriss stared Ziidra down with a truly magnificent ferocity that Maul felt privileged to see. “This is your fault. You did this. And if you do it again, I will remove any and all significant Black Sun tattoos from your person when you go into labor, my gods as witness!” And then she trudged after Savage in the rain, muttering the entire time.

The Falleen noblewoman shot Maul another look. “That’s…actually a fairly creative, and serviceable, threat. How much would it be to buy her off of you?”

“She’s not for sale.”

“That’s a wise decision; she’d be worth a lot more than I would be willing to pay.” With one well-pedicured foot, Ziidra nudged Viszla, who had collapsed silently into the mud, the jolting of his body indicating he was laughing uproariously with his external vocoder muted. “Now do you see why we try not to do this to each other?”

Viszla held up an index finger, coughed a few more times, and then removed his helmet, revealing the redness of his face. He tried to keep his face sober for two seconds before falling onto his back, crying with laughter. “How is this my life?”

Ziidra rolled her eyes. “You’re lucky we aren’t in mating season, or else we’d have ended up in a territorial bar brawl with a body count,” she said, stumping over to where Viszla lay. “As it is, we are trying to avoid pheromones almost as much as you are. We are not going to try and control you…can you trust us at least that far?”

Viszla studied her extended hand, and slowly took it, allowing himself to be hauled to his feet. “For now. I’m still instructing my people to shoot to kill in the event that you betray that trust.”

She smiled predatorily. “Smart boy.”

Of course, that had to be the scene when the Pyke Syndicate envoy Maul had been expecting for days touched down just outside the camp. The odd little Oba Diahans filed carefully out of their ship, bowed low in greeting, and blinked owlishly when they did not get a direct response.

“Have we…missed something…?”

***

“I thought the greenie was a vegetarian,” drawled Gillespie, the old Mandalorian cook.

Merrin bristled, her hands lighting with green flame. “She is not a greenie, she is a Mirialan, and her name is…”

Feral laid a hand on her shoulder before she could do something irreversible to Gillespie’s innards. “He?” That earned a shake of the head. “She?” Another shake of the head. “Uh…they?”

“Close enough.”

“They, know her name, Merrin,” Feral continued. “And they know she never eats the meat, but she does eat the eggs.”

“Said vegetarian, not vegan.”

Feral winced in a way that he hoped looked like a placating smile. “I’m a carnivore; it’s all the same to me. Anyway, we were hoping that some more nuna chicken could be served instead of the mystery meat. Barriss can only eat meats of very specific animals if they are cooked in a certain way…”

“She slops down the beans and fruit and coffee just fine…I ain’t changing the way I cook for some prissy lady with expensive tastes.”

“MERRIN!!” Both Dathomirians jumped, and Merrin clambered behind Feral, putting him in between her and a thoroughly soaked, utterly irate Savage Opress, who for some reason was in a medical examination gown and nothing else. He jabbed a finger at Merrin, who gaped in horror at his state of undress. “You little…explain to me, RIGHT NOW, just WHY I am PREGNANT.”

Feral’s brain was kind enough to halt the flashback to Savage’s lecture when he had tagged along on a rancor hunt at the age of five. It was not kind enough to supply anything else to fill the resulting void. “…What?”

Merrin seemed just as confused. “Beg pardon?”

Gillespie threw a handful of some aromatic herbs in the air like confetti. “Congratulations, it’s an offspring. Get out of my kitchen.”

“I AM NOT LEAVING THIS KITCHEN UNTIL SOMEONE TELLS ME WHY I AM PREGNANT!”

Rook Kast chose that precise moment to enter the mess tent, raised her eyebrows, and brought up her commlink. “Hey, Saxxy, way to go!”

“What’d I do now?”

“Your boyfriend’s…”

“I DON’T HAVE A BOYFRIEND!” Savage squished the commlink on her wrist just enough to stop the conversation without hurting her. “BUT I WAS RAISED IN A CULT OF MEDDLING WITCHES WHO WOULD LOVE AN OPPORTUNITY TO SCREW WITH MY BIOLOGY!”

“Savage, for pity’s sake…lower your voice,” Barriss groaned, rubbing at her temples as she, too, entered the mess tent. “You are not pregnant.”

He stared around him, wild-eyed. “You heard what she said…”

“She was mistaken. Falleen pheromones have a violent interaction with Humanoid Growth Hormone, which is, yes, something that occurs naturally in pregnancy, but it can be produced at other times as well.” Barriss laid a hand on his arm, and moved so that her face would be the nearest thing he could focus on. “Whatever the Witches did to you made you overproduce HGH…nothing more.”

Savage took a deep breath, glanced around him, and cringed. “I’m…I’m sorry.”

“Nah…I’d have probably reacted the same way, to be honest,” said Gillespie.

Barriss turned Savage, glowering at Kast as she unsubtly checked out the large Nightbrother’s displayed behind, and positioned herself to preserve his modesty. “Let’s just get you back to the medbay, Savage; you’re going to need another shower.”

“Don’t like showers.”

“Really? You’ve been taking a long one since you stepped out in this deluge. I’d think you’d be half drowned by now.”

Rook watched them go, and when they were out of earshot, she pulled out a backup commlink. “False alarm. Your boyfriend’s not knocked up, he’s just on steroids.”

“…Kast. I was brushing my teeth.”

“Oh good! That’ll make you a little less unappealing!”

“I am replacing your armor with the haunted beskar from my mother’s side of the family.”

Feral rolled his eyes and leaned on the table in front of Gillespie, intending to bring out the kicked-rancor-kit expression that had won him many extra meal portions as a boy. However, Gillespie shook their head fondly, and patted his shoulder.

“I can manage a bit more poultry…didn’t realize this was the sort of crap she puts up with.”

“Thanks.”