#now i just need to put Rivka and Ahriss in a room together and make them talk adaptive tech

[paradife-loft]

moar Khisit and Rivka conversation; relatively early days during Khisit's time on Rivka's crew - another ~1k words or so

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Khisit plops down at the cramped galley table opposite Rivka, bearing a plate of sausages and hash browns, and a black mug of caf. They take a bite of sausage and chew thoughtfully, chin propped up on one hand as the other idly flicks their fork back and forth.

"So, question for you," they start, after a few moments' silence. "How come the really obvious limbs?"

[[MORE]]

Rivka blinks and looks up at Khisit with an expression of genuine surprise flickering across her face. Antagonism she'd expected, yes; but no one had ever brought up her prosthetics like that before. (Made leading comments, expressed undesired 'sympathy' - but never just bald-faced asked.)

"I mean, you'd figure the Council'd be willing to spring for the really nice ones with synthskin and all, since they've set you up with this rig," Khisit elaborates, shrugging and gesturing about at the ship. Their golden eyes pierce into Rivka - but she doesn't sense hostility, exactly, more just… testing? Evaluating?

A piece of her bristles instinctually at the idea, and the idea of being found wanting; but it's vestigial and weak enough that she can brush it away with little difficulty.

She sets her datapad down. "These are the sort of limbs I've always had, actually." Rivka meets Khisit's gaze for a moment before glancing off again in thought. "They offered to buy me more organic-looking ones when I joined the Order, yes. And whenever I need to upgrade to a newer model or get repairs done. But there's no real functional advantage to them, and in some cases the added cases just make fixing things harder."

From the corner of her eye, Rivka catches Khisit's brows raise a fraction, paired with a sense of familiarity, positive appraisal. Maybe thinking of an analogy with the work they do on computers?

"So it's just about utility? Don't want a pretty piece of dead weight to drag around in the field if something gets fucked up while you're on assignment? That's respectable."

And yet… incomplete? It's hard to tell what's her read from Khisit's presence and what's her own response, this close to another person. She's pretty sure the irritation is her own, though.

"There's a lot more that can go wrong, too, when you're building based on principles besides just functional efficiency," Rivka elaborates instead, frowning as she thinks of some of the repairs she's seen and heard about hanging around the maintenance enclave. "Is synthskin the most durable outside covering? No. Is it an extra challenge trying to add another layer of signal transfer systems for the tactile feedback impulses? Yes. And some of the compensation methods weigh more, so you're putting more strain on the rest of the body where it joins up… and they're harder to take off regularly, so you're wearing them more and that just compounds the stress, on top of how people wearing the fancy ones half the time want to feel as normal as possible and so again, aren't taking them off -"

She cuts off abruptly, aware of the heat in her face and how her voice has raised through the impromptu rant. Not to mention whether Khisit even cared for that much detail… she looks away briefly, twisting a lock of hair between her finger and thumb.

But Khisit is almost smiling when Rivka hazards a glance back - smirking, really - with their brow ridges raised at the edges. "Oh, no, don't stop on my account," they say, leaning back and crossing their arms. One grey-clad knee peeks over the edge of the table. "This is fascinating."

Giving her enough rope to hang herself with? But no. Khisit isn't… Master Kaedan. Or his ilk.

She sighs, and sets her hands down. "People put a lot of moral importance on… being purely organic. Or at least looking like it, if you can't have the real thing. If life creates the Force, what does it say if your body is too… infected by corruption, to accept the methods of healing that would reconnect you fully with the Force the way you should be? Never mind that there's no such thing as equal access to medical technology; and organic-looking prosthetics, full-term kolto treatments, happen to be what rich people in the Core can afford. Or that no between-group differences have been found in any empirical studies of Force potential in people with mechanical prosthetics versus not. So I just… yes, part of it is efficiency. But part of it is also…"

She trails off, drumming fingers against the table, not wanting to verbalise the words that come most readily to mind, that contain the honesty she wants to provide. But she isn't coming up with any more acceptable-sounding alternatives that aren't lies, either.

Part of it is anger. Spite. Not wanting to let the ignorant bastards who believe those things win.

Knowledge has always come easier than peace, and made peace even harder to achieve in turn. She still doesn't know what to do with that.

Khisit is still watching intently, but doesn't seem to give anything away in either their face or the Force. They shrug, casualness belied by the focus in their eyes. "Hey, you're not gonna get any argument from me." A hint of steel edges their voice. "Fuck them."

Rivka almost laughs, beset with memory. She'd said almost the same thing once, more than once, strained with tension and the heavy chain of awareness of the transgression in the statement. Calculated curses, carefully packaged and deployed as befit the only outlet of such power she could access. Khisit's presence, even for such a short time, has begun to desensitise her.

But then, she can't bring herself to see that as wholly a bad thing.