#nm-1

Friyr deposited the fluffed blanket onto his mattress. Another amidst the silky green fabric he’d picked up on Corellia and the plump pillow he’d found on Alderaan. Small trinkets in addition to the simple beddings he’d stripped from the temple. They were nothing fancy if of quality make. A Jedi lived in moderation perhaps, but Friyr had a lifetime of sheets that kept just enough of the chill out. He’d roughed it, endured desert nights and the swampy monsoon rains of Kaas in the wet season. He’d lived on simple cots full of molding straw and threadbare weave. Then there had been the simple white pallet.

Friyr closed his eyes rather than remember that comfortable cruelty. He shook his head. He exhaled in the silence until his lungs emptied. The tap of his index finger kept time with the breath until there was no more. A blanket of calm settled over his shoulders, making them heavy. Friyr wanted something a little bit more than learning to make do. Then again, he always did. 

He settled into what was quickly becoming a nest of blankets and soft things with a heavy sigh. s he reached for his pillow, the back of his knuckles grazed something cold and hard. He stroked his fingertips over the metal surface, knowing intuitively the touch of his friend even at the most unexpected moments. There was a soft warmth to the cold buried under layers of NM-1′s hibernating circuitry. Friyr patted him gently, then forewent the pillow, pushing it beneath his head, to pull him arms around the droid instead. The metal edges pressed into his forearms; a cold snowdrop against his heart and belly for a moment. 

He was home. Friyr absently stroked the carapace. It was lonely in the absence of company. Bendo left with Master Tabris’ new apprentice, leaving Friyr alone again. NM hummed gently in his arms and Kyuga’s breaths were clear across the small dwelling. Friyr was not a lonely man in any respect, but the feeling sank in during the between times with an ardent need to be felt.

Friyr squeezed the droid unconsciously and gazed at the dim gray in his vision reflected from moonlight spread over NM’s hull. He knew the semblance of things that were said about his recent absences. The prolonged galaxy tramping that took him to the edges of wild space and turned the council into a distressed collection of tinny voices over the holofrequency. 

Friyr’s a free spirit; Troubled; I don’t think Friyr knows how to care about people who care about him.

It didn’t bother him, but he knew that in some way they danced around a knot of unsettled reasons all snarled together in a ball of discontent. He didn’t think that the galaxy would undo them, but the challenge of finding his way back home had occupied a troubled heart for a while.

Friyr had quickly learned that Force bonds were not lightly made for the sole reason provided in the ache of separated hearts. He had said goodbye in ten different ways every morning and evening to Kurt Wax, known what they shared was a fluke of proximity, and yet. Yet. It still hurt feeling the intensity of an emotion Friyr had never known from the man given to another. Someone Friyr didn’t know beyond Kurt’s stray feelings and dreams where Friyr imagined himself a watery version of the Pureblood. But he knew enough to know that Kurt had finally fallen in love.

It was the reason he’d leaned over with a smirk and bitten into Sahley’s fruit all those months ago. Friyr hadn’t really expected to be led out onto a porch by the hand and asked if he felt the sun on his skin. He’d slept with the man as a sort of flippant pasttime only to have that flippancy flipped on its head by a particularly tender Republican. 

Friyr didn’t know what he felt for Sahley other than an infrequent need to hold him or steal a kiss when they were alone. To be around him. Sometimes Friyr wondered in particularly painful moments - where he could feel Kurt’s heartbeat a little too strongly - if Sahley was a key - not to twist in a lock - but to wedge against the fabric of the Force bond as a makeshift knife and sever the ties. 

It was that alone that convinced Friyr he didn’t deserve stolen kisses or the precise time of day from the tenderhearted soul. Friyr wedged space between the two. Rebuffing Sahley’s need to reaffirm their tender friendship with a firm shove instea. Friyr had never shared something so gentle with a friend before. But it had felt so right to not call the mirialan his own but rather someone he expressly cared for just a little bit more than he did for others. Sometimes a very silly part of him that was always running off on fantasies about giving boys flowers would doubt with a certain sincerity that bruising their friendship - not letting things progress into a comfortable but ultimately platonic intimacy with the potential for more - was wrong. It was easier to listen to that part of him while Master Tabris grieved the death of her late husband, her one love. It was easier to pine for someone to care for Friyr the way she had wanted Rajjaet to care of her.

Friyr left. Confused, anxious, and with too much time on his hands - he pulled on the green cloak Teran had given him, strapped his lightsaber on, and went to try and be a Jedi the best he knew how. He settled a few disputes on Carrick station by placing his body between others and flashing the lightsaber on his hip without revealing once its color. 

He had a panic attack in Nar Shaddaa, then fell in love with the bastions of opportunity and freedom the Hutts cultivated, while also finding poverty of the worst kinds that made his giddiness an uncomfortable feeling. 

Wild Space held people he had once sought for. Friendly, dishonest, and genuine to a fault. Friyr had stayed there longer than he liked to admit. The aliens and humans there reveling in an unjudging company that cared very little about Jedi, Sith, or some down on their luck spacer. For a few days there was no war; just people who understood the gripe of being alive.

He came back, and Kurt was still tied somewhere behind his naval, Sahley no doubt lingered - but he was just grateful to be home. In truth, the wide galaxy scared him as much as it fascinated. 

“Can we please not talk about my Master?” Friyr cringed and unbundled the cloak Teran had given him from his knapsack.            NM-1 grumbled.

“I’m not into green skin; I can barely even see the color green.”

The droid grumbled some more and plucked at the fabric. Friyr smirked tiredly. He felt pallid. This was a visual word he’d been told, but for Friyr it had always been a feeling. Pallid. Pallid was when he was tired, perhaps weak from illness and fevered. It was fatigue. He’d felt pallid in the tombs.

He rolled the fabric between his fingers and gently tugged it from the little droid’s pincers. “I don’t have a fetish for green, thanks.” Friyr ran the smooth silk between his fingers and opened himself to feeling Teran’s twin sister through the threads. Though he didn’t know her the galaxy twinkled back at him in a way that felt reassuring and not as though he were about to jump out of his bones. The Knight had said she was missing. “I just feel like it’s time to apologize to a lot of people,” Friyr murmured.

NM-1 grumbled. His lens shuttered suspiciously.

Friyr laughed. It felt like an out of body experience the more it swelled out of his chest. The sound of his own voice tangled with the individual swells of the Force in everyone and everything. She gutted Ven Zallow the same way she made heather feather the lush mountain rocks.

Friyr had to draw himself back inside himself. His fists knuckled as though gripping himself around his edges and pulling himself back into the ragged edges of his body. When he came back to himself, he was pressed up against the tree, NM-1 crouched securely over his body. The bark stuck sharply into his spine, and the nearby waterfall drowned out the Force in a solid way. The little droid was warm as though he’d pushed himself out of conservation mode in an overheated panic. His metal stilts encircled Friyr, and Friyr tapped at them until he crawled off the former Sith.

He grumbled in a way that sounded like static concern as Friyr resettled his bearings against the tree and pressed one knee to his chest. He shivered. Tython had suddenly turned cold.

Or maybe there’s nothing here, and you’re just attracted more to the Dark Side than most.

Wasn’t that what Teran had said? The Light. The Dark. All of it overwhelmed him, since… since… Since he could hear the Force.

“George?”

The droid grumbled and tapped Friyr’s knee to let the blind man know where he was. Friyr slid his hands over the warm carapace and pulled the droid into his lap. He was unwieldy but the hum that traveled through him was solid.

“I’m not into green skin; I can barely even see the color green.”

The droid grumbled some more and plucked at the fabric. Friyr smirked tiredly. He felt pallid. This was a visual word he’d been told, but for Friyr it had always been a feeling. Pallid. Pallid was when he was tired, perhaps weak from illness and fevered. It was fatigue. He’d felt pallid in the tombs.

He rolled the fabric between his fingers and gently tugged it from the little droid’s pincers. “I don’t have a fetish for green, thanks.” Friyr ran the smooth silk between his fingers and opened himself to feeling Teran’s twin sister through the threads. Though he didn’t know her the galaxy twinkled back at him in a way that felt reassuring and not as though he were about to jump out of his bones. The Knight had said she was missing. “I just feel like it’s time to apologize to a lot of people,” Friyr murmured.

NM-1 grumbled. His lens shuttered suspiciously.

Friyr laughed. It felt like an out of body experience the more it swelled out of his chest. The sound of his own voice tangled with the individual swells of the Force in everyone and everything. She gutted Ven Zallow the same way she made heather feather the lush mountain rocks.

Friyr had to draw himself back inside himself. His fists knuckled as though gripping himself around his edges and pulling himself back into the ragged edges of his body. When he came back to himself, he was pressed up against the tree, NM-1 crouched securely over his body. The bark stuck sharply into his spine, and the nearby waterfall drowned out the Force in a solid way. The little droid was warm as though he’d pushed himself out of conservation mode in an overheated panic. His metal stilts encircled Friyr, and Friyr tapped at them until he crawled off the former Sith.

He grumbled in a way that sounded like static concern as Friyr resettled his bearings against the tree and pressed one knee to his chest. He shivered. Tython had suddenly turned cold.

Or maybe there’s nothing here, and you’re just attracted more to the Dark Side than most.

Wasn’t that what Teran had said? The Light. The Dark. All of it overwhelmed him, since… since… Since he could hear the Force.

“George?”

The droid grumbled and tapped Friyr’s knee to let the blind man know where he was. Friyr slid his hands over the warm carapace and pulled the droid into his lap. He was unwieldy but the hum that traveled through him was solid.

Everything goes back to me in the end, Friyr heard her say.

It wasn’t so much a sentence as a sigh on the breath of the wind that he needed no language for. A feeling as most Jedi would term it. How Master Mahar might’ve termed it if she was still alive to apply strictures to otherwise meaningless words. Friyr rubbed a nonexistent ache out of his wrist, and his fingers unconsciously set to tracing the outline of old scars. Despite knowing few other Force Users could feel the Force pressed up against the back of their teeth and unfurling words on their tongue, Friyr glanced between the other mourners. The field of black robes was dense and unmoving in the smoke from Mahar’s pyre.

Friyr stifled a cough that earned him a few glances he could feel. With the Force encroaching on the confines of reality, his throat threatening to suffocate itself, and feeling like something of a grief tourist - the former Sith nudged the harnessed NM-1 spider droid resting against his shins. It wobbled up onto its spindly feet then, without verbal cue began to lead Friyr along the way back down the winding path to the temple in a dimming twilight.

Dromund Kaas never quite got colors the way Tython did. The miasma of hue felt wrong to Friyr. The vibrant shade of pinks filtering through the thinning trees and dappling everything in a thin veil especially disconcerted him after a lifetime of grey.

“These sunsets remind me of Korriban,” he muttered, voice raspy from a combination of disuse and irritation.

The droid, silently devoted to his job until then, expressed a sharp beep of disdain.

“Sure, sure the core’s prettier than the Empire, but that’s your opinion as someone the light isn’t constantly trying to kill.” Friyr was silent for a moment, then quietly muttered, “Korriban’s kinda nice lookin’.” The Core Worlder franken-accent globbed onto the back of his throat like peanut butter so the words came out sticky.

If a comm could verbally wince, then that was the sound NM made.

“Too much?”

NM grumbled.

“It’s really not easy to pin down a Pub accent when you’ve got everybody and their grandmother from Core Space down here.”

NM-1 made a brief reply, then thoughtfully launched into a very subjective and weirdly racial explanation of the nuances of sound between Coruscant, Corellia, and every other founding Republic planet Friyr didn’t care about until finding himself among them. Friyr – who might’ve satisfied himself with giving the droid a little hell for his (pre-programed?) biases otherwise – found himself wavering in and out of attention when he parted ways with NM at the Temple steps up until he drifted into a forced sleep.