For what purpose, he neither knows, nor cares. He is loyalty to himself and to his ship. Anything beyond that - well, if it serves his self-interests then he can be convinced.
Which is why he has said Jedi dropped into a very red and very empty holding cell onboard that ship. Self-interest says to follow orders - at least for now.
"Have you decided to wake up?" He is not inside the cell, at least yet. The door between them is open work metal (seemingly metal) though with gaps large enough for a hand to fit entirely through. It's a barrier but not much of one.
He really had to stop getting himself into these situations. Waking up with pain in his head on the floor of a durasteel cell should be more concerning as opposed to being met with annoyance.
Groaning, and with a hand pressed to his head, Anakin shifts onto his knees and tries to gather his bearings. Unfamiliar ship, check. Ray shields to prevent him from using the Force on the outside? Also check. He levels a glare at the unfamiliar man on the opposite side of the cell. The comforting weight of his lightsaber is missing from his belt, which raises another concern of its own. Thankfully, he's had worse odds than this before.
"You know, most people tend to introduce themselves before resorting to kidnapping. Amazing what a simple 'hello' will do for you."
"Unfortunately, this is not personal and therefore would not have been avoided by small-talk." His tone is dry, but not really amused. "My name is Bialar Crais. Call me Crais." That was not a suggestion. "I assume given that you've woken up that your head is not too badly damaged."
"I believe, if you are inspiring children to hit you that the insult is probably, primarily, to you." He turns away and picks up a glass, takes a drink of the water and offers it through the bars. "Thirsty?"
There's nothing better than biting the hand that offers a simple creature comfort after doing something horrible. Anakin takes a step back, his scowl firmly in place.
"Do you often get knocked out by children?" He shrugs at the rejection, brings his arm back and takes a second, bigger, drink himself. "Possibly for the best. There isn't a bathroom in there, you know, and if you're going to be difficult you'll spend the entire trip there. I'd hate to have to clean up a mess."
"You do realize I'm a Jedi, right? It'll take a lot more than a threat to wear me down."
Not only that but at the very least, Ahsoka or Obi-Wan would be looking for him. The Republic won't be able to do much without one of their Generals. All he had to do was bide his time.
"I do realize, yes." That's why there are those nice little shields around the cage and why Anakin doesn't have his lightsaber. "As for where I am taking you - to a meet up with a trade federation ship that will be waiting at the outer rim."
He absolutely loathed the Separatists. If they were ever upfront about something, their lives would be a whole lot easier. Someone might actually get somewhere in this stupid war. The mention of the Trade Federation really gets his interest.
"You honestly think they'll give you what you want by handing over one Jedi?"
Sure, he was a Jedi with a reputation, but it wasn't as if he had much pull in his position.
"Think they'll-" he begins to echo in confusion and then stops and laughs, and not with humor. "No, I don't imagine they're going to give me anything at all. I'm not doing this for them or for payment, at all. I am doing this because I was ordered to and don't care enough about you to risk my neck for you." Or his ship's neck, come to that.
Who did he mean that much to that this guy was just handing him over because he was told? Sure, he got under people's skin easily enough, but he was always the small fry in the grand scheme of things.
"Sorry, but you don't seem like the kind of guy that just follows orders blindly."
"You're very perceptive; I'm not. I'm also not one to put my own self-interest at risk without very good reason. Frankly, you don't seem like very good reason."
He didn't know who wanted Anakin this badly or why. It didn't really matter to him.
Anakin moves closer to the bars, his head canted to one side as he studied Crias with narrowed eyes. It's strange, he can't read the man in the Force. Almost as if he were surrounded by an impenetrable shadow, but there was something else that he couldn't figure out.
"Then why do it? Unless there's someone more powerful than you pulling the strings." It clicks into place and he smirks. He can't figure out what Dooku would even want with him and not Obi-Wan. Well, there was only one way to find out at this point.
"Yeah, the Sith are funny like that. Careful on your way out, you may find the blade pointed at you."
He tilted his head to the side while he was being studied and studied Anakin in return, though his question was-
well, it wasn't the kindest of things.
"Are you always this unbearably dense?" Barely a pause, since he was irritated. "Of course the blade is pointed at me. If it were not I would not be here." Not to say that he's a nice man; he was not. He just needed motivation to be really terrible and Anakin had given him none.
"Oh, I'm not denying that it's pointed at you now, I'm talking about after you've done what they wanted. Who's to say you won't be expendable after that?"
People on the other side of the barrier rarely had kind words to spare him, but Anakin doesn't let it get to him. Were he a few years younger, oh his blood would have boiled. Now? There's not much he can do from a holding cell, save for throwing some acerbic observation.
"The better question is how expendable am I, if I don't do what they want, and the answer to that is - at least for now - far more expendable than if I am cooperating. They've invested quite a bit in me and for now that is useful to me."
He actually might like this kid, just a little, if only for the acerbic wit. Idle observation while he kept drinking the water he had offered Anakin.
"What do the Sith have to invest in someone like you?"
As soon as he asks, Anakin starts to pace the length of his holding cell. The red light does little to illuminate, instead giving the feeling of oppression, adding to the shadows that the small space is cast from.
"Smarmy, polished sleemo with a creepy ship and a terrible sense of hospitality? Someone who doesn't stand out so much as ooze his way through the shadows until an opportunity presents itself? Shall I go on?"
The lights of the ship itself actually brighten quite a bit in response to that.
"I'll take that as a yes to you being unbearable and unbearably dense." There's some actual snap in his reply and it is certainly the snap and strain of irritation.
Also perceptive in places. Half-right, at least.
"What the Sith invested in me was this." He gestures around with one gloved hand, encompassing the entirety of the ship.
Anakin does look around as the light brightens, taking the time to see if there's anything he'd missed. Nope, still creepy as anything. He makes a non-commital noise, though he's grinning, pleased with himself.
"Only to the people who make it a point to side with the Sith." He pauses, considering the ship, still not understanding. Sure, it looked different than any of the others he'd been aboard, less uniform, for one.
"There was no decide," you insufferable brat. Maybe whoever he is delivering Anakin to will kill him. That's starting to seem like a pleasing prospect instead of a likely, but neutral to Crais, one.
"Yes. A ship," he continues after calming his temper. "A living ship that I am bond to with a neural implant. It isn't red just because it suits me."
"There's always a choice. You just made the wrong one, is all." He can't help the smirk that finds its way back to his face. He'd managed to find the right buttons to press and get a rise out of his captor. All he had to do was get him to open the cell door and attack him. Anakin could take it from there and escape.
Well, that one was new. Ships and its components were as much part of the living Force as a handful of sand.
"You'd need to ask a Sith," he says, with a pointed tone and very faint smirk. He really isn't a Sith (or even more than mildly Force Sensitive), but he really is an asshole. He could speculate, he just won't after Anakin's nonsense. "Though I'm sure if you pay attention you'll feel - and hear - the truth of it."
Which is, again, honest. Talyn is part of the dark presence wrapped around Crais, and if things are very quiet and Anakin listens carefully the 'ship noise' and engine sounds... have a very distinctive, rhythmic, tone. Low but pulsating.
He really doesn't need to know, in the grand scheme of things, it likely doesn't matter. However, the thought is interesting, if not a bit unsettling. How did something like that even come to pass? After his comment, Anakin does pay a bit closer attention, focusing outward to try and get a sense of just where he is.
He almost doesn't hear it, the way the ship seems to have its own heartbeat. Not in a human sense, but it's there. It's more apparent now that he's aware of it and the feeling is unsettling.
"You'd not likely get a useful answer - at the very least." He might also just get killed, it's always a bit touchy that way.
"Talyn has internal and external weaponry as well as a very good ability to defend himself, even in the absence of my input - or indeed my absence." He was telling Anakin this for a reason.
It was almost as if Crais knew that Anakin would try to escape the minute he was left alone. An astute observation, really. He definitely would.
"Useful answers don't typically come from the Sith who love to deal in deceptions. I'm sure you've noticed that they've yet to actually get their hands dirty."
It was almost as if he just intended to let Anakin out with the full knowledge that he was literally surrounded by a ship with a mind of its own.
"They connected my nervous system to a ship's. Their hands are far from pristine, but your meaning is not wrong." What? He isn't loyal to them. He's loyal to not dying.
As soon as he's afforded the opportunity, he'll find a way out and away from the ship. He doesn't plan on sticking around to be handed over, either. He's got things to do and a battle he's missing out on.
A brief look of horror crosses his face, brow furrowed.
"They connected you to a ship and you're still doing what they ask?"
"And you think siding with them is the better option? They did that to you, are capable of much worse, but yeah, they seem fine."
There's a difference between risking life for personal gain and risking life for living, though if Crais didn't see it that way, Anakin had no way of knowing/ He seemed keen on sticking with his current plan, delivering Anakin to galaxy knows where and go about his business because it didn't involve him.
The thing he hadn't realized yet is that the Sith don't give up. He's ensnared in their dirty work, now. Whether he wanted to be or not, now he was a pawn until he ran out of use.
"Skywalker- You are very young and very much a Jedi. I have not sided with them, I am owned by them and I very much prefer being alive to the alternative."
The door opens without him doing anything outward, though he clearly did something.
"There's always a way to fight back, whether it's an obvious fight or not." Compliance is just as binding as slavery. He shakes his head, eyeing Crias suspiciously before stepping out of the cell.
"Sure, being alive is better than being dead, but that won't make your master disappear."
He isn't doing anything once Anakin is out of the cell, not even hesitating to turn his back to walk out of the room the cell is within and into the hall.
"Neither will being dead." Make him disappear, he means.
"You realize you'd be better off with allies, right? 'The enemy of my enemy', and all that. Just because they made you doesn't mean they deserve your loyalty. Or appreciate it."
Anakin calls after him, moving to follow. He'd get a layout of the ship before he did anything hasty.
The more he talks, the more Anakin realizes that Crais is more aligned as a bounty hunter more than a Sith. The self-serving nature could go for either one, but not claiming allegiance is a good start. It will at least give him something to work with in wearing his captor down.
"Tell me about your ship. It's unlike anything I've ever seen before, which is saying something."
"Hm?" He goes to make caff, glancing back at Anakin in something like surprise. "Talyn is genetically modified, I suppose apparently. To my knowledge there are no others like him. He is magnificent, isn't he?"
"Talyn, huh? I've heard of giving a ship a pet name before, but it's still just a ship. Nuts and bolts and wires."
It's quite the concept to grasp, and Anakin still doesn't really understand how that's supposed to work. It's still just a ship, but Crais makes it seem like the ship has feelings. Or something..
"Not just nuts, bolts, and wires. Nuts, bolts, and wires around a created, genetically modified creature. He is as alive as you are." There is a very, very pointed look at Anakin's mechanical arm at that one.
Anakin rubs over the back of his gloved hand subconsciously as he thinks. Sith had done this to Crais, so it's safe to assume they'd done this to whatever poor creature was now the ship. "What was he?"
"His mother was a leviathan." Some huge space faring peaceful thing that basically floats around being huge and peaceful and sounds a bit like a whale. "I've no idea what his paternal parent's genetic make-up originally was. Only that there was something used to carry the genetic alteration involved in making him."
Also a lot of Dark Side shit Crais does not understand at all.
For a moment, Anakin doesn't say anything, his expression morphing to one of awe and shifting to one of sadness. To think that something so gentle was twisted into this? It's a disservice and he feels a fit of sharper anger toward the Sith that did this.
He watches the play of emotion over Anakin's face. His own expression stays a cool and aloof a bit longer but when Anakin asks that particular question-
Anakin kind of got him there in a way talking about himself hadn't.
He leans back in his chair and he shakes his head, slightly. "Not physically." Sure hurt his mother though. "Emotionally... he isn't entirely stable. Too many conflicting... impulses and emotions that contrast too sharply. The project should never have happened." But it had and Talyn was his now and they were obviously dependent upon one another.
...His mental influence was either very good for him or very bad.
In a way, Anakin sympathizes. Less so with Crais, but they're probably hand-in-hand, at this point. He understands being emotionally unstable and can imagine that it's entirely too much to bear at times. Talyn probably doesn't understand.
"How interconnected are you?" It's too late to go back, and it would do more harm than good to try- he knows that much, at least.
That is a good question - enough that he's suspicious of motives.
He's answering anyway.
"It is possible he could survive my death. I would not survive his. I've gone blind when his sensors blow, seized when he was poisoned - and kept him live with my own autonomic functions." He's wary but he's telling the truth. He is deeply interfaced to Talyn.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
For what purpose, he neither knows, nor cares. He is loyalty to himself and to his ship. Anything beyond that - well, if it serves his self-interests then he can be convinced.
Which is why he has said Jedi dropped into a very red and very empty holding cell onboard that ship. Self-interest says to follow orders - at least for now.
"Have you decided to wake up?" He is not inside the cell, at least yet. The door between them is open work metal (seemingly metal) though with gaps large enough for a hand to fit entirely through. It's a barrier but not much of one.
no subject
Groaning, and with a hand pressed to his head, Anakin shifts onto his knees and tries to gather his bearings. Unfamiliar ship, check. Ray shields to prevent him from using the Force on the outside? Also check. He levels a glare at the unfamiliar man on the opposite side of the cell. The comforting weight of his lightsaber is missing from his belt, which raises another concern of its own. Thankfully, he's had worse odds than this before.
"You know, most people tend to introduce themselves before resorting to kidnapping. Amazing what a simple 'hello' will do for you."
no subject
no subject
Despite the way his head swims, he pushes himself to his feet, arms crossed tightly in front of his chest.
"I've been hit harder than that by a youngling. Not sure who that's more of an insult toward, you or my Padawan."
no subject
What guilt?
no subject
There's nothing better than biting the hand that offers a simple creature comfort after doing something horrible. Anakin takes a step back, his scowl firmly in place.
"I don't think so."
no subject
no subject
Not only that but at the very least, Ahsoka or Obi-Wan would be looking for him. The Republic won't be able to do much without one of their Generals. All he had to do was bide his time.
"So, where am I meant to be going?"
no subject
See? He's honest.
...to a point.
no subject
"You honestly think they'll give you what you want by handing over one Jedi?"
Sure, he was a Jedi with a reputation, but it wasn't as if he had much pull in his position.
no subject
no subject
Who did he mean that much to that this guy was just handing him over because he was told? Sure, he got under people's skin easily enough, but he was always the small fry in the grand scheme of things.
"Sorry, but you don't seem like the kind of guy that just follows orders blindly."
no subject
He didn't know who wanted Anakin this badly or why. It didn't really matter to him.
no subject
"Then why do it? Unless there's someone more powerful than you pulling the strings." It clicks into place and he smirks. He can't figure out what Dooku would even want with him and not Obi-Wan. Well, there was only one way to find out at this point.
"Yeah, the Sith are funny like that. Careful on your way out, you may find the blade pointed at you."
no subject
well, it wasn't the kindest of things.
"Are you always this unbearably dense?" Barely a pause, since he was irritated. "Of course the blade is pointed at me. If it were not I would not be here." Not to say that he's a nice man; he was not. He just needed motivation to be really terrible and Anakin had given him none.
no subject
People on the other side of the barrier rarely had kind words to spare him, but Anakin doesn't let it get to him. Were he a few years younger, oh his blood would have boiled. Now? There's not much he can do from a holding cell, save for throwing some acerbic observation.
no subject
He actually might like this kid, just a little, if only for the acerbic wit. Idle observation while he kept drinking the water he had offered Anakin.
no subject
As soon as he asks, Anakin starts to pace the length of his holding cell. The red light does little to illuminate, instead giving the feeling of oppression, adding to the shadows that the small space is cast from.
no subject
His eyebrows go up. "Someone like me meaning what?"
no subject
"Smarmy, polished sleemo with a creepy ship and a terrible sense of hospitality? Someone who doesn't stand out so much as ooze his way through the shadows until an opportunity presents itself? Shall I go on?"
no subject
"I'll take that as a yes to you being unbearable and unbearably dense." There's some actual snap in his reply and it is certainly the snap and strain of irritation.
Also perceptive in places. Half-right, at least.
"What the Sith invested in me was this." He gestures around with one gloved hand, encompassing the entirety of the ship.
no subject
"Only to the people who make it a point to side with the Sith." He pauses, considering the ship, still not understanding. Sure, it looked different than any of the others he'd been aboard, less uniform, for one.
"A ship."
no subject
"Yes. A ship," he continues after calming his temper. "A living ship that I am bond to with a neural implant. It isn't red just because it suits me."
no subject
Well, that one was new. Ships and its components were as much part of the living Force as a handful of sand.
"How is that possible?"
no subject
Which is, again, honest. Talyn is part of the dark presence wrapped around Crais, and if things are very quiet and Anakin listens carefully the 'ship noise' and engine sounds... have a very distinctive, rhythmic, tone. Low but pulsating.
no subject
He almost doesn't hear it, the way the ship seems to have its own heartbeat. Not in a human sense, but it's there. It's more apparent now that he's aware of it and the feeling is unsettling.
"I don't think I need to."
no subject
"Talyn has internal and external weaponry as well as a very good ability to defend himself, even in the absence of my input - or indeed my absence." He was telling Anakin this for a reason.
no subject
"Useful answers don't typically come from the Sith who love to deal in deceptions. I'm sure you've noticed that they've yet to actually get their hands dirty."
no subject
"They connected my nervous system to a ship's. Their hands are far from pristine, but your meaning is not wrong." What? He isn't loyal to them. He's loyal to not dying.
no subject
A brief look of horror crosses his face, brow furrowed.
"They connected you to a ship and you're still doing what they ask?"
no subject
This ship is also too small for escape pods or secondary ships. For now, anyway. There are always options and there is likely an escape party.
"Until or unless there is a better option, yes."
Why would he risk his life for no benefit?
no subject
There's a difference between risking life for personal gain and risking life for living, though if Crais didn't see it that way, Anakin had no way of knowing/ He seemed keen on sticking with his current plan, delivering Anakin to galaxy knows where and go about his business because it didn't involve him.
The thing he hadn't realized yet is that the Sith don't give up. He's ensnared in their dirty work, now. Whether he wanted to be or not, now he was a pawn until he ran out of use.
no subject
The door opens without him doing anything outward, though he clearly did something.
no subject
"Sure, being alive is better than being dead, but that won't make your master disappear."
no subject
"Neither will being dead." Make him disappear, he means.
no subject
Anakin calls after him, moving to follow. He'd get a layout of the ship before he did anything hasty.
no subject
At least he isn't pretending not to be self-serving?
He is, however, also leading Anakin through the strange halls, and toward... a galley.
no subject
"Tell me about your ship. It's unlike anything I've ever seen before, which is saying something."
no subject
Also creepy, But Crais loves that stupid ship.
no subject
It's quite the concept to grasp, and Anakin still doesn't really understand how that's supposed to work. It's still just a ship, but Crais makes it seem like the ship has feelings. Or something..
no subject
no subject
no subject
Also a lot of Dark Side shit Crais does not understand at all.
no subject
"Does it hurt him?"
no subject
Anakin kind of got him there in a way talking about himself hadn't.
He leans back in his chair and he shakes his head, slightly. "Not physically." Sure hurt his mother though. "Emotionally... he isn't entirely stable. Too many conflicting... impulses and emotions that contrast too sharply. The project should never have happened." But it had and Talyn was his now and they were obviously dependent upon one another.
...His mental influence was either very good for him or very bad.
no subject
"How interconnected are you?" It's too late to go back, and it would do more harm than good to try- he knows that much, at least.
no subject
He's answering anyway.
"It is possible he could survive my death. I would not survive his. I've gone blind when his sensors blow, seized when he was poisoned - and kept him live with my own autonomic functions." He's wary but he's telling the truth. He is deeply interfaced to Talyn.