"Mm?"

"...Friends.  Mm.  How to explain...

"Friends aren't often always people you'd rather die than live without, but...  You have their back, in a fight, and they trust you with it not because of contracts or agreements but because it's you that's there."

"That sounds about like where we are, yes." The words may be neutral but there's a noticeable warmth to her tone.

"That - is already perhaps more than I had dared hope to be true."

"I didn't want to impose on you, either."

She can't help but let out a surprisingly undignified snort of laughter at the irony.  "Please do, it keeps me grounded."

She considers this, communicates something to Daisy through facial expression and vague gesture with the only identifiable sign being 'last night', receives a nod, and moves to sit on the bench next to Kalbetis. "One of the less pleasant things about coming back from the Light is that it's harder to ignore skin hunger, for a while." 

"...It may be, at that.  I'm not...certain that I meaningfully 'come back', per se, but...  It's hard to say I don't experience similar feelings sometimes."

The words are thick with an emotion that Darth Kalbetis can't, or perhaps won't, identify - but as Lord Pradnakt sits next to her the full-body twitch in her direction that is just as quickly aborted but not retracted, even before it comes to her conscious awareness, might well serve to clarify.

Yeah, she's being leaned on, now. "I think everyone does, in the right sort of situation. Or rather the wrong one."

Oh.  Oh, blast it, she thought she had this under control, what do you mean there's more what more will the universe ask of her --

...Her mask was not really made for crying in.  Horrible oversight.

And now she's being hugged. "Daisy, out, please."

    "Yes ma'am."

Pradnakt's hands are gentle. "It's just me, I can see you anyway."

...That's true.  She was kind of already trying to get the blasted thing off of her.

"S-orry about, this, I don't -" know what came over her but that's wrong, she knows exactly what it is, she just doesn't expect it from other people that aren't her carefully developed complements no matter how many times Elcie tries to gently persuade her that some of the guards she's put up against her own potential misconduct in such a position of power as this are simply not as necessary as she thinks they might be in established relationships -

"I started it. On purpose. Because I wanted - well, not this," she has the mask off now and wipes Kalbetis' tears away, "but I had some idea of what I was getting into."

"A-as long as somebody, knows.  I'm - re-evaluating - things - might, be - a minute -"

"Take your time, I'm not going anywhere." She re-hugs.

But does she have the time - oh, probably, the Force says, but the Force says a lot of things -

(There is a positive deluge of feelings boiling out of Darth Kalbetis, like she's a breached pressure-vessel.)

(She will eventually tidy them back away.  Surely.)

(When they're just a little bit less likely to scald her hands for the attempt.)

"I, you...  What were, what did...you expect...?"  ...She still has at least this much in her, to ask this one question.  (She is very much not letting go of this hug for a long while.)

"I could tell you weren't all right, but not much about the depth of it, it's not very physical. I'm not surprised, though."

"...mm."  She sniffles, a bit.  "I'm just...  Trying to not worry them."  She gestures widely at the rest of the ship.  "Which...  Is no incentive to look mortal and fallible."

"You are, though. But I'm not going to spread your secret past Daisy and Nine, and I trust them to keep it."

"I'm...sure Elcie knows, too.  And Medea.  And, really, I do...  Try to restrain their," her people's in general, she means, "expectations.  But I can't help but try to fulfill them nonetheless.  They're - they're my people.  I can't - let them down like that if I can help it.  And often enough I can and it's worth the price, and on and on and on until apparently this - this - happens."

"Maybe Elcie should talk to my Daisy, figure out how she can tell if I'm going to regret something I'm doing."

"...She does try.  I'm just a bit of a horrible listener."

"Mm. Well, I can't recommend picking up the skill the way I did, I nearly died. But I do think it's worth picking up. People can fend for themselves, at least a little; the whole burden doesn't have to come down on you."

"The responsibility, though, is ultimately mine.  If it were not for me they would not have these burdens."

"Is it?" she teases. "I thought you didn't do slavery."