It's a nice library, especially for such a small town, with plenty of everything, but a focus on science and poetry, a well-appointed children's' section, a nice selection of music and holovids, and comfy chairs offering varying amounts of privacy.
Right now, though, it's closing time; the announcements have been made, the final checkout rush handled, and now the librarian is making one last check before she locks up for the night.
Calm isn't exactly the first word that would come to mind, looking at the cloaked woman's body language. Steady, maybe. Assured. And she keeps that same steadiness and lack of hostility as she says "all right; show me."
He tries, he really does, and it's visible that he is, but it doesn't do much good. He definitely isn't calm, barely managing to not shake, and very tense, breathing too rapid, and the more he can't stop it, the more panicked he looks.
She gives him a few seconds, and then she nods, and the fire gutters and goes out entirely. "No, you can't. Okay."
He flinches, and curls in on himself. "m'sorry, m'sorry, m'sorry," he mumbles, very aware he failed, barely aware of the fire going out.
His mouth snaps shut, and he goes as still as he can (still trembling), and looks at her knees, waiting.
(She doesn't sigh. She dearly wants to, but she has a reputation to keep; it's important.)
"D'you have a master we need to keep an eye out for, or have you shaken yourself loose already?"
He shrugs, not entirely sure - he tried to get as far away from where they'd look as possible, but that doesn't mean anything. Not like he's even the most valuable slave for them to look for.
"Tried to get loose," he says. "Don't think valuable enough to look for?"
...yeah, anyone who was treating him that badly isn't going to follow him far. "All right. Let's go, then; on the speeder."
He looks a little reluctant (he doesn't know what this woman wants), but he obeys immediately. This is not a person you want to irritate. He continues trying to keep everyone on the street in his field of vision.
She gets on behind him - she's warm, at his back; it could just be how chilled he is, but it seems like she's warmer than people usually are, and being close to her warms him more than it usually would - and off they go.
He's tense, but the warmth is good, it's been a while since he's been this warm. He doesn't, really, pay that much attention to where they're going - he doesn't need to know, and keeping his head down helps with the weird off-balance feeling from riding on the speeder.
A few minutes after they leave town, the sense of doom dissipates, and the warmth envelops him. "It's a few hours' ride; are you going to be all right like this?" she asks after another minute.
He's confused by the sense of doom vanishing, but the warmth is good.
"I- yes ma'am?" he agrees. (He doesn't feel like he's about the be on fire, which is...strange, now he thinks about it, but it means he doesn't have to worry about it flaring while they're on the speeder.)
The warmth and dark combined with bone-deep exhaustion lull Nova into a slightly uneasy sleep.
That seems like a good way to use the travel time; she lets him sleep until they reach the house, and then taps him gently on the shoulder.
He jerks awake. "M'sorry," he says as he flinches sideways enough that he overbalances and starts to tumble off the speeder he'd managed to forget he was on.
He doesn't get far; it feels like there's some kind of cushion preventing him from falling, suddenly, until he has his balance again.
He hunches down on himself, confused by the lack of falling, and looks back, on edge, not sure what happens now. "M'sorry?" he repeats. "Didn't mean to sleep."
"It's fine. Let's get you to bed; we can talk about what comes next in the morning."
"Yes, ma'am," he agrees, carefully climbing off the speeder. He looks around, hoping there's somewhere obvious she's expecting him to sleep, or that she'll give him some direction.
She heads into the house. The room on the other side of the door is dominated by a huge square worktable, with a galley kitchen set into one wall, bins full of machine parts set against and hanging from another, and a wooden cabinet and narrow bed against the back one, along with a door that presumably leads farther into the house. Draped cloths in bright jewel tones hang from the walls wherever there's a bit of free space, and a silver protocol droid decorated with shiny flowers in a rainbow of colors sits on one of the benches surrounding the table. "You'll be there, for now," the woman gestures at the bed.
He follows unsurely, and looks around as carefully and unobviously as he can, arms wrapped around himself. The droid catches his attention, but he doesn't look at her directly. (If the woman has a droid, why does she need-? Unless..?) He doesn't let himself think any further on that.
He blinks at the bed, and sneaks a look at the woman. "I- it's- too mu-" he cuts himself off (you didn't argue). "Yes, ma'am."
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