Rice bowls sound pretty good. They’ve had a lot of sushi. Although...he does sort of have to optimize for “can eat with one hand”...

It’s fish, though. Should be fine.

Yep.

It's relatively upscale, like the rest of the neighborhood. "Your droid will have to wait outside," the Dorfu at the hostess stand informs them.

Pradnakt rifles through the bag of credits to produce one worth half again what she spent on the cake. "She'll stay out of everyone's way."

    "Very well, Ma'am. Right this way." She leads them to a table in the back, right by the kitchen; very likely a VIP seat. "Would you like to see the wine list?"

We can't get drunk, same as any other drugs, she points out. We can get something if you want to, though.

The fact that his gut reaction is that it’s reasonable to keep normal droids out of a place like this doesn’t sit well with him anymore. Makes him mad, although he hides it pretty well on the outside.

He was never the biggest fan of alcohol, but now that she mentions it this seems like a really good time for it. Oh well.

don’t actually know if i like wine or not. should probably skip it.

(He feels conspicuously out of place in here. It’d be pretty reasonable to keep him out, if it’s about atmosphere.)

"No, thank you, doctor's orders."

    "Yes, Ma'am. Your server will be here in a moment."

You're fine, Love. They don't know what human styles mean.

i guess they don't think piercings are weird, at least.

   wait, but

they took those, anyway.

She has his memories; she knows what he means. I wonder what the Dorfu would have made of that.

Do you want to get your jewelry replaced soon, or wait?

Huh. That's an interesting question.

...soon, i think. maybe not all of it. but it's weird to have none.

All right. I don't know if we'll be able to get them here - get some made, maybe, but I'm not sure we're staying that long - but we can make it a priority.

The server appears as she's conveying this, and waits to be acknowledged before handing them their menus. "Would you like something to drink while you're deciding?"

"What would you recommend?"

    "We have a lovely Baurre Adega right now, or if you're looking for something non-alcoholic, the tecot-infused tea is very nice."

"The tea sounds good."

    "Yes, Ma'am. Would you like to share a pot?"

"Yes, thank you."

He nods and smiles at the server in roughly the way he thinks you're supposed to.

i'll live if it takes a while. not like that's the biggest body mod i've got anymore.

It's hard to untangle all the feelings he has about that – 'body mod' is a little bitter (a lot bitter) but he's also thankful he has that way to describe it all. It does make the piercings seem insignificant, by comparison. Does he still want them? He does. Those are his (he thinks). But he's not sure when it'll feel right to put them back.

(Maybe he'll take a cue from the Dorfu. Earn them back, one at a time.)

It's good that he knows what he needs, even if he doesn't know all of it; this would be so much harder if he didn't. It's still hard, but in the way that life is hard; you get through it anyway, is all.

She looks through the menu; there are a few things she can recognize, or at least piece together, but not many, and nothing very interesting. She turns to Daisy for help, guessing correctly that the droid will have gotten descriptions of the local cuisine from somewhere, and shortly (and after a bit of consultation with him and with his memories) she has a pair of dishes picked out: a fish steak in a spicy caramelized sauce, for him, and for herself one marinated in citrus that she thinks will complement it nicely, with a trio of vegetable sides for them to share.

We should probably speak aloud, actually; might draw attention otherwise, she points out when she's done choosing.

It helps, when he figures things out. He hopes they can figure things out for her too.

"–oh. Right."

looks kind of weird if we're just looking at each other meaningfully this whole time.

"Yeah." What conversational topics do they have pending that they can talk about in public, let's see...

"So, do you want to go snorkeling next, when we're done here, or something else?"

"Yeah, I wanna do that before we leave. Hopefully getting a bunch of salt water in my arm wouldn't fuck it up."

"I'm sure they would have said something. Is there anything else you want to do while we're here?" Not that we can stay too long. Leaving a false trail is fine, though, if you want to make something up.

"...it'd be kinda nice to go out on the ocean for a while. Somewhere there's not a ton of people around."

am i doing it right?

Yeah, fine.

"We could do that. Like a cruise, you think, or just get a boat of our own and disappear for a while?"

“Either. Both, even. There’s a lot of ocean.”

It won’t happen, but it would be kinda fun.

"Yeah. Cruise first, you think, and then strike out on our own?"

Yeah, can't do it here. Once we have a few more hyperspace jumps under our belt, if you want.

“Sounds good to me.”

if something’s on our way, maybe.

There’s a lot to do, a lot for them to become. But they’ll have time to rest.

Sure.

The waiter returns with their tea, and takes their order - Pradnakt lets him talk her into a fourth side dish, a salad of imported fruit that hasn't been put on the menu yet - and then they can go back to their conversation, planning out a hypothetical vacation until the food comes.

He has plenty of creative ideas, many of which place them far enough from civilization that it would take an awful lot of time and resources to track them down.

That usually wouldn't work, she realizes, just as the food comes. It's obvious when there's another trained Sith on the planet unless they're hiding themselves, and that takes effort. But I'm good at holding a Force effect, and he knows it; he won't be able to be sure we're not still here if we leave a bit of a trail.

That, and

He can make her disappear. He can do it now. He can do it as long as she needs him to.

...he wonders if He'll be thinking about that. How much He knows. How well He can follow them.

Maybe he should think about food instead of this while they're in the middle of a restaurant.