(Star Wars) Laika & Arlaud Book 1 - Lady Sahshin's Sepulchre
Copyright© 2026 by Clee Hill
Chapter 8
Laika opened her eyes, took a slow breath, and smiled as she let it out. It had only been a couple of days but already Laika would have been disappointed to find her in her bed when she awoke, but was gone, probably long gone, using her abilities in the Force abilities to hide herself away as she slipped out.
“S1? Arlaud, location?”
“Cargo Bay Two, dancing.”
“Thank you,” Laika said, unsurprised, as she quickly visited the head before changing into her exercise clothes and heading to join her, the door shushing open as she stepped through. “Good morning, gilus.”
“Oh! Hi! Is it that time already?” Arlaud asked, the music pausing as she came to rest, possibly mid-pose, and inexplicably carrying one of the training swords. Looking past Laika for a moment to the clock over the door, Arlaud grinned. “Guess it is. Good morning,” she said, gliding into what, in another context, Laika would have called an ‘at ease’ stance, except she had not taught her that one; she wasn’t even sure she recognised it save for what it was, certainly nothing her tutors had ever taught her.
“What were you dancing to this morning?” Laika asked. “And with a sword?”
“That’s okay, isn’t it? To use it as ... haha, not a sword?”
“It’s perfectly fine, but I am curious what you were using it for?”
“Exercises.”
“Of?”
“Oh. Just going from the stance to stance, like you taught me.”
“I don’t remember teaching you to dance between poses,” Laika smiled.
“Oh no, that’s just me, improvising so it feels more comfortable.”
“You found this uncomfortable?” Laika asked as she retrieved the other training sword, twirling it in a deliberate show of skill that had Arlaud wide-eyed and impressed.
“Yeah. How do you even do that?”
“I can teach you, if you want?”
“Please. It’s like the short staffs they had us use sometimes in the savage stuff, but I could never get them to work as well as some. I was okay, but you’re really good.”
Laika smiled. “Well then, you start by standing like this ... That’s it, now, hold the sword upright ... Good, now, open your hand so you are holding it in place but not gripping it ... just use your thumb and your forefinger, like this ... a little more open ... that’s it. Now, watch me for a moment, let the weight of the sword begin to make it rotate, and guide where it goes, and when it comes around and back up again, it’s back in your hand. Watch ... and ... like that, see?”
“Can I see it again?”
“Of course,” Laika said, the sword rotating through her open hand and back into a conventional grip again. “You want to try?”
“So ... like this ... and ... hah,” Arlaud said, her sword clattering to the floor.
Laika smiled encouragingly. “Almost. You need to grip a little more with your thumb and forefinger.”
“Okay ... so, like this ... and... I did it!” she triumphed, grinning and looking at the sword in her hand in slight disbelief.
“Yes you did. And if you want to, you can keep going, like this,” Laika said, spinning her own sword a half dozen times before coming to rest again.
“Can I try with your sword, as well I mean?”
“Dual wielding?”
“Is that what it’s called?” Arlaud asked, taking the other sword into her left hand and testing how it felt.
“It is.”
“So, like this...?” Arlaud said, concentrating on her left hand only, doing the first couple of spins slowly so that, Laika realised, she could check her own form, and once she was happy with that, she turned back to Laika, grinning as she got both blades spinning, making sure to keep the blades apart so they didn’t hit each other. “Wow! It’s fun!”
“You make it look so.”
“Can you do both hands too?” Arlaud asked, handing her sword back to her.
“That’s something I need to keep working on. I can, but my right is so dominant that my left feels more handicapped than it truly is. You don’t have that problem?”
Arlaud shrugged. “Dance to the left ... dance to the right, haha. Sometimes, depending on the dance, the left and right halves of the stages are mirrors, so we need to be able to do either. So we trained for that, too. Not just the dance, but the mirrored dance. Is this any use though?” Arlaud asked, spinning her swords again. “It’s fun and it looks amazing, but if you needed it, is it any use, you know...?”
“In combat?”
Arlaud nodded uncomfortably.
“It does have a couple of uses. One is simply to intimidate someone. If they see you doing that while you are in your ready stance, the idea is they begin to think you are highly skilled and, by extension, that perhaps they should retreat. That works best with people who are not trained in swords, or people who are untrained at all. It’s rather like you dancing. I can dance some dances, but when you dance for yourself, unrestricted and unrestrained, it is on a whole other level. The only other real use for it is if someone is trying to shoot you with a laser or a blaster. By spinning the blade instead of your whole arm or body you can block and redirect the bolt back at them, or somewhere else, depending where it would be best.”
“You can really see the lasers?” Arlaud asked, incredulous that anyone could.
“The Force can. Whenever I am in combat, I am always more connected to the Force, and it helps me to be aware more, and to use it to help me react and move more swiftly. I think you do the same, when you dance.”
Arlaud shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t really concentrate on it like that, it’s just there and I’m part of it.”
Laika nodded. “So you were going to show me what you were doing before we start today’s exercises?”
Arlaud grinned. “S1? From the top?”
“Acknowledged, Hydan,” came the disembodied voice as the music began to play, swift and kinetic, Arlaud waiting, adjusting to the beat before she began to dance, flowing from stance to block to guard and back, varying her choice of poses, sometimes two or three of the same kind in a row, some of them, Laika saw, improvisations to ease her transition between other poses, Arlaud dancing for a couple of minutes before she came to a halt, S1 stopping the music again at her request.
“I think I should join you,” Laika said, noting, once more, how easily Arlaud moved and how she seemed to be able to do so without suffering from any fatigue, not even sweating or breathing especially hard.
“Cool! We can start like I did, slow music, one, two, three, stance to block to stance, and build it up from there.”
“So that was another memorised sequence for you?”
Arlaud shook her head. “No. I just pick a stance or block or whatever, and go there. I, I don’t need to think about it, not really, I just know where to go and how to get there. You know, years of being a dancer.”
“And a skill I would like to learn from you, but not this morning. Today I was thinking we could try hide-and-seek again?”
“Cool. So no stretches?” Arlaud asked, sounding genuinely disappointed, Laika smiling at the notion of how much who she was was defined by how she moved through the world.
“There are always ‘stretches’,” Laika confirmed, Arlaud happily putting the swords aside as they spent some time stretching, a combination of Laika’s and Arlaud’s different methods and poses, Laika feeling her body come alive as they worked.
“Hide-and-seek time now?” Arlaud asked as they came to the end of their exercises and she passed Laika her bottle of water before taking a drink from her own, the water again tasting of added things, Laika trusting to her and S1’s better knowledge of such things.
“It is, but instead of hiding around the ship, I want to try a different approach. We simply sit here, eyes closed, just out of reach of the other, and try using the Force - or the rengan - to hide from the other’s awareness. Okay?”
“Cool.”
“But before we do, tell me, how did you hide from my droids when you sneaked onto the ship?”
“Oh. Oh that’s easy,” Arlaud smiled, Laika not wanting to interrupt her to tell her that, for everyone else, it was far from ‘easy’. “I just ... sensed them ... so if they were going to sense me, see me I mean, haha, I would know and so I could hide. They can’t sense the rengan, so I just made them ‘feel’ like there was nothing to notice, so they didn’t. You were easier to hide from.”
“Because I use the Force?”
Arlaud nodded. “You sense though the rengan, but unless you were actively looking, you wouldn’t even begin to sense me, and you had no reason to look, so you didn’t.”
“Meaning if I didn’t see you with my eyes, I wouldn’t sense you, and the droids, even if they did see you or get a message through the ship’s internal sensors, you were already telling them to ignore what they were seeing?”
Arlaud grinned. “You make it sound more complicated than it is. Watch,” she said, Laika watching her as she sat down, ankles on top of her thighs, closing her eyes for a moment—
“—You’ve gone!?”
“Yep. I just reach into the rengan and wrap it around me, like disappearing into the mist on a foggy day. You can’t even concentrate and sense me?”
Laika closed her eyes again for a moment, her awareness blooming in her mind’s eye as she felt every electrical system in the ship, herself ... but not Arlaud. “No,” she said, opening her eyes, at once both frustrated, even a little annoyed in her inability, but at the same time excited to learn the ability to use against others.
Arlaud grinned. “Want to try and hide from me?” she asked, Laika sensing her abrupt blinking back into her awareness.
“Very much,” Laika answered as they began their game, all the time sitting in front of one another.
It did not go as well for Laika as it did for Arlaud, the former struggling to hide, the later doing so easily, even when Laika drew on the Force so much she felt she was cheating to try and sense her. She couldn’t. More than that, though Laika has definitely feeling the effects of tapping the force for what turned into close to an hour, Arlaud seemed utterly unaffected.
“How do you do it?” Laika asked, shaking her head, the exercise not so much over as it felt like it was abandoned, at least for now, until she had a better idea how to proceed more successfully. “I did everything I knew, but I couldn’t sense you. Except when we were playing around the ship a couple of days ago ... Arlaud?”
“Hmm?” she smirked, confirming the answer before the question was asked.
Laika sighed. “Please, don’t do that again. I know it was just a game, but don’t ‘stop’ just so that I can ‘win’. That applies to everything else, too, exercises, dancing, sword work, everything. Okay?”
“Sorry. I, I guess I’m still a little bit, you know, kind of trained to do things to please people...”
“I understand, gilus, but please, no more, okay?”
Arlaud nodded. “I can still make you breakfast though, can’t I?” she asked, her quicksilver mood back, as too was her smile.
“Let me this morning?”
“Ooh. What you going to make?”
“Something special, you’ll see,” Laika smiled as they headed off to wash, to dress, and to the mess, Arlaud watching as if it were an exam as Laika prepared their meal, only taking her eyes away from the hot plates to make their caf.
“Oh this is amazing!” Arlaud gushed as they were sat, cups of caf steaming to one side, and a plate of meatballs except they were unlike any meatballs she had ever tasted before.
“It’s called babarazzi—”
“—Like this ship, the Sanbrozza?”
“That’s where I got the name from. This ship looks somewhat like a slightly compressed meatball, so I changed a few of the letters, and my ship had her name. It’s a dish from my father’s court, though not when his wife is present. She doesn’t care for some of the spices used in it. I had pre-made these during my last trip, but they are better made fresh; they are simply rather time-consuming. Different people prefer different meats, but my own taste is for darker meats, which are bound with a finely ground grain, alenta, which is used with egg to bind the meat together as it is cooked. The spices vary from person to city, and these are not quite but almost bitter. I think they go well with the dark meat. The sauce is simply a reduction of vegetables, creamed, and served on more alenta, this time less finely ground, and cooked into a creamy paste like potato.”
“And you make it often?” Arlaud asked, eyebrows working overtime, clearly hopeful.
“I can make it again,” Laika laughed. “I take it you like it?”
“Very much. Nothing like I’ve ever had before,” she grinned before forking another mouthful.
“Perhaps in a few days. It is not a meal you eat every day.”
“I know. I’ll need to get do more exercise tomorrow,” Arlaud chuckled.
“Too heavy?”
“No, just not used to heavy foods.”
“Ah.”
“Yeah. But I can eat them now. Please,” she grinned, another forkful ready to go.
“There really is a whole world out there, waiting for you to discover it,” Laika said, struck by how much Arlaud knew in some very specific ways, but how vast and unknown the galaxy was for her in so many others.
“After the Ice Planet?”
Laika nodded. “Though I think we should leave the planning for now, at least the details. I still don’t know what we will find once we get there, and depending what we do find, we might have different choices.”
“Like what?”
“If there is nothing, then we can go wherever we want next. If there is treasure—”
“—Booty,” Arlaud grinningly corrected.
“—Treasure,” Laika insisted. “Lady Sahshin was a Sith from another sector of the galaxy, and as such there is no real way to predict what might or might not be there, or if her home has already been discovered and looted.”
“Okay, so treasure I get, but what do you hope she had that you want for yourself?”
Laika cocked her eyebrow, impressed by her question. Treasure she understood, but other Force-related artefacts she had no idea about other than to guess at their possibility. “If she had any, then I would want to keep and read her holocrons. if my understanding of them is correct, they are like a small archive of information, written, I think but I might be wrong about that, and they are always ‘locked’ to someone who is not sensitive to the Force and able to us it to help unlock them. And if there are any other artefacts, especially if they are artistic, I think my father might like those, perhaps for a museum exhibit.”
Arlaud nodded. “So what’s the plan for today?”
“More flight training? Okay, more flight training it is, but before then, would you like me to show you how I use makeup? You were asking the other—”
“—Yes! Please! I only know how to do makeup for dance, and I didn’t really like that it was so heavy.”
“Dance makeup? You mean for your ‘savage’ dances?” Laika asked, remembering how Arlaud had spoken of having her nails painted, the designs sometimes extending onto her fingers.
Arlaud nodded. “There were others, too, but it was always done to make sure they could see our faces, even if they weren’t at the front.”
“Why don’t we go and see what colours you like, and work from there?”
“Can we do something less colourful, at least until I’m used to wearing it because I want to, not because I have to?”
“We can do that,” Laika smiled, waiting as Arlaud again insisted on cleaning up before they were around to her quarters, Laika looking at her wardrobe, smiling, and taking off the simple tunic she had worn to breakfast, Arlaud not even wearing that, her casual nudity almost unnoticed outside of the metaphorical bedroom.
“You have to strip to put on makeup?” Arlaud smirked.
“No, but if put my things on first, I have a better idea what colours to work with.”
“Oh. Clothes,” she giggled, watching as Laika begin by winking to Arlaud whilst she pulled on her panties, black and silky but also simple and not at all ornate or lacy. Next came her trousers, made from a dark grey micro-cord, with black piping around the hems, the waist, and, interestingly, around the entrances to the pockets on the front; there were no pockets on the back. Finally, matching the colour of her trousers, Laika put on another of her open fronted blouses, the silky material glimmering evocatively in the light, Laika adding only a simple narrow black leather belt around her waist, almost making a dress of her blouse.
“I thought I would keep it simple,” she smiled, catching Arlaud’s curious expression, and further cocking her perennially cocked left eyebrow. “Gilus?”
“They’re your favourite, aren’t they, those blouses?”
“Usually, yes. Why?”
Arlaud smiled. “I like you in them, they suit you, and, haha, tiddies.”
Laika smiled softly. “Tell me, gilus, what is it you like, that you can see my cleavage, or if you wanted to, it would be easy to reach inside...?” she said, taking Arlaud’s hand and guiding it into her blouse to softly lay it upon her left tit.
“Ooh! That one, definitely that one,” Arlaud laughed.
Laika smiled a moment before taking Arlaud’s hand out, lifting it up and kissing her on the palm before letting go. “In that case, I would like you to wear one of my blouses, too,” she said, turning back to her wardrobe for a moment before turning back, another silk blouse in her hand, this one a bright yellow with bold black stripes. “I think this would look better on you than me,” she said, handing it to Arlaud.
“As a dress,” Arlaud giggled, slipping the blouse on, Laika moving aside so she could see herself in the mirror, and see her smile, too. “For formal occasions,” she joked, turning one way and the other as she saw how it looked. “And, haha, tiddie time.”
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