Poe expected a haggard old woman, warped by the Dark Side of the Force. Instead, Zawati looked like she'd been carved out of changeless, unblemished marble -well- if that marble were a rich dark blue. Her white hair, streaked with pink, made her damn striking, to say nothing of her white eyes. Eyes now fixed on him and Jess. Poe gulped.
At nothing more than a nod, the rancor came towards Zawati, only to lie down at her feet like a pet. He glanced over at Jess, standing there covered in mud with her mouth agape, blaster barely holding to her slack fingers.
"I see you've met Mathilde," she said - luckily this time with her outside voice - smirking. Well hell, even a Nightsister had a sense of humor. "Bacta," she continued, "your situation must be dire."
As if the jungle itself waited on their answer, when Jess spoke the silence from their environment became all the more obvious. Poe looked around furtively; a quiet jungle never boded well. He should know, grown on Yavin 4 just like a maize stalk. Where were the parrots? The clouds of stinging garnants? Or well, whatever passed for those beings on Dandoran.
"Yeah," Jess managed, holstering her weapon though Poe could see reluctance in her tensed up arm and hand. "It is."
"Come in," Zawati said, turning to head back into her house, a hut held together with vines and mud. She wore only a plain black robe, and Poe almost lost her in the foliage, though he focused on that white waterfall that was her hair to guide him. He couldn't say he felt excited about going blind into a kriffing Nightsister's nest, but hey, he knew this mission would be tough when he took it on.
He stood in the doorway, letting his eyes adjust to the play of light and shadow. At first, Zawati's lair —he had trouble thinking of it as a house — looked fairly mundane, like every mud hut he'd ever seen. But soon, spell ingredients became obvious: a bejeweled skull, little jars of dried items - green, gold, mottled - only some of which Poe could name. She had a table up against the far wall, positioned so the skull would leer down at whoever sat there. Charts and illustrations sat in thick piles, an ink pen and its well beside them. A tea cup, a mortar and pestle, an ancient holocron, at the moment - thankfully - dormant.
The grave goods of a bygone age.
Zawati took the overstuffed armchair near the fire, though the fireplace wasn't lit. She seemed a little stiff; maybe she was older than she looked after all. With only a thought and a little flicker of the Force, the logs in the grate caught, filling the home with light and warmth.
"Well, sit," she said, as if she couldn't understand why they might hesitate to make themselves comfortable. He glanced over at Jess, and her wariness made him act. He hoped doing as Zawati bid might get Jess over her nerves. He took the chair nearest him, his head swimming with the Force. It lived in everything here. It did no matter where you went, but this bubbled up such that even he felt drunk on it. Nevermind that the brew had a distinct Dark Side snap, it was all too easy to settle into it. Somehow, Zawati's Dark Side felt very different to Kylo Ren's. "Surely you have a tale to tell me."
"Do people come by here often?" Jess asked, incredulous. Zawati smiledm as if indulging a precocious child.
"More often than you think. The people here need a mystic, and they care little for the Light and the Dark. They care whether or not I can save their sick child, whether or not I can bless their crafts and crops. Though...none of that is nearly as interesting as bacta."
"Look, we have a friend who is really important to us," Poe started. Gods, the key to Finn's health was so close and he desperately wanted it, found himself willing to do almost anything to get it. "And he got hurt fighting Kylo Ren. He's in a coma and I don't think he'll wake up without bacta."
