[Alfie is a little surprised, but the added bit about his dad makes him less so. He's assuming it's an apprenticeship type of situation, where his father does the real heavy lifting as he trains his son to one day take his place. The wording makes him pause a little - like his father was a bounty hunter, not is one? - but he'll leave that alone for now.]
I followed in my dad's footsteps, too. Not bounty hunters, mind, but the same side of the law.
[The mention of his father catches Boba off-guard, ashamed as he would be to admit it. He didn’t know that clones actually knew anything about the man whose DNA they shared and aside from that—it’s been a long time since anyone knew Boba as someone’s son.
But that’s not the issue here. The issue is the offer itself. It doesn't make sense.]
[When Alfie responds with neither horror or laughter, Boba seems surprised—and then relieved. He leans back in his seat, watching the man with more curiosity than suspicion now.]
Import, export. Protection services. That sort of thing.
[He levels a calm gaze at Boba. There are all, of course, carefully-picked euphemisms - and if the kid is as good as he thinks he might be, he expects him to pick up on that fact.]
[Without the tempering influence of the “Lucky” facade, Boba’s response to Rex’s phrasing is immediate.]
You don’t get to decide what’s right and wrong for me.
[He’s not a clone cadet. He won’t allow himself to be shaped into one—and maybe that’s why Rex still seems intent to have him around. Maybe he thinks he can turn Boba into Lucky again with enough effort.
...Unfortunately, he’s right that Boba should learn Mando’a and that he’s the only one who can teach him.]
I’ll go, if it’s my own choice. Not because you ordered me to.
Then you feel you cannot trust this safety the way you once might have. An unfortunate realization to make, but I am glad you were not harmed in the process. [The last of the food was brought out, and he finally sat down, hands above the table where they could be seen.]
Do you feel comfortable giving me more detail, or would you prefer not to?
[Boba hears those words and thinks smuggling and protection rackets. It’s not unexpected given what the man had said about being on the same side of the law and Boba's reaction shows no surprise.]
[He wasn’t, at least not to his thinking. He’d been asking about Rex’s motivations—what he stood to gain by helping Boba, what ultimate end goal was being served. To Boba, such things are as solid as steel, far beyond the realm of opinion and belief.
But Rex isn’t ordering him. At least he knows that much now.]
Boba hesitates, eyes lowered as he pushes his food around his plate. The truth is, he does want to talk about it and he wonders, briefly, if Lucien might have some power that makes people want to open up to him when they normally wouldn’t. He dismisses the thought rather guiltily. Even if Lucien did, Boba’s own powers render him immune to such effects.
“They… work for the people who killed my dad,” he says after a long moment. “People who tried to hunt me down after he was gone. Or I thought that's who they worked for.” He’s not so sure about 622 anymore, but Rex still seems to serve the Jedi, or at least the Republic. “I think… maybe they let me go because they think I’m one of them. But I’m not. They know I’m not.” He makes a frustrated sound and looks up at Lucien, as if he might have the answers. “They don't make sense.”
[He pauses for a moment.] That, and this. [Saying so, he rests a hand on the table and forms a fist. Then, he knocks sharply on the wood—or at least, that’s what he appears to be doing. Yet, for all that he’s clearly knocking on the table with enough force to produce a sound, the action is completely silent. The same will happen if Alfie attempts to knock on the table himself—so long as Boba is in contact with it, there is no sound.
Maybe it’s not the flashiest power, but the ability to be completely silent—and to extend that silence to anything he touches—is a valuable skill for any discreet courier.]
[Damn, that's impressive. Alfie doesn't use his own powers much - he doesn't want to come to rely on them too much, and then be at a disadvantage if and when they're taken away - but he has a healthy appreciation for their uses.]
[Boba drops the aura of silence enveloping him, a slight smile flashing across his face just briefly before it shutters back behind his professional facade.]
[As wary as Boba has been throughout this encounter, there’s less hesitation when he reaches out to shake the man’s hand now. It’s always nice to find a client who takes him seriously—and who sounds like he could be a reliable source of future work.]
"Without a better vantage on the situation, I cannot judge them with any certainty. But I see little reason why they would attempt to trap you with kindness for some other purpose. They would gain nothing by doing so, and if they have been here for any length of time, they must know that. You will eventually escape their grasp by returning home, and they will forget you." It was a shame that he would do so as well. Maybe in the Void, he would remember this place.
"It may be sentimentality. It may be that this place has changed them. But for now, we cannot know. These were people who you approached as Lucky?" He had watched the first exchanges on the network, just to be certain Boba had successfully hidden his identity.
[At first glance, Boba assumes the message means he left something at Rex’s place during their last Mando’a lesson. Maybe a notebook or something similar. He might've even considered ignoring the message and picking up whatever it is next time, but... It’s the urgency in the second sentence that gives him pause.]
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