Dzara sat in the Forsaken's new quarters on board the Omen spaceship. It was an impressive piece of technology, she would give them that, but it was hardly what one might have considered accessible, or at least she thought. With humans being the primary crew members, things were small enough for sure, but otherwise it was made for a crew of able-bodied persons. Which was, of course, why humans seemed to have a tendency to fix the person rather than change the enviornment to better fit the person. Take Kanan for instance, with that brace on his leg.

They would rather change the person than just make the environment a little easier. She idly wondered if she could talk him out of wearing it. The wound was part of him now and behaving like this was only rejecting a fundamental part of himself, to say that having an injury or a disability was in some way wrong.

She didn't agree with augmentation, and she made sure the others understood that.

They were who they were, and to try and fix what made them special would be to take away their culture, their brotherhood. Take Nasash for instance, if they were to somehow fix his hearing, they would take away a fundamental part of who he was, turn him into one of them, force him to be soemthing that he wasn't for their own convenience.

The thought disgusted her.

She looked around at the others.

They were all special in their own way, and they deserved to stay like that, just like she was. To imagine putting a brace on her own limbs made her cringe at the thought. How demeaning and degrading it would be to receive that sort of help, to give up herself like that.

She had been on board the Omen for only a week or so, but she had spent most of her time in here with the others. She had no interest talking to the humans. They were not Drev, and what was more so, none of them had physical issues that she knew of. Which meant that no one on the ship understood them. Even Sunny and Kanan could not fully understand the Forsaken like she could. There would always be a fundamental misunderstanding between them.

And then there was sunny's "battle partner." Adam, who Dzara didn't approve of in the least. Not only was he a human, which to Dzara seemed a fundamental betrayal of all Drev kind; to think the saint of the sun choosing a human over one of her own, and an able bodied human at that. The thought made her shake her head in disgust. But this is why she was here, she needed to talk to sunny some more, with a little time and effort she was sure she could convince Sunny of what she was missing out on, to bring her back to people that were going to understand her in a way that human never could, both culturally, and physically.

She looked around the room, counting the number of the forsaken that she saw there. There were at least ten of them and she frowned noting that a few of them were missing. She had tried to curb it when it began, but some of them had taken to spending time with the Lost tribe and even the humans on occasions. She tried to make them understand that they needed to stick together, which some of them understood, but others continually argued with her about.

They couldn't all be perfect.

She heard the soft sound of footsteps behind her, and turned, only to see a human silhouette in the doorway. She felt her guard go up as the human stepped into the room, and then felt her jaw clench a little as she recognized him. About her height, with bright reflective green eyes and delicate blue stripes running over his pale skin from the UV light.

The one named Adam approached.

"Dzara." He said showing his teeth. One of the others had told her that a human showing it's teeth was a good thing, but she wasn't so sure. Humans had untrustworthy faces.

"What do you want." She said hoping to dismiss him as soon as possible.

The human, either too dumb, or choosing to ignore her dismissal continued onward, "I had to drop Sunny off on a nearby colony last night to meet with some other Drev factions. She called me this morning and asked me to come join her. I thought that you might want to come along. It would give you more time with Sunny, and a reason to Visit other Drev."

She stared at the human. She had no desire to visit other Drev, and was about to tell him as much when a thought occurred to her. She may not want to visit them, but that would give her more time with Sunny and more time with Sunny meant more time to talk her out of sticking with this man, who she was sure she could work around.

She stood learning on her spear. "Very well."

The two of them didn't talk as they walked down the hallway. He had tried on multiple occasions in the past to strike up conversation with her, and in her own language on one or more of those attempts, but she had shut that down every time. There was nothing that he could say that she was interested in hearing.

She didn't have the time.

When it came between small talk and taking care of her people, she would prefer the latter.

She followed him into the "Docking bay" and onto a small shuttle closest to the airlock. She sat in one of the seats in the back while he sat in the pilot's seat. She probably could have sat in the seat next to him at the front, but she didn't want to foster any sort of conversation between them. Best to keep her distance.

He reached up and began turning switches as the ground whirred underneath them. They were pulled along a rail into the airlock and the lights flashed red and the doors shut. She sat politely in a seat that was just her size, which was a novel experience for her. She heard the ship unlock from the rail and then listened to the engine as they flew out into space. The human controlled the ship with great ease, and she craned her neck to stare out the front window . She could see the distant star glowing through the side window, and the distant planet below that.

They would probably make it in half an hours or so, and she leaned back in her seat closing her eyes.

Might as well take this time to rest before-"

"What the hell."

She cracked open an eye and looked forward to where the human was sitting leaning over the console, one hand still on the steering.

There was a light blinking on his dash and a small indicator off to his right was blinking.

Her curiosity getting the better of her she walked forward and looked over his shoulder as he began fiddling with some of the dials.

"Is there a problem?"

"I'm not sure, I', getting some weird readings off-" He trailed off and then shook his head, "The star." He finished glancing over. She squinted out the window which was tinted just enough for her to be able to look at the star without blinding herself. As she looked she thought she saw it flare suddenly before dying down.

She might have thought nothing of it, if it wasn't for the sudden jolting of the ship. Lights over her head sparked and cut out, the screens before her went dark, the engine cut, and the life support hissed to a stop.

Their ship went dead.

As the system powered down her feet suddenly began to float off the ground. She flailed about grabbing for the chair to steady herself.

"Shit." The human muttered, "That must have been some sort of EMP burst, friend the electronics."

"Than we just call back to the ship, and send for help."

He shook his head, "We can't, the comms would have been taken out in the burst as well, and I doubt the Omen is completely intact, that was a strong burst after all. She was built mostly inside a faraday cage though we aren't so lucky, and her receivers are outside the cage to make contact. Even if we could send a message, they wouldn't receive it.

He unclipped himself from his seat and used his arms to float upwards towards the ceiling, "Luckily I can fix this, it might just take some time."

She floated with her head craned back watching him.

"We will want to fix the main support systems first. This system will open up life support and gravity, the comms are completely out as I would have to go outside the ship to fix them, but I can at least get the steering back online."

She watched him as he opened a panel in the ceiling. She craned her neck watching him fiddle around inside for a moment. She only partially noticed the exaggerated tilt of his head as he did his best to see into the darkness fiddling with wires and cables. She saw him discard a few pieces of fried circuitry.

"Taught me how to fix this in the academy." He said, "They were really worried about EMPs like this as stars tend to throw them out on occasion. To be honest this is probably one of the only things that I CAN fix. I'm no engineer like Narobi, or your sister."

He had a bit of a penitent for talking to much and about things which she didn't care.

"Ah ha." She heard a soft clocking sound and then listened as the hiss of the life support kicked back on and she could feel air blowing in her face. There was another sort of whirring noise as the gravity turned back on and she dropped to the ground a foot or too. She had to steady herself on the pilot's chair so as not to fall over on her bad leg.

The human was a bit higher up, and came crashing to the ground in a surprisingly violent way. He hit one leg and then collapsed to the side slamming into the deck with a loud sort of thud. She waited for him to get up, but there he remained. She didn't move for a few moments, unsure of what to do, and then watched as he painstakingly hauled himself into a sitting position grimacing.

She waited for him to get up, but he didn't.

Instead he propped himself up against the wall and looked at her, "I'm going to need your help for this next part."

She stared at him, "What's wrong with you?" Had the fall really been that bad, she didn't think so.

Could he have broken something?

"That EMP took out more than the ship" He flashed his teeth again, but this expression seemed somehow more defeated than the rest.

"What are you talking about.:" She said in frustration.

She didn't want to be stuck on this ship with him longer than she had to, and now he was making things difficult. If he would just get up and fix the ship than this would all be over.

She saw the human's eyes narrow.

"You know, I have been trying very hard to be nice to you these past few weeks, your sunny's sister after all, and I understand that you have a hard life, but I think my patience has worn out." He lifted his chin, "You've been an absolute raging bitch."

He said it in Drev, using the loose translation of the word Dazhit. She bristled at his insult. She had been called a lot of names in her life and wasn't about to take it from someone like him. He was only lucky he hadn't used the insult Kazga (the drev word for cripple). Even so she stepped forward hands balled into fists. She expected him to stand and rise to her challenge, but he didn't move.

"Go on Get up." She snarled

He looked at her eyes narrowed balefully, "I can't."

"Why not."

"I only have one leg."

She stared at him, "Are you mocking me? Do you think this is funny?" She was so made she could feel her hands start to shake, "I may be short but I have EYES." She motioned to his legs.

He locked eyes with her, and as she watched, he angrily Jerked up the leg of his pants. At first she saw a boot, and then she saw metal and then, the pant leg could go up no further. He cursed in frustration, and she tiled her head in confusion as he began to undo his belt. She watched him reach a hand down the right pant leg and then heard a click and a hiss. She stepped back in shock as she watched him reach down and tug on the boot, bringing the entire leg with it to clatter to the floor. She stared at the discarded leg and it stared back. The facsimile of a human/ Drev hybrid leg, wearing a boot and glittering with the blue carapace she had come to associate with her sister.

She turned to look at the human as he tied off the end of the pant leg before looking up at her.

"I can't walk, because walking is an action that requires two legs, and that EMP took out my prosthetic."

He tapped at the side of his head, "Took out my eye too, so I've also lost binocular vision and half my field of view."

It was then that she noticed, his usually glowing green eye had gone dull, and though it moved in his head, the little black dot in the middle did not expand or contract like the one ins his other eye.

She stared at him, and he stared back.

"You.... You're like us."

He snorted, "No, I'm not like you." She watched him, and he rolled onto his side and reached up for the seat, hopping and hauling himself up onto one leg before managing to maneuver around and sit in the front pilot's seat. He turned the seat to look at her, "Congratulations, you are now the most able bodies person on this ship, and I am going to need your help."

She wasn't entirely sure what to do or what to say. She thought back on all the times she had ignored him, or even the way she had acted just now, and felt her body begin to tingle with embarrassment. If she had known he was.... She would never have....if he hadn't worn the prosthetics than maybe she would have known.

"Why didn't you say anything."

"It's none of your business who I chose to tell and who I chose not to. Now, I want you to head to that back panel over there. You'll find a little latch on the corner of the door, open it up."

She did as told limping to the back of the compartment and pulling it off.

"Ok what now."

There was a sigh, and she turned to watch him hop to his single foot. There was a sort of rhythmic thudding as he hopped his way towards her and then sunk to the ground just behind her so he could see what was going on. His head was turned to the right exposing his left eye so he could better see what she was doing.

"Up, up a little more, that clip right next to your finger opens another panel. Inside that you are going to find some wires and a circuit board, we are going to have to change it out. This is the part of the machine that talks to the engine, the engine is going to be ok, but it would have shut off when the power was cut to the steering."

She began to do as told, glancing over at him on occasion as he sat back against the wall.

It was hard to believe he was the same person from earlier, or..... perhaps that was the wrong word. It was hard to believe that he was STILL the same person from earlier. She was having a hard time reconciling the able-bodied man that she had stepped on the ship with, with the man that had had trouble moving from the front of the shuttle to the back of the shuttle.

Prosthetics had fooled her into thinking he was able bodied.

He had completely fooled her. He had essentially disguised a huge part of him for this.

She couldn't help herself, "Why?"

"Why what/"

"Why do you wear those, its an insult."

"An insult to who?"

"An insult to who you are and those like you."

The human laughed, and she bristled again. She didn't like being laughed at, "Forgive me, I am SO sorry that my assistive aids insult you.." The sarcasm was so thick she could have used it as glue, but he dropped it quickly enough, "The last time I checked, this was MY disability and you don't control how I handle it."

She grabbed the panel and tugged it from the wall, "That's not what I mean. You are willingly disguising a part of yourself. It isn't healthy."

"You talk like having a disability is ALL I am. And you most certainly ARE telling me what I should and shouldn't do. You're going to have to disconnect those." He shifted to the side to get a better look instructing her on a few more steps, "You call ME unhealthy, but what you are doing to yourself and those around you is verging on cult-like."

"It is not! I am teaching them how to honor who they are."

"There's nothing wrong with being disabled Dzara, but there is also no shame in getting help for it. People don't deserve to have their lives made harder, but you're trying to convince them exactly that, trying to tell them that they DESERVE to suffer because staying disabled is the honorable thing to do?"

"That's not how it is." She protested, "What now?"

"You're going to have to reach up there. I would do it myself, but you're going to have to climb a little. It's a tough reach. And that's EXACTLY what you are doing. You are robbing your followers of the opportunity to experience things other people can. You are robbing them of joy and ease. There are people who wake up every day without pain, or with the ability to walk normally, and your people deserve all of those same opportunities. At the very least they deserve to make that choice for themselves."

She clambered up gingerly onto the small box to her side and reached as high as she could for the plug trying to adjust it like he had instructed, and was still instructing as she went, "That would fundamentally change who they are. They are beautiful and powerful, and I will not take that away from them."

"Dxara, fixing or assisting a disability does not change who you are, it only changes who you are if you have actively turned that into your personality, if that is the ONLY thing that defines you as a person." She turned to look at him, he waved her to continue, "Keep going. I am a complex person with many pieces and parts. I change all the time. I am a pilot, a fleet admiral, a son, a friend, I was a member of the Neo Spartans, I am a Drev sentinel. None of those things change with or without my leg."

She remained sullen and quiet, and he took the opportunity to continue speaking, "Assistive technology will never change the fact that I lost a leg in the Drev war. It will never change the hardships I went through. It won't change the surgeries, the medications the PT. It will never change all of those days and months I had to struggle to get around. The experiences are always going to be there, those memories will always be part of me, but I have no obligation to be stuck with it."

Dzara continued to remain quiet following his instructions as she helped to put the ship back together. It was a strange feeling to be sure, for someone to need her physically in a way that she had never been needed. The others.... Well they had never asked for help, they had always done it by themselves no matter how long it took and no matter how hard it was.

She had watched plenty of others struggle to do what they needed to do

Yet here was this man.

He didn't even like her and he was still asking for her help.

Could he have a point?

Of course a large part of her rebelled at that thought. She was who she was, she had survived through all of this, and that made her feel powerful, special, important. What would happen if the others fixed themselves, and got assistance.

They wouldn't need her anymore.

What would happen if she got a brace like Kanan for her own leg. She would be able to walk, to run, to fight like the others.... But.... But if she did that then what would be special about her? She had always been the leader of this group, that had been a full time job. There was no part of her beyond that.

"Dzara," The man's voice was soft, "I know you are trying to help them, and you have done a good job. You have given them the pride they need to do hard things, and continue to better themselves, but you are also holding them back. Imagine how much easier things could be for the, Imagine all of the things they could do."

She stepped back down to take a look at her handy work and rested her hand against the metal of the door, "It feels like cheating." She said softly.

"Why, other people can walk and run, and see and hear perfectly. Why is it cheating to help yourself do the same. A fancy prosthetic isn't cheating, a hearing aid isn't cheating, and neither would it be betraying your friends. Its opening doors t opportunities you deserve just as much as everyone else. Not to mention."

She heard a small smile creep into his voice, "Just reach back in there and flip that switch, that should turn it on. Anyway, not to mention-"

Dzara reached out and flipped on the switch.

"With augmentation the way it is these days, I dare say I have received a few upgrades."

The ship rumbled to life as the engine turned over.

"Yes. See not bad for two working legs between the two of us. Now help me up."

Dzara did as told reaching under his arm and hauling him to his feet, giving him her support as they limped to the front of the shuttle. He took a seat got the ship moving again. They lapsed into silence for a few long minutes.

Before, "I'm sorry."

"Sorry for what/'

"Sorry for, treating you the way I did." She swallowed hard almost choking on her pride which felt like a hard lump in her throat.

"That's alright. We can work on it."