If I haven’t had cause to have seen Etisacaar with an active lightsaber, I’d never know that balding freak is Sith.

Tholgeth has more subtlety in him, and Tholgeth is about as subtle as an angry rancor.

Etisacaar may be skilled with mending, but he’s still—I would have figured by know that he’d have learned to not inconvenience me. Then again, perhaps he enjoys intense pain.

That collar of his somehow ended up on Tholgeth’s apprentice; an apprentice I was using, I might add, as cover protection for one of my field agents. Etisacaar denies being the one who injured the other Sith, and I believe him on that front. He doesn’t have the physical strength to do what was done.

I have no doubt, however, that he hired someone to do it and to leave the collar as his ‘message’ somehow. The one he attacked aided me in retrofitting that old shock collar with a few enhancements, and Etisacaar knew it. I imagine he had to pay quite a bit to get someone to consent to attempting to attack a Sith; that is part of the reason I dragged his balding, skinny ass to Corellia and made him speed up the healing process on my false field agent.

The seething made it worth it, watching a Twi’lek with two mangled knees try to leap up and choke Etisacaar was just a bonus, and afterward, Etisacaar and I took a trip back to my ship where he was introduced to the idea that I can do things much, much worse than a shock collar.

Oh, and his neck is nicely infected as a result of him ripping the collar off; that was part of what I had Tholgeth’s apprentice add on to it. It won’t kill him, but it will make him uncomfortable and miserable until he figures out what it is, finds someone else who can figure it out and whip up an antidote, or until I decide to fix it myself.

I hope Ayel likes festering, oozing neck wounds. 
Reminds me, I need to have a chat with him. Silly Twi’lek claims to have no attachment to Etisacaar. Claims he’s using him, has him ‘wrapped around his finger’, yet—I get the feeling that is deception.

Were it true, he would not get so defensively and overtly angry and hurt any time anyone spoke ill of the other man.

I can’t say I’m upset about it, but I can say that it’s almost offensive that he thinks he can lie to me when he’s so terrible at covering it.

That, and the word ‘mate’ just grates on me.

Animals and slaves mate or take mates.

People take partners.

Sith take—eh, not partners, though if they’re any good at deception, they give that illusion. If they’re bright, they don’t form attachments so much as they allow others to attach to them. 
 

I wonder if Jedi have this sort of ‘attachment’ irritation with their Padawans? 

The only one I could think to ask is that stuffy old Twi’lek with a Padawan that, I’m sure, is made entirely out of stereotypes and sunshine. 

Ah, well, most of my apprentices are turning out well or have turned out well (One is a Lord, one is a Darth, Maker, Bi’ev, just keep that in mind when the new ones screw up…), and I suppose it was too much to ask for perfection. Tossing a spanner into the works keeps me on my toes, after all.

The medical droid has told me he wants Tholgeth’s apprentice to ‘rest’ for a few days. I don’t think that droid knows how to tell Sith from regular, fragile people.  By tomorrow, I’ll expect him back in the field.