[Teffa]

As volunteers and Republic alike milled around their business with some operations in full swing, Teffa was found on the observation deck without much to do. She saw some wary glances in some people and there was tension in the air that something was about to happen, something she might find herself roped into. However, there was nothing she could do at the present except to set back and enjoy the view. She pulled out a deck of cards from her coat pocket and went about shuffling it to kill some time.

[Galen Sol]

There was a man staring out at space. On his shoulder, sat a small creature, staring at evrything else.

[Aran Enfas]

Aran had little need to point the front of his head at what he wanted to study. This made the observation deck an ideal place for watching people as much as the stars -- no-one took much mind of a Padawan staring in the obvious direction, out. The vista of stars, planet, moon, station, and ships only failed to be incredible to the most jaded of spacefarers. Aran found it and the sapients around him equally fascinating. The military, with their strange costumes and hierarchy and clear duties, were the bulk of them: soldiers, spacers, pilots, techs, officers, droids. A scattering of his fellow Jedi, and a few more eclectic sorts besides, made up the rest.

One of these last caught his attention (though not, of course, his eye). He went from leaning on a cut-off vibroaxe handle about as tall as he to a slightly irregular pad thup clunk gait of his sandled foot, rubberized prosthetic, and staff. When she looked up at his approach, he nodded, an odd sort of solemnity about it, like a bow from the neck. "Teffa, yes? We met near Uthan Mil, shortly after you made planetfall. Padawan Aran Enfas." He gestured. to the small table with its set of bolted-down seats. "May I join you?"

[Teffa]

Teffa gave a passing wave to Galen, recalling seeing him briefly at that sewer market that didn't exist where they weren't involved in shopping questionable goods. It totally must have been some other time they were acquainted.

She stopped her shuffling and her red eyes were on the staff as she was drawn over to the staff before she realized that she had been approached directly by Aran. Her posture straightened and she perked up. "Oh, hey! That's Captain Teffa, actually. Yeah, I think I do remember you at that gathering. You're more welcome to take a seat. I was just...plotting my next course," as she stashed away the deck of cards in her coat pocket with all smiles.

[Galen Sol]

Aran and his walking stick were hard to miss. The padawan and chiss seemed like a good alternative to staring out into the lifeless void. Galen made his way over to the table.

"Do you have room for another?"

[Aran Enfas]

"Captain Teffa," Aran acknowledged, inclining his head in a small apology.

"Do you have room for another?"

Aran smiled up at the slightly older man warmly. "If Captain Teffa is not suddenly feeling crowded." He looked back at her, thoughtful. "When we spoke last, it seemed you had come here somewhat by chance, and you have remained. Where do you think your course will take you next?" He tilted his head to one side, and added deferentially, "If it is something you wish to speak of." His lips quirked, and he tapped his robe in the place that mirrored her coat pocket. "We could always play cards. I have seen many of the Republic military pass the time that way."

[Teffa]

Seeing as she didn't know that the people who piloted ships were supposed to be known as 'Captain', it wasn't something she was too sore about people forgetting but it did have a fancy ring to it.

Teffa smiled at the approaching Galen, "Not at all, please join us and have a seat."

"Not so much by chance, I merely go where I need to go to get paid, really. I guess I didn't sign up to be in a war zone on purpose, they probably omitted that part from the posting on purpose," she said pensively as an afterthought. "As to where I'll go, I'm not so sure. Just hoping that a big job will pop in front of me and give me some direction. I wish I actually had a scheme to kept secret."

She tilted her head slightly at the mention of cards. "Yeah? I guess I'm just unlucky that I haven't run into them yet. I take it that you play? And do you?" Her gaze looked over to Galen for his answer.

[Aran Enfas]

Aran spoke seriously. "Swoop racing attracts a risk-seeking element, Captain. If they cannot bet on someone's piloting, dice, cards, or fights would do. I have," he continued, tilting his head from side to side, "become a fair player." He gave a small smile. "If I am playing fair."

[Galen Sol]

"Sure." he shrugged. "I can't say I play much, but there's not a lot to do on long journeys."

[Teffa]

Teffa narrowed on Aran as she reached in her coat pocket for her cards and laid them on the table. "You said earlier you were a Jedi, weren't you? Are Jedi supposed to be about playing fair?"

She began shuffling the cards together, looking to Galen now. "And what do you usually prefer to do on long journeys?"

[Aran Enfas]

Aran smiled. "The Jedi are 'about' a great many things. Perhaps the closest to 'fair' is 'just' -- but you notice we keep the laser swords for ourselves!" The faint smile briefly became more like a grin, then returned to its more dignified state. "As long as I do not discover there is some terrible wrong to be righted by claiming your ante for myself," he continued, solemnly placing two fingers of his left hand against his temple, "I will leave aside my great and mystical powers."

He also looked to Galen with interest -- in their brief exploration of the oddities of Galen's saber, he had grown to like him, but not to know him.

[Galen Sol]

"I prefer not to take long journeys." he shrugged. "But, cards do help pass that time. There are a few other games, too, but mostly I just keep to my bunk and watch Navi climb around."

The creature on his shoulder made his way down to the table, looking up at each of them.

[Teffa]

"That seems fair enough, how very kind of you Sir Aran," she said a with a small smile as she continued the shuffle the cards. ...So you're saying I should watch out for you. "As for justness, I think that a friendly game as probably as just as you can get! Nobody loses and everyone wins for playing the game. That is, unless people want to put things on the line to make it less...just?"

She looked warily at the beady eyes of Navi as it climbed down. Sometimes pets were trained to read other people's cards, as unlikely and impractical as that was. On top of that, she wasn't much of a pet person. "I usually prefer cards myself...So everyone knows the rules then?"

[Aran Enfas]

Aran nodded sagely. "Permutations of twenty-three." He reached in to his robe and pulled out a handful of credit chits. "And as Jedi are unattached to material possessions, I could stake a few credits."

[Galen Sol]

"Oh, sabacc?" he shook his head. "I don't play sabacc."

[Aran Enfas]

Aran perks up. "We could teach you!"

[Galen Sol]

"Alright." he shrugged.

[Teffa]

"A few credits might be enough. An amount to make the game interest but not enough to make anyone upset enough for losing it all," she smirked at Aran as she reached into her pocket to pull out a few credits to roughly match the amount that Aran was offering. She was willing to offer more but that wasn't the point of the game here.

She raised her brows at Galen Sol, "Well, I guess most people don't play Sabacc, which might explain why I'm in a shortage for games around here. It's a fairly easy game to learn and I picked it up a few years ago. It mostly revolves around getting a hand of 23 or -23, which is done by collecting and trading cards of various values. This is done by trading the cards with the dealer over the course of the game. It's also a game of timing and chance, as values can change over time and also encourages initiative...buuut since we're playing with just the cards and not a full sabacc set-up, you don't have to worry about that so much. The chips on the line do put stakes on the game and add a character element to it, so to speak."

[Aran Enfas]

Aran lets Teffa, clearly the expert, take the lead on explaining the game. When she gets to the part about credits, though, he breaks in, still speaking evenly but slightly faster. "The game changes its nature entirely with the stakes. No betting, no real focus on outcome, only process -- math and probability. With betting, estimation not only of cards," He tapped the bridge of his sun-shades, "but of people. Sabacc with and without wagers is the difference between a swoop race and an afternoon drive."

[Teffa]

Teffa nodded a few along a few times, "What Sir Aran says...It is a different game with and without wagers. Quite the expert as someone without the need of materials goods but I guess it's not so much the intent here but the flavouring."

[Galen Sol]

Galen matched the credits. "That makes sense. So, how do we play?"

[Aran Enfas]

"Quite the expert as someone without the need of materials goods..."

Aran smiled and ducked his head humbly. "The Force is everywhere, and the Jedi must know about the galaxy to serve it." He paused and tilted his head. "Also, if one is pretending not to be a Jedi, it helps to be good at things people would not expect a Jedi to know."

As Teffa walked Galen through the first round of play, Aran watched him with curiosity. "Where did your travels take you before Nar Shadda, Galen?"

[Galen Sol]

"Well, I was on Nar Shaddaa for a while." he said. "I crewed on the Starcross for about a year, and did odd jobs on the moon before that."

"Before, all of that was pretty random, working my way from planet to planet. I couldn't name them all." he continued. "But, there was a long time when I just lived in the wild."

[Teffa]

Teffa laid out the cards she had been shuffling, spreading them face up so that Galen can get a sense of what the cards were before they would be used in the game. "There are four suits with 15 values, which will indicate your value, along with any positive or negative adjustments to your hand value. There are other cards here that are independent of suit membership or even value, offering a slight slant that sometimes makes the difference between two hands of the same value. Like most cards, no one card means much by itself but a full hand tells a certain story. It would be up to you make a hand work with the cards you're dealt."

"I think I've been around a guy who played sabacc who claimed to be a Jedi and could read minds, as I've told one of your colleagues once, turned out he really was cheating with cards you could read from the back with a special wavelength. I guess he could have been a Jedi despite that."

[Aran Enfas]

"I think I've been around a guy who played sabacc who claimed to be a Jedi and could read minds, as I've told one of your colleagues once, turned out he really was cheating with cards you could read from the back with a special wavelength. I guess he could have been a Jedi despite that."

Aran frowned in confusion. "Why would he say anything? Why not just win?" He shakes his head. "Declaring yourself a Jedi seems like a complication to what could be a simple grift."