It had taken Cordelia a grand total of eight minutes to evade the guards standing by her dome after she'd had them escort her there. The wonderful thing about her master's rule for her abilities was that he hadn't forbidden her from using her powers, only from getting caught. A very important distinction, and one she would happily exploit at any given opportunity.
She strapped a small water skin and a pouch of credits to the underside of her dress before leaving, deeming it sufficient enough provisions for the short journey this should be. After she successfully managed to sneak past them and make her way back to the site of her strange encounter, it was only a matter of finding where the boy had gone.
She pretended her actions were a result of concern for his safety, worry that he had encountered another patrol; but there were only a handful of people that she couldn't lie to and she was one of them, so she knew the true reason was her own curiosity.
There was something about that boy, something she didn't understand by desperately wanted to. Perhaps it was why one so young was stealing, was Tatooine really so decrepit? Perhaps it was what had persuaded him to attempt to steal such a high-value target, surely he must have known the security alone was far too great a risk to be worth it. Perhaps it was a faint glimmer of recognition, like a desert mirage playing tricks on the eye.
Perhaps, it was something more.
It had only been brief, a flash of light and sound and colour and then it was gone, like a star shooting across the sky and then falling beyond the horizon—she had sensed something in him, something in his soul that called to her own. It was a sort of kindred, like a creature looking into a mirror and seeing another version of themselves. She suspected what it was already, there was no need to confirm it; he shared her gift.
Not that she'd be able to tell him that.
Revealing his gift would require exposing her own, and she could not defy her master's will—no truth was worth suffering his wrath. But that didn't mean she couldn't investigate covertly, watch the boy from a distance and see what kind of life he led—or pull him out of a ditch if he had managed to get caught again. The most likely scenario was that he would still require her help; after all, it wouldn't be easy to turn the dimeridium he had stolen into profit without being asked where it came from.
She reached the area she had last seen him, looking around to ensure she was alone this time. She made her way over to the conveyor belt he had been swiping from, noticing that all operations had been halted in light of whatever emergency had occurred; the rat man was still yet to return and she would have liked to keep it that way.
