Tyllia was up early, letting Deonis sleep while she poured over ancient texts. He would likely have noticed those tomes and her pouring over them once or twice the past few weeks. She did not necessarily hide them or anything, but whatever was in them; whatever she was searching for; was not something she had talked to him about.

Any time he would've questioned her about it, she would've given the kind of smooth evasive answers that a talented liar was good at. He probably didn't even realize she was being evasive... the first few times. But the evasiveness persisted, and he might've figured out the answers were part of a pattern.

Deonis roused eventually, he was used to being an early riser but it seemed Tyllia was more so. He sat up the covers falling down to his waist. Black nails scratched his long black hair as he blinked the room into focus.

He rose leaving said sheet behind he padded over to her quietly to not make too much noise. A soft kiss on the top of her head as he looked over her "You're up extra early. Important research?" He asked, his voice a little deeper than usual as a large hand landed on her shoulder rubbing it gently.

"Not really," she closed the tome, keeping herself from producing a loud snap by doing so. "Just re-reading stuff I went over years ago to see if I missed anything. Found some more mentions of your species, but it's all jumbled and doesn't really contain anything useful."

She was deflecting again.

"Will you ever trust me?" His voice sounded both a hit amused and exasperated.

"You never really tell me anything about." He motioned to the books "this."

"It's... nothing," she said, pushing it away without even thinking about the gesture; which likely only made it seem more suspicious now that he was focusing in on the subject.

"It's just some old books."

There were quite a few reasons why she couldn't, or didn't want to, tell him the truth. After all, she couldn't ever be sure they were entirely *alone*. And if they weren't, then telling him, meant telling *it*.

"Alright then, keep your secrets." He said with a smirk sitting back down on the bed. He couldn't blame her too much, it's not like he hasn't been keeping secrets from her, well more from the spirit inside her but the result was the same.

He reached his arms up and stretched his muscles with a big sigh not yet motivated to find clothes "do you have plans for the day?" He asked when he finished

"Some," she had not been shy about his nudity; and apparently he had not been anymore either. At least it seemed as if he had gotten over the initial awkwardness in that sort of regard. Possibly; she considered; to the point where he was just getting maybe a *little* full of himself. She supposed that might just be in the nature of men.

"I should be occupied in the afternoon, I think. At the very least."

For his part he had no awkwardness about nudity simply because he had never been taught it was a bad thing. Nor was he raised that it was normal or anything like that. It was simply a neutral thing to him. He wore armor all the time out of necessity but here somewhere relatively safe with someone he trusted after a fashion he didn't see the need for covering.

"any plans you wish to share or more along the lines of your secret research?" he asked with faint amusement, he had known when getting involved with her that she wouldn't be the type to open up and let him in immediately. She was one of shadows and secrets, a world so foreign to him but part of something he actually liked about her in a way that she was clever and different from him. He was also clearly becoming more comfortable with her as he actually was tending to use longer fuller sentences rather than his normal clipped way of speaking.

"I think I'll head to the upper city today and visit sinclaire's. I've managed to save enough money to look into a good defensive upgrade for the old armor."

"I hope you're not thinking of adding spikes to it," she said; focusing on his plans for the armor as a way of glossing over the continued poking at her research. "A lot of people get that idea thinking it looks cool, but it never ends well. All it takes is one casual hug without thinking about it and you've impaled your best friend."

He noticed the deflection but let her have it not digging any deeper.

At her words he chuckled a little "no between the hidden bootblade and Reinforced Gauntlets I think the armor has enough offensive capability. No I'm seeing if they have enough cortosis there to do a cortosis weave into the armor. It'll cost......well just about everything I've saved but it'll offer a ton of protection especially from lightsabers should we need to fight the inquisitors."

"Cortosis?" She said with a raised brow, "that stuff was rare even before the Empire came around. I doubt you can just find enough of it to coat your armor with. Not something you'll really find in your typical shop, anyway."

Deonis nodded "I'm well aware. That's why I'm heading to the upper city. To Sinclairs. If I can find it anywhere on this planet it would be there. Or at least a lead on where I can find it."

"Hmmm," she seemed skeptical, "you really think so? Seems to me they're way too high profile up there. Too legit. I don't know about the legalities of the substance, to be fair, but I got to imagine its regulated. Or at the very least the inquisition is likely to have made efforts to track any purchases large enough to stop their lightsabers."

"As far as I'm aware it's exceedingly rare but not illegal." He shrugged "in my experience those high end places tend to cater to whoever has the credits and gets them whatever they need. But that's mostly word of mouth."

"You might be right,"she said, "still, if I were running the inquisition, I would pay *very* close attention to anyone buying cortosis. Anyone willing to part with the kind of credits it requires to outfit a suit of armor is likely doing so specifically to deal with lightsabers, after all."

He nodded along "Probably. But hey the Inquisition already knows I'm here. Not really much use in hiding. I mean that is one of the reasons I'm staying here after all. Better to be surrounded by allies than by myself if they come for me." He said with a mischievous grin "just one of them though."

"That's a big assumption she said," Tyllia was a master of straight-faced humor, he might have come to realize, "What makes you think I wouldn't just vanish the moment one showed up to find you?"

It had probably taken some time to get used to it, a lot of misunderstandings and confused looks later he had gotten a handle on her humor.

He gave her a grin "im a living piece of ancient history. You could search the galaxy and chances are never find another of me. Plus my race's connection to the darkside is unique. I'm too interesting for you just let me die." He said teasingly

"All men think they are unique, they are all quite terribly mistaken, I'm afraid," she replied, still deadpan.

He chuckled "you'll do anything but admit that I interest you. Or" He gasped in mock shock "that you might even like me." He grinned at her but there wasn't cockiness behind it more just humor and a bit of warmth.