Jump to content

Game Update 7.4.1c coming April 3 ×

The Short Fic Weekly Challenge Thread!


elliotcat

Recommended Posts

You know, Pierce Junior is dashedly hard to write sometimes - you'll notice I haven't written any of his salacious products in a while - but I'm so glad (if alarmed) that he gets a warm welcome. Next up, comments!

 

 

@alaurin, Ah, some information on the mysterious Colonel Wiiks...I like Bradley's particular brand of villainy, everything neatly tied off or cut off it need be, nice and tidy. And now we have Jackson's real face...what a scumbag.

 

@Feldraeth, love the drawing of Risha (or someone with a powerful resemblance?) using everything but her name. "In short, my father wanted to ensure I would plan for everything, and then be far away if it goes bad" - weapon selection as characterization, great. As for the BH I will not say "there is only Zul" I will not say "there is only Zul" dammit I said it. That quirk of naming is new to me, though, that was pretty neat.

 

@Kitar, nice use of that quest reward. I always felt like the bribery was sort of superfluous - either you're the kind of person who would tell the authorities or you're not, but I guess the crystal might help make up one's mind.

 

@Hadeedak, aw, now I'm blushing :o Always glad to see more of Zeedor and Angharad. His eminently realistic approach to the big questions - and ability to recognize what the evidence points to - sets him apart from some of the immortality-chasing traditional Sith we've met.

 

 

Edited by bright_ephemera
Link to comment
Share on other sites

comments spoilered for length (and no extra stories this time)

 

 

@Kitar: the following rant has been spoilered sice it details events from Koror I and II and mentions characters from SWTOR SoR. it also is very nerdy.

 

I hate that quest, since it pretty much spits in the face of everything we should see in this historical period. Yes, the Jedi were aesthetic monks who frowned on attachments, but that came about AFTER the Ruusan reformation in 1000BBY, a good 2440 years later. The order in SWTOR is the descendent of Surik's revival after the old order was wiped out by the triumvirate in Kotor II, and (depending on your playthrough) she loved people. One of the masters, Bastilla Shan, who crops up in the Noeticons, was saved through love (again depending on playthrough, but strongly hinted at in main canon also, since we have Satele and Theron) and another Nomi Da Boda (Sunrider), later grandmaster of the order, openly had a relationship with another Jedi (Ulic Qel Droma). Instead, we get a pair of old men willing to get a stranger to spy on their padawans instead of trusting them or openly asking them without rancor.

 

 

okay, rant over

I liked your story, especially the hints in their place on Voss. Also, Huttball, or 'how to make your sniper/mercenary/sorcerer cry with one simple and easy move'.

 

@charmedseed: Uh, I knew that... yes, all part of my plan, my evil, evil plan. Question the plan at your peril. Uh, any questions?

I don't work with children, but I was one not too long ago.

 

@HadeedAK:

DA: Inquisition, another one on the shelf for when I have free time for gaming, along with Skyrim, Diablo III and DA:2.

I love the resignation in his voice when he tells Ms Irons where they're going. Familiarity really does breed contempt but I think I know what happens next. Zeedor breaches the tomb to find a sign at the end saying "Thank you for releasing me Zeedor, but the writing is in another tomb"

EDIT: I have no idea where that came from, I think it's the moustache.

 

@Stirges: someone's definitely going to get stung, just as soon as I finish writing the third and final part. I'm on draft 6 and it still feels limp.

 

@Brightephemera: Damnit, I just got the

out of my head.

 

 

 

Wow, for the first time ever, I'm using the weekly relevant prompt :eek:. it's not going to be a trend

 

Prompt: Lifespan

Title: Guess Who's Back

Characters, Braca, not the Inquisitor, but a Sorcerer

Perspective: Lord Braca of the sphere of Biotic Science

Word Count 1,111 <- I might have planned this

Spoilers: Significant SI NPC's fate, post Corellia

 

 

 

Energy crackled and sparked off the arc inducer. It wasn’t part of the experiment, it just there for show. The experiment wasn’t all that impressive: just a hapless coma victim and a cerebral spike connected near the base of the skull hooking her up to a certain Rakatan mind trap. The effects though would be worth the risks I’ve gone through to get the reagents.

 

There was no flash, no ominous choral piece, nothing to show that something had happened. I knew there wouldn’t be, but I’d hoped. Science is never as spectacular as the holos portray. Instead, the coma victim just looked up. With what looked like enough effort to lift a truck, she turned her head to look at me.

 

“Hi there, give the brain a moment to reconfigure and you should be all right,” I greeted as soothingly as I could. I’m a red-skinned, tentacle-headed earless alien with Sith pictograms branded under my eyes: it’s an acquired face. Those delicate blue eyes widened and then softened as memory kicked in. She knew me, had known me for years before her little accident.

 

Slowly, she opened her mouth, tongue lolling about as the brain reconfigured its dormant neural pathways. She always was pushing at any boundaries she saw. Physical, mental and social, It didn’t matter to her: the challenge and eventual triumph was the appeal.

“Ah, it feels so good to get out,” she announced, only slurring a few of the words. Slowly, she reached up, stretching her new arms up and off the table. As careful as she could manage, she floundered with the restraint harness, finally working her pudgy new fingers.

 

“Careful, you won’t have full control over the body yet. Give yourself a few minutes to adjust,” I called out, crossing the experiment laboratory in a few long strides. Gently, I placed my hand on her wrist, feeling for a pulse: about one twenty per minute. It’s a bit high, but her body is going through a lot of changes. Analytically I looked her over.

 

Golden hair wreathed her round face, with a cute little button nose poking through the flaxen sea. Her skin was flawlessly pale with a blush of pink, but a rash of spotty marks crossed her cheeks. Her eyes were a sea blue, with that sharp intelligence I remembered.

 

I’d replaced the surgical gown with something a little more appropriate, a beautiful pea green dress I’d seen in a shop. Amazingly, the shop size fit perfectly, with no alterations in the height, shoulder, chest or hip needed. Normally, this never happens. Clearly, she would have easy shopping trips for the foreseeable future.

 

“As you asked, the body is force sensitive and anatomically female. No more lonely lassoing for you,” I joked, and saw her roll her eyes. What, it’s what I’d do: find out why guys love it so much.

“That was never the case in that body.” A vicious little plan flashed into my head, and it was too delectable to ignore.

 

“You know, I wouldn’t have minded seeing your big red man body. Perhaps we could have met up and tested things out?” I mused out loud. Her mouth dropped open and I mean literally popped open. She stayed like that for a long moment as her brain simultaneously tried to wrap around the notion and recoil in terror. I’ve seen her previous host, and he’s no Darth Serevin: he’s not even Darth Vowrawn. Her brain finally finished its downwards spin into madness.

 

“Trust me, you wouldn’t. He eats force wielders,” she scowled at my huge grin, “not like that, you ditsy little-.”

“Hey, it’s not my fault that I was born a Twi’lek,” I interrupted, as she shimmied her legs around, swinging them off the bed.

“Nymph,” she finished, hopping off the bed, and I stepped back, my massive grin hidden no more. Insinuating that I’m as easy as a twi’lek dancer to my oldest and dearest friend was worth it just to distract her from the metre-high freefall.

 

“Ow, why the oversized table,” she snarled, pushing up and off the metal floor. Twisting, she looked up at me and her face lit up with curiosity.

“Since when did you get so… tall?” her question trailed off as those wonderful neural synapses fired in that adorable little head of hers, “What have you done to me?” I didn’t say anything, just tilted one of the surgery lights so she saw her reflection. I saw the golden hair, tied back with a cute little bow, the little button nose and an adorable green dress. She saw a little girl in a fairy costume.

 

She screamed and I was more than a little impressed at the volume. She shouldn’t have the lung capacity for it.

“What have you done to me?” she repeated, numbly poking her cherubic little face.

“At least you’re still human,” I consoled, still smiling, “Togruta have a much higher neuroplasticity.” It’s true, they do. I still wouldn’t let her run around in my darling new apprentice though. I have to keep some amusements to myself.

 

“You scheming, duplicitous, brand-faced, twi’lek poopyhead! You planned this!”

“Poopyhead?” I asked, drawing an eyebrow. She just glared at me from all the way down there, reddening around the eyes.

“It-it’s not fair!” she sniffled as she tried her best to keep those cascading emotions under control, “I finally get out of that accursed box and you put me in a glorified dolly.”

 

I reached over and picked up my one time mentor in all things Sith. Clutching her tight against my shoulder, I rocked her tenderly, shushing her.

“If things were fair, the Imperials would have slaughtered the Sith long ago,” I gently cooed in her cute little ear, resisting the urge to nibble it. She wasn’t listening, instead bawling those delicate baby blue eyes all over my mantle. I held her, humming something I half-remembered from my childhood. A gentle hum is meant to soothe small children and Sith spirits. What better chance would I get to test that theory?

 

“If you sing me a lullaby, I swear on Thanaton’s skinny arse, I will yank your lekku off,” she threatened, gripping on my Lekku. Shuddering pain shot up my leg, into my thorax and it was all I could do to avoid crying out.

 

“You know, some of us like it when you play rough,” I cooed into her ear. She never was any good at sensing my emotions: She let me go instantaneously.

“Ugh, that was inappropriate even before I became, what, six?”

“Four, but who’s counting,” I sighed, clutching my adorable old friend, “I’ve missed you, Zash.”

 

 

Edited by Feldraeth
Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Feldreath: SI spoilers

Zash. I always liked her story arc, even if she did try to kill me. I do wish the ending with her and Khem could be resolved differently in-game, with a third option for finding a different vessel.

 

Braca’s solution--a fine rules lawyer and very Sithy. I enjoyed the slow reveal through the story, letting the reader discover the secret of the new body as Zash did. Perhaps she’ll get lucky--children do grow up. It's not like she's a vampire, centuries old trapped in a 4-year-old's body forever. *hesitates to ask how Braca acquired the convenient coma patient.*

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Striges:

I used to have a line in there about how dropping X a generation would avoid competition between them for at least thirty years, since Braca would now always be 1-2 ranks above X, until they're both Dark Councillors (or they die trying to get there). I suppose it got lost in editing. As for where the donor came from... I hadn't thought of that.

 

Prompt: Answering Striges, Behind the Scenes,

Title: Obtaining the Body

Perspective, Lord Braca of the sphere of Biotic Science

Word Count: 1,662

Spoilers: None

Warning: contains a single mention of gore and a lot of implied horror.

 

 

The servants ushered us in, expressions of impassive yet gracious disdain etched onto their faces. They all wore a deep violet Veda cloth uniform with silver trim. I ignored them: they were as much a fitting of the compound as the silver-lined violet banners or the dark wood furniture. I was more interested in the man sitting behind the expansive desk.

 

He was tall, even sitting down, with a face-hugging mask obscuring his features. What I could see of his hairless skull was a mottled grey, the colour of snow outside a factory slum. Seeing late-stage force corruption always unsettled me, especially when I considered that I too would one day be a wrinkled walking corpse, my withered body held together only by my will and power over the dark side.

 

He turned in his chair, a high-backed leatheris ensemble favoured among the Kaas elite, and glared at his servants. While he mentally lambasted them for their failure in not sending someone they couldn’t influence away, I perused his gear. He wore silver-black body armour with violet bracers holding up his cloak. In sections where supplemental plates would normally be found, I saw exposed tubing and easily yanked wires. In short, his armour may once have been top of the line but it has fallen into disrepair over the past few decades.

 

Eventually, he regarded me, as one would if a particularly vile beetle crawled into his bed or worse, was invited. I say invited: it was more the ‘didn’t oppose us when we entered’ kind of invite. The servants were force blind and unarmed. I am Sith, and they aren’t stupid enough to provoke an incident. Our respective masters are feuding and mine had just gained the upper hand in their generation-spanning war.

 

“Here to gloat, so your master has an excuse to attack when I send him your head?” their master snarled, practically jumping out of his chair, one hand on the hilt of his lightsaber. We Sith aren’t always best composed, but he was a study in lapsed discipline. I suppose grief does that to a person but we’re Sith: we harness our emotions to dominate the force. Any flaw in our will and the force turns on us.

 

“Actually, I have an offer for you that I believe you would find quite intriguing,” I coached quickly, skipping all the unnecessary pleasantries. They wouldn’t help: Sith pleasantries aren’t pleasant. He eyed me suspiciously, gauging my body and posture for an advantage should I prove no more than an assassin.

“Speak then, and if I judge your request worth merit, you might just leave with both your head tentacles intact,” he sneered, sulphurous eyes glowering in the recesses of his mask.

 

“Your house is functionally impoverished and the person you’d hoped would reverse this lies dying at the probable hand of your rival.” I started, and the force screamed at me to move, to run. I accepted its advice, but held my ground. Behind me, I felt Eirue, my aide, take a step back. She wasn’t Sith, she couldn’t be expected to withstand its baying bark.

 

“We both know he did it,” he snapped, blurring across the room to stop less than an inch from my face. My files told me he had been an Ataru specialist in his youth, but I hadn’t expected him to stay in shape. Many patricians outside the Sith spheres eschewed swordplay in favour of prying the mysteries of the force from its grasp. After all, they had apprentices for that sort of thing. I should have guessed he was the exception. He hasn’t had another apprentice since he married his last one five years ago.

 

“But that cannot be proven, else you would have relayed all this to Darth Mortis already,” I reasoned, keeping my tone as factual as possible before I delivered the conversation equivalent of an orbital strike, “I may be able to revive your daughter.” He stopped. I don’t just mean held still, he literally stopped. Muscles, breath, even his presence in the force felt as if paused.

 

“Why?” he breathed after an eternity, “what would Viscera gain by tormenting me like this?”

“He doesn’t know anything about this. Your house was the first to push its way into the then exclusively Sith nobility. You could say that I have a vested interest in making sure that symbol doesn’t fade.” Gently, I brought one of my lekku forwards and lay it atop my mantle. I watched him suppress the start of a sneer: it isn’t wise to insult the person offering to resurrect your daughter simply because she is from an inferior species.

 

It may be a great shame to some, but my race never really bothered me. Biologically, I am a twi’lek, a race of easily enslaved aliens whose main value was that humans found them attractive to look at. More than mere pets, that the two species have similar enough genitals to simulate mating. There was also the whole exotic mystery around twi’lek head-tails, or lekku, with whole deviations devoted to exploring their erotic nature. Many however, found the hairless aliens disgusting, and my research showed that he was clearly among them. He took a step back, and started prowling a circle around me.

 

“And of course, you would expect a favour at some time in the future,” he deduced, from over my left shoulder. This was the world as he understood it: one of favours and bonds, machinations and betrayal: the Sith ideal.

 

“Of course. I had thought about having first right over her apprenticeship.” I mused, watching him for any reaction. Here was where he decided: whether to hear me out and restore his family or to attack me and doom his bloodline to the annals of history. Either way, I would get what I was after, assuming I survived to leave this place. Doctors don’t run charities: a coma patient without financial support would be tossed into the street.

 

His twitch echoed through the force, the primitive part of his brain rearing up to smite the threat to his dead child. The right master can make or break an apprentice, and few knew that better than I. without access to Darth Viscera’s information, contacts and authority, I would have never become a lord. Sending her to me, an alien and a former slave, was more than a threat to her future, it was an insult to all his allies among the Sith: he trusted his rival’s apprentice more than them.

 

The rest of him caught up a moment later, considering the offer. His was a non zero sum game. His daughter was lost to him already. If I could save her, he would regain his daughter, and then owe me, but if I failed, he would lose nothing. Furthermore, if she became my apprentice, she would have access to some of my master’s files and the perfect cover: apprentices were expected to sneak around, gleaning all their master’s knowledge. Of course, any overt espionage would put a lot of scrutiny on me, but I was an expendable alien to him, and one he may still owe a debt. After all, there was nothing to say he couldn’t eliminate me and place her with an ally. I pretended not to notice the cruel little smirk twist his passable features. He was just realising the possible betrayal.

 

“Suppose I agree to this, what time-frame should I expect?” he asked, not bothering with the details of my techniques. Many Sith treated technology like magic, assuming it would just do as they wished. I suppose I shouldn’t expect better from my compatriots. Sith society has been stagnant for centuries.

 

“Until I see the damage for myself, I won’t be able to make an accurate estimate. Also, Mirsasha will return to you, but I cannot guarantee she will be exactly as she was,” I hedged, despite knowing her condition. Despite what he could do for me, he was still my master’s rival.

 

Some technically savvy person had rigged up a faulty mind trap to look like a holocron and ensured she found it in her toybox. As plans go, it held a certain simplistic elegance but the risks to our agent on the inside were ridiculous. It left no way for her to slip it in and successfully flee. I hadn’t needed to see the nanny’s entrails draped around the frosted courtyard to know they’d found her afterwards. I suspect Lord Romain was the architect of her death.

 

My master’s other apprentice was typical for a pureblood: overwhelmingly arrogant and he spent servants’ lives as if on a shopping spree. The fool felt his scarlet colour alone marked him as special, deserving of privilege. Preposterous, of course: I share his pigmentation and can barely function in this society weaned on xenophobia.

 

“So long as she is Sith, the other matters are trivial,” I felt red rise in the cage I’d fashioned from reason. I may not have known my father, but I knew how they should act. This was not it, “the steward will show you to my daughter’s room.”

 

“It’s been a pleasure, lord Vireya,” I lied as I rose. I know he saw it, but he wouldn’t care: we both thought we knew my reasons for this, and affection for him wasn’t one of them. I slightly tilted my head to him, and he nodded courteously. He headed back to his desk. Turning, I nodded to my aide, Eirue, and we followed the steward out. Glancing at Eirue, I saw her close her cybernetic eyes.

 

She didn’t stumble, didn’t slow her step or anything that gave her focus away. Her eyes weren’t for seeing: she’d recorded the conversation, mapping out his responses for later analysis. Now, she reached out with her natural sight, letting the force flow freely and reveal the compound. The cybernetics in her optic centres would record the layout, which we would need for phase three. It was all coming together.

 

 

 

Perhaps answering questions with a story should be a prompt. :p

EDIT: I should also pay attention to how people's names are spelled. Sorry Striges

Edited by Feldraeth
Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Feldreath: Aha, cue convenient coma victim and more wheels within wheels plots. I did like the complicated relationships here, with Vireya’s house being on a downward slide and Braca taking advantage of it. Also, Vireya being fundamentally unconcerned about what his daughter would be like when she returns. Without the bit about the age difference keeping them from being rivals, Braca’s choice comes across as a very Sithy joke. (An adult mind trapped in a child's body put me in mind of Vampire Junction, hence my earlier comment.)

 

Answering with a story... hard to do as a single prompt as it requires reader input after the fact, but let me work on it a bit.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Bright- yeah, I hate making choices like that, especially when there's such a potential to hurt people's feelings. Mallena is fare more decisive than I am.

 

@Alaurin- I'm glad you're enjoying Mallena. I really enjoy writing for her, much more than I thought I would when I created the character.

 

@Charmedseed- In-game, it's your choice when to return to duty, though I think she mentions something about cutting your leave short. I would have done it this way in any case. However, she does pop the question suddenly like this, with no real buildup.

 

Comments:

 

 

@bright- A little grey hair does work wonders, though! I bet a grey-haired chiss would look quite attractive.

 

@Alaurin- RE: The "Good" Senator- very chilling. What starts out as understandable, if not sufficiant reasons to ruing the main character's lives turns into a parade of how screwed up this guy is. Not sure if it was intentional, but his name also reminds me of President King Bradley, another politician who isn't what he appears.

 

RE: A New Assignment- Oh, it's him I really hated him. I think that's all that needs to be said about that.

 

@Feldraeth- RE: The Rifle- Wow, thanks! I thoroughly enjoyed this piece, especially how the mundane task of cleaning something can stir up so many memories.

 

RE: An Imperial Welcome- Oh, that took a nice turn that I didn't expect at the end. I like your musings on what it means to be an alien in Imperial space, and all the extra cautions she has to put in place.

 

RE: Guess Who's Back- Oh! Zash is back! I always found her character to be one of the ones most up for alternate interpretations. And it gave me a little satisfaction to see her stuffed in the body of a little kid. Try being ambitious in that

 

RE: Obtaining the Body- How Sith-like. Setting your enemy up in a bad situation, then offering them a way out of it for a price that seems simple at first, but winds up costing them dearly. I really enjoy reading your writing.

 

@Kitar- That quest often bothered me as well. I mean, I kind of get why the masters are concerned, but there doesn't seem to be a right answer here. On the one hand, you can turn them in to their masters that essentially wanted you to spy on them. On the other, you can lie to cover up a relationship that seems to be leading them down the wrong path (at least if you suggest that you might be turning them in). Glad it turned out alright here.

 

@Hadeedak- I've always found the Sith's (and bad guys from many show's) obsession with living forever a little puzzling. But I like the direction you took this prompt. Zeedor is a fun character with a lot more going on than first meets the eye.

 

 

 

Today's story is a bit of backstory for the latest update of my longer fic, She Who Battles Monsters: An Assassin's Tale, however, it's not necessary to be familiar with it to understand this one.

 

Title: Fall from Grace

Prompt: Brotherhood/sisterhood (It's not as close to the prompt as I'd like, but that was the one I had in mind, and their relationship is definitely the catalyst for the events)

Characters: Karanni Lo'rue (Sith Warrior), Quillan Lo'rue (an original character, Sith apprentice and Karanni's brother), Lord Erius (Quillan's master and the man who raised them)

Length: 1,000 words

Spoilers: blink-and-you'll-miss-it reference to Sith Warrior Dromund Kaas

 

Index latest of all Karanni stories so far

 

Contains some torture/violence. Definitely still PG-13, though.

 

 

Karanni crouched in the alley outside Lord Erius’s estate. She had spent her childhood there, training in the grounds and living in one of the spacious rooms. Now both of the people who stood in the way of her success were inside.

 

She fingered the handle of her lightsaber. Darth Baras didn’t know she was here. She had sent Vette back with the Ravager torture device and come here instead. Now she just had to figure out where they were.

Quillan was easy. She could always tell where he was if she concentrated. Right now, he was in his old room. Sleeping, she thought. Now to find Lord Erius… Ah, yes. That would be his office.

 

Running lightly down the alley, she reached the point where the walls of the mansion merged with the high stone wall around the courtyard. It was probably still alarmed, but she’d have to get over it sometime. Tossing a pebble into the air, she used the Force to propel it over the walls several dozen feet away, then leaped.

 

Her fingers scraped and caught on the edge of the stonework and she hauled herself up to look into an enclosed garden. Karanni dropped down into a flowerbed and ran toward the door. Hopefully she still remembered the combination and he hadn’t changed it- but no, the door was unlocked. It slid open at her touch and she entered into a dimly-lit hallway.

 

Karanni smiled. She had never explored the mansion fully, Lord Erius had preferred that she stay in her room when she didn’t have a reason to be out, but she remembered this place. At the end of it would be an elevator that would take her where she needed to go.

 

The smooth rush as the car ascended was much different than the one at the Academy, which always shook a little and made clunking noises. The doors slid open and she stepped into a new hallway. This one was a bit liviler. A slave carried a basket of laundry towards her, another dusted the art sculptures on pedestals, and a third carried a tray of food towards Lord Erius’s office.

 

Hurrying towards the last one, she shoved him out of the way and jammed the door switch. As it slid open, she reached for her lightsaber and touched the button. The brilliant violet blade shot out and she launched herself at the Sith.

 

He blocked her first swing and stepped back to avoid the second one. “Hello,” he said. “How are you, Karanni?”

“You lied to me!” she screamed. “You promised I could be your apprentice, but you picked him instead!”

 

“I said you could be my apprentice if you beat him in the trials. I thought Quillan already told you this. The truth is that your brother is stronger than you’ll ever me, and I was a fool not to realize it earlier.”

 

“He won’t be when I throw his head at your feet.” Rage pumped through Karanni’s veins, giving her strength.

 

Lord Erius blocked another blow. “How do you plan to do that, exactly? He’s the one who told me you were coming, after all.”

 

“I’ll think of something.” She kicked at him and felt a solid crunch as her foot connected with the side of his leg.

 

“Not if you’re dead.”

 

Someone laughed behind her and she spun around. Quillan! “YOU!” She reached out with her free hand and imagined his throat tightening, closing his windpipe, crushing his spine, severing nerves.

 

He gestured languidly and Karanni braced herself as an invisible hand shoved against her chest, trying to force her back. It stopped, to be replaced instantly by one shoving her forward. She stumbled and felt her feet swept out from under her. Trying to get up, she realized that her arms and legs had stopped working. Damn Lord Erius and Quillan, both. She didn’t know which one had done this, but it didn’t matter. She would kill them all, everyone in this stupid house.

 

“Your anger has always been your downfall,” said Lord Erius. “Somehow, you never learned the difference

between rage and blind rage.”

 

“What would you like me to do with her, master?” said Quillan. Karanni focused all her hatred into a single point and shoved it at him. He stumbled backwards and she had the satisfaction of seeing him land on his rear.

 

I’ll take care of her, Quillan.”

 

“But-“

 

“I’ll take care of it.” The tone was one she recognized well. It meant obey Lord Erius or else. She had never heard him use it on Quillan before. But he could obviously tell what it meant. He shut his mouth and leaned against the wall, staring at her.

 

Lord Erius walked into her field of vision. “When I picked up you and your brother, I thought you might make a good right-hand for him. It looks like I was wrong.”

 

Karanni felt herself lift into the air, slowly turning upright. It made her feel a little lightheaded, like gravity had stopped working. For a brief instant, she floated there, like a ghost in a children’s story.

 

Then the pain started.

 

Fire shot up her side, blossoming into red spots in her vision. She grunted, trying not to show any sign of weakness in front of them. She felt a rib give way with a grating sensation, than another and another, until tears ran out of her eyes and the only thing keeping her from screaming was that she couldn’t draw a full breath. It felt as though her throat was full of liquid. The pain dragged on and on, until she wasn’t sure if it had been a few seconds or hours. Finally, unconsciousness came for her.

 

The last things she was aware of before slipping into a slightly less-painful blackness was Quillan’s smiling face and Lord Erius’s voice saying “Get someone to throw her in an alley somewhere. Let Baras write this off as a random crime.”

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Last week of January!

 

Week of January 30, 2015

Pick-up lines: Use them? Been used on? Turned down? Accepted? Laughed at? Good ones, bad ones, sincere or stupid and everything in between. Write about how your character deals with a classic (if dubious) way to connect with someone else.

 

And, as ever,

 

Night of the Living Prompt: Keep on using any prompt you like! Check out the list at http://www.swtor.com/community/showpost.php?p=7489974post=2 and http://www.swtor.com/community/showpost.php?p=7489991post=3 (we’re up to two full posts!). Many thanks to Alaurin for maintaining the prompt archive and story index here.

 

 

This week's featured NotLP:

 

Animal Kingdom - Animals are all over in Star Wars, be they beasts of burden, metal-devouring parasites, mounts, showcase pets or underfoot vermin. Write about the animals your character has encountered.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Feldraeth, okay, that NPC's fate is hilarious. She should be grateful, right?

 

@Mirdthestrill, I wondered what Lord Erius was up to...baiting our Warrior into a fury and then punishing her for it, I see. Quillan and Karanni's next meeting will only be that much less likely to result in two survivors.

 

I’ve been trying to figure out how best to introduce Niselle, of the There Is No Death, There Is Only Wrath (NDOW) universe. She was an impulsive afterthought in that, my first standalone thread here on the forums; as the twin sister of NDOW’s Warrior Nalenne she ended up being useful after all. So anyway I finally thought of something. (Un)Invited Guests for Niselle. 350 words, no spoilers.

 

 

Good scholars will take pains to do

What is careful in light of what’s true.

The wise all say this:

If you eye the abyss,

The abyss may look back into you.

 

Niselle looked up from the faded pages and made a deep preparatory growl. Without turning away from her table she spoke. “What do you want.”

 

“Little Sith.” Khem Val. Of course. “You have finished your torturing of 2V-R8 for the day. Now may be an opportune time.”

 

Niselle half turned. “Does this look like an opportune time?”

 

Khem’s eyes gleamed redly. “Yes.”

 

Niselle pointed. “I have a text. An ancient text. Which might manifest horrors beyond the imagining of your pitiably decrepit brain if I’m not careful. And you are interrupting.”

 

“Bah. Little Sith, you are not a scholar.”

 

“Oh? I am. Ever since I was young. While my sister was busy with her comic books I was studying every arcane text I could get my hands on.”

 

Khem Val seemed to take this into consideration. “Then you had the upper hand in your education.”

 

“Well,” Niselle mused, “she did learn to do a flying scissor kick at age five.”

 

“A…scissor…kick? What for?”

 

“Me, obviously. Now did you have some reason for bothering me?”

 

“Yes. Andronikos is attempting to convert the practice field back into a cargo hold.”

 

“I told him he could have the side room. What more does he want?”

 

Khem Val glared. “Everything.”

 

“And this is my problem how?”

 

“If you wish me to slay your enemies, it would be wise to allow me to practice slaying. Whether on training dummies or pirate interlopers, I may be satisfied either way.”

 

“Now, now. There’s no need to off Andronikos. Yet. I’ll talk to him. Now go away. And destroy anybody who tries to interrupt me again.”

 

“Even the pirate?”

 

Niselle rolled her eyes, slow motion. “Would it kill you to pretend for two seconds that you’re willing to tolerate his presence on board?”

 

Precisely two seconds elapsed.

 

“The question remains,” growled Khem Val.

 

“If you threaten or harm him once more today I will read this book at you until something unspeakable happens. I don’t even know what, that’s the exciting part. Now go away.

 

 

Edited by bright_ephemera
Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Hadeedak - Re Lifespan, I loved where you went here. I think you really hit on something there with cheating death. The whole paragraph about creation was fantastic!

 

@Feldraeth - Re Guess Who's Back, BWAHAHAHAH, oh, she so deserves that.

 

@Mirdthestrill - Re Fall From Grace, ouch! Sith childhoods always seem very traumatic. I imagine it comes with the territory.

 

@bright_ephemera - Re (Un)Invited Guests, absolutely hysterical!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Comments:

 

@bright_ephemera: Thank you for the lifespan reference. It makes me wonder how much the effects of war and/or leading a violent or dangerous life were taken into account. Would Rattataki for instance have similar numbers to humans if their culture wasn't so violent? How much does Mirial's harsh environment influence the comparatively low lifespan of Mirialans?

Wynston and Junior are priceless as always. Junior is right btw, a little grey hair works wonders sometimes ;)

 

@alaurin: I like villains who are not dumb, and have their own agenda, and a reason for doing the things they do.

 

@Feldraeth:

The Rifle: "Components could be replaced, context couldn’t." That's a great sentence to sum up how she feels about the rifle.

An Imperial Welcome: Part II: Nobody would bother to check for some missing aliens, right. I grinned at the part about the name, mostly because all I , too, see is 'Kaina'. We have a 'Kaina' in our guild with the name being written like most people in our area pronounce 'keiner' which means 'nobody'.

Guess Who's Back: This was nicely done. Great details to show how Zash needed some time to realize what had happened.

Obtaining the Body: "I felt red rise in the cage I’d fashioned from reason." Clearly he doesn't like the girls father, but I wonder how much he dislikes his own schemes.

 

@Kitar: One of my least favorite quests ingame. And of course your story made me think about what would happen, if Ka'van wouldn't be able to distract Jax. I think it's best if Jax and I don't find out.

 

@Hadeedak: 'The true path to immortality was in creation.' I like Zeedor better with every story.

 

@Mirdthestrill: My tip is she'll survive, and it won't make her a better person. If she does, will she tell Baras, or what lies will she tell him, and how will Baras react? Once again you left me with more questions than you answered, which is always a good thing :)

 

@bright_ephemera: I love Khem's two seconds.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

*steps in here nervously*

 

So, I guess you just gotta run with it when you have an idea, right? Especially since my merc, marauder and operative are still on Balmorra because I can't stand that planet.

Therefore, I present to you my headcanon account of what happened when my marauder met Malavai Quinn. In-game , she's cool, calm and collected. In my canon? While Xenli isn't exactly flirtatious, she turns into a hot mess when she sees something she likes.

 

Title: Flirting, Not Even Once

Prompt: Pick-up lines

Characters: Xenli(Pureblood Sith Marauder), Vette, Malavai Quinn, and a brief appearance from Darth Baras

Length: 817 words

Spoilers: not too much, but it is an account of meeting Quinn for the first time

Warnings: mild innuendo(nothing explicit, just the usual come-ons and nothing worse than the in-game one night stands), two uses of variations of the word "damn"

 

 

Xenli straightened her top, running red fingers through her black ponytail to get a few kinks out. Looking over her appearance once more in the mirror, she turned to Vette and nodded towards the door. "Time to go."

They were on their way to meet Baras' officer, who would brief the apprentice on what she needed to do for her master on Balmorra. The pair had barely been there 24 standard hours and they already hated the place.

"Your master sends you to the best planets, doesn't he?" Vette commented dryly.

"He's knows what he's doing," Xenli returned curtly.

They entered the lieutenant's office and saw two men, one blond, one with black hair, both in their early thirties, engaged in a tense discussion.

"Sir," the blond man said nervously, "I apologize. I did my best."

"If that's the best you can do," the dark-haired man snarled, stepping closer to him with narrow eyes, "you're useless to me. I can shoot you dead with a clear conscience. Is that what you want?"

"No, sir!"

"Then focus, Jillins. Dismissed."

The blond man left and the dark-haired man turned to acknowledge Xenli and Vette. The warrior looked him over, chewing the inside of her lip. Not only did his black hair shine with cleanliness, he had dark blue eyes that stood out against his pale complexion, and had a good, muscular build. He wasn't nearly as hulking as some of the other men Xenli had met before, but he definitely kept himself in good shape. He stood in a crisp, pressed Imperial uniform and bowed respectfully to her.

He's cute. Damnation.

"I apologize for the delay, my lord. Lieutenant Malavai Quinn. I'm to be your liaison here on Balmorra."

Baras, you idiot! Of course you give me the attractive Imperial. "P-pleased to meet you, L-lieutenant."

Vette let out a small giggle at her friend's stuttering, drawing a death glare from Xenli.

"And I'm pleased to meet you, my lord. Lord Baras will brief you personally, but I'm to acquaint you with the climate here on Balmorra."

"You can acquaint me with the climate on Balmorra any time." Did I say that out loud? I said that out loud! I can't believe I said that out loud!

Vette was nearly trembling with contained laughter, but Quinn ignored her and brushed off Xenli's comment. "Even though the Empire wrestled control of Balmorra from the Republic during the war, we were never completely able to eradicate them. There is a rather sizable resistance movement. No one wants to admit it, but it's clear the Republic is backing it."

Xenli stood up straight and announced, "I can take care of that."

"Something tells me your presence here will leave an indelible impression on the state of things. And I look forward to it."

Xenli smiled and arched a brow. "I'd love to make an indelible impression on you. My master gave me a lovely ship. Perhaps you'd like to make yourself at home?"

Quinn stared at her, deadpan and unimpressed. "My lord, far be it from me to tell you how to behave, but I do believe that would be detrimental to your mission here. Furthermore, I do believe it would be best if our relationship was kept as professional as possible. Moving on. I have a secure connection to Lord Baras. I'll patch him through immediately."

The young warrior's face burned like bare feet on Tatooine sands. You know he's right, you idiot! What would Baras do if he could see you right now in person?

Vette tapped her on the shoulder, giving her a friendly grin. "Hey, don't worry about it. Not everybody can be smooth. I'm sure he'll forget about it soon."

Quinn turned on his holocommunicator and Xenli's master appeared on its projector. "Ah," the large Darth commented, "I see you've convened with my apprentice. Very good, Lieutenant. Leave us."

The lieutentant bowed and left. Baras looked his apprentice over then noted, "You seem flustered, supplicant."

"With all due respect, Master," Xenli replied heatedly, "did ever occur to you that a female of a mere twenty-one years might not be fully composed around an attractive male?"

"She would contain her hormones if she wished to be a successful Sith," he snapped in reply. "Focus, apprentice, or you may find yourself in hot water. Now, on your mission..."

Xenli listened intently to her master's instructions, slowly recovering from the embarrassment. He dismissed her pleasantly enough, and Quinn returned to the room. "My lord," he addressed her politely, "I've prepared what you need for your assault on the satellite control tower. In order to destroy the mainframe, you'll mount this charge to the base and activate it. Then contact me and I'll be able to detonate. Good luck."

"Good luck to you, Lieutenant. Hey, you know, speaking of explosions--"

"Xen," Vette gripped her friend's shoulder and shook her head, "just don't."

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@josephinec

 

 

I'm going to make my very first comment in this thread! *sweats* I just wanted you to know I really enjoyed your piece Flirting, Not Even Once. Your Malavai is dead on, and Xenli made me giggle with her reaction to Mal. I remember feeling quite similarly with my Fernal. Nice work! I do have to say I disagree about Balmorra...I actually love that planet...good music when you arrive, some serene settings like mountains, lakes...but some of the best men come from there, if memory serves, Malavai, Doc, and Zenith. But Malavai is my favorite! :D

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@josephinec

 

 

I'm going to make my very first comment in this thread! *sweats* I just wanted you to know I really enjoyed your piece Flirting, Not Even Once. Your Malavai is dead on, and Xenli made me giggle with her reaction to Mal. I remember feeling quite similarly with my Fernal. Nice work! I do have to say I disagree about Balmorra...I actually love that planet...good music when you arrive, some serene settings like mountains, lakes...but some of the best men come from there, if memory serves, Malavai, Doc, and Zenith. But Malavai is my favorite! :D

 

Thank you so much! I was kind of nervous writing it, because I hadn't written in a while, and because I have issues writing male characters(which is one of the reasons everyone in my legacy thus far is female). But I'm glad you like it! :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@josephinec, welcome to the thread!! Maybe I’m mean but I find Xenli’s discomfiture hilarious. I’d love to hear the lady Warrior stumbling through her lines for once. And Vette’s interference for Xenli’s own good…just what a friend would do.

 

@Lunafox, I see your positivity all over the place. Welcome to the SFC ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Lunafox, I see your positivity all over the place. Welcome to the SFC ;)

 

Thank you :D I'm having a good time checking things out.

 

Thank you so much! I was kind of nervous writing it, because I hadn't written in a while, and because I have issues writing male characters(which is one of the reasons everyone in my legacy thus far is female). But I'm glad you like it! :D

 

Don't be nervous, you did a fine job. My legacy is mostly female too. Getting into men's heads is actually kind of amusing to me. Have fun with it, that's all that counts. :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@josephinec: Welcome to the thread. I'll just second bright's comment. I can imagine Vette rolling her eyes. :rolleyes:

 

@Lunafox: Welcome to you, too. Nice to see you here :)

 

I actually have something for the current prompt. A little bit more background for Thorns.

 

Title: Alderaanian Red

Chars: Thorns

Prompt: Pick-up Lines

Words: 1315

 

no spoilers

Falls in the time between 'Paying the Piper' and 'Sampling Demonstrations'

 

Tatooine, Mos Ila, 8 ATC

 

The way she walked spoke of determination. It said she knew what she wanted and she dared you to stand in her way. Her hips swayed slightly with each long-legged stride, the blaster at her right thigh punctuating the motion. Her armor bore a few dents and scratches but looked well cared for despite the faded color that left the impression it had been blue once. She stopped when she reached the first stall of the food vendors. With practiced ease she removed her helmet and clipped it to the left side of her belt while shaking her hair and then combing it with the fingers of her right hand out of her face. Despite the sweat the gray mane, reaching to just below her chin, looked full and glossy, not like the hair of an older person. Some noise made her turn to surveil her surroundings providing a view of her profile which, too, wasn’t that of an older person.

 

Thorns sat his bottle of beer back down on the table. He had already been trying hard not to stare when she still had her helmet on.

 

“You’ll be dehydrated in no time if you don’t close your mouth again.” Rhen chuckled.

 

At this time of day with both of Tatooine’s suns almost set and the temperature near bearable ranges Thorns preferred Rhen’s stall with the benches underneath a brown-red awning to the confines of Mos Ila’s cantina. Whenever he was in town and could afford it he’d spend a while here to watch the passing crowd at the marketplace and to drink his beer, or whatever passed as beer at that moment in Mos Ila. Thorns took a swig. The blue skin and glowing red eyes had taken him by surprise. This was the first Chiss he saw outside a holo.

 

“Bounty hunter?” he asked Rhen.

 

There was no need to specify whom he was talking about. “Way out of your league, kid.”

 

“Says who?”

 

Rhen rolled his eyes. “Uh-oh, I know that look, kid. That’s the look Jernik had before she broke his nose. And Korrl is still limping. In case you should meet him, don’t ask, avoid the subject.”

 

Thorns snorted. “Korrl and Jernik may know how to hunt banthas, but that is no bantha over there.”

 

Rhen raised a brow. “Sounds like you think you’d fare better.”

 

Thorns risked another look. “Not that I’d want to make a competition out of it, but I am tempted to give it a try.”

 

“Can’t say I ever had a Chiss, but if you believe the rumors…”

 

“Forget the rumors. There’s probably not much of a difference left once the suns have set.” It wasn’t like he had no experience. Why would it be different than with other humanoid races? And he knew how rumors worked. He had heard some they had been telling about him. “But haven’t you seen her walk?”

 

Rhen chuckled again. “You talk like you’re at least forty.”

 

Thorns grinned and raised his bottle in a gesture of mock salute. “Blame it on my wild life.” He didn’t doubt there were a lot of forty year olds who hadn’t seen nearly as much as he had. “How long has she already been in town?”

 

“Three or four days. She’s rented one of the huts around the corner.”

 

Checking the food on display the Chiss had reached the fourth stall by now. Thorns looked up. “She isn’t going to buy anything there, is she?”

 

“She survived the last days, although she never looked pleased while eating.”

 

“Someone has to save her!”

 

“And how is someone going to do that?” Rhen laughed.

 

“Give me a bottle of your Alderaanian red and I’ll show you.”

 

Rhen’s laughter died and he coughed. “You know what those cost?”

 

“I know you swapped the labels.” Thorns held his hand open with a cheeky grin.

 

Rhen handed him a bottle with a sigh and watched him put it in the pocket of his vest before getting up.

 

“Don’t show her any fear.”

 

Thorns acknowledged the shout with a rude gesture behind his back while he was already crossing the street.

 

Other potential customers were giving her a wide berth. Thorns got in line behind her, careful to keep a sound distance. He watched her point at a grilled steak and when she started to voice her order he took a step towards her and interrupted her. “Sorry, but…”

 

She turned her glowing stare fully on him and the words died in his mouth. He tried to remember what it had been Rhen had given him to take along. The nearly imperceptible movement of her eyeballs made it hard to tell where she looked, but he felt like he was being thoroughly scanned. There wasn’t much to speak for him, a fact he was painfully aware of.

 

“Do I really look this desperate?” she growled.

 

Thorns swallowed hard. “Well, I probably do, but I am neither.”

 

“Then you’re either very brave or very stupid.” Her eyebrows rose in question.

 

“I’d prefer daring, but I won’t argue with you.” She hadn’t broken his nose yet. That warranted the careful usage of a grin.

 

Her brow furrowed wrinkling her forehead. “What it is you want?”

 

“It’s just when I saw you, I was reminded of…”

 

She shut him up with a wave of her hand and rolled her eyes. “You don’t expect it’d work to tell me I remind you of an old acquaintance?” Her expression suggested she had settled on putting him in the stupid-category.

 

“No, not you, the steak.”

 

A touch of incredulity entered her voice. “The steak?”

 

“The one you were going to buy. It reminded me of the one I ate when I first got here. And I can only say it tasted horrible, stringy and insipid. I thought it best to warn you.”

 

Her eyebrow shot up in doubt. She looked him in the eyes, then looked at the steak. Her gaze wandered over the remaining choice of products. “What about the stew?”

 

“Well, if you like hot and spicy…”

 

“Hot and spicy doesn’t sound too bad.”

 

Thorns shrugged. “The peppers cover the rancid taste so you will barely notice it.”

 

She wrinkled her nose.

 

The vendors face grew darker with every passing second. The guy tried hard to appear as if he wasn’t able to hear them. He might have said something to Thorns if not for the Chiss. Korrl’s and Jernik’s fate convinced him to keep quiet, though. Few things happened in Mos Ila that weren’t the talk of the town a short while later.

 

One more time she panned her gaze over the food on display and sighed. The outcomes of her previous endeavors to buy something decent to eat must have been close enough to disastrous to know Thorns wasn’t lying about the quality. “Okay, I’ll play along. What do you recommend?”

 

With a flourish Thorns pulled the bottle of wine out of his pocket. “If you ask me like that, I say something that goes well with a nice Alderaanian red.”

 

Her eyebrows rose once again and her eyes grew bigger. “You have a bottle of Alderaanian red?”

 

He scratched the nape of his neck and looked at the bottle, his thumb smoothing the label down. “If you don’t look too sceptically at the fake label the taste is close enough to pretend it’s real.”

 

She was actually chuckling. “So what goes well with a fake Alderaanian red?”

 

“Does your place have a stove and a pot?”

 

She scrutinized him anew. “You know how to cook?”

 

“You provide the equipment, I’ll bring the wine and the ingredients. I’ll cook you the best stew along the Chrystal Passage. But…” he raised a finger, “you’ll do the dishes.”

 

“I’ll help to chop up the ingredients and you’ll dry up.”

 

He grinned and held out his hand. “Deal!”

 

 

Edited by frauzet
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Welcome to the thread, josephinec! I also had to smile at Xenli’s nervousness and Vette’s teasing. In that context the flirt lines were doubly hilarious. I loved it when Xenli wondered if she’d said out loud what she thought she said.

 

And welcome to the thread Lunafox! Thanks so much for contributing.

 

@Mirdthestrill: I like the implication of Baras as merely one of many masters, and possibly not the most powerful. Erius’ questionable tactics (propping up Quillan? Planting the seed of fear should he fail?) only work if Karanni dies. Otherwise, he’s left behind a very motivated Sith.

 

@Bright: Limerick! Khem sounds like a kid making sure he’s still mom’s favorite. Because, maybe he not. Maybe Niselle likes the Pirate better. She must be convinced otherwise. I enjoyed their banter and have to echo Frauzet: precise two seconds.

 

@Frauzet: Thorns’ deer in the headlights moment (what had Rhen given him?) was great. Nice save, Thorns. Very smooth.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Commentasticness (And may I note how happy it makes me to see a hopping, lively thread):

 

@Mird: I really like Mallena's relationship with Garza. She's a fascinating character in her own right, and I always love seeing her. You did a fantastic job of getting her brusqueness across. (Also, regarding gas stations and college: WORKING AS INTENDED). I actually really like your Sith warrior. For some reason, her arrogance and ego come across as very realistic and earned. It's hard seeing her put down like that, but I look forward to the bounceback.

 

@ Bright: Champion of factiods. That list is pretty handy, even if I didn't use it this week. And that story filled me with a pressing need to go searching for the Wynston stories. I really like your agent. He's a great mix of classy and dirty. I love, love, love your Khem. And his relationship with his boss. It's a great short story, and one thing you do really amazingly well is that you absolutely utilize the format for great character moments and character building.

 

@ Alaurin: Any time I can get a chuckle, my work is done. Villains are hard, and it's harder to make them sympathetic and understandable. I look forward to spending a bit more time with these chaps, and maybe getting in their heads a bit more. I could do with some more "Why" in the first story. You do a great job with who the guy is, but not a lot of why he's the way he is. Short stories are like that, though.

 

@Feldraeth: Yes, Omisthal should watch out for the dark side, shouldn't he? Mmyes :p. I like how much your story hinges on details about the rifle. Very stylish. I also like your inquisitor story. That's a very crafty way to get rid of a rival who you don't want to kill. I really like how you're writing stories off questions. It's a great way to fill in some blanks.

 

@Kitar: I love how your sentences flow together. Very poetic and very stylized. It's nice. It also makes a great contrast to your naturalistic dialogue!

 

Josephinc: FRESH MEA... I mean, hello and welcome! (No, everyone's pretty nice.) I like how quick you kept your dialogue. It snapped back and forth a lot. Baras is spot on. I particularly like his hormone line.

 

@Luna: Welcome to thread. Please be enjoying beverage service.

 

@Frau: THORNS. I love how he handles the situation, and the image of him strolling around with a bottle of wine in his pocket. It's a pretty good crafty plan, too.

 

 

 

 

So I wrote a thing for this week's prompt. If it has a title, that title is "Angharad Is Drunk", because I am a subtle creature who never bludgeons a joke to death. This occurs a bit before the last story. My husband has mentioned that I am a dirty cheaterface, because this story contains a low snoggy feelings quotient. To that I say "PFAH."

 

 

 

Zeedor heard the clatter outside the ship from his room. He sighed softly, stood up, and smoothed his robes with his fingers. He tapped his lightsaber with his index finger, tracing a bit of the smooth curve out of habit. There were footsteps coming up the entry ramp to the Wolf. Dragging, uneven footsteps. He extended his senses and the mystery suddenly and easily resolved itself. He opened the hatch with a sigh. “Miss Irons. You're drunk.”

 

“I'm really drunk,” Angharad confirmed, staggering past. She flopped down on the couch. It creaked in protest under the weight of the bounty hunter and her armor.

 

“And yet, I hear no sirens.” Zeedor watched his friend for a second, then turned into the kitchen.

 

“I'm a happy drunk,” she responded proudly. Angharad tapped her helmet a few times. “I think I put the wrong visual filter on....” Her voice trailed off, and she wriggled her fingers back and forth. The helmet flashlight blazed on, prompting a startled chuckle from the woman. “Damn. Forgot I changed the trigger on that.” Her voice was clear, but each syllable slammed emphatically and slowly into place.

 

“Do me a favor and stay far away from your weapons system gestures, Miss Irons.” Zeedor turned on the faucet.

 

Angharad's helmet snapped around to face Zeedor. “I'm drunk, not an idiot, kid.” She flopped back against the couch with a huge sigh. She flipped her light off and on a few times, making patterns on the ceiling. “See? I can manage it just fine. Just damn well fine.”

 

“I'm sure,” the Sith responded dryly. He set a glass of water in front of Angharad. “Drink this.”

 

“Only if you have something stronger.” Angharad cocked her head to the side, her helmet light turning off one last time. “You need it.” She waved her hands vaguely. “You're so damned....” Her voice trailed off as metaphors failed her.

 

Zeedor raised both eyebrows at once, then shook his head slightly. “I suppose I can agree to your terms, Miss Irons.”

 

Angharad leaned forward to pick up the glass with a labored sigh. “Sometimes, this desh-heap is too damned heavy.” She rolled it around in her hands, not taking her helmet off yet. The hunter watched Zeedor make himself a cup of hot tea with a heavy dollop of something clear from a fluted green bottle. “So boss...”

 

“What is it, Miss Irons?”

 

“First, that's a wimpy drink, and you know it. Secondly... I'm drunk.”

 

“I gathered that, Miss Irons.” Zeedor stirred in a bit of sugar, then pulled out the tea bag.

 

“Well, stupid question time. I plead drunk.” Angharad seemed to lose her focus, rubbing the back of her neck absently. Zeedor turned to stare at his friend, blowing steam off of his cup. “You flirt at everything remotely female. So why haven't you tried your charm on me yet?”

 

Zeedor took a sip of his tea to hide his confusion and schooled his features, though he couldn't do anything about the flush on his cheeks. “It's a complicated question, Miss Irons.”

 

“Well, give me the simple damned answer.”

 

“You're my employee.” Zeedor shifted his weight, then sat down opposite the hunter.

 

Angharad pulled her helmet off in a jerky motion, shaking out her hair. She took a sip of water, and grimaced, mixing it with a laugh. “Not something that really figures into a lot of peoples' equations, boss. Especially Sith people.”

 

“It figures into mine, Miss Irons. Then there's our friendship to consider. I've come to value it a great deal.”

 

“That's good. We've got a system. I get paid. You get a ride places and a damned fine thug, if I say so myself.”

 

“And lastly, I've seen the men you prefer. Badly dressed, badly educated, badly shaven, badly behaved... I'm proud to say I'm not even remotely your type.”

 

Anghard snorted a loud laugh. “Kid. You're the best.” She tossed back the rest of her water and stumbled towards her quarters, humming a barely recognizable version of 'Shapa Keesay'. Zeedor sat in silence with his spiked tea, a vague smile playing across his face.

 

Edited by AKHadeed
Link to comment
Share on other sites

A few comments while waiting on a database... Huzzah!

 

 

@AKHadeed That bludgeoning makes the joke funnier, though. It's like tenderising a good steak, isn't it? ;-)

Can I just say that I love the 'Mercy and a Blaster' thread? And, in this story, I love both the feeling of familiarity I get - because (let's face it) who hasn't had that 'drunken clarity' at some point - and that fantastically dry final line of dialogue from Zeedor. I'm curious as to how this will develop, and if 'the flush on his cheeks' indicates perhaps a desire that he hasn't acted upon yet...

 

 

 

@josephinec I feel kinda bad for Xenli, in the face of Quinn's dry professionalism... Excellent piece, though, your characterisation is great on all counts :)

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Comments:

 

 

@Bright_Ephemera: After three years, we finally see things from Niselle's perspective. It's amazing how similar she sounds to her sister, despite being her exact opposite. Also, threatening the millennium-old monster who eats people with reading :D? I guess this has to be somewhere between Tatooine and Act II.

 

@Mirdthestrill: I liked the description of sneaking into the compound: a rare moment of subtlety that shows the warrior isn’t just a mindless brute. Also, you tease! Your previous works built up this combat as being easy, with Baras outright stating Erius’ slavery to form as his weakness, and then that ending: well played. I like how Erius is playing them off against each other: She’s going to be very motivated to end her brother and not team up with him to kill Erius.

 

@Josephinec: welcome to the chat. Loved the story and how well you wrote the characters. Let’s see: Vette’s snarky yet helpful in her own way, Quinn’s aggravating and oblivious, Baras is menacing and Femwar has a personality that’s not the default honourable/ruthless smug warrior princess.

 

@Frauzet: You sure Thorns isn’t an agent, because that was smooth, unlike the male BH romance (where he basically does a Corso until his target gives in). Also, Ssh, you’ll give away the thematic naming.

 

@AKHadeed: Not entirely sure why, but reading this made me smile Also, I like the way your characters don’t have unresolved sexual tension, despite what HadeedAK says.

EDIT: I stand corrected. still like it though.

 

 

 

After twenty drafts, I’ve given up on this piece. Here is Zul’s Imperial Welcome.

 

Prompt: Communication Breakdown, First Day on the Job

Title: An Imperial Welcome: Part III

Perspective character: Kaina’zul’anon, Bounty Hunter

Word Count: 3,374

Spoilers: Mentions of BH Nal Hutta

 

Warning : contains scenes some readers might find distressing

 

 

 

“Now, are you going to come quietly, or do I have to call security?”

 

I glanced around the area, trying to see everything at once. If there was a shift in the cameras, a moment when the other officers faced away, that helpful Trandoshan from earlier, things might be different, but I was deluding myself. I was going with him. He stepped back and I would have followed him away if I Mako hadn’t intervened.

 

“Hey, I’m going too!” Mako called, ducking back through the body scanner. Damn, I’d hoped she’d passed through and would wait for me on the other side. Knowing there was someone on the station with possible connections waiting for me would discourage him from trying anything.

 

“That’s not going to happen,” balding wannabe slaver snarled, wheeling to face her. One hand left his datapad, clenching into a fist. He didn’t raise it, or shift his footing into a stance. She had been cleared by customs; she was out of his jurisdiction. He had no power over her, and striking her would be an assault. Still, it wouldn’t be too difficult to make the witnesses forget or lose the footage after the fact. There was just one thing he wouldn’t easily circumvent: me. His grey eyes shifted, staring at me. I didn’t say anything, just shifted my weight slightly, so that I would be ready to snap his arm if he moved against Mako.

 

Defending their charge is the only time a licensed bodyguard can legally strike an imperial officer, assuming that they are not carrying out a lawful order. The bodyguard requires their license on their person and demonstrable proof that the officer was about to unlawfully assault their charge, but I could break him before he could touch her.

 

Damn, I didn’t fancy my odds if he engaged. There were several dozen witnesses and the three other agents, most of whom wouldn’t hesitate to open fire. To them, I would be an armoured thug gunning down a customs officer doing his duty, license be damned. Even if had the speed and moral flexibility to mercilessly slaughter everyone, which I don’t, it wouldn’t deal with the cameras.

 

Any halfway competent security agent would notice me murder several customs agents. Then we’d have the entire might of the Imperial War Machine against us. The reason Imperial guardsmen were so feared wasn’t their training or brutal disregard for life. It was the assumption that there was a whole organisation of men and weaponry backing them up. I don’t normally like to make assumptions unless I have to, but this one fit. The seventieth battalion guarded Vaiken and any number of them could be here in minutes.

 

He stared at me, his eyes promising pain and humiliation if I dared. I matched his glare, undaunted by any threat he could muster. It didn’t mean much, since my eyes don’t have irises, but it was psychology. The best bodyguards don’t need to draw their weapons. After a long moment, he sneered at me and looked away, glaring at Mako. She took the opportunity to make my life a lot harder.

 

“I’m going. There’s no way I’m getting out of her sight. Those were Daddy’s terms: I stay in sight of her at all times on this trip or he’ll cut my allowance. There’s no way I’m letting a bunch of glorified rent-a-thugs stop my shopping spree.” I didn’t glare at Mako, bury my forehead in my hand or even let out the mother of all sighs, but it was close. When lying to the authorities, keep it simple and as vague as you can get away with. She’s just included a father, the assumption of wealth, and privilege: they can check all that.

 

My setup was deliberately vague, a licensed bodyguard for a young woman with suspiciously powerful cybernetics. Further inquiries would show her associated with a former bounty hunting heavyweight who occasionally took jobs for the Sith and nothing before then. With this, the officers would reasonably assume that that she had signed on as an operative for someone powerful, possibly Intelligence or a Sith. Either way, they wouldn’t push any further: neither Intelligence or the Sith like being spied upon.

 

Still, I had to give it to her: Mako’s a lot better at acting than I had realised. She really pulled off being a spoiled little brat. Shame her brat wasn’t self-aware enough to realise insulting customs really isn’t the way to get what she wanted. Now he couldn’t just let me go. She’d challenged him, his authority and insulted the honour of his station: it was now a matter of professional pride. Best case, he throws his weight at her and then tosses me aside. After all, I’m only heading to Kaas, where Kaas dandelions are a native species.

 

I doubted it: the most likely option he would take was to treat me as contaminated and run me through decontamination, dragging it out to make Mako wait. It wouldn’t be pleasant but I’d remain a free woman. Of course, he may check her story, find it false and legally deport her. Then, he wouldn’t have a problem arranging for his slave-breaker to ‘escort’ us out of Imperial space.

 

“Right, both of you, come with me,” the officer growled, gesturing at a side door. We followed him into a thin corridor. The walls, ceiling and floor were all a soulless grey. Stark, white strip lights ran along the wall-ceiling joins, casting harsh shadows on the pair of anti-personnel turrets at the far end.

 

Passing through the door at the far end, we descended a stark, metal staircase and entered a T-shaped corridor. Along it were four rectangular rooms, two on each side of the crossbar. A pair of closed doors tipped the ends, and I suspect one led to a more powerful decontamination chamber: an incinerator. The customs agent tipped his head at one of the doors.

 

I pushed it open and entered the simple, roughly rectangular room, ready to gun down anything that leapt out at me. Nothing did. The room had a grey-green floor that was slightly bumped, likely to aid traction when wet. A bowl-like tray jutted out of the wall on retractable rollers.

 

There was a bowl-like table that looked like it could be slotted into the wall behind; a pair of cameras with overlapping fields of view; a long, obviously not one-way mirror along a wall; and drainage slits on the floor. That wasn’t what made it noticeable. It stank of sewage.

 

“Ugh, what is that smell?” I gagged,

“Alien shower room,” he grunted, jerking his head at the room while he leant against the doorframe.

“Hey, she can’t wash in here? It stinks” Mako protested and I agreed with her. Washing wasn’t the point though: he knew I wasn’t contaminated. It was an excuse to humiliate me at this point.

“You think we’re wasting good water on contaminated alien filth? This crap needs remediation anyway, now strip: time’s wasting.”

 

Damn, I was out of time. Three cameras watched us, two at opposite ends of the hall and a third from inside the room. What was with Imps and cameras? Still, with all these cameras, security certainly would see me gun him down and send in the guardsmen. However, If he appeared to attack me though, I would be justified in defence of myself and my charge.

 

He couldn’t have run all this along: he had to have a partner watching the cameras, editing out the slaving. His partner in the security station might wipe the footage to cover his ***, but that could work to my advantage. Without footage, the investigators would treat the whole thing as suspicious. Suspicious is good for me: asking upstairs will reveal why he brought me down here and a quick scan will show that I’m not contaminated. Perhaps we’d even get out of here in time for our flight to Kaas. Yeah, I didn’t believe it either.

 

I drew out my blaster, as fast as possible. As that Corellian bank robber found out, I’m pretty quick on the draw. The customs agent saw my hand move, went for his pistol and caught himself before he drew. Damn, I’d hoped he would freak, pull and shoot at me. My armour is good enough to stop small arms fire, and it’d give me all the excuse I needed to blow him away. Instead, I had to come up with a good reason why I’d drawn.

 

“Mako, stay out here and keep hold of this,” I instructed, carefully handing her my pistol. It was small, boxy and I’d wreaked havoc across Jiguuna with it. She took it, the gun that’d kept us both alive after she’d given hers to that scientist. She checked the safety, and then put it in her own empty holster. Yeah, I hadn’t meant she could keep it forever. Still, if staying free cost me a pistol, then it was a fair trade. It’s not as if I couldn’t buy a half-decent one anywhere in the galaxy.

 

Well, that plan could have gone better. The agent scowled at me, though I’m certain he didn’t suspect what I’d tried. Fine, the sooner we started, the sooner it’d be over. With Mako outside, I could safely assume she wouldn’t let him stun me. If he did, I suspect that the footage would be all over the station. Still, the thought of possibly having an impromptu audience didn’t make this any easier, but I do a lot of things that aren’t easy. I walked into the room, headed over to the tray table and unslung my jetpack. I set it down, snaking free the tube that joined it to my wrist launcher. That went in the tray too. Then, I started on the hardsuit.

 

My armour is comprised of two sections, a blast-resistant jumpsuit and an external hardsuit. Some models swap out the jumpsuit for a softsuit linked up to a biometric regulator, but those cost more than a starship. My hardsuit is mostly toughened ceramic plating, with armourmesh straps holding everything secure. It was the best available in Jiguuna for my budget and time constraints, not that it means much. Jiguuna is an industrial town, where the heaviest weapon someone will see is a thermal detonator. This was the biggest reasons how I could cut a bloody swathe through Fa’athra’s men: it was next to useless against thermal or missile weapons. I slipped the now loose wrist launcher and the bracer computer into the tray.

 

Reaching down, I unbuckled my belt, taking care to disentangle the heatproof skirt from the now empty holster. Lifting the chestplate, I placed it in the tray. Squatting down, I unstrapped my greaves and pulled them off. Standing on the cold floor, I ignored the sick sensation as I felt floor grime seep between my toes, and put my boots into the tray. Then, I slid the blastproof fabric of my over-trousers down over my jumpsuit legs. Typically, a set of ceramic leg plates would protect the front and inside of, but I’d swapped them out for personal reasons.

 

I unzipped my jumpsuit and shrugged my shoulders out. It wasn’t sensual or erotic: arousing him was the last thing I wanted. If he knocked me out and dispatched Mako, he would have unrestricted access to my nude body. The armourmesh weave creaked as I pushed it down, over my waist, hips and legs. Stepping out of my jumpsuit, I picked it up and placed it on the table, carefully smoothing out any wrinkles. The sonic shower wouldn’t destroy the weave, but could freeze wrinkles in it. As with anything skintight, you notice wrinkles pressing against your skin.

 

There, I was naked. I turned to see the agent slug Mako in the stomach, swipe my blaster and shove her in the room. Damn, stupid girl, you should have been watching! I lunged, ready to break him, and Mako barrelled into me. Staggering to the side, I saw the door slam shut. Charging it, I slammed my shoulder into the door. It didn’t budge, not even a little. Damn, now we’re both screwed!

 

“You’ll regret this: we have powerful- Urgh, cough- friends,” Mako wheezed from the ground. Stalking over to her, I helped her up. A thin veneer of green-grey ooze crested the cheek that had smacked the floor. Gently, I wiped most of it away from her cybernetics, and wiped the powder residue on my outer thigh. I’ve studied moulds, slimes and oozes and this didn’t fit anything I’d ever seen in my Xenoflora modules. While it’s certainly possible that it’s something new, the characteristics were all wrong.

 

The ooze was dry, flaky and so uniform I had mistook it for the floor. Even if only one in a thousand had to use the showers, the traffic would ensure that at least some of the gunk would be washed away. The showerheads must contain an aerosolised tranquiliser. Glancing up, I didn’t see any corrosion or microflora on the heads. The probability that whoever cleaned this room focussed on the showerheads but didn’t touch the floor was astronomical. Well, that pretty much confirms it. Until now, he could have been just an obstructive racist who enjoyed humiliating aliens. He was our mystery slaver.

 

“No you don’t. I looked up the registry and there’s no mention of a sugar daddy. Either you’re falsifying records, or you’ve lied to me,” he sneered through the intercom and I could hear the twisted little smirk wrapping his face, “now strip. You don’t want the water to wreck your only set of clothes.”

 

Mako flipped a rude gesture at the one-way mirror and a grating sound filled the room. Looking around, I saw that the tray had withdrawn into the wall, a force field sealing my gear from us. I thought back to what Mako and the slaver had been arguing about. There was a chance, albeit a small one, that we could persuade him that enslaving us was a bad idea.

 

“If you’re after our powerful friends, start with Nem’ro the Hutt, lord of Jiguuna: we’re here on his behalf to compete in the great hunt,” I stated, factually and calmly. Vague hints and bluster wouldn’t get us out of here. His scheme relied on the obscurity of his victims and the apathy of any investigators. A competitor in a contest an Imperial ally ran and hosted on Dromund Kaas wasn’t an obscure target.

 

“Why should the empire care about some mando savages or a fat slug?”

“I wasn’t talking about the empire. I think you should care, because he has money riding on our victory. If we disappear before qualifying, he’ll want to know why, and he can afford good investigators. How long do you think it’ll take someone like say, Bloodworthy, to find out about your slaving ring?” I asked, keeping my tone light but resolute.

 

Mako caught my eye and stared at me, an expression of horrified shock aimed right at me. Hold on, didn’t I tell her earlier? I must’ve thought it was obvious. Why else would I rush us into the station yet try to be the second or third alien in the queue?

 

“How do you know about that?” he breathed, and I could hear the fear in his voice. Good. Fear is a great tool for manipulating people, although it is not part of my usual social arsenal. I try to avoid social situations unless I absolutely must attend.

 

“Checked records before we left, ran a simple search program and found dozens of instances of aliens going missing. All were recorded as having arrived, are on the hanger cameras but don’t appear anywhere else. I guess you got sloppy,” I mused, lying through my teeth. Scared people don’t think straight and are always quick to assume that someone else has sold them out. For the first time today, Mako didn’t butt in. I guess she still trusts me, despite all this.

 

“Of course, if you release us, return my gear and sign our immigration papers, we might just let all this slide,” I lied. After all this, there was no way I would let him go free, not after what he’s done, to me, the eighteen the SIS liberated and the countless others we don’t know about. A moment passed without a response. Damn, did he hear my insincerity or was he just weighing his options? Did he actually think we could just let him get away with all this?

 

The shower hummed and hissed, but no water came out. Damn, I suppose that answers that question. The showerheads were uniformly spaced over, that should have been my first clue: bathroom design typically segregate wet and dry areas. It also meant that there were no safer areas. Damn.

 

I knew of seventeen airborne tranquilisers that worked on Chiss, Zabrak, Nautolans and Twi’leks. Of them, only five were undetectable without equipment and four of the five were extortionately expensive or required a license to possess. That left one: Carbon monoxide. Carbon monoxide is the second most common particle in space, though few willingly bring it aboard. It competitively inhibits the oxygen sites on haemoglobin, an amino acid ubiquitous among air breathing species. It’s not fast acting, but it is colourless, odourless and tasteless. The other victims probably didn’t know what was going on until they drowsily collapsed. After that, it was just a matter of waiting for them to slip into a coma and then flooding the room with oxygen.

 

Fortunately for me, Chiss are naturally resilient to carbon oxides, since we have another amino-acid that bonds with the carbon-oxygen dipole in the bloodstream to help flush waste carbon oxides from our cells. It’s why we’re blue. It would take longer to knock me out, but not that much longer.

 

Mako leant heavily against me, the synthweave of her jumpsuit rubbing against my side. She clutched at her head, muttering something. Damn it was affecting her already. She needed out, now. One problem, the only way out was locked. I couldn’t batter it down or blast my way through without my gear. For that, I needed to breach a force field.

 

Without an EM pulse or a command override, I wouldn’t be able to break through. I could physically do nothing but watch her suffocate and fall into a coma. Wait, I didn’t have my gear, but Mako did. No blaster, but I didn’t need her blaster. Reaching into her pack, I pulled out her scanner.

 

Fun fact about scanners, they give off all manner of EM interference when doing total scans. EM interference is one of the most rudimentary jamming technologies out there, but it’s likely that the force field wouldn’t have a frequency cycling system. It’s designed to stop unarmed and naked people from getting past

 

Rushing over to the retracted tray table, I opened the bioscanner and set it to do its most comprehensive sweep. Its possible Mako didn’t have that setting: it would grate on her implants. If so, we were screwed If not, I could get my gear. All I needed was the wrist launcher and we were free. The scanner whirred, beeped and the force field remained. She didn’t.

 

No, no, no, no, no! Grargh! Why is it everything that can go wrong goes wrong, huh? Why can’t I ever have a simple job: meet team, get sponsored, compete, win, profit. I should’ve stuck to shipjacking: it was safer.

 

A thought swum to the fore: It’s not just Carbon Monoxide, he’s lowering the Oxygen content in the room. Makes sense, I feel all light headed. Stupid man. If he uses that mix to knock me out, he’ll gas Mako to death. She’s smaller, younger, and a flimsy little human. Younger’s important, but I can’t remember why. Oh yeah, her brain’s still growing.

 

Ugh, my head hurts. I might just lie down for a bit, by Mako. I was on the ground near Mako. I’m not sure when I sat down but sitting’s good. Sitting’s not far from sleeping. I’m just so tired: I could just sleep forever. Aw, can someone turn out that red light: I’m trying to sleep.

 

 

 

EDIT: I forgot to paste the notes section

Notes

 

 

 

As you may have gathered, this piece was a monster to write. Let's see, the first few drafts were streamlining the turgid commentary. Unfortunately, Zul is very intelligent, so she thinks things through quickly, and perceptive enough to notice a lot of little things. Then I split it up and rewrote the ambush in a separate area, adding a lot of Auschwitz references (removing clothes, putting them in separate trays, gas in the showers). Then I removed a lot of them, both for streamlining and because it couldn't stand the piece. Then I rewrote the customs agent as possibly not a slaver and that Zul had misread the situation, then I put it back. Then I took out the rescue at the end, and had the slaver arrive, setting him up to take them away. Then I took the slaver away and left the ending vague. Those are just the changes I can remember. With all this in mind, I apologise for the story feeling like a clunky mess.

 

 

Edited by Feldraeth
Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Feldrath: Hey, to be clear, I never said Angie and Zeedor have unresolved sexual tension. In fact, we agreed practically right out of the gate that they wouldn't. Regardless, shippers gonna ship. But I did challenge my other half to write something a little more romantic (featuring other characters, obviously) for this prompt, since that is not her usual specialty. I'll give her credit for writing a dialogue-heavy character piece, without throwing in a fight scene, though. Drunk Angie and drunk AKHadeed are kind of the same person, I can't help but notice.

 

"I'm drunk. But I can manage just fine, even though I'm drunk. Also, I'm going to start asking personal questions and telling emotional stories. Because I'm drunk."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Striges: It was hard to remember to not show fear, but Thorns had a plan. He tried to stick to that. And he had handled Iz during mood swings. Iz was hard to top. I think there may be a pattern here. Iz, the Chiss, Kaliyo, somehow we have to make it till Belsavis...

 

@Lunafox: That's what fanfic is for, right? But never ever ask Thorns to sing, because he will do it -- loud. And if there is anything he is better at than shooting it's singing out of tune.

 

@AKHadeed: It does sound a bit shady when you put it like that, but Thorns' vest has big pockets, it doesn't look that bad :D

Drunk Angharad is kind of cute. And now I'd like to read more about Zeedor flirting, because I hadn't seen him as overly flirtatious up to now. The "I'm proud to say I'm not even remotely your type." fit perfectly into my conception of him.

 

@Feldraeth: My lips are sealed, my fingers too.

I may have been a little bit biased after I fell in love with the male BH voice, but I didn't think the BH romance was that bad. Thorns may have a bit more of a problem when it comes to committing to a solid relationship. And he's definitely no agent. I met some students of computer science who were smoother than this, although Thorns' plan is a Tatooine-adapted variation of a mechanical engineer's field-tested method.

 

Oh, I love the scientific details of your story. You put a lot of effort into making this sound very credible. I'll never pass that checkpoint again without being on guard. It's scary to know what's going on, what will happen to your body and still be unable to fight it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@frauzet: Zeedor's "flirtatiousness" hasn't really come up in our stories, but it was a big part of our actual gameplay, and turned into kind of a running joke. The best written example would probably be this story AKHadeed wrote. Zeedor plays the game, but wouldn't know what to do if he actually won.

 

@bright: Great Khem Val here! He didn't really see eye-to-eye with Zeedor so much, I'm surprised he stuck around. I may have mentioned this to Feldraeth, but it's nice to see some more Sith Inquisitors around these parts.

 

And welcome to the thread, josephinec and Lunafox!

 

Here's my entry for this week's NOTL prompt. We've been talking about bringing this character into the writing, and now's as good a time as any to do it.

 

Prompt: Animal Kingdom

Characters: Lord Zeedor (SI), Angharad Irons (BH) (& guest)

Setting: Nar Shaddaa

Timing: Most Recent

Spoilers: Never

 

 

There are days when I question my choice in associates. Most of those days find me on Nar Shaddaa, a garish, filthy kaleidoscope of the galaxy’s casteless and vagabond. The associate in question is one Angharad Irons, who uses this smuggler’s moon as her primary base of operations. It makes logical sense; the variety of individual Ms. Irons is usually looking for tend to run to places like Nar Shaddaa. Predators roost near their prey.

 

I just wish fugitives from justice could afford slightly cleaner environs. I found myself in a dark, dingy alleyway, headed for the spaceport where the Iron Wolf was berthed. Ms. Irons had a lead on a target, and unless I wanted to be stranded in this slum (or worse, take public transit), I was going with her.

 

A loud rustle to my left drew my attention. The sound had come from the waste collection bin outside a greasy restaurant. My curiosity overcame my good sense, and I crept toward the bin. The rustle grew louder, then ceased, as though whatever was responsible detected my presence. Then a small head dominated by large, multifaceted eyes popped out of the rubbish. I jumped back reflexively, but the creature just studied me with its bizarre, dark eyes, tilting its head to the side slightly.

 

A close encounter with some form of street vermin wasn’t uncommon on Nar Shaddaa; sometimes they even carried blasters. But as I looked at this creature, I could almost feel a pressure from the inside of my skull. It was the tingle of manipulation of the Force, which further piqued my interest in the creature. Whether it knew it or not, and the easy bet was on “not”, this creature had some innate Force sensitivity, and was reaching out with it toward a kindred spirit. It clambered out of the garbage bin, and I could see the whole animal now. It was a small quadrupedal reptomammal, with dark plating covering its body, a mouth full of needle-sharp teeth, and a long black tongue lolling happily out of its mouth. It wagged its short tail as it came toward me.

 

I bent down to let the creature sniff my hand, trying not to think about what the hem of my robe was picking up from the ground. The little animal gurgled. Once one got past the unsettling, unblinking eyes, it really was rather cute. I gave it a gentle scratch behind its head and turned to continue on my way.

 

As I left the alleyway, I heard a scuffle behind me. I turned, expecting to see the little creature disappearing into the dumpster again, but it was trotting across the alley toward me, clearly intent on going wherever I was. “I’m sorry,” I said in that slightly undignified way all beings address lower lifeforms, “but I don’t have any food for you. You’d probably be better off in your dumpster.” It just stood there, looking up at me expectantly, its entire hindquarter wriggling now.

 

Deciding that ignoring the creature was the best way to make it lose interest, I turned back toward the spaceport and purposefully strode toward Irons’ ship. I could hear the little beast scuttling behind me, but I chose to pay it no mind.

 

The Iron Wolf was there, boarding ramp down, engines warming up. I entered the ship, then hazarded a look back. The little dumpster diver paused at the edge of the ramp, as if intimidated by the thought of climbing aboard this contraption of metal. I turned back, satisfied, until I heard its little claws scrambling up the boarding ramp behind me. I looked down to see the pup beaming up at me, tongue lolling out again.

 

“Well, I suppose you’re coming with us, then?” I asked the creature rhetorically. It gave a little snort in response, and proceeded to start sniffing around the cargo bay. Angharad Irons climbed down from the upper decks, nodded to me in greeting and closed up the boarding ramp.

 

“Good timing, boss.” She said, all business today. “We’ve just gotten takeoff clearance.” Something caught her eye. “What the kark is that?”

 

I turned to follow her gaze. My new friend was sniffing one of the ship’s support struts. “Just a passenger we’ve picked up,” I said with a grin. “We seem to have taken a liking to each other.”

 

“Do you know what that is?” Angharad asked, clearly not amused. “It’s an akk dog. In a few years, it’ll be as big as a landspeeder. The Hutts use them as guard and attack beasts.”

 

“Well, then you should get along marvelously,” I said, as the little akk turned his head sideways, and started chewing noisily on the support beam.

 

 

Edited by Hadeedak
Link to comment
Share on other sites

@AKHdeed: A happy drunk Angharad, I approve. I also enjoyed Zeedor’s amused detachment from the whole spectacle. Hard to say whose line I liked best: Angharad’s “especially Sith people” or Zeedor’s “not remotely your type.” I’m not a habitual shipper so I really like their non-romantic relationship.

 

@Hadeedak: (or worse, take public transit) I see you’ve picked up another pathetic lifeform. As in the earlier story, I enjoy Zeedor’s amused, observing-from-the-outside voice. Now he’s collected an akk pup. An apparently teething akk pup. The Iron Wolf may have met its match.

 

@Feldraeth: I have to echo Frauzet--the abundance of details sell the scene. The scheme you describe is an entirely plausible one in Imperial space. Kaina’zul’anon’s last coherent thought, that shipjacking was safer, is sad in context.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

×
×
  • Create New...