Private Of Fathers and Abuse

[Gatz Derrevar]

Ship: The Red Night
Weapons: Lightsaber
Tag: Corazona von Ascania

Cora was smiling. Genuinely smiling, and not some plastered on façade. R4 was a terrible repair droid, and irritating to a fault, but maybe he was good for something after all.

"The sleep which I lost from watching a movie, and only that activity."

"Whatever you say, Princess," Gatz rolled his eyes, as he stepped past the sliding door to the cockpit, "I'll get rid of your hickies when you wake up."

Then the door closed behind him, and Cora was left alone with a failing astromech still humming happily at her side. At least, R4 was humming happily until he realized something.

<Hey! He never gave me my hug!>

He let out a string of curses in binary, all of which painted Gatz in a very unflattering picture. But then, abruptly, he went silent. The old processor in his dome worked overtime, as he thought of ways to exact his revenge on the smuggler who chained him to this deathtrap of a ship, and reneged on the deals he made. Retribution was at hand. The foul smuggler would fall, caught red-handed.

R4's dome spun to eye Cora as she entered one of the small rooms aboard. He wheeled himself backwards, just close enough to poke her in the thigh with one of his manipulator arms.

<There's something you need to see.> He said, very cryptically, <Gatz isn't who you think he is.>

He gave Cora no time to process that, rolling himself into Gatz's room, opposite of the one she'd been given. He rolled himself over thick red carpet, past a mirror that had been shattered—but whatever glass pieces that had littered the ground had been vacuumed up long ago—and to the side of a queen-sized bed covered in thick blankets and way too many pillows.

His little manipulator arm rifled through something under the bed, until he pulled out an opaque plastic container. Another few seconds, and R4 pulled out a second, smaller container. Then, thinking better of whatever he was doing, he pushed the second container back under the frame.

<Look in that one,> R4 directed, rolling back out of the room, <you'll learn things about Gatz Derrevar that no one—not even Valery—knows. But you'll never look at him the same again.>

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

"Hmph." Was her only response to Gatz's remark about the bruises on her neck.

As R4 warbled in indignant binary at the lack of hug, Cora drifted towards the empty cabin. The lost sleep was starting to catch up with her, and she was looking forward to a nap.

The room was spartan by her tastes, but it was clean and neat and that was all that mattered. Before she could make it to the bed, something prodded her leg.

<There's something you need to see.> He said, very cryptically, <Gatz isn't who you think he is.>

Tired eyes flared. What did R4 mean by that? Cora knew pieces of Gatz's troubled past, but was there something else added into the mix? Something damning? She almost didn't want to know.

The Knight found herself following along, glancing in either direction as she crossed the threshold into Gatz's quarters. Clean too, even if his taste was reminiscent of a holofilm philanderer. Who needed that many pillows?

There was one piece to the scene that her gaze lingered on for more than a moment. The frame of the shattered mirror.

"I really shouldn't. This is an invasion of his privacy-"

The plastic container was unassuming and foreboding all at once, and she stiffly moved towards it. Kneeling down, her hands hovered over the lid. I really shouldn't do this, she thought. It's too invasive, and people are allowed to have their secrets. But what if it's something like…

Like his spice stash, or other illegal materials? Something that could get him thrown out of the Order? She didn’t want that, but maybe if she knew, something could be done about it before things came to a head.

Deft fingers quietly removed the lid. Was she ready for something that could alter the way she looked at Gatz forever?

Wide-eyed, Cora lifted the copy of Taming the Devaronian Devil from the pile. Beneath it, other titles were scattered - her entire collection, along with a few other authors who wrote in a similar genre.

Despite already knowing that Gatz was a Lady Velvet fan and despite being Lady Velvet herself, Cora went beet red.

"O-oh," was all she could say.

 

[Gatz Derrevar]

Ship: The Red Night
Weapons: Lightsaber
Tag: Corazona von Ascania

<Do you understand now?> R4 chimed in from the doorway, <he isn't some suave lady killer, no matter what he wants you to think.>

The lights on his chassis blinked ominously. His revenge was almost complete, but the pretty Jedi finding Gatz's secret smut stash wasn't enough on its own. Oh, no, Gatz had to know that Cora knew. It had to be an unequivocal truth between the two of them: that the dashing smuggler read trashy romance novels, and the Princess of Ukatis knew, and would always know.

<He's a romantic.> And then the droid paused, wondering if he should take things up a notch, <and he purchased those novels to learn how to seduce pretty young noble women. He's probably trying to seduce you!>

Then R4 left once more, leaving Cora with a revelation with an impact comparable to a turbo laser bombarding a city—which, oddly enough, was an impact she was all too familiar with. With his work done, Cora in Gatz's room holding his prized possessions, and Gatz almost certainly caught in a noose, R4-Z3 whistled his way down to the cargo bay to finally fix those lights.

Moments, and one jump to lightspeed later, Gatz stepped out of the cockpit. He took two steps, before noticing that his door was ajar. Probably R4 snooping around for another power converter, thinking that he was hoarding them away from the droid for some reason. Damn droid had a faulty logic circuit.

"Tin Can," Gatz tried to keep his voice down, assuming Cora was laying down for some shut-eye, "how many times do I have to tell you to stop snooping through my stuff! There's nothing in—"

Gatz stopped, eyes wide, as he spotted Cora kneeling at the side of his bed, his First Edition of Taming the Devaronian Devil in her hands.

And for once, he had nothing to say. No crude jokes, no good-natured ribbing. Just a slow blush creeping up his face, as he realized that Cora had just learned something about him that he'd never shared with anyone before.

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

Cora swallowed thickly, retaining enough sense to understand that R4 was trying to get Gatz Derrevar into trouble.

"Come now, there's nothing wrong with being a romantic."

She knew that Gatz was a fan of Lady Velvet, but he hadn't known that she'd known, and Cora had intended to keep it that way.

"What? No, he wouldn't do that. He knows that I'm with Makko Vyres . Besides, these would make poor manuals for seduction, they're more intended to be fantasy than instructional."

She paused, blanching.

"Or so I've heard."

Cora glanced back down to the pile of novels. It was…quite an extensive collection, she had to admit. Ashla, he'd even gotten his hands on a limited-run copy of The Kaminoian Who Cloned My Heart.

Before she could shove the box back under the bed and scurry away, the sound of Gatz's approaching voice made her freeze. R4 had wheeled away by now, no doubt rubbing his little mecahnical arms together in glee.

In the end, Gatz and Cora were left staring at each other - wide eyed and speechless. For the first time, she saw Gatz Derrevar blush. Cora hadn't thought that possible.

Silence reigned a few long moments. Then, Cora placed the novel carefully back into the container, capped it, and slipped it back beneath the bed. She stood, smoothed out her pants and walked right past Gatz. The urge to admonish him was quickly quelled by the fact that it would be tempting fate.

"I saw nothing. You saw nothing. We will not speak of this again."

Cora retreated into her assigned cabin and closed the door.

Force help me.

 

[Gatz Derrevar]

Ship: The Red Night
Weapons: Lightsaber
Tag: Corazona von Ascania

This... this couldn't be happening. This wasn't happening. Gatz refused to believe it. No one knew about his love for Lady Velvet—that was, love of her literature. He'd never seen the woman's face before, his one attempt at a pass failing, and ending with him being encouraged to move along by her bodyguards. Which promptly had cut his attempts to woo the veiled woman short.

A damn shame. He'd have given Lady Velvet plenty of inspiration for her next book.

But here he was, face to face with the most straight-laced woman he knew. Who had just discovered his stash of romance novels. And who was holding one of the smuttier ones. Gatz had no words, how could he? He'd been caught with his pants down before, but not like this: with an embarrassing secret of his now out in the open.

"I saw nothing. You saw nothing. We will not speak of this again."

Cora gave him an out, merciful princess as she was. A way to pretend that none of this had happened, that neither of them held this secret, and with no worries that his street cred was about to be torn to shreds. He was safe. He could still be Gatz Derrevar, Jedi and Casanova. His identity was intact, and all he had to do was keep his mouth shut as Cora returned to her borrowed room.

"I-I-I only bought those to convince the author to sleep with me! It worked!"

Naturally, he only made things worse.

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

Gatz's parting shot was an attempt to justify his collection of smutty novels. By insinuating that he'd purchase them to sleep with the author. The author being her.

And by now, she was sure that Gatz didn't know that she was the face behind the terrible pen name. Her expression firmed, grim as stone in thought.

Cora stopped dead, just a few paces from his door. Even her foot hovered in place just above the metallic floor. She almost couldn't believe what he'd said, but then again, this was Gatz.

"Did you?"

Unwaveringly calm, Cora slowly turned to face Gatz. She didn't look angry, or even surprised, but strangely serene. It was markedly out of character for the strait-laced noblewoman who often visibly balked at any ounce of perversion.

"And how was she?"

Gatz Derrevar

 

[Gatz Derrevar]

Ship: The Red Night
Weapons: Lightsaber
Tag: Corazona von Ascania

Cora froze before him, as if she'd been turned to stone instantly. Even her foot hovered above the ground, not quite touching the deck of the ship. That... confused Gatz. He had expected a reaction from her, to be sure, but it sure as shit hadn't been this one. She should have been red-faced and scolding him for such coarse language. Or shaming him for seducing an innocent smut author.

Then came the question. And Gatz was pretty sure he'd just stepped into an alternate reality. Because why would Cora ever ask such a thing? The prim, proper woman that she was, why would she ever ask how Lady Velvet was in bed? Gatz was missing something here, he was sure, but Cora wasn't offering up the knowledge that might fill in the gaps.

This is a trap. Gatz realized, I don't know how, I don't know why it was set, but this is definitely a trap.

Only a moron would spring it. The smart thing to do now would be to simply... retreat into his room, as Cora had tried to do only moments ago. Drop the issue altogether, and in the morning they could reconvene and carry on like this conversation had never happened. She'd tried to give him that exact opportunity, and he'd ruined it by sputtering a bullshit lie.

But, hey, he'd already dug the hole, so...

"Eh, I had to teach her a few things," Gatz shrugged, "she was about as bad at it as her smut writing might suggest."

Because he couldn't admit that he actually loved those novels, which he did. He couldn't admit that the reason he had all her First Editions was for display, and that he had mass market copies of each that had been read so many times that their spines had lines down them. Gatz just couldn't, not when his street cred was on the line.

"But I gave her a few new ideas for her next book, so stay tuned! Your favorite smuggler-turned-Jedi is an inspiration, as it turns out."

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

Cora supposed that it was an odd question to have asked. But, Gatz Derrevar dug himself further into that hole and she wasn't even sure if that was what she wanted.

Catching someone in such a bold lie was a very, very advantageous position to be in. However, that advantage was undercut by her own secret.

The temptation was there to reveal to Gatz that she, in fact, was Lady Velvet, author of such poorly written romance novels. How embarrassed would he be, how much sputtering backpedaling would he do to try and cover his lies?

The knowledge that she'd never live it down held her back. So she grimaced, appropriately disgusted with Gatz's would-be actions. Or perhaps, his lies. Probably both.

"So you did read them?"

A little part of her was indignant at his unintended insult.

"I see. I don't know what I expected, but I don't read such filth. I'm afraid that your inspiration will go unappreciated, in this case."

Turning on her heel once more, Cora retreated to her cabin before this could get worse.