Private Baa Baa Black Banthas

[Skeevi Merrill]

UNCLAIMED TERRITORY
ATTAHOX
AKA THE BEST PLACE IN THE UNIVERSE
CIRCA 902 ABY​

Out back behind a crowded market, Skeevi got up from a crouch and surveyed their handiwork with deep satisfaction. A Houk thug lay supine and unconscious with a fresh tattoo across his forehead. The tattoo was a pair of intertangled glyphs, one Frangawl and one Nagai. In combination they meant something like 'CURSE OF IMPOTENCE' but informally — really more of an equivalent to the venerable Jawaese idiom dooka ko loko. Skeevi holstered their tattoo gun and dusted off their hands.

"Slike I said, Shammy," they said over their shoulder to Demias Shamalain , who might or might not be their new pilot pending assorted unresolved shavvit. Skeevi pantomimed lekku with their flapping arms, shoulders hiked high. "Slike I toldja, ibana? That Twi'lek hkeek wurnt yer type no matter what she wiggled."

Around the corner, someone bawled a call re: fresh street meat. Skeevi brightened considerably.

 

[Demias Shamalain]

Attahox was not the intended destination, but instead a miserable layover between stunts. Demias reminded himself of this as he lay out flat, on his back, in the disgusting dirt of Attahox behind the disgusting crowded market. He could taste the stink on the air and it tasted like sad desperation.

So this is what his life had come to. Eating sad desperation for breakfast in the form of a houk's knuckle sandwich.

His eyes stared upwards at the patchwork of sky above, "You don't know that," he replied, feeling the dryness of his tongue as it stuck to the back of his teeth as he checked them one by one to ensure they were all still there, "she could have been my true love." Demias dug a hand into his coat pocket and withdrew the small satchel of credit chits he'd taken from the twi'lek while she was busy downtown.

"Scratch that..." he estimated by the weight in his hand, "my true love wouldn't be this stingy."

His head turned in the dirt to regard Skeevi as she ... he? It put away its weird little contraption. Demias sat up with a grunt and touched a hand to his swollen and bruised face, "The houk was a surprise. What's that you've done to it?"

 

[Skeevi Merrill]

"Fuckin witch int I? Rave Merrill my keebeetomo." It meant grandma. Skeevi jabbed at the forehead tattoo with Devaronian-horn fingers. "This bit's lizard, that bit's conehead. Makes him dooka ko loko forever. Floppy. Nyeta wass-m'nuta gomjam, eh? Heheheheh."

Contextually, or if Demias Shamalain grokked Jawaese, Skeevi was chortling about a curse of eternal impotence.

They got a good idea largely unconnected to the enticing smell of street meat.

"You wanna ink, Shammy? Wanna the vroom?"

The Houk stirred.

"Eh, maybe not here though."

 

[Demias Shamalain]

If the son of Dissero Shamalain didn't know the name Rave Merrill he was well and truly lost. Merrill was a good name to know, it was the very reason he'd given the jawa thing the time of day after their run-in at the starport. What were the gorram odds, ey? Either his luck was on the up, or the dynasties of Merrill and Shamalain were woven a bit more snugly on the loom of fate than anyone really knew.

He'd rather it was his luck, truth be told. Could use some of that right about now. Could also use a piss.

Shoving to his feet, Demias grunted in response. He grokked only enough Jawaese to trade. His grok consisted more of business and less of floppy gomjams, something which he'd never personally had an issue with. "Ink is fine... maybe not your ink," he motioned for the jawa witch to give him some space, straddled the houk, and proceeded to relieve himself in broad daylight on the oaf.

They didn't care about this kinda stuff here. The houk would, though. Demias smirked, put himself away, and swung his leg over the great brute's middle. "Let's vroom, Witchie," checked his pockets again for good measure, flipped up his hood, and quietly deposited himself into the thick stench of the market.

"Hungry? Think I got enough off my false love for brekkie," the food didn't smell too bad.

 

[Skeevi Merrill]

"Whass wrong wiv my ink? I gotta best ink. 'Smagic."

Skeevi accompanied Demias Shamalain into the comforting lethal churn of an Attahox street market. If he was buying, Skeevi was eating. Not for the first time, they thought about the street value of their ship, a dubiously salvaged Nagai light freighter called the Kiluyakka, 'walking on the clouds' in Jawaese. A curio like that could buy a ton of street meat.

Speaking of: in short order, Skeevi was gnawing on a kebab.

"Fethin yep. Cyborrean battle dog. Best giblets."

They spat a barbecued circuit.

"Little chewy."

 

[Demias Shamalain]

The company was weird but at least the ribenes were halfway decent. Not as good as dad's grillin, but beggars and choosers. Demias champed on some spicy, fatty burnt ends and waggled the ribene at the jawa-kid, "You just gave a houk incurable ED and you 'spect me to jump in line? Vroom probably gives the permanent shits. No thank you, sister."

He wasn't wearing brown pants for the rest of his life. He may be many things, but fashionably impaired wasn't one of them. Brown pants were only socially acceptable after Gambor Day.

Demias tossed a cleaned ribene bone over his shoulder and bit into the next. The bone landed in someone's caff a half dozen meters away.

"Besides," he said while he chewed the fat, "I can't fly your ship if I'm knee deep in the vroom. What's the deal with that ship anyway?"

 

[Skeevi Merrill]

"Notta sister, 'ma them." Skeevi slurped down the last of their battle dog giblet skewer. "Hey hey, ink for shits, I gotta work that up, thassa good one." Skeevi patted the small of their back. "Maybe a curse trampastamp. My ship?" Life, Skeevi had found, was easier if you just kept bouncing around and said what you meant, talked as much as you wanted. But you had to scale it just right so they neither felt your good stuff was worth stealing, nor figured you were hiding something. "Kiluyakka's Naggy. From Naggy space, yeh? Shot down by Toughs on Darronid. Patched it up with a warthog. Howboutchu, what's the last you flyin? Fancy shavvit?" Skeevi gestured vaguely with the skewer. "You smell fancy."

 

[Demias Shamalain]

He actually didn't know if Jawas had genders. Was this even a Jawa? Didn't look like one to him. Supposed it tracked that anything descended from Rave Merrill was nothing short of defying all standards and norms simply because they could. If the stories his father told were anything to go by, anyway. But weren't witches supposed to be sisters? Demias frowned grumpily and looked down as Skeevi stuck their nonexistent arse out.

"Need an ass for a trampastamp to work," that was beside the point. The ship was the important thing here. Why were they here again? What were they talking about?

"Heey," he glowered at the insinuation of smelling fancy being a bad thing ... reached up and pulled his hood to his face to smell it. Oh. The drycleaning spray hadn't faded yet. That was nice. "I stole this off a fancy man," Demias lied. He'd pushed a fancy man off a station platform and took his spot on the transit shuttle. First class the whole way. Had a flute of champagne, a bubble bath, drycleaning, and everything.

"Never had my own ship, but I can fly anything," he realized he was still smelling his hood and promptly dropped it to chomp another bite off a ribene, "anyfing."

 

[Skeevi Merrill]

"Yeh?" Still stinging from the allegations of asslessness, Skeevi turned their imagination to unflyable things. "Whattabouthat?"

They started chewing on the skewer — you didn't waste residual taste — and pointed up at a faint fat dot of light in the sky.

"Therza Jedi prince reve uppit, upwell. 'Manitarian aid showoff trip. Sgotta be a mile long an fulla extras. Temples up the wazoo. Y'fly that, then I figure y'fly anything."

 

[Demias Shamalain]

His lip ticked as he watched Skeevi chew on the skewer, then his gaze followed upward to the dot. Demias winced into the daylight.

"The Jedi allowed to be princes now..?" he used his ribene to block out the sun and considered the challenge as he chawed on a particularly chewy bit of gris, "Is that a bet?"

 

[Skeevi Merrill]

"Jedis can be whatever they wants, that's why they's Jedis."

Skeevi's primary encounters with Jedi had been at a distance on Denon. People like Skeevi stuck to places that were very much not the heavily fortified Jedi enclave in Upcity by the entertainment district. The received wisdom was that all the Jedi on Denon were princesses and/or billionaires. There were standing bounties involving feet.

"Yeh. Yeh, it's a bet. Y'can't fly that ifya get the chance. I'll bet...feth, feels like more'n a next-round thing. Whatchu bettin?"

 

[Demias Shamalain]

He rolled that fat around on his tongue a bit as he stared bleary-eyed up into the sky like a fucking chicken in the rain.

"I got aboutta hunnit credits in my pocket," shoved his free hand in his pocket and fished about the little satchel of chits, "and some pillow mints."

Been savin those for the right occasion. He'd be willing to part.

 

[Skeevi Merrill]

"Pillow mints anna hundred? Shavvit, we gotta Jedi prince right here."

Skeevi fished in their virulent yellow coat without immediate success. The coat disgorged crumbs of Dathomiri amber, broken feathers, broken bones, and—

"Hey hey." Skeevi flourished a knife with a Tashai scrimshaw handle. It spattered curdled pelko bug venom across the street meat stall. The market at large took the knife in stride. The Zygerrian meat vendor tasted the venom appreciatively and scraped it into the sauce.

 

[Demias Shamalain]

Nice little knife. Probably would come in handy - he didn't have one. But...

"You're holding back," he reminded them, "you got a ship."

BLORK said the yellow coat.

"What?" Demias made a face, then looked up again and found the houk now bungling up through the crowd with friends from behind Skeevi. His eyebrows disappeared into his hairline, "Time to go."

A hand reached out and snatched that yellow coat by the nape to yank the jawa-thing with him through the crowd.

 

[Skeevi Merrill]

"Mnotta bettin my ship, ye graspin vulture, y'think I'm as gullible as that pretty—"

They cut off as Demias Shamalain yanked them through the market crowd. A glance back registered a group of apparent hostiles led by an obvious one: a Houk with an impotence curse tattooed across his forehead.

"Ehhehehe that turned out lookin pretty good, dint it."

Mid-drag, Skeevi dug out a pouch, threw it down in their wake, and yelped a Jawa curse. The Force caught a cloud of gritty dust and shoved it up and out. Screams rose. It was dried, ground pelko bugs from Tash-Taral. Live pelko bugs were covered in paralytic, blistering micro-hooks; the dust was far less virulent but would certainly ruin one's day.

 

[Demias Shamalain]

"My ego against your ship, I think it's a pretty fair bet," Demias dodged an incoming hovercart full of junk just moments after the bug dust hit the Force fan. The hum of daily commerce spun up into a wail of chaos behind them. He found the wall of a sandstone building and flattened his back against it, ducked his head as a raging bantha plowed through the crowd in retreat from the dust cloud.

It was impressive, the amount of hub-bub the yellow coat could dredge up with so little resources. Demias afforded himself a moment to grin like the cat that had released a live rodent in the house for funsies.

"I lose, I'll fly your ship. You lose, I'll fly my ship and you can join me," his yellow eyes jabbed down at the face within the yellow hood, "what havya got to lose?"

 

[Skeevi Merrill]

Skeevi flattened themself against the same alley wall as the storm rolled past. The Houk had just encountered a Bardottan, who could read half the tattoo. The spindly duckbill reptilian dissolved into helpless unwise laughter and was promptly flattened.

"Onlyting I ever owned I couldn't carry, thass what. Shippagainst a hundred creds? Thassa bet for fancy-smellin hkeeks. No way yegettin my ship. Getcher own, yefly so good. Then ye work for me, we gotta little fleet. Commodore Pirate King Skeevi."

Everyone knew the title Pirate King was gender neutral.

"Holdin out on me, fancy."

 

[Demias Shamalain]

It was worth a shot. Demias cracked a rueful chuckle, then tossed a sideways glance, "Pirate ...King?"

Made a face. Thought about it. Frown-shrugged in concurrence, "Gender neutral, right."

He eyed the crowd, looked for the houk, "I could be a pirate..." shoot things, loot things, drink, fuck, repeat. Didn't sound like a bad gig. In fact he was pretty sure his second-cousin was ears deep in the gig in the unknown regions. Maybe he'd run into her, she hadn't been seen in ... a dozen years?

"You want the pocket lint in there too, you greedy little lemon?" Waited for the houk to get distracted and then took his chance. Demias nudged his pint-sized lemon-friend down the wall and nodded for them to head out across the street. The chaos would give them cover, then he could look for one of those relief camps. Had to be supply shuttles running back and forth to that mile-long-speck above.

 

[Skeevi Merrill]

"Feth no. Who knows whatcha gottinyer pockets."

No more than five minutes put them at one of the humanitarian distribution sites: a deployable field cordon, broken only by a gate where people lined up to receive. Inside the cordon were shipping containers of various supplies. Friendly Jedi in ornate and tastefully elegant robes handed things out personally, healed passers-by, etc. Skeevi had encountered spectacles like this across the galaxy at one point or another, point being the operative word: these were short-term operations, usually coinciding with political assimilation or negotiation of some kind or other. They wondered if Attahox was about to come under someone's heel and be FOREVER ruined.

"Coupla shuttle yachts in there, nice boats. I can get us on but that fence is trouble. Maybe the Jedis is trouble too. Yever fight a Jedi?"

 

[Demias Shamalain]

Demias peered at the site, squinting into the sunlight.

The fence was reasonably high and probably electrified.

"Yeap," he replied about the fence, but it lacked the inflection of agreement.

"Nope," he replied about fighting Jedi, this one lacked concern.

He turned his head to peer at his companion, gave them a good look up and down, all 4-foot-nothing of them. That might've been a generous estimate. Demias smirked, "How much do you weigh?"