Bread Crumbs

[Razelle Breuner]

The tiny ball of rage and mental trauma before Razelle probably would have been horrifying if she wasn't curled up like a sick kitten. She was adorable, and Raz would need to remind her of that when she woke up later. That said, they were both going to be sore. Raz already had a shiner forming over her left eye, a thrumming headache from the second hit...whoever that Twi'lek was, she was damn good.

Standing properly, Raz walked over to the couple of dead men she'd created before and searched their pockets for hard cash. Credit chips. Much harder to trace than digital currency, so they tended to be more valuable when on the run...and more in demand on lawless planets like Nar Shaddaa. Policing cash on corpses wasn't glamorous, but you kept what you killed, and that meant Raz had just made...six hundred credits? Must have been payday. With her new bounty pocketed, the blonde walked over to the bar counter she had been grabbing funnel cakes from before and passed a couple of hard sticks over. "Bottle of brandy and two big glasses of ice."

Humanoid bartender meant she could use Basic. Also...he was kinda cute. Those shoulders- 'No! Focus, Raz.' Adrenaline had some interesting effects when your genes were a cocktail of nonsense barely held together by Kaminoan reinforcement. She'd need to remember his svelte, green arms later, when he wasn't passing her alcohol. "Thanks. Sorry about the mess. We'll dump the bodies on our way out."

The man - Mirialan, probably - offered a quiet chuckle and a napkin. "Not often we get well-mannered murderers in here. That's a refreshing change of pace." Jeez, Razelle could get lost in his smile. Or his hair. Or- 'For the love of the gods, woman, focus.'

Taking the napkin, she wrapped a few ice cubes in it and held it against her left eye. "Well, maybe I just want to make sure they're disposed of properly. No offense, but I've only met one barkeep who knew how to hide a body, and she was a raving psychopath." Pursing her lips in a quick kissy face, Raz barely caught herself flirting. Again. "Plus, pretty sure that blaster on the guy I shot was vintage. Oldschool Deathhammer. I could get some pretty liquid off that thing with the right buyer."

Fable groaned. Razelle was reminded of her companion, who was honestly cuter than the green guy and also needed her help. "Pardon me, gentlesir. The wife calls." Standing with a quick mock curtsy, the clone offered a smirk and took her bottle of alcoholic salvation back to the unconscious woman at the table behind her. If she swung her hips a little more than normal, she coudln't be blamed, right? 'Focus. Other cutie is hurting.'

Back at the table, Raz grabbed a second napkin from beside Fable's prone head and dipped it quickly into the brandy. "Hey. Press this against your cuts." Then the ice pack. "And this against whatever hurts."

 

[Fable Merrill]

Noise. Noise. Fable was only out for a minute or less, she decided. And she'd been left relatively unmolested, aside from that familiar sensation of having been hit by a truck. Or hitting something hard, as a truck. Maybe both. Her mouth tasted like copper and regrets. That was also familiar. Her throat would hurt later from all the yelling she'd done.

Like a puppet animated by an uncaring hand, Fable forced herself upright and sized up the offering of ice and cloth. "Dihn havah kuu arrbod." She complained bleakly, before claiming Razelle's bottle of brandy. A swig of burning sweet-ick liquor washed away most of the blood-taste, another helped clear her throat. Now she could address her wounds.

Fable tested how swollen her eye was, frowned, and began cleaning cuts with the alcohol-soaked cloth. She'd been hurting herself and getting hurt by others her whole life - as a result, Fable was something of a dab hand at first aid. She even had a roll of gauze in her coat.

Just in case.

"Gonna need stitches. Stupid." The clone woman mumbled under her breath. Mom wouldn't have needed stitches. Mother wouldn't have gotten in that fight in the first place. She'd been too dumb to keep an eye on where she was going, and now people were dead as a result. Stupid girl. Her good eye glanced up at Raz, as Fable held the ice pack over her bad one. "...Sorry." She sighed, sinking into her chair.

 

[Razelle Breuner]

Now that was some pretty impressive first aid! Razelle herself normally just forgot about injuries that weren't debilitating and let them take care of themselves. That was the second time today that Fable had impressed a seasoned soldier. Raz just took her bottle back, gave it a solid swig, and crossed her arms with a smirk. "Apology accepted. How dare you be a certifiable badass who can take four-on-one odds and send the other guys packing?" She reached forward with one finger to boop the poor, insecure girl's nose. "Positively shameful."

Right, she should probably share a bit more. The echo poured her wonderful booze over the two glasses of ice and scooted one to her busty little friend. "Or patching yourself up afterwards without a blink? Kitten, I've served in actual commando squads, and that was still some pretty great stuff you just did. If you were a better shot, I'd say we should hit the private sector and live like queens." Smirk, sip. Allusion. "Give those Mandos a run for their money, we would."

That was a very intentional probe. Of course Razelle had seen Mandalorian worlds on Fable's flight history.

 

[Fable Merrill]

"I'm accident prone." Fable explained simply, sniffing. That triggered something - a moment later, she was flailing for a tissue. After sneezing a great, bloody glob into it and feeling properly disgusted with herself, Fable was at least thankful she could breathe a little clearer. "My progenitor didn't like messes." And in only one case, had she liked lose DNA everywhere.

Fable took another belt of sinus-clearing brandy, wincing as it went down. "I can't work the private sector." She finished, wiping her mouth off. "My clan'll kill me. S'why I don't carry a gun. I don't merc as a Mandalorian, I shouldn't be doing it at all." She explained. "Besides. I don't like killing people if I gotta choice."

 

[Razelle Breuner]

Raz tapped the rim of her glass against her forehead and leaned back in her chair, affecting an extremely dire expression. "So what you're telling me is that, on top of being a military-grade asskicker, a decent medic, a sexually confident young woman, and a better pilot than I am..." Her eyes narrowed dramatically, as if delivering a one-liner in an action holo. "You're also tidy, polite, and respectful of the lives of others?"

Smile came back. Biiiig ol' Razberry grin. "Kitten, you're fantastic. I get how you've got this charming little modesty thing going on, where you refuse to accept the reality of all of your great qualities, but I'm not bound by that dogma." Slinging back a long drink of wonderful brandy, Raz delicately placed her glass back on the table. "I say you're fantastic. Deal with it."

Still, the whole clan thing is something she understood, if only from a distorted perspective. "I grew up with a warrior clan. I get that clan tie thing, especially when you're still in contact with your family. It was less of an issue for me. Disowned the second I went offworld." Razelle shrugged and placed her cool glass against her left eye again, to lessen the swelling. "Kept their name, though. Pretty sure I'm the only one left."

 

[Fable Merrill]

"I'm not military grade." Fable replied with an uncomfortable frown. "I'm not even up to police standard with my HPBR. And I only know first aid." She added. "Like... setting a bone is about as much as I can do." The clone shifted in her seat and looked anywhere but at Razelle, wrapping gauze around her recently-cleaned knuckles. Once that was done, she shrugged out of her coat and checked her sides for injury. Aside from a motley spread of bruises and a severely punished tank-top, she was fine. The Nikto's biggest mistake had been going for the head.

Her head (and everything else) hurt, and hurt too badly for coherent thought. Fable was of the opinion that wild horses and a SWAT team couldn't stop Razelle from talking if she had someone to listen, though, which meant that if she kept shooting down compliments, Razelle would keep barraging her with them for the sake of talking. Or making her squirm, or whatever. The blonde's motives were hazy and dubious in even the simplest cases.

Stupid girl. Don't just sit there and wallow in pain. You need to talk, Razelle is expecting banter. Or, at the very least, a reply. Fable managed to force her head up, her eye focusing on Razelle. Attention, pay attention. Be pole, pay attention. You bred to part afternoon. That'd what a goof girl did. Barred red door for bad cloned.

Oh boy.

"I think I have a concussion." Fable decided abruptly.

 

[Razelle Breuner]

Reaction. Raz's hand shot forward to steal the glass of brandy she'd given Fable before she offered a justification for it. "In that case, more booze for me, and we need to get you to a hospital." Which sort of shot their plans for the rest of the day all to hell. The blue humanoid whose arm she had cut up before she dislocated his jaw had had a datapad. Whatever programs it had on it, chances were it had a local GPS. Raz whipped it up onto the table and thumbed through touchscreen menus for a few seconds.

"We should be able to find a taxi outside. I'll go get you some caf." Raz spun her new datapad around and offered it to Fable. Maybe SpaceTube had something that could keep her interested for a while as Raz policed dead bodies and threw them off a handy balcony or something. On the upside, that meant she got to talk to the delicious creature behind the bar again. Of course, it also meant that she'd have to pass on dragging him off to an adjoining room and working out her stress, but keeping Fable from having severe brain damage was more important at the moment.

"Your friend doesn't look so good," the Mirialan offered as Razelle walked up. How very perceptive of him. Must have been a slow day for him to watch the crowd like that.

"She took a few too many blows to the head. Need to get her to a real doctor. Got anything to keep her awake that you can put in a travel mug?" Another couple of credits on the counter. Those things were going pretty fast, now that she considered it. Hopefully she'd have enough to while away the time while she waited for Fable to be greenlit. "Need her to be vertical long enough for me to go toss those corpses before they start to stink and live through a taxi ride outta here."

Once again, greenman laughed and turned back to prep something that looked like a very dark coffee. "You know, I don't think I've ever heard anyone be so candidly jovial about killing a bunch of people in this place before." He paused long enough to pass the cup over the bar and raise an eyebrow at Razelle. "Or volunteer to clean up the mess. On the house. That's fifteen minutes of nasty smells I don't have to worry about."

Raz grinned back and shrugged as she took both the credits and the caf back to her table. "I'd invest in a droid for that, cupcake. You are on Nar Shaddaa, y'know."

Planting the steaming caffeine in front of Fable, Raz rubbed her fingers into the girl's shoulders for a few seconds, a light massage as she spoke. "Take a few sips of that. Hopefully it'll keep you up. Nodding off would be a supremely bad idea right now. I'll be back in a few minutes, alright?"

 

[Fable Merrill]

"Mom, I'm fine. It was just impact trauma." Fable explained meekly. "No lasting damage. The doctor said I'll be discharged today. They just - yeah, I know - they just kept me overnight. Yeah. No, I'm okay. I promise. Yeah. I'll be fine. Yeah." She frowned and shifted the communicator to her other ear. "Yeah. Love you, too. I'll let you know. Bye."

Fable shouldered her bag and pocketed her communicator, running her temple. She'd been in a fight, woken up in a hospital, and had nearly beaten the tar out of the Bothan checking her vitals. It'd been a long day. Fable guessed that Razelle was around somewhere, and had a vague idea that Razelle had brought her in to begun with, but her head was still a little fuzzy. She had long since learned not to trust it.

Stifling a yawn, Fable tied her jacket around her waist and left the hospital room, headed for an exit - hopefully one where she'd spot Razelle along the way, provided she was around.

 

[Razelle Breuner]

"Hey Kitten," came the reply the moment Fable walked out the door of her room. Behind her. On the left. "How're you feeling?"

Razelle had had plenty of time to make a few arrangements and see to some affairs in the few hours while her friend was out. Currently she had an unlit stim stick between her lips, likely to keep her from falling asleep while waiting. She was sitting with a very familiar Twi'lek who, currently, seemed to be nursing her own wounds. On her fists. Where she had punched Raz several times. Figuring Fable's reaction would be very similar to what Raz's might have been in that situation, the echo did her very best to not temper it at all.

Cameras had been of a secondary concern when she'd brought Fable in. They had been her primary concern for almost a full hour afterwards, but the second that a yellow woman showed up to talk to her, she'd given up trying to hide this particular set of tracks. It wasn't a big deal. She could just deter trackers a different way.

"This is Zaber. You may remember her as the schutta with the mean right hook from a few hours ago," Raz explained with an all-too-satisfied grin.

 

[Fable Merrill]

If looks could kill, Fable would have committed her first murder right then and there. It wasn't that she was defensive of Razelle - who could hold her own and likely take Fable in a fight - or even that she was of a particularly spiteful disposition. She wasn't, honest. No, it was simply that the last time Fable had seen the Twi'lek, she'd been trying to throw a lizardman at her, and in the back of Fable's mind in the most primal, animal part, the Twi'lek was still filed under 'enemy'. And enemies got a very specific sort of treatment. Fable didn't care about the hospital, or the fact that the humanoid was injured.

Fable's first issue with Mandalorian warfare was that she didn't like the idea of killing people for money. Ideals? Sure. Self Defense? Maybe, but she was of the mind that killing somebody in self defense meant you weren't skilled enough to subdue them without taking life. Murder was a personal failure of the highest order, indicating a profound weakness of character and, more condemningly, a lack of ability. Those with power of any sort had a responsibility to use it carefully - she'd learned that from her mom, a woman capable of punching holes in asteroids as easily as tenderly holding a broken child's hand. The other problem was her sense of honor; Fable had no sense of honor. She was a Berserker to the core, and in the heat of combat, anything went. Any threat to her person required the fullest response she was capable of, regardless of scale. It might be dishonorable to take out an opponent while she was awaiting treatment in the hospital, supposedly undergoing parley of a sorts with Fable's wayward companion, but Fable wouldn't lose any sleep by knocking the woman flat before she could stand up, and then throwing her through/out a window without so much as a warning that she planned to do so.

It was the second issue with Mandalorian culture that caused Fable to stick so adamantly to the first one, or else she'd be preemptively shooting thugs in the face the moment they went to lay hands on her. And with the kind of trouble Fable seemed to be a magnet for, she'd be a mass murderer in mere weeks by doing so. Good enough for a Sith, but not for her.

Turning her attention back to Razelle to prevent herself from attacking the Twi'lek, Fable nodded her acknowledgement and clearly awaited a response or reasoning. If Razelle was here under duress or being threatened, the Twi'lek's spine was forfiet - Fable's readiness to attack was clearly telegraphed in every line of her body, from her tensed and trained muscles to the stubborn set of her angled, Dathomari jaw.

 

[Razelle Breuner]

Oooh, that was the look she was going for. Razelle smirked and wiggled her eyebrows at the Twi'lek beside her. "Warned you," she said smugly, then shook her head and leaned back against the wall. "Relax, Kitten. If she'd had any ill intent I already would have left her drugged in a broom closet and wired with explosives." That was a very...specific threat. "We've just been talking shop while you were out."

The yellow-skinned woman raised a hairless eyebrow, but otherwise didn't seem terribly perturbed. Or impressed. "Hutts are very big on territory control, and Nikto are very stupid. They're trained to put on a show of force against any challengers, to maintain an atmosphere of clear and present danger so competition doesn't think their bosses have gone soft," Zaber responded. Her tone was all business, but her voice had a very strong Ryloth accent, even in Basic. "Don't worry, I don't have any quarrel with you, and neither does Kuga."

Nodding silently, Raz brushed a wild lock of bangs behind one ear and nibbled on her stim stick again. Standard business discussion. "Kuga the Hutt is the guy whose enforcers I killed, after they decided to pick a fight with you." She made the point that she had done the killing very clear, to keep Fable from facing any backlash. "Kuga, in his infinite wisdom, decided that he'd like to meet the woman who murdered his soldiers and fought one of his most trusted lieutenants to a standstill. Plus, chances are if she doesn't bring me back, she'll wind up with her head on a pike."

Zaber tugged uncomfortably at the neck of her suit. Bullseye. Raz continued, feeling a bit smug. "Anyway, I wanted to make sure you weren't hurt before I went off to meet with someone who could very easily have me shot and rolled into a ditch in broad daylight." Her expression became much more empathetic, one hand reaching forward to rest gently on Fable's arm. "You're really alright? No permanent damage?"

 

[Fable Merrill]

"I don't work with Hutts." Fable said plainly, flatly, and without hesitation. Hutts were clever, duplicitous, with a love of credit and deceit. They could not, or would not, fight their own fights, and took pride in manipulating or blackmailing simpler creatures into handling their grunt work. Fable not only was often counted as one of those simpler creatures, she was basically the complete inverse of a Hutt. And she was connected at the GATTACA to someone no Hutt wanted near them.

Going to meet with the Hutt would have one of two outcomes. Either he'd try to hire her, she'd decline, and he'd try to have her killed to make a point, resulting in a great deal of death... Or he'd trap them and try to kill her to make a point, resulting in a great deal of death. That she was able to come up with two different scenarios was testament to Fable's character development and growth.

Fable glanced briefly at Razelle, then back to the Twi'lek. "I am sorry, but we're not interested." She was taking a risk, speaking for Razelle in this capacity, but it felt warranted. If Razelle wanted to, she'd do what she wanted regardless of what Fable said - but she'd do it alone. If she needed work that badly, Fable would find her work. Just not for back-stabbing slugs.

It'd taken the threat of invertebrate business for Fable to grow a spine.

 

[Razelle Breuner]

Raz blinked. Zaber blinked. The two of them shared a look of either surprise or confusion - Razelle's expressions tended to be muted, and Zaber was hard to read with an only passably human facial structure. After a few seconds of silence and a glance back to a surprisingly resolute (yet still adorable) Fable, the blonde reached into int her belt to pull out the datapad from earlier. "You've still got this one's number, I think. I'm looking for friends, not employers. Should be around for a couple of days, unless we've got some pressing business off-world."

Nodding, Zaber took the message and turned to walk away. It took every bit of Raz's willpower not to stare at her rear as she walked off.

Alright. Alone time. Falling back into one of the hospital chairs, Raz patted the one beside her. "Pull up a seat, kiddo." She tapped her stim stick against her lips, trying her best to fight sleep for just a few more hours. Honestly, meeting a Hutt during a thirty-hour day was a pretty bad idea anyway. Operations effectiveness tended to plummet around twenty...for normal humans, anyway. "I thought I'd done my best to ensure that you wouldn't be involved in that. Hoped I'd made it clear that it was my interest, not yours. So what's up?"

 

[Fable Merrill]

Without grace, Fable sank down into the seat and huffed quietly, watching the Twi'Lek saunter off. "I'm sore." She complained simply, setting her bag on her lap. "And I'd like to be scarce when she tells Kuga what happened." Fable added for good measure, adjusting her lose ponytail so she could lay her head back more effectively.

"Sorry. I don't like Hutts." Was apparently all the elaboration Fable felt like contributing to the matter at this time. Most people who dealt with them kind of agreed that it was a gamble - either both you and the Hutt profited, or the Hutt profited at your expense. Fable didn't gamble: with her luck, why should she? It was better to just not gave any money when the house always won.

Fable opened one eye, rolled her shoulder, and offered a tiny smirk. "She had a nice butt, though." The clone admitted under her breath, with a tone of great conspiracy and mirth.

 

[Razelle Breuner]

Snickering, Raz leaned forward, equally conspiratorially. "Right?! I didn't want to say anything, but then she walked off and it was just like...damn, girl!" Tension broken. Cracking wise to keep everyone relaxed was one of those tricks that they taught you in about your second month on tour. Turned out it worked just as well in relationship situations...as long as you didn't spend all of your time avoiding the hard talks. And speaking of those hard talks.

"Look, Fable," the echo started, resting her elbows on her knees and fiddling her stim around in her mouth. "I don't even sort of fault you for not wanting to deal with Hutts. That's just basic common sense, you are a wise woman, and your life is better for it." Lot of lead-up to that imminent 'but.' It was almost visible by this point. "But I don't need work. I need contacts. You can't get anywhere in the galaxy without knowing people. A soldier knows her superiors. A bounty hunter knows her customers. A jeweler knows his buyers."

Meandering. Digress. Nurse coming down the hallway is carrying a hold-out blaster beneath her skirt. Jaw is too square for standard human expectations. Potential threat cataloged. Razelle's hand started to rest near her knife. "I used to know smugglers, mercenaries, information brokers...all those people are long dead." Her teeth closed tighter round her stim stick, gritting in...some manner of intense emotion. Frustration or loss or something. "I don't feel well when I'm not connected. I don't feel right. I need to start rebuilding my contact base."

She was blind. She was blind and alone, and she hated that feeling. In her head, it was nothing Fable could ever understand. The sensation of knowing how to hear things, where to look for them, and who to talk to to get them...that was something she had felt her entire life. Now, she had none of it. Now she was cut off. Blind and deaf, in a galaxy of dangers that no one could possibly see coming.

"I'm going to go have a talk with that Hutt. I have to. It's not for money; I don't doubt he wants something from me, but what I want from him isn't just credits and a clean way out. I want a favor. I want a name I can drop, a number I can call." Reaching two fingers up, she pulled her stim from her mouth long enough to look it over. Almost dry. She'd probably have another two hours before fatigue started to set in. Her currently blue eyes turned to Fable. "No one's more useful or dangerous than a Hutt."

 

[Fable Merrill]

Fable listened to all of this, frowned slightly, then shrugged as she processed it. What was the reply she was looking for? Something tactful and understanding of Razelle's plight, well thought out and clear in it's implication. No one was more dangerous than a Hutt? Fable offered a small smirk. "I am." She promised, internally shrieking in disgust at how cheesy the line had been. Gross. Breakup eminent, you stupid girl.

"Sorry."

Just for good measure.

Razelle belonged to an entirely different level of reality, than Fable. And Fable was dimly aware of it. Shadow games, contacts and scary friends - most of it went over her head, and she stumbled merrily through her life only barely grasping that people needed such things for a functional life. Or even just to be comfortable. That her own way of doing things might not even begin to work for Razelle finally clicked in the back of Fable's mind. If she didn't want Razelle to get tied up with Hutts and just keep being her paranoid, nervous self all the time, Fable would need to do something about it herself.

"I can introduce you to people." She explained quietly, putting a hand on Razelle's knee. "People who deal straight. Get you contacts and information and all that junk." Fable leaned forward, looking unhappy - in a way, she was. "I like you a lot, Raz. And, I'm sorry, but I don't think you should go talk to that Hutt. You turn into a different person in Hutt territory, a person I don't think is very healthy, you know?"

 

[Razelle Breuner]

Don't kill her innocence. Don't tell her exactly how corrupt everyone she knows probably is. They were on Nar Shaddaa. The likeliness that anyone here was on the level was just laughable. Even that sweet guy from the bar had been calm and collected about the idea of people having lethal firefights in his building. This was the Smugglers' godsdamned Moon. Everyone had a heart as cold as Hutt slime and the ones who weren't in it for the money were in it because they didn't have anywhere else to go.

Fable could hear none of that. She was still pure. Raz wasn't going to be the one to taint her, though hopefully she'd be around to lessen the damage when that finally happened. And right now, lessening the damage meant holding her tight and smirking, ruffling her hair. Affection set to maximum. "You are. You're an awesome fighter, in touch with your emotions, and this much adorable in one place should be legally registered as a weapon. Definitely dangerous." Razberry gave a raspberry.

And yet. "I appreciate your help, and I'll absolutely take it. You can never know too many people. But I need to do this my way, too." Did she really? Probably, but who could be sure? Even people who pretended to be benevolent tended to be self-interested and greedy in the end, and those that didn't look out for number one weren't long for this world anyway. Would a bunch of boyscouts know how to find an assassin? Their customers? Their handlers? The more she thought about it, the more ridiculous it sounded.

The only reason she hadn't thrown it out already was because of Fable.

Different person. That was laughable. "I see no problem with working with these people. Murderers, liars, thieves, con artists...all of that sounds like reasonable company. What kind of person does that make me, Kitten? Who am I, to think that a Hutt is a good friend to have?"

 

[Fable Merrill]

Fable gave Raz a lingering, and completely serious look. Gears were almost visibly turning. Fable didn't choose words very often, preferring action and implication over trusting her unreliable and stupid mouth, but when she DID feel that taking was the best option, Fable approached the matter as doggedly and directly as she did anything else in her life. "I don't know much about you." Fable confessed. "I like you a lot. I like the way you make me feel. I like the way you talk, and I like being with you." She explained, spreading her hands slightly. "But I've known from the start that I'm only allowed on the surface of you. And I'm okay with that, really. I have secrets, too. Or at least things I don't like to talk about - Sorry."

Fable chewed the corner of her lip, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in her stomach. When she was little, she'd felt that way whenever she opened her mouth. Now, it was less common but still familiar. The lingering suspicion that she was putting her foot in her mouth, transforming into the absolute certainty that she'd already done that paragraphs ago. "I'm sorry. I don't... understand, a lot of things about you. Or your life. I'm pretty dumb, and you're pretty mysterious." Fable admitted, glancing back up to Raz at last, her brow creased into a little 'w' of concern, something her mother had occasionally referred to as 'I want' lines when she'd been little.

"But I understand, like... saturation." Force, she hoped she picked the right word. "Burying yourself so far into something that it turns into all you know. Hatred, fear, anger; I'm constantly drowning myself in emotions. It used to be scary, but it's a familiar sort of scary. It's a comforting sort of scary, because it's so easy that it just becomes a part of your life. First, you can't escape it. Then, you don't think you can. Eventually, you stop trying to altogether." Fable held her hands up, showing off the litany of scars and burns she'd been accruing her whole life - tantrums, rages, fights she could have avoided if she'd been thinking clearly. "You've seen me saturated a couple of times. You've tried to talk me down from it, too - I'm sorry every time you have to see it. It might make me good at getting punched in the head, but you're a fighter - do you think it actually makes me any better at fighting? Does it seem healthy, like, in the slightest? You should see my medical records. I'm a mess."

Fable lowered her hands and gave Razelle her best attempt at a compassionate look. "You're constantly looking for big guns, sizing up everybody you meet. You hide weapons all over the place. I've seen you looking for guns. You kill people who don't need to die like it's nothing. I don't pay attention to much, but I pay attention to you. I think you're saturated, Razelle. I'm sorry." Fable explained quietly. "And maybe I'm dead wrong and you're perfectly healthy. But, I like you a lot, and if there IS someone after you? Get me a name, we'll take them down together. But I'm sorry, you can't live your whole life like the Galaxy has it out for you..."

 

[Razelle Breuner]

Razelle visibly flinched. This was the second time she'd seen this conversation, the second time that she'd seen that expression on someone's face. And this was the third time she was going to explain. Twisting her stim stick in her fingers for a moment, she held it between two knuckles and flicked, sending it flying somewhere in the direction of a waste bin. "C'mon. Let's go get some air." Pushing herself off of her chair, she offered a hand down to Fable, to pull her up.

They were not having this conversation anywhere near cameras.

The air of Nar Shaddaa was hardly what anyone would call "fresh." Blaster scoring, spice, rotting bodies, burned food...the municipal areas only had the slight odor of Smuggler's Moon life, but it was still there. Still perfectly detectable to someone with primal senses and an ear to the ground, but it wasn't that big of a deal. There was a walk out in front of the hospital, proper guard rail and some evening cafes. Far enough away that she coudn't be easily heard by human ears. That would have to be good enough. Raz stopped and leaned forward in a place that offered a great view of one of the tens of thousands of casinos Nar Shaddaa liked to rip people off with.

"I've only told two people this before. One of them is...dead. I ran away from the other, because I couldn't handle my own problems." Razelle wasn't looking at Fable now. She was much more interested in the night sky, and bit down on another stim stick. "I don't know why I'm telling you. I don't even know why you care. You're an anomaly, Fable. Never met anyone who was worried about the state of my soul before."

 

[Fable Merrill]

Fable shrugged and leaned against the railing as well, brushing her hair back. Stupid balcony wind, stupid long hair, stupid girl. "Someone cared about mine." She explained with a tiny smile. "When I really needed it, someone came through and pulled my angry little butt out of the mud." And Fable was still calling her mom to this day, but that was beside the point.

Fable wasn't great at most things, and that included being a good person. She tried though, and sometimes that was enough - she also adapted Lynn's resolute mentality of looking out for one's own, above all else. Razelle was just about on the border of being one of Fable's own, and Fable was still figuring out how she felt about that.