Private Disruptive Behavior

[Scherezade deWinter]

Aster Jen'allé​

Coruscant. Underground. Most of the crowd had either never heard about the thing called deodorant or belonged to a species that didn't believe in them. One woman, was seated just outside of the ring, her chest heaving up and down as sweat beads cascaded down her face. She'd held for twenty three rounds – twenty three rounds one after the other, with no break, no stop for water, nothing. When she won her twenty third round, she'd raised her left arm in a way that let the crowd know that she was stopping.

It was a nice place, as far as Underground fighting pits went. It was recently built (over the ashes of a place that Scherezade had torched a few months earlier for completely unrelated reasons to today), so the grim hadn't quite settled in just yet. The cellar floor, where all the illegal crap happened, had three different rings to it. Someone was talking in her ear, telling her that there were some very interesting things happening in the other two as well, but for the moment, the Blood Hound simply wanted a moment to breathe. And drink.

A few glasses were offered, but she turned all of them down until the correct one arrived; a tall glass of hot full fat cream with the froth on top. Just what she liked. Almost like a child, Scherezade took the glass and drank half of it in a single gulp, smiling like a little child, in a way that was more or less unknown in places such as these. Grabbing a towel that she hoped was clean, she wiped her face on it. A shower could not come soon enough.

With some effort, she stood up, ignoring the three cracked ribs that were threatening to poke her holes into her lung, the trickle of blood that was still running down the side of her face, the various forming bruises, and the fact that yet again her clothes had ripped in strategical places to keep the important bits completely covered up. The only thing about her that looked fully fresh were her eyes, green and glowing in the dim light of the large cellar.

Now that she was vertical, Scherezade took a step. And then another. From where she was to the exit, she had to pass by both of the other rings, since she had let the owners know in advance she'd be in the one that was deepest in. For the most part, others moved aside to let her through, her face by now well-known with this specific crowd.

What she had not expected, was for some commotion around one of the other rings. Now this was actually new, and never happened while she was still there. Not since she raised among their charts, anyway.

Despite the pain in her body from too long of a fight with too little protection, Scherezade pushed people in the crowd aside, and worked her way to the very first line to see what was happening in there.

 

[Aster Jen'allé]

The smell of sweat. The satisfying thud of fists against bone. Aster felt a palpable chill run down her spine as the BSF-01 Combat Endoskeleton began its cooling cycle. She bit down hard on the binlang nut in her mouth letting the syrupy sap flow around her teeth, along her tongue, and down her dry throat. Within moments the psychoactive compounds from the addictive fruit of her homeworld would permeate her body with a pleasant warmth: anything to counteract the sharp cold. "How long have I been at this?" The thought triggered a query in the neural link, "Recorded vital signs indicate a period between 88 and 102 minutes of high physical exertion." The response wasn't so much audible as it was an aggressive thought. "Shabuir, I guess I was the one who asked."

The internal monologue only played out for a moment before Aster snapped to the fight at hand. Her opponent was a burly brown Twi'lek male stained blue with blood from the intense fighting. Shouts rang from outside of the ring. Some called out in excitement for the new blood on a hot streak, but those were outnumbered by the loud jeers of the people betting against her. She could tell he was getting tired, and she wanted to rest for a moment and let the binlang take effect. She moved in closer and grappled with him. Occasional punches were thrown but she would force things back to a neutral grapple. A twinkle sparked in the tired Twi'leks eyes as his hands brushed against her hair. He grasped her hair tightly and pulled, throwing Aster's head back awkwardly.

"Are you karking kidding me?"

She called out angry. In the streets of her youth, fighting dirty was expected and a sort of art, and yet there was one thing that was totally off-limits: hair-pulling. Her neural link started throwing warnings as the enhanced adrenaline response primed her body and helped her pull against her hair to look the Twi'lek in his eyes.

"Pulling hair is for petty bitches"

Using her right hand she cupped the back of his head and, with an excess of force, she yanked his head into hers while pulling her head forward in a restrained headbutt. His grip relaxed for a moment, but returned to pulling before she could shake free. She lunged forward for another headbutt, this time even harder, and felt warm liquid on her forehead where his nose started gushing blood. This time his body went limp for long enough to free her hair. She reached her left hand down to grab him by the crease where his crotch met his thigh and lifted him effortlessly over her head. She pivoted on her left foot, swinging her right foot around before planting it and tossing him against the ring enclosure behind her. He bounced off of the wall before landing with a thud. He lay limp for a moment before pushing up on hands and knees and coughing blood onto the floor below. Aster turned around and walked away from him, rolling her shoulders and shuddering at a renewed cooling cycle. The fact that it cut through the warming sensation of her binlang only served to make her even more angry. She suddenly pivoted again to face where he was still trying to get back up and ran towards him before kicking him hard in the chest. More blood was puked onto the floor, and as he was trying to breath in Aster delivered another brutal kick. Someone, stepped in and grabbed her from behind to pull her off away from the now totally limp Twi'lek, but she wasn't finished yet. She pulled a swift backwards headbutt that connected with the interlopers jaw before throwing a hard elbow that threw him backwards. She managed two more kicks before the interloper and several others got involved.

Aster threw her hands up in a sign that said, "I'm fine, you can get off me now" and the others cautiously backed away. Aster turned back around to launch a ball of sputum at her victim, causing everyone to lunge back for her before she threw her hands back up and stomped away from the stage. The crowd was loving it, the Twi'lek was a favorite among the pit fighters, but the sight of a potential kill in the ring was enough to kick up a bloodlust among spectators. Even some who bet against Aster were caught up in the frenzy and threw loud cheers after her.

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

Aster Jen'allé​

When she had come up to the front of the crowd, a mere foot or so away from the cage, she was just in time to hear the woman's comment about hair pulling. Scherezade grinned, watching with interest now. She wanted to scream a comment, but decided instead to leave it for a moment and see what happened.

Her glowing eyes followed the movements of both opponents. The Twi'lek in question was one she'd fought before, and while her ego would not let her be impressed by him, she could admit that he was better than the dreg they usually shoved towards her in this place.

Now that the fight resumed, she found herself focusing on the woman. It was rare that women showed so much muscle, even when they were combatants. That was already a point in her favor. The scars on her faces added even more. This was someone who'd known pain, and tonight was hardly her first time ever in a pit. The body language alone indicated that.

And of course, there was the scent. Scherezade carefully inhaled, trying not to catch anything potentially contagious from the crowd. A Blood Hound by the Force, she could scent people's species, blood lines, and more. And she knew that not everything about that woman was entirely organic. How interesting.

By the time the fight ended and people were finally letting her go, Scherezade approached her, a small bag of cheese cubes in her hands. She tossed a few into her mouth and openly scanned the woman's body top to bottom and back, taking in the grime, the dirt, and all that came with it.

"So why didn't you just go for his lekku?" she asked, her voice deep yet somewhat bubbly at the same time, and a moment later she pointed the bag to the not entirely organic woman, offering her some cheese cubes as well.

 

[Aster Jen'allé]

Even when Aster had freed herself from the cage the sights, sounds, and smells still assailed her senses.

"So why didn't you just go for his lekku?"

Someone calling to her with a normal tone of voice was a welcome change, so she felt obligated to at least respond despite her current foul mood. She turned to the side opposite the woman asking the question and spit the binlang nut on the ground, talking with your mouth full isn't polite after all, and turned back to Scherezade deWinter .

"Honestly? Just instinct. First time I'd ever really fought I got the other girl's hair. I didn't really mean to; she had a curly little womp-rats nest and my fingers just got stuck. Next thing I know the whole karking gang was on top of me," she shook her head, "you don't make a mistake like that twice."

Aster's head was still swimming from the multitude of impacts, and she hadn't been paying all that much attention prior to the cheese cubes being offered. Aster visibly relaxed,

"Shabuir, you sure know the way to a girl's heart."

A sweaty hand was wiped gingerly on a nearby section of cloth that looked somewhat clean before she reached into the bag and carefully selected a handful of cubes before tossing them back into her mouth.

"Thank..." She paused to cover her now full mouth sheepishly before speaking again, "Thanks."

Aster chewed the cheese cubes slowly while she looked over Scherezade, hoping to delay things a bit until she could think of something to say, and she stopped when she spotted glowing green eyes. She swallowed the food quickly so she could speak, but her mouth was dry from thirst and she ended up choking.

Cough sputter

"Sorry..."

Cough

She was interrupted again by the offending piece still lodged in her throat, but was too embarrassed to ask for something to drink and just swallowed a few times until she was able to speak.

"I, uh... I like your mods," she said, pointing at her own optical implants, "do you have any others?"

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

Aster Jen'allé​

Scherezade listened intently as the other woman explained what happened that one time that she did try to go for the hair. She smiled, taking the mental notes about explaining why lekku wasn't like hair and why going for it was the best thing you could do when battling a Twi'lek in any situation. A fight was a fight; if you were unwilling to fight dirty, you were necessarily going to lose sooner rather than later. Nether regions, hair, eyeballs – Scherezade had attacked them all. And would happily attack them again. Places that had pristine rule about fighting clean were disgusting to her, and entirely missing the point.

The cheese cubes were well received, and she grabbed another bag from her pocket, this one with various nuts. The crunch always complimented the cheese, she thought. Besides, cheese and nuts were great to snack on while you were making your way to somewhere that had proper meat. Scherezade had once tried downing a bantha steak immediately after a fight, but it had sat so wrongly with her that she'd vomited the whole thing. Cheese and nuts. Then meat.

And the coughs were treated as not having happened.

"Mods?" Scherezade asked, the confusion all too clear on her face. The other woman pointed at her own face, no, her eyes. "Oh," she suddenly understood. "No, mine's genetic. Family trait."

For as far back as they were aware of (and they were aware of many generations back), the deWinters had always had green eyes. Not just them, but the larger family that they wre a branch of, the Family of Darkness, a Sith family that went back thousands of years ago, also had the eyes. However, it seemed that mostly, the females tended to have an emerald green shade, while the males had silver-green. Scherezade didn't know what the explanation for that was.

"So what's your excuse?" she asked, motioning with her head for the woman to follow as he began to lead them away from that place, "Why's someone with your obvious skills in a place like this? Are you short on creds or something?"

 

[Aster Jen'allé]

Aster was relieved when Scherezade went on to speak without paying mind to the coughing fit, and her overall demeanor relaxed. When the other woman passed the glowing green eyes off as a family trait, Aster could only assume she was being sheepish, but would at least wait until she had finished speaking to say as much. When asked about why Aster was fighting in the pits, she saw an opportunity to make Scherezade feel more comfortable in opening up about the assumed optical implants:



“Short on credits is putting things lightly. Where I’m from, we don’t use credits; hell, I only got this far with the fuel leftover in an old rust-bucket I, er, borrowed from some people called the Outer Rim or something. When I stopped here, I thought I’d be able to find something to make my way but turns out there isn’t much to find when your only real talent is snapping spines.” She paused for a moment before resuming, “Unless you’re willing to turn tricks, and I ain’t no trick.”

At this point, she was trailing a short distance behind and to the left of Scherezade. She wanted to see if it was a good time to ask again about the mods, but she couldn’t see the other woman’s face to get a good read. She started to say something a couple of times yet had difficulty getting the words to come out. So, after several moments of frustration waiting for the girl in front of her to stop or turn around: Aster decided to run in front of her and be direct about it.

“Look,” she reached into her left eye socket and removed the implant before presenting it in her open palm, “You don’t gotta worry with me.”

Aster’s remaining eye lit up with another idea,

“Here, you can even try mine out. This is good stuff, none of that black-market bleen, so it shouldn’t mess with any of your others.” She motioned excitedly for Scherezade to take it, “And if you like ‘em I know the mod-doctor and might be able to score you a deal with her, so you don’t gotta try running off with it. I like you, but I’ll still break you like a cheap protocol droid if you try for the five-finger discount.”

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

Aster Jen'allé​

Still munching happily on her cheese cubes, Scherezade listened intently as Aster explained why she was there, and how where she was from, they didn't really use credits. It was a story that was all too familiar; for many months, despite working with a government, Scherezade had been under the impression that she was not getting paid. It had led her to taking so many odd jobs and hunting for her own food, that being in a place like this when off-work was almost like second nature.

But still, one of the best things about being in places like these, was that you got to actually move away from where the mass of stinky bodies and sweaty people were. To come out, even into the polluted Coruscanti air, was like a fresh sweet breath. There were few things that could hold a candle to that.

But then her attention as drawn and she stopped walking, turning around, and- was Aster removing her eye?!

If it were physically possible, Scherezade's jaw would've fallen to the ground. Instead, it fell just slightly open, the confusion and shock all too apparent on her face.

Scherezade was a Warrior, a Blood Hound, someone who had seen so many fields of battle, that it made this place look like an innocent well padded and properly protected children's garden in comparison. She'd even removed several eyeballs on more than one occasion. But something about seeing Aster, right here and right now, removing her own eye…

Scherezade battled the ensuing nausea.

"Oh my Force, please put that back in," she waved her hands, doing her best not to need to spit her cheese cube out, "My eyes are organic, and they're mine, born and grown with, I've never had something like this done before in my life! If you put your eye back in I'll let you poke mine so you could see for yourself!" And paused to consider her words, "but only if you do it gently!"

 

[Aster Jen'allé]

When Scherezade’s jaw had dropped in shock, the realization washed over Aster that the woman wasn’t being coy when she stated she had no cybernetics. The visible nausea washing over her face only served to punctuate that fact. Aster’s face went pale from embarrassment as she waited for Scherezade to say something, anything, to show she wasn’t totally put off by the whole ordeal. When she was asked to replace her eye, she immediately fumbled to return the implant to its rightful place while she stuttered out a quiet, “sorry.”

The mood changed for Aster, however, when Scherezade deWinter offered to let Aster touch her eye. She giggled at the prospect as color returned to her face,

“I’ve never seen anybody with green eyes before,” she stopped to consider the irony of her statement, “Well, not real eyes at least.”

She considered it as a joke at the outset, but curiosity got the better of her. Her face hadn’t even had a moment to enjoy normal coloration before her cheeks began to turn shades of vermillion and scarlet,

“Can I…” She paused as her heart seemed to get lodged in the back of her throat. “Can I actually feel your eyes?”

On Aster’s homeworld, there were rare green jewels coveted since before recorded history had even begun. Scherezade’s eyes reminded Aster of those most precious jewels, and the fact that they were natural made them like a priceless treasure compared to her own cheap implants.

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

Aster Jen'allé​

Scherezade shrugged as the other woman said she'd never seen such eyes before. IT was not the first time someone had told her this, though usually the circumstances were less eye-poking. True, true, she had made the offer herself, but still... This was weird. Thankfully though, Scherezade's forte in life was the weird stuff.

"You're gonna have to wash your hands first though," Scherezade said, motioning to where they were. Everything around them was… Well, filthy. That was the nature of places like that. Cleaner places were not for the likes of them, they were for the likes who tried to reject their very nature. People, Scherezade had learned very early on in her life, were bred for violence. Anyone claiming otherwise was either damaged or overly full of the wrong kind of traumas.

"C'mon, let's get out of here," she smiled, and turned towards the exit, "I know a place that sells realy good bantha wings, not too far away from here."