Private Ethanol Elegy

[Milla]

Fondor
Club Tanière​

If you had asked Milla what 'seedy' meant, she would have told you a fruit with pleasant textural elements. Of course if you had asked her what a night club was that would have stumped her completely. Who needed a club you only used at night? So as she lurked in the background of the main room at the Club Tanière, the phrase 'seedy night club' never would have occurred to her in that combination and order of words, but it would have been clear as day to anyone else looking over the scene.

Milla had hit the ground on Pelagon, brought there by Mercy as a good place to start over, and immediately slunk onto the first ship back off planet. She'd insisted to Mercy that she could take care of herself, and the first order of business was getting somewhere more comfortable. By Milla's standards at least. Pelagon had been bright and shiny, achingly blue and beautiful. Milla had hated everything about it.

This was better, much better, she thought to herself as she's sidled in while the bouncer's back was turned. She didn't know what he was doing there at the door, scrutinizing people, but she wanted no part of it, thank you. The club wasn't particularly exclusive, but there was a requirement that anyone there could pay for drinks at the very least- or be pretty enough to not need to. Milla, in her current state, was neither of those two things. She wore a dark swirling robe over clothes that even Mercy hadn't been able to fully get the blood out of, which she'd said was impressive. The praise had made Milla uncomfortable in ways she couldn't verbalize but absolutely made her want to curl in on herself until she disappeared into an embarrassed singularity.

Mercy was weird like that.

The dark and crowded club made sense, however. Twilight and heat and sticky floors she could feel through her shoes. Almost homey if one could ignore the thumping base and the smell of alcohol. That made her nose crinkle, doubly so when she'd poked her face into someone else's drink without warning or permission.

"Why is everyone drinking literal poison," she muttered more to herself than to the person whose drink she was starting to grab now to take another sniff of it. "Isopropyl and sugar? No, ethanol and sugar. Gross. Is everyone stupid? This will make them stupid if they aren't already."

Anet Raine

 

[Anet Raine]

Milla

Anet. Wearing an all-black dress that looked a little snug on her frame. Like something you kept in the closet for nostalgia's sake. Pity her for wearing it here of all places then, but she - according to herself - looked fantastic; which, of course, was the only opinion she needed. Why was the Raine scion, the academic marvel, and Covenant acolyte, Miss Anet Raine, here of all places? Because she needed to get lost in the noise and bad choices. That's all.

Oh - and that was her at the bar, and it was her drink that a nosy someone grasped for. She snatched it from the creature's hand with a look of disgust.

"That's mine," Anet declared. She didn't shout, but there was a sternness to it.

Realizing she had looked away long enough, Anet sighed and slid the barely sipped glass across the bar. She wouldn't have it now that it might've been tainted. Though... The half-pantoran looked Milla up and down, uncertain. This one didn't look the type, and... From Milla's perspective, it might've looked as if Anet drifted off. Really, she searched the Force after sensing its touch on her.

Darkness.

Honed? Perhaps. Anet wasn't yet proficient at reading someone so well in the Force, but she got the impression this wasn't your once-in-a-random force sensitive, and clearly, not a Jedi.

Anet turned slowly to face her, leaning with one arm on the sticky bar. Unconcerned by how the solidifying syrup now stuck to her pale blue skin.

She smirked. "Yeah, the point is to get stupid." She lazily waved her hand at the barkeep. More of a 'hurry' motion than a summons.

He came back moments later with the same drink from before and she took a sip.

"Two glasses - one parts starshine surprise and chandrilan blue, stirred on the rocks. Oh, uh, and maybe the first ones are free?" She ran her eyes low, then slowly raised them to his again with a smile.

She called it a Sunset on the Water. Anet sipped and offered it to her.

"Afraid of a little poisonous stupidity?" She teased the stranger's analysis into a dare.

 

[Milla]

Milla's grey eyes tracked up and down the figure as it drew more attention to itself. Herself. What... precisely? Not a species she knew from her former life, though that was a patchwork experience at best. Trying to remember the tomes- thick honest to force books- with drawings and crabbed written descriptions, but if she'd ever read about something that looked quite like her, she didn't remember. Even leaving that life behind, some things were too ingrained and Milla's fingers itched a little with the urge to reach up and immediately pluck a hair from her head to jam it into a baggie or little jar and ferret it away. She was looking just distracted enough that she thought she could get away with it-

But then the woman moved, which also brought her hair just out of immediate reach, and Milla was not about to cause a scene- one where it was harder to melt back into the crowd after anyway.

Really a very nice colour, she thought absently to herself as her gaze flicked to the other woman's arm in the sticky mess on the bar.

But then blinking when she was offered the glass again. Confusing, since she'd taken the other one away from her?

"Well do you want to share or not?" With a disgusted tch, a very unfair critique of her perceived fickleness, especially considering Milla's own. "But no, it smells vile. And why would you WANT to get stupider? Unless you are already kind of stupid, I suppose." More to herself than to Anet Raine at the last part.

"Why is everyone in this place looking to get dumber?" A rhetorical question she didn't expect would be answered by someone already on their way down that street.

 

[Anet Raine]

Milla

Anet rolled her eyes and took three good sips in one, despite how the alcohol burned.

"Did you hit your head?" She interrogated back. "Or maybe... you're a comedian, trying out her worst material to see what sticks?" She pretended to mull that one over as if any of her questions were in serious consideration.

Another sip, but she did answer the stranger's last question. "Because - it's fun to be dumb..." She looked over to a pair of flirtatious women at the other end of the bar. "... Especially when there are mistakes to be made tonight."

Anet's attention snapped back to her, perhaps during attempt number two of snagging a hair.

"Honestly - you're more interesting than anything I expected to find down here," even if she wasn't the kind of interesting Anet was looking for. Call it the curse of a scholar's curiosity.

"Let me guess. You're from the wild regions of space? First time in civilization? Ever been to an ecumenopolis before... Do you even know the word?"

 

[Milla]

Milla didn't interject while Anet Raine went on her verbal wander. She watched the other woman instead, listening less than wondering what would happen if she mixed her genetics with someone else's - but not in the way Anet was thinking about it. She did mutter, right after the word 'space', just a soft under her breath utterance of the word two, but that was the only thing breaking up the other woman's musings.

"Do you just keep guessing until something is correct?" Milla finally responded at the last bit. "First I hit my head, then I am a comedian," which Milla, granted, had no idea what that was, but she knew she wasn't it, especially with the way the other woman had said it. "Now I am a backwater. Are you not very good at this? You seem not very good at this. Do you need a fourth guess?"

The last of course had been the closest to accurate, but even that was missing the mark somewhat- which as far as she was concerned was good enough to throw it all away. Milla wasn't trying to be mean. But she wasn't trying to be mean the way someone didn't need to try to breath under most circumstances. It just came naturally.

"If this is dumb it doesn't look particularly fun."

Case in point.

 

[Anet Raine]

Do you just keep guessing until something is correct?"

"That is essentially Academia, yes."

Anet took another sip.

The way the stranger responded was amusing, if quite odd, which was maybe why it was so amusing. In terms of the kind of weirdos she's met at dirty clubs, this one was by far among the most memorable, and if that wasn't rare enough, she was memorable for reasons that didn't suck.

"If this is dumb it doesn't look particularly fun."

She sighed with melodramatic intent. "Then why did you come here?"

Finally, it hadn't escaped her that introductions were never made.

"Also - I'm Anet. And your name is?"

 

[Milla]

Milla had no idea what 'Academia' was but it sounded potentially infectious. She went with that impression without interrogating it, making a bit of a scrunched up face.

"You should get that looked into."

Completely nonsensical as far as replies go, without an insight into what was happening in Milla's brain.
You will fail at all of this and it will be spectacular, I will laugh with absolute glee as you get yours, creature.
"I'm.... looking for something," a little evasively. Milla's knowledge was like a patchwork quilt made from rag scraps. Some were solid, intricate, well woven pieces. Some were threadbare and tattered, threatening to disintegrate after the first washing. Fortunately, she was well aware that telling someone actually I'm thinking of taking some of your hair, can I just have it? generally wouldn't go over well.

"A net?" head cocking to one side, processing for a moment. Species name? A net? Net? and then she continued and it clicked.

One singular word.
Her name you dingbat.
"Milla," prompted a little.

Wondering a little how she could get the woman's attention away from her now. She seemed fairly intent upon it, which Milla did not prefer. This level of undivided attention made her itch. It never meant anything good for her, and she mistrusted it.

"Everyone out there looks like idiots," which. as far as deliberate misdirection went, had the benefit of being true. But then she mucked it up by adding, "At least you're only doing one stupid thing."

Anet Raine

 

[Anet Raine]

"You should get that looked into."

Anet tilted her head at that, but didn't ask. She was starting to know better.

She heard what sounded like a pause when the stranger mentioned that she was looking for something. Whether it was contemplative or deceptive, she wasn't sure. Then, the half-pantoran blinked at the way her name passed on the stranger's lips. The phonetic breakup had her worried for a moment that she didn't understand.

"Milla," Anet echoed with no trouble at all.

Now they were on a first-name basis. That was good.

Her attention briefly shifted to the crowd. Whether they were idiots was probably true more often than not. As her attention shifted back to Milla, Anet chuckled at the idea that her stupidity could be quantified as a single action. Eyes flicked down at her dwindling beverage, then flashed back up.

"Idiot, dumb, and stupid; you've collected quite the vocabulary, Milla. Do any of those words describe what you're looking for here?"

She felt it was better than asking outright.