Private Familiar Strangers

[Mercy]

NAR SHADDAA
ASHLINE TERMINAL
AFTER THE EVENTS OF THE VERY BAD DAY
Kloe Weo

She still wasn't sure why she had interceded on the behalf of the Vigo. But it had caused quite a lot of messes already. Luckily Mercy didn't mind messes.

Currently she was in the backroom of her new favorite bar.

She drank for free.

And the drinks weren't half bad either. But now it was time to figure out all this Vigo business. She had reached out to an old acquaintance from the Sith Academy.

Weo and her hadn't been incredibly close, but rubbed elbows on some of the lessons and missions. Back in those days she had some aptitude for Alchemy. Something that could come in handy to Mercy in the criminal circuit.

So now she waited for Weo to join her, she had already dangled money in front of her.

That was the one thing that Mercy had plenty of and didn't mind to part with.

 

[Kloe Weo]

Kloe wasn't one to go into a city without good reason, especially not the bright, crowded ones full of leering eyes and grasping hands. Nar Shadaa was an entire planet of that, and so she'd never gone there. She would have politely declined Mercy and her offer of mad profit, had the offer not been quite so mad or quite so plausible. Mercy was a loud, brutish idiot - but Kloe had always known where she stood with her. Out of her way, usually, and off her list of desired targets. Honestly, that alone was enough to cement Mercy as one of Kloe's favorite people in the Galaxy.

Kloe had made her way to the indicated bar directly from the starport, flanked by a pair of menacing-looking loth-wolves she hadn't bothered to leash. The hounds were well-trained, they remained directly at their mistress' side and snarled hatefully at anyone that got too close. They'd only bitten two or three people on the way here, and only in ways that were non-leathal provided the idiots that'd provoked her managed to get to whatever passed as a doctor in the crappy-club district of planet casinohell.

Entering the bar with her pets, Kloe strode directly up to the bar and placed a couple of credits down. The bribe was a guess. If this place was half as worth her time as Mercy seemed to think, chances were the guy didn't need an incentive to move Kloe along. Kloe did not want to guess, though. "Mercy is expecting me." The Sith intoned politely, glaring away from the bartender. He jerked his thumb towards the back room, and she awkwardly nodded and made her way in that direction with due haste.

Kloe breezed into the room, her wolves slinking in at either flank. She briefly scanned the area, located Mercy, and nodded a taciturn greeting. "Good afternoon." The Umbaran woman intoned quietly. "Where should I sit? I assume you have materials to review. Perhaps a presentation."

It was the closest thing Kleo had made to a joke in years.

 

[Mercy]

Kloe Weo

And yet Kleo didn't get her immediate attention or even a response.

Because Mercy suddenly leaned in, elbows on the table, and watched her two wolves with clear interest. That gleam in her amber eyes spoke of hunger and desire.

"Oh, you two are beautiful, aren't you?" Mercy cooed softly, warmly. They might growl back at her, depending on how Weo had been training them, but Mercy wouldn't be fazed by that whatsoever. If they did, she'd just purr back with sweetness. "Gosh. They are such cuties, darling." Finally Mercy leaning back against the seat and taking Kloe in.

It had been... a long time, hadn't it been? Since the Academy days.

"Mm, I was never one for the presentations, you know that." Teasing herself and Kloe in equal measure as she indicated the other seat in the room, to the left of her own seat at the head of the table.

It was all a bit stereotypical, but Mercy had always enjoyed the theatrics. Even more so at the academy.

"I was going to ask how you have been, but judging these two little cuties, you have been doing just fine, haven't you?"

 

[Kloe Weo]

The wolves were a better barometer for how Kloe was feeling than the woman herself, half of the time. As Mercy leaned in, one of them sensed Kloe's tension and bore his teeth. When her intent was clarified as admiration? Even affection? Kloe softly clicked her tongue. The wolf that'd been warning the large woman off calmed immediately, the second allowed his tail to wag in a manner most ungentlemanly. "They are wonderful." Kloe agreed readily, a rare smile on her face as she knelt down and ran her finger through the lustrous black fur of the more testy wolf. "The third generation I've raised. These two are the finest of the litter - my pride and joy."

The lolth-wolf pulled his eyes away from mercy as Kloe wrapped her arms around his neck, his tension quietly diffused.

"I'm working on a separate strain with no vocal cords. Breeding for territoriality and protective instinct" Kloe added fondly. "They should make fine guard animals - affectionate, loving, entirely incapable of warning a trespasser off before they strike."

Kloe glanced back up at Mercy from her position beside the dogs, her expression became unreadable again. Somewhere between an appraising side-eye and wary caution, which was how she looked at most people. "I am doing alright. I saw you were in the Kaggath." The Umbaran commented, her tone neutral. "It seems like a shitshow." Half slinking, Kloe sat in the indicated seat. One of her wolves rested his massive head across her legs, the other gave her an expectant look. Kloe responded with a small nod.

The Loth-Wolf trotted over to seek affection from Mercy.

 

[Mercy]

Kloe Weo

"Mm, it was a shit show, but one I managed to show off how excellent I am at destroying things." Mercy agreed and bragged equally easily but then she cooed again when one of the wolves parted from Kloe and came to her.

"You're too kind." She didn't lose track of the fact that Kloe allowed the wolf to come to her.

During the Kaggath she had tamed a number of vornsrkrs with just her presence in the Darkside and animalistic nature. Granted, back then she hadn't been in the presence of a real beast master.

Her hand reached out and softly scritched the wolf behind her ear.

"Do you like that? Yes, you doo... Yes, you do..." Scritching some more if the Wolf indicated that it enjoyed the attention.

"So, let's talk business." Mercy murmured while running her other hand through its fur with relish. It was truly a wonderful specimen. "It can't be cheap, working with these wonderful animals, breeding new variants, experimenting..."

Finally looking up to Kloe with a smile.

"People... Are approaching me. They want to be part of what I am doing, but you know me, I don't work that well with others. I could use someone at my side who has known me from the past."

Quinn Varanin was another option, but the princess had her head so far up her own ass, she would never agree to follow and obey Mercy.

Not without a serious beatdown anyway.

"Someone creative, eager, hungry for money. You perhaps? I could use the animals you are breeding, and your alchemical skills."

 

[Kloe Weo]

Kloe considered for a few moments. Mercy wasn't offering any details that she hadn't already implied or stated outright, or that Kloe herself couldn't deduce. The woman had made her debut in the big time, so to speak. She'd burst onto the scene at the Kaggath and was seeking to double down on her popularity by making moves. Such a position was sure to attract sycophants and parasites to her side the way remora flocked to a whale or barnacles to a ship, and she wanted people she could trust from outside of that structure to back her up, someone she knew wasn't a fair-weather friend.

Presumably Kloe hadn't been the only person she'd approached, nor had she been the only one to answer the request. After all, as bad as Mercy was with people? Kloe was much worse, at least to her own estimation.

Frankly, it seemed like a trap. Not the deliberate sort. If Mercy wanted to kill her, she'd have just killed her. No, this trap was much worse - where she found herself close to a rising crime lord's side, and was either attacked by her enemies or cut down when her usefulness crossed an imperceptible threshold from 'necessary' to 'dangerously necessary'. Sith 101 stuff. Self-sabotage was as intrinsic to the culture as wearing black or getting peevish. A more ambitious Sith than Kloe might've decided to hitch her wagon, make as much credit as possible, and then planned to jump ship when the heat was put on or try to take over, but that wasn't her. Such plans would surely backfire in Kloe's hands.

And she didn't WANT to betray Mercy, anyway. Betraying her would mean killing one of the few people from the Pomojema she'd had anything approaching a rapport with. Mercy was far too dangerous an enemy to leave alive. Even now, with her star ascending and her fortunes compiling, Mercy struck Kloe as a woman living like she had nothing left to lose - still desperate and hungry in spite of herself.

So Kloe had been planning to politely decline the offer. A Mercy annoyed and disappointed was less dangerous than an enemy in a year or two. The wolves had been security if she took it very poorly.

Do you like that? Yes, you doo... Yes, you do..." Scritching some more if the Wolf indicated that it enjoyed the attention.

"So, let's talk business." Mercy murmured while running her other hand through its fur with relish. It was truly a wonderful specimen. "It can't be cheap, working with these wonderful animals, breeding new variants, experimenting..."

But the wolf really liked her. Even now, his tail wagged slowly, swishing from side to side as he basked in Mercy's attention. Kloe glanced from the hound to Mercy, appraising. Calculating. "I feel that the hound is the perfect beast to harness the Dark Side." Kloe mused quietly. "Wolves - and dogs - are fueled by their passions. They love more intensely, compassion suffuses their bodies and fills them with hate when their kin or masters demand it. Fury is a pack of loyal hounds when on the hunt, either for hatred, hunger, or territory." The Umbaran explained. "Wolves have walked alongside humanity for as long as either of us can remember. I feel that this relationship mirrors that of master and student."

"I need funding. You know this." Kloe agreed. If the wolf approved of Mercy, she could give the other Sith a chance to disappoint her. "So long as it remains profitable for me to be involved, I'm in."

 

[Mercy]

Kloe Weo

"Mm, come on, Kloe... when have you ever known me to stand on sentiment?" Mercy purred with delight as she scritched the wolf behind their ear again and again.

It was a pleasure to work with beasts like this. They were simple animals, yes, but that was their beauty. They weren't treacherous, they did what their nature told them to do and hid nothing about that. You knew what you had with them. In a way that was why Mercy quite liked Kloe (or her closest approximation of like, which was to say, she didn't enjoy deliberately riling her up), because Kloe was similar to the beasts that she tamed and bred for her business and hobby.

Mercy knew what to expect from Kloe. Knew exactly what her limits were, what to ask and what to forget about. There would not be a disgusting surprise waiting for her around the corner.

"I will pay you richly... and I expect you to always come to me if you get a better offer." Mercy smirked there. "Because I value my people... I might just up the offer to retain you."

In truth this chit was exhausting to Mercy.

She wasn't a recruiter or a builder of empires. But she had rationalized it to herself: so many people were starting to follow her, no matter how much she was sending them away. She needed someone to watch her back. In Tionese culture, in den olden days as they said, the Tionese Emperors had a slave whisper to them at their moment of glory: You are a mere mortal.

That was the reminder that Mercy was seeking out now against every fiber of her nature.

Her hand, the eldritch one, made of wrong flesh that looked like liquid gold, reached out.

"Shake on it?" Mercy smirked warmly at that.

 

[Kloe Weo]

Kloe considered for a moment, weighing her options. Mercy wasn't offering anything entirely loathsome to her, terms-wise. It'd be nice to have a partner in crime with some clout and cash to throw around, even just to serve as a financial and muscular wall between herself and the people who might mean to hurt her. Or obstruct her path.

"I will let you know if I get a better offer." Kloe allowed. And she meant it, as well. It might mean Mercy raising to match the offer (in which case, a net gain) or a polite termination of their partnership. Most likely it would mean violence and one of them dying, though that was always going to be the assumed case if she was being paid off like that. "In return, let me know if my usefulness begins to wane."

It just felt like good business. Good, honest business between rough equals meant profits for everyone. The most successful hunters moved in packs.

Kloe forced herself to make several seconds of unflinching, spiritually painful eye contact as she shook Mercy's hand. She did not force herself to attempt a smile. There was no reason to start off their partnership by making Mercy think she'd be doing that sort of thing. Not unless the mood really took her, or she was especially fucked up - or both. Speaking of.

The Umbaran gave a fairly decent handshake before turning Mercy's hand over in her grip - examining the arm with a professional curiosity. "Who did this?" She did not pull the arm closer to look or wordlessly step into Mercy's space to examine as she might've when they were younger, but the appendage HAD her interest.

As did a beer.

 

[Mercy]

"What's wrong, Kloe, got something in your eye you need me to take out?" Mercy drawled lazily. She knew exactly how uncomfortable it was for the other woman to look into someone's eyes, but she respected the effort. Few people allowed themselves to be uncomfortable, for a few breaths, or even for a prolonged period of time.

She tried to take her arm back and then Kloe kept holding onto it.

It meant that even if Kloe didn't mean to invade her personal space, she would have to anyway, because just a little tug from a mountain like Mercy meant a whole sweeping movement for her.

But that was okay, Mercy enjoyed the proximity.

"Oh, this gorgeous thing?" Mercy smirked there as they watched her arm together. Even under Kloe's touch she'd feel the subtle twitches, the shifting right underneath golden hide. "I had it tattooed by a street urchin on Denon." Skeevi Merrill , a prodigy if Mercy ever knew one, if she had been older and wiser she would have tried to take her with her.

"It was first just a locked door to ancient things, elden and eldritch." Her smug expression turned to disdain for a brief moment before she managed to right it again.

"During the Kaggath one of them was sly and wily enough to try and burst through. It's why it looks like this now. I made an... agreement with the creature, if you can call it that. It now makes it home in this arm." The hand... began to move towards Kloe's face, the movement was halting though and less of the predatory smoothness that propelled Mercy forward.

"It's rather rude sometimes, I apologize." It didn't sound like an apology, more like a statement with a bow attached to it. The hand kept moving up to cup Kloe's face if she let it though.

Kloe Weo

 

[Kloe Weo]

A dangerous thing in the shape of an arm. Kloe understood immediately. Mindful of sudden motions, she let the golden hand cup her cheek the same way she'd let a strangely affectionate nexu nuzzle her, and calmed the affectionate arm with small stroking touches. Fingertip strokes down the bicep and wrist, eyes locked on the shoulder where dangerous motion would first start. As might be expected, Kloe was marginally more comfortable with the semisapient death-hand from beyond the veil than she was making prolonged eye contact with a colleague.

She liked monsters. Monsters tended to like her.

"It's very handsome." Kloe noted evenly, leaving one to try and deduce whether she'd been making a pun or not. "I'm sure it will serve you well."

The Umbaran regained her personal space with a pair of slow, smooth steps backwards. The tension she'd felt with a strange hand on her face had been enough to get the attention of the loth-wolves, and while they weren't growling or posturing? They remained nearby, nearly underfoot, ready to intervene. Kloe thanked them for their vigilant spirits with a light scritch each.

"On to the critical matters.' Kloe continued. "What is our first move? I assume you have a target or a plan." She stated as she crossed the small backroom and fell into one of the more comfortable-looking seats, her feet up on the table. "Explain the job to me after ordering the first round, and I will listen attentively and order the second."

 

[Mercy]

A soft chuckle when Kloe knew what to do instinctively.

"Good gosh, you are good with predators." Mercy grinned there as she took her arm back. Even the arm seemed content, a compliment and a pat, what more did an eldritch monster need truly?

Then Kloe Weo began to talk about plans and targets.

"Come now, darling, you know me. When do I ever have a plan? I usually just roam around and see what falls in my lap." But then indeed Mercy flagged down a water from the other room and ordered the first round on her. It was the least she could do, water the seed, so to speak. Especially with the fellow Sith jumping on board with her venture.

Then perhaps Mercy surprised her.

"Mm, but come to think about it. A pretty Sith came around a week or so ago." Darth Anathemous . Darth Anathemous. Ana. Even if she hadn't liked that pet name for her. "The ruler of Echnos. Apparently she wishes to make a deal with the Black Sun, offering up her world as a pathway through the Blackwall. The Emperor's little pet project to isolate the Sith from the rest of the Galaxy has made business very difficult."

She sipped from her drink and watched Kloe with interest.

"We will need to cultivate that connection further. Up until now the underworld in their territories had little to no competition from the outside. That will change, we need to take advantage of it."

 

[Kloe Weo]

Kloe's scowl was brief. The Blackwall. What a foolish thing. "There are as many paths through the Blackwall as there are fools that think it is a real thing." The Umbaran complained mildly. "Nothing more than Darth Empyrean placing his unmentionables on the galactic table to see if anyone will stop him. Which..." She tilted her head to the side, looking annoyed. "Appears to be a winning bet for him. I feel I could charge five credits for a 'a secret way though the Blackwall' and be set for the rest of my life by doing nothing more than gesturing to the vast nothingness of space."

She wasn't strong enough to challenge the Blackwall, of course. Nor would she if she were. Letting the sheep pile up on one side of an invisible line was a nice way of getting them all into one place to be sheared and slaughtered.

"If we invest in Echnos, we leave with some credit while that infrastructure secures her wealth for centuries." Kloe pointed out quietly, taking her boots off of the table as she sat up and leaned her elbows on it. "Smugglers, slavers, and drug-peddlers are superstitious creatures of habit. Once the Blackwall has fallen - and it will, they will continue to return to your friend on Echnos for decades without questioning why they do so. We should appraise our cut of the profits accordingly, I feel. Aggressively."

"How deeply do you plan to settle your roots in this garden you wish to cultivate?" Kloe asked warily. "Are we claiming a stake in Echnos? Setting ourselves up to rule in the shadows? Or do you seek to rule by marriage to this pretty Sith?"

 

[Mercy]

Kloe Weo

Mercy's brows raised higher and higher and would have disappeared into her hair if that had been physically possible.

She forgot just how outspoken Kloe could be or perhaps she had never known.

The idea of marriage made Mercy scoff. Darth Anathemous was gorgeous, it was true, but she would never marry anyone. That was too much of a commitment.

"No, we use Echnos to slide into the Sith nation and we root around." Mercy knew Kloe was right about a number of things, from the Blackwall having holes in them to the fact that Irons would profit handsomely from the continued connect.

"We find more holes, those that are easier to find from the inside. Echnos is just the first step into a whole network. We brutalize the local criminals, make them submit or take them out, and grow our influence."

Then a shrug.

"By the time the Blackwall shatters or opens up, we will have scores of entry and exit points that we will profit from."

It felt pretty good to actually use her brain for more than just witty one liners.

"What do you think? I am aware my fists are more impressive than my plotting." Smirking there because that kind of image only worked in her favor.

 

[Kloe Weo]

Kloe gave Mercy a lingering, thoughtful look. She stood from her position, then sat on the edge of the table to get a better eye-level view at the muscular mercenary. This was important. She still didn't make eye contact.

"You want to empower the queen of Echnos to help us make money by rousting the local criminal element, at which point we are the new local criminal element." Kloe listed, her brow furrowed. "She will then be empowered to... do that again, with us, if a more profitable venture comes along. Because we will be the local criminal element, and she is the queen of Echnos and there is no shortage of people like us willing to help people like her for money. This is how Alderaan functions." The Umbaran explained.

"If we are planning to cut and burn when the profit stops outweighing risk, this is fine." Kloe murmured. "But if you want to build an empire, you will need another control mechanism. A lever besides profit and goodwill. Profit is good."

She held her hand palm up, nails raised in a grasping motion and mimed cradling something soft and frail before crushing it with her grip. "Are you so confident that your Queen will not excise us? That I will not betray you and take your place by her side?" Kloe asked in a muted tone. "I am not asking to threaten you. I have no designs on such a thing. But if my role in this operation is to provide beasts and advice, I will do so."

The Umbaran hung her head slightly, half-glaring through sheets of thick black hair. Her dark achromatic eyes glittered faintly behind the cover. "You have a lever to control me that is not profit. I am irregular, and possessed of a flawed mind. My choices for allies are few, so I must ferociously defend those who invite me to their side. This is to provide an example. If you are assured of your queens loyalty or our ability to endure her betrayal, I yield to that confidence. But I would like to hear it."

 

[Mercy]

Kloe Weo

Mercy leaned back a little when Kloe repositioned herself to sit on the table.

She still wasn't making eye-contact with her, but that was fine. Instead Mercy listened and she hummed thoughtfully. Nothing that Kloe was saying wasn't... strictly speaking correct. The issue was that Mercy didn't usually (or ever) thought about these things. She was the kind of person who broke the skull of a club owner and then claimed the club for herself, property rights be damned. The local cops looked once at her and decided it was easier to look the other way than to deal with her.

In that sense reality had a way of bending around her, allow her to get away with things that most people couldn't. It was helpful. It also meant that she had blind spots. Oh, that isn't how it usually works? But that was why Mercy had tapped Kloe on the shoulder, hadn't she? Someone who was analytical, intelligent.

Mercy was sharp and smarter than people thought, but she didn't spend her time thinking all that much.

"Y'know, Weo, you are asking a lot of questions an' here's the thing... they are the right questions." Then she smirked as she finished off her first glass and ordered another round for the both of them. Regardless of what Kloe's status was on her first drink.

"I have decided you are not going to be my advisor." Which almost sounded like Mercy was firing her. "You will be my strategist." That declaration was slammed on the table without warning.

"You think the approach with Echnos is not gonna be beneficial to us in the long-run? Fine, I see your logic. Then you come up with a better strategy for us."

She stretched there.

"I will forge this Empire for us, I will hold it together with my fists. But you will come up with the strategy how to build it up."

Her mother had always said... delegate tasks according to people's strengths. It was the first time Mercy actually listened to her advice, just a few decades too late.

 

[Kloe Weo]

"Idea is sound. Idiots are paying everything they have for a way through the Blackwall, as though that means anything. We take their money." Kloe explained flatly, furrowing her brow. "It's the natural order. Fool, money: parted. Fair and equitable for you and I to do so."

Kloe hugged a leg to her chest, her chin on her knee. "We want a lever. We find a lever. Your pretty Sith will always be the Queen of Echnos. A dust-up will always finish with her in that seat. So we find a method of making us too painful to get rid of, or outright control her. Get her addicted to a substance we provide. Hold a loved one hostage." She listed. "Extreme and not very possible. She will see them coming, or have protected her obvious weaknesses."

She tilted her head to one side. "We keep her away from our business. If she does not know how our operations function, she cannot get rid of us and take the reigns. If our movements are shrouded from her but result in her profit, she has no right to complain and we add a surcharge to her betrayal - keeping your empire in position and happy means she makes credits. Killing you means trying to fight against the headless corpse of your organization. An expensive proposition. It also means that she is unable to smoothly hand the keys to whoever she appoints to your role, which further hurts profits."

Kloe frowned slightly, looking thoughtful. "All of this pre-supposes that she will choose logic and capital over any other motivations." She added. "So be sure to not give her a reason to lash out at us for emotional reasons. Do not assassinate her lovers, peddle drugs to children in the circles she travels and may see them, and so on." She explained. "So long as her interaction with you is genial and monetary, we make the prisoner's dilemma work FOR us. Everyone happy."

Kloe pressed her fingertips together, walking them upwards in an intricate dance. "We build your criminal empire like a rebellion. Nobody knows the entirety of what anyone else is doing. We put a shadowy, imaginary figure behind you for them to scheme at, suggesting at a conspiracy that not even you are in charge of - and watch the ambitious aim for THAT seat instead of yours. We operate through a series of baffles, dead drops, crime families and local operations. No one person but you sees the entire, no one person but you can seize the entire. Make sense?"

 

[Mercy]

Kloe Weo

Oh, yeah, now she was running with the ball.

In all honesty Mercy thought Kloe was over-complicating things a little, but at the same time it was charming to watch her think through the problem and come up with solutions for every problem raised. Mercy was a hammer, so every problem looked like a nail. Kloe on the other hand... she was a brain and every problem looked like a puzzle.

"So long as her interaction with you is genial and monetary, we make the prisoner's dilemma work FOR us. Everyone happy."

"Come now, babe, I am utter charm and charisma." Mercy drawled lazily with a little smirk. "I already noticed a bit of a friction point however that I or should I say, we, have to carefully navigate."

She thought back to her meeting in the tavern with Quinn, Mauve and Ana.

"Remember, Quinn Varanin , our compatriot from the Pajama Academy? I am not sure what exactly the issue is, but there is tension there. And luck have it that before I knew of this, I asked Quinn to be another one of my lieutenants."

That might confirm the game for Kloe. She had already assumed Mercy was looking for people of her past she could trust with her back. The fact that she also had reached out to Quinn would only confirm that.

"But Quinn has influence on Terminus, another Shadowport of the Sith, and she is a Princess of the Sith these days. I think we can leverage that. As you say, not to get stuck on one place where we can be cut off. What do you think?"

 

[Kloe Weo]

Ah, yes. Kloe vaguely recalled the Echani, the way somebody might recall an exciting sale they'd been too broke to take advantage of. They'd never interacted directly that Kloe knew of, and she suspected that Quinn likely wouldn't have known her from a Zambrano if she'd been pressed. But Kloe knew of Quinn. Pretty Quinn, with all her wealth and advantages. Bristling with blessings and inheritance, possessed of comfortable grace and undeniable beauty. Quinn was never meant to be ordinary.

Some predators were eagles who flew high, covered in resplendent plumage. Some were mighty beasts of war, clumsy but implacable and unchallenged from the front. Given the establishment of Quinn and Mercy in this dynamic, Kloe wondered where she fit. Something reptilian and vicious, low to the ground, lacking the charm and guile of a serpent. A brezak, perhaps.

"How many princesses do you even know?" Kloe half growled, more out of annoyance than anything else. She made a mental note to increase however much cash she was getting out of this operation - with two separate fingers in Echnos' planetary pie, she could certainly afford a more generous cut. And it certainly painted a different picture for her. Mercy having leverage with Darth Anathemous as a way to claw her way up the criminal world? Belivable, if perilous. Mercy having Princess Varanin under her 'employ' seemed more like an over-ambitious brute leveraging agressively against two women hilariously better equipped to navigate circles around her in a game of intruige and enterprise.

This needn't be a problem for Kloe. She wished no ill on Mercy, but simply made a mental note to not let herself be dragged under if/when either of the princesses decided to sink her. Perhaps by making herself useful to them as well. Or, more realistically, by keeping one foot out the door.

Sitting crosslegged on the edge of the table, the Umbaran woman scowled at a distant wall while her wolves circled under the table - nipping at each other's flanks, play-fighting to pass the time. To an untrained eye, this might've seemed like a sudden outbreak of violence. Snarling, teeth, drool. Kloe wasn't concerned. She understood that they were simply bored and wanting for sport. "It is useful to have a backup plan." Kloe agreed quietly, looking thoughtful. "Are there any other factors I should be aware of? Was this simply a convoluted ruse to get me to attend the reunion?"

As if she would farking ever.

 

[Mercy]

Kloe Weo

It was easy to forget that Mercy wasn't a braindead moron by the way she carried herself.

As Kloe processed that information Mercy leaned in slightly and watched.

"Tut, tut, tut, you ought to know better, Kloe." She murmured sweetly. "You shouldn't underestimate me. I have a way of making things work for me... over... and over again." It took a special kind of creature to walk into the Hapes Cluster, murder a Queen and install a new one all in the span of a day, but that is exactly what Mercy had done.

With flair and pizzazz.

It was almost as if a reality-distortion field was wrapped around the mountain of a woman. Things that didn't work out for others, worked out flawlessly for her and she was rewarded for it on top of it.

"But, darling, if this is too risky for you... I am not forcing you into anything. Feel free to walk away." A light smirk there. It was possible she would, but Mercy knew that she had a large carrot. Not everyone was going around offering a big stack of money to fuel a habit. That was stuff you didn't just walk into as an opportunity.

 

[Kloe Weo]

Kloe returned the third invitation to walk away with an annoyed look. Almost contemptuous - almost. They were allies, but it wasn't as though she could disregard the capacity Mercy possessed, and her ability to probably snap her neck before the dogs got through her skin.

There was maybe value in pointing out that being fortune's friend was useful only until somebody with better blessings came along, but why bother? Mercy was too self-assured for that, it might never happen, and Kloe's main concern should be in making sure that bad things that didn't happen to Mercy didn't ricochet off and hit her instead. The Umbaran woman remained sitting on the table.

She didn't bother to correct Mercy that she hadn't underestimated her at all, or even made much of an estimation of her - aloud. The sort of woman Mercy was, she'd have her back against a wall and her chin up at the entire Galaxy so long as there was any profit to be made or anyone sitting in a bigger chair. Kloe couldn't argue with that sort of mentality. She didn't really want to. Wasn't her place.

"I am involved." Kloe stated needlessly, planting her hands behind her on the table. "Let's make some money."

Until the credits started hitting her accounts, this was all performative and speculation, after all. And Kloe could forgive quite a bit for a big payday - as Mercy knew quite well.