Private I Don't Wanna Be Me

[Emryc]

The lift doors snapped shut on the line of intensity connecting stormy grey with molten emerald.

The lift went up. Evelynn Zambrano sat in silence in his empty office. No background music playing. No tick-tock of a metronome. No burbling water from some gaudy fountain. The modernity, straight lines, and clean surfaces of his office completely eschewed his distaste for the Pa Qosta's ostentatious lifestyle. Emryc wasn't like Pa in many ways and their taste in home decor and architecture was certainly a big one.

Minutes went by, but not 45 of them. A short while later the lift gave a gentle ding and the doors opened once more.

Emryc stood inside, casually dressed, lighting up a fresh cigarette.

"Do you want to talk about it?" smoke perforated the air with every word.

 

[Beatrice Govan]

Where silence would usually be dreaded, a void to be filled by needless thoughts, this time it was welcomed. She didn't have to think about it, no, this moment of silence was hers to do with as she pleased. Beatrice closed her eyes, tilted her head backwards and just sat.

The ding of the lift roused her, the woman expecting to find a perplexed Zib standing there, all limbs and quick wit but it was not the second hand, it was the first (sans coffee stain). She looked at him, at first in mild confusion and then in quiet acceptance.

Did she want to talk about it?

Yes.

Say what you mean, mean what you say.

 

[Emryc]

This was Emryc Qosta, aware of a touchy subject, asking Beatrice Govan if she wanted to talk about it and giving her the option to say no, fully intent on respecting whichever answer she gave.

Yes.

"Okay," the hand that pinched the cig from his lips motioned for her to join him in the lift with a single flicking curl of his fingers, "office hours are over."

Pa Qosta had lived in his office. Literally. Though he had the HQ, the lion's share of his work was actually done in the tower, in his private condo. Emryc always hated that, it made him part and partial to Pa Qosta's private life and he never believed that to be the best choice. Mostly because he fucking hated that man and the more time he spent away from him, the better. Opening his home to his closest Enforcers meant that if Pa Qosta was awake, he was on the clock, and so was every-fucking-one else.

He watched her peel herself from Zib's couch to join him in the lift, only now realizing she didn't have her cane and barely registered a limp. His jaw rolled to the side, gaze following her all the way in to wherever it was she planted herself, and lingered on her figure as he leaned to punch the floor for his workshop. Emryc might've remarked on the improvements if he hadn't already opened the floor for their new topic of discussion: her real name and whatever else that entailed. So he eased back straight and waited for the lift to bring them to the appropriate floor.

The was an entire, expansive floor of more than simply just an idle hobby. He'd taken his hobby and expanded it into a secondary career much in the way Pa had taken his hobby of brewing and distilling and turned it into something worthy of profit. Emryc had organized his collection and put it into a display room. Evolved his rudimentary tools and tables into a fully realized workspace. Created a playground range for testing and honing his craft. Gave himself a place to spend however many waking hours he needed, however long it took, to stay sane.

Beatrice didn't have access to this floor without him. Most people didn't have access to this floor without him.

Emryc stepped out of the lift and lead her down the main hall; to their right an open line of glass panes looking out onto the range; to their left an open archway leading into the display room where he had alotted his various builds and rebuilds, collectibles and antiques, in reinforced cases against a black backdrop. A lounge area sat in the middle, recessed into the floor as a statement of stubborn permanence. It appeared he spent a good deal of time here judging by the tray on the coffee table featuring a fresh pack of cigarettes, three crystalline tumblers, and a bottle of today's choice drink.

He strode past that all and made for the far wall where he unlocked a central display of rifles and pulled Evelynn's shotgun down from the wall hooks. When he presented it to her, it was cleaned and re-blued, the wooden stock recheckered and freshly stained and polished, the worn mechanics replaced with crisp new pieces. Still the same gun, but brought back to life.

 

[Beatrice Govan]

Beatrice surprised herself in keeping with chosen silence, their journey up to the floor that housed the man's workshop and armoury one punctuating by the gentle hum and whirr of the elevator's mechanisms. It wasn't pointed, nor weighed but just silence.

He had, at the very least, been correct about brevity, or perhaps her need to fill the empty air had been replaced by something new.

The entire floor fell in with Emryc's aesthetic and the notion of luxury wasn't one to phase the woman. The invitation up itself was more of a surprise than any tasteful décor or fit-for-purpose design, especially after things had gotten so heated.

She felt like a parent being handed her child's newest macaroni artwork when he presented her with the shotgun from the cottage. Sure, she was proud and could appreciate the thought and work that had gone into the restoration of the firearm but beyond the symbolism, it was useless to her.

Still, she appraised it visually, eyes sliding along fastidious detailing as if Govan felt obliged to give his time spent some meaning.

It looks brand new, she commented, is it really the same gun?

 

[Emryc]

Emryc nodded in response, watching her inspect the weapon with the sort of interest one inspected a toaster. It was interesting only in its immediate connection to her, but he'd not be surprised if Beatrice Govan ... or Evelynn Zambrano had never held much affinity with guns. They didn't seem quite her style, so far as he could tell of her.

"Thought you'd like to see it," he added, offering to take it off her hands once it seemed she was done with it, proof that not everything broken, abused, misused, and worn was a lost cause. A bit of time, effort, and attention to detail could fix them up just fine if someone could just bother to do it. It wasn't a bad likeness for the woman herself and he wondered not for the first time why it was she'd been left in such a state. He might have voiced all of this, any of this, if he didn't feel it was a bit too on-the-nose and wordy.

"I can teach you to shoot," words spoken through smoke as he moved to return it to its place on the wall and locked it away, "if you want to learn."

 

[Beatrice Govan]

Truth be told, she'd forgotten about it.

It was an absent-minded gesture, a part of her offered to him in passing as if she hadn't wanted it to go to waste. Had it meant more than that? Maybe, but that was all just rampant speculation and so all that Evelynn could do was watch as he took it back and mount it back upon the wall.

I'd like that.

Would she? On one hand, guns were hardly relevant to her existence, what did a woman like her make use of a shotgun? But on the other hand, it was a part of his world, right? He had an entire floor dedicated to the restoration of firearms, of course, it was a part of his world.

Part and parcel of learning his language.

I don't think I've ever fired a blaster.

 

[Emryc]

Click, the case locked. Emryc turned to rejoin her and stepped down into the recessed lounge area, "That one's an antique," he replied, claiming a spot on the couch and settling back with the languid repose of a lion in its domain, "uses bullets and buckshot. Handles differently than a blaster but I can teach you to shoot both. You should be trained to shoot anyway if you're going to continue working for me."

A slow exhale, he tipped his head to look over at her, "But I'll need to know what name to put down in the records."

Beatrice Govan or Evelynn Zambrano?

 

[Beatrice Govan]

That seemed to check out with her rudimentary knowledge of firearms in the galaxy at large. She remembered being so disappointed the day that she found out that slugthrowers didn't actually throw slugs. Oh to be so young.

She joined him on the same couch, ever proper in posture as she looked back in the face of his easy question.

Beatrice Govan.

It didn't phase her, the idea that she needed to know how to shoot a gun to live in his world. Danger had never been a factor; she wasn't a woman afraid of so many mortal things. Danger, pain, death. They were old bedfellows and it was time that he knew.

Ask me a question, something you want to know.

 

[Emryc]

Was this a game they now played and when had he agreed to play it? Emryc wasn't entirely sure he was a fan of the terms and thought he'd say as much, but he decided against it. Not because of the fact that he'd yelled at and manhandled her not but twenty minutes ago, but because she'd walked herself right into his office without a cane or a limp.

And that had shifted the tone.

"Why Beatrice and not Evelynn?"

 

[Beatrice Govan]

Starting with a softball.

Because I don't want to be found, there are those who would rather I was dead.

It was a fairly simple question, one that a man in his employ would surely understand the answer to. Why would somebody go to the trouble of assuming a new identity after all? She might have had the foresight to enjoy the easy questions while they lasted.

Next.

 

[Emryc]

The answer was unsurprising. She was right, these sorts of things for people like him were rather obvious, but it needed to be asked because assuming never did anyone any favors.

"Who do you want to be?"

 

[Beatrice Govan]

I want to be some nameless, careless thing drinking JUB on a beach in a tropical little vacuum.

Actually, in retrospect, maybe not JUB, that stuff could not only strip paint off the walls but it was more than capable of taking you places and those places weren't exactly safe or sane. Although there were hot dogs.

But given my options, Beatrice.

Who willingly wanted to be a Zamb- ugh, it even hurt to think of such a fate.

 

[Emryc]

Some nameless, careless thing drinking on a beach in a tropical little vacuum. Isn't that the dream all the holo-dramas painted for the outside galaxy? For the status-quo man and woman who had nothing more to fear than taxation and cavities. It really sounded so ... simple.

"If the former is what you really want I'll sign the papers tonight and make it happen." Emryc took a slow drag on his cigarette, thinking what a dull ending to this affair that would be. He may have made for boring company most of the time, but no one could say he lead a dull life.

 

[Beatrice Govan]

She sighed, annoyed at his ability to read everything in black and white.

What I mean to say, is that whoever I am, I'd like to have some scant modicum of personal safety, Beatrice corrected although having a job that required firearm training didn't quite seem the way forward either.

The beach, however idealistic it sounded was meaningless in solitude.

You're surprisingly cavalier about this.

 

[Emryc]

Cavalier. A word he'd not heard directed at him ... ever? Pa Qosta? Yes. Him?

Hm.

"I'm serious," he corrected her, idly ashing his cigarette in the tray on the side table, "I cannot guarantee your personal safety in my employ, but you'll be safer than most." Frankly, he couldn't guarantee personal safety anywhere. If he'd learned nothing else from growing up, it was that nothing was assured. Not one single thing. Except perhaps death. And taxes - hadn't managed to get away from those yet. They were a necessary burden of progress it seemed.

"Why do they want you dead?"

 

[Beatrice Govan]

He was right, of course.

Were she really some no-named logistics coordinator named Beatrice Govan then she would have been safer practically anywhere else outside his employ, guaranteed it was in the realms of the mundane and the human.

But that wasn't the case.

Depends on the who.

She leaned forward, lacing organic and metal digits together to rest her chin upon as sharp elbows took position upon knees. The woman chose to avoid his eyes, not for this, her inevitable confession. Her heart expected rejection, understandably so given the severity of her former life's crimes but her head...

...knew better than to try and predict Emryc Qosta.

I've indulged in my fair share of atrocities for personal pleasure, Beatrice stated, deciding not to rattle down a never-ending, self-involved list of individual crimes and keep things succinct, mostly pertaining to torture and slavery.

 

[Emryc]

Well that was not what he expected from the waif of a woman sitting at the opposite end of the couch. Emryc gave her a side glance and then steeped into his usual silent pensiveness to take a moment and digest what she'd just said. He didn't like to speak on immediate thoughts or reactions. Not even Pa Qosta made decisions on the fly. That meeting with Aver Brand in his office all those years ago where Emryc first met Aver as Coathanger?

That meeting had been pre-planned by nearly a month.

The old Bear had liked to mull things over good and thorough. Much in the way that he would not be revisiting the topic of his sister any time soon. he had to strategize how he wanted to approach it with Beatrice. If he wanted to approach it with Beatrice. As of right now? No. In a week? Two weeks? He'd cross that bridge when they got to it.

But this topic wasn't about him and, therefore, much easier to approach since it was about her and she seemed keen to visit it.

"Tell me about the who."

 

[Beatrice Govan]

He hadn't gotten up and left, a veritable boon although with that being said, Beatrice had begun to understand not to presume the man's thoughts, because all it served to do was tangle her own.

The Mandalorians, the Jedi, she began, starting with those she had been known to bring suffering upon, the Sith, my father, she continued, not having clicked that Emryc apparently had no idea about her nebulous family tree, the one that half the galaxy longed to see wiped from existence, and Rattatak.

Just an entire planet, it's fine.

Govan made a face as she stared off into the distance as if perturbed at her own grandiose sense of importance. She doubted that her relevancy was that grand, but in the same breath, the woman had been crippled in an assassination attempt.

I will say, many of these grievances are irrelevant now. As far as most are concerned, Evelynn Zambrano died.

 

[Emryc]

A bit more silence, another drag on his cigarette, some more smoke.

"Is that what really happened to your legs?"

 

[Beatrice Govan]

The woman's nose crinkled as if a terrible smell had pervaded the air around them, hidden in obfuscating cigarette smoke.

Yes, a failed assassination courtesy of the New Imperial Order, she admitted, not having listed those enemies due to their eventual victory against the empire. They had let her go, but not before fusing her broken spine together like infernal butchers.