Private Not Your Mama's Fight Club

[Aver Brand]

Dobb was yelling for them to stop even as Aver watched her opponent sway on the spot with a thousand-yard stare.

Well, they were stopped, alright. Sam’s brain looked to be bouncing around the inside of her skull, still. At least her guard was up at last. Small victories.

The return to earth was a slow process: narrowed pupils, even breaths, muscle tension. Aver let it happen; felt the shlick of a slipped joint sinking back home reverberate up the arm she held in her grasp.

Soon as it was done, she let go and made a throat cutting motion at the bookie. Bout over, whining crowd be damned.

“I’m hungry,” Aver announced, more to Dobb than Sam. Unlikely the latter was listening. “Know a great hot dog place up the block. My treat.”

 

[Sam Rodarch]

The shoulder returned to position with a thick, awful pressure that thunked in her chest. A small mercy that she was only partially present to feel it, having reseated it on physical instinct. She missed the moment when her opponent called off the fight, and didn't fully comprehend the loud displeasure coming from the crowd, and didn't fully actualise that Dobb was waddling over to the centre of the ring.

Auto-pilot was on, but auto-pilot was registering that the woman opposite her was not an immediate threat, or at the very least that she wasn't required to throw any more wild haymakers into the void. The very late guard, however, stayed, and Sam just stood there in stasis, not fully disengaged like a droid that fucked a battery.

"Sam," Dobb said quietly, switching from the shouty aunt at the blitzball game voice to something much more gentle, holding up two fingers to Aver to indicate that she'd be with her in a moment. "Sam, it's me, hen. Down, now. Hands down." She gently reached up, took hold of the flesh wrist, and pulled, bringing it down along with the rest of the arm. "There we go, and the other one." Rise and repeat.

"M'fine," Sam gurgled, with a face more blood than woman. Which was a universal sign of not being fine.

"Right, aye, hot dog-"

And then Sam doubled over, retched once, then promptly emptied the contents of her guts on the ground. Or, seeing as her guts were already empty, a string of bile and swallowed blood. Thank goodness there was a grate in the floor.

"Yes, the hot dogs. That's very kind," Dobb carried on, one hand reaching up to rub Sam's back as she remained bent, Aver's jacket was still folded over the other one, pockets unmolested. "Would you like a hot dog, love?" She asked Sam, who responded with a peculiar horking noise that was less focused on street food and more focused on purging. It was a very leaky face.

The Ugnaught looked up at Aver, not accusing, just looking. Not the look that blamed the nice woman for what happened, but the look that blamed herself. After all, it was Dobb who said Sam had room on her dance card. "Thanks for stopping the scrap, hen. That was decent of you."

 

[Aver Brand]

Was it? Kind?

Aver mulled over the adjective like it was an insult. Kindness hadn’t been the impulse that had her cutting the match short. She sought out these grimy places to keep sharp the pieces of her that grew dull with love and contentment. To keep alive the reminder of where she came from, a pit of crab mentality indistinguishable from this one, from every cesspool and ditch and hole the galaxy over.

And sparring was no fun when the other person didn’t fight back.

She settled on “Sure thing,” and shrugged her jacket back onto broad shoulders. With a few gestures on her pad, Aver summoned one of those garish Mega rides. By popular demand, they’d done away with the cheery, yapping hologram mascot. Small mercies.

The automated speeder was already idling at the mouth of the back-alley by the time they made it up the rickety stairwell.

“Ladies first,” Aver said with a wry smile and slid onto the bench. “If you haven’t had gourmedog before, you’re in for an experience.”

 

[Sam Rodarch]

Sam didn't have much recollection of leaving the venue or where the damp rag had appeared from that she was now holding to her face, but she didn't ask any questions. One second here, the next second bundled in the back of a speeder, just the way reality sometimes spliced itself together. It wasn't like she'd be remembering the events of tonight anyway.

"Ooh," Dobb replied, hopping up into the speeder, casting a quick glance at the wreckage of Sam and back at Aver, then lowering her voice. "Do they do anything soft?"

However, before they could depart for the experience of gournmedogs, a Duros strolled up to the speeder, placed his arm on the roof and bent down to look at the passengers. Jhal, the pilot.

"Dobb. Thought I'd best check that you and Rodarch aren't being trafficked or anything," he said with no inflexion whatsoever.

"Oh. No, no. Of course not. We're going to get hot dogs," Dobb replied brightly, as if this was the most normal sequence of events in the world. "Would you like to come, dear?" Because, of course, the Ugnaught would be the type of person who would invite more people without checking in first.

"There was a fuel stop on Vusk," Jhal said impassively, enormous red eyes settled on nothing in particular. "They had them turning under a lamp. Nobody there could tell me how long they'd been turning. I did ask."

"And?"

"Nine days in my bunk. Skree had to fly." He paused, for dramatic effect somewhat defeated by his flat voice. "Skree cannot fly. So no, no on hot dogs."

"...dey good outta can," Sam mumbled, almost coherently.

"There's a hull in the third bay with its plating off," Jhal said, having arrived bored and already leaving. "Somebody's been in the port nacelle and made a mess of it. I'm going to go look at it." He got about four steps before he paused, turned around and pointed at Sam. "Make sure she's stopped leaking before she's back aboard. I mean it. The deck's had enough."

"...why dey five in a can but den buns are in da six pack...?"

She had a point.

 

[Aver Brand]

Anything soft?

Well, Aesor had been experimenting with something called a ‘deconstrucdog’, so… “Maybe? Guys who run the place are bleedin’ hearts, though, they’ll get you sorted even if it’s not on the menu.”

They’d learned to problem-solve on their feet in decidedly higher-pressure environments than a fast food kitchen, after all.

The mild amusement remained anchored in the corners of her mouth throughout the exchange. No outward indication that she’d clocked anything out of the ordinary; more habit than reticence at this point. Dobb was no idiot, that much was obvious. They’d had a polite enough surface conversation thus far, but the subtle grilling could commence any moment now.

Funnily enough, Nadir did use to be involved in trafficking operations. That’d been for organ-harvesting purposes though. Mostly. The occasional kidnapping hadn’t been off the table in those days, if the credits were right. The mere memory of Roger Kranos sent a twinge through her sympathetic nervous system. Her twenties had been a trip.

The Rodarch explained something of that phrik jaw and duracrete skull. More’s the reason to visit her favorite gourmedog joint.

“It’s so you’re always left with an extra bun. Then you have to go out and buy more dogs, and then more buns, and so on and forth,” Aver addressed the slurred musings as they finally sped off towards the corner of 16th and B.

“Place has plenty of supplies,” she offered to Dobb with a nod towards the dried blood stuck to Sam’s face and clothes. “Safe injection site, too.”

There were reasons besides good, cheap food that made RnK such a fixture in the lightless, penniless industrial district of Suma.

 

[Sam Rodarch]

"...fuck th'buns," Sam slurred back, lifting the now-pink rag from her face as she took her stand on hot dogs. The passing world smeared into a horrific blur of light and colour, directly bypassing her eyes and stabbing straight into the centre of her skull. She leaned over in the speeder, head going towards the knees. "Dun' need'em. Can eat'em outta da can an' drink da... ya know..."

"The brine, hen?" Dobb provided helpfully, without sharing her thoughts on the culinary horror of eating hot dogs from a can and then drinking the brine afterwards.

Sam was quiet for a few seconds, then a few seconds longer, and just as Dobb's hand twitched on 'wake up the concussed mess' duty, there was a small grunt and then a muffled voice. "...dey good outta can."

"Aye, I think some supplies would do good," the Ugnaught replied to Aver, skating past any mention of a hot dog place being a safe place to indulge in drugs. She hadn't really fully contended with the grit conversation, even if this woman's accusation had brought it to the fore. On The Sundry, the best way to deal with issues was to either fight about it or ignore it, and there'd already been a fight.

"Been here long?" Dobb asked Aver with her finest maternal warmth. "Only nobody's from here, are they? Everybody's just stopped."

"...yea' yea', briiiiine."

 

[Aver Brand]

The brine?!

While Aver made no comment, her unfiltered reaction manifested nonetheless as she tamped down the urge to retch. Not that she wouldn’t have done it, once upon a time. When you were just one more two-bit runner in a sea of hungry children, even half-tanned leather could be made appetising.

She’d have shanked a friend in the kidney for a single canned sausage. The entire thing, plus brine?

Best not to dwell.

Their Mega ride pulled up to RnK as Aver considered Dobb’s question. They piled out onto the sidewalk and meandered past the cheap plasteel chairs into the warm yellow lights of the finest gourmedog establishment on Coruscant.

“On and off for a couple decades.” Vague but true enough. “I’m less and less a city girl these—”

“Aver!” A beaming Aesor waved at them from the counter. “New friends? Take the booth, I’ll be right up. Just gotta…” he lifted his brows at the trandoshan tapping her thigh with a credit chit.

Aver nodded and led the way towards the corner of the joint. “Backroom’s through there, if you wanna get cleaned up,” she gestured at a ‘STAFF ONLY’ door next to the toilets. A moment of pause as she leaned her hip against the red table, studying first Dobb, then Sam. “The owner’s a vet. He can take a look at that shoulder, if you like.”

And if he was also a Rodarch, well… life was full of happy coincidences.

 

[Sam Rodarch]

"Less of a city girl. On and off," Dobb repeated approvingly. "That's the trick, eh? On and off's fine. It's the ones that come and don't go back off again," she continued, getting a measure of the establishment with a swift visual inspection. "You can tell, they've a way of sitting."

The lights were nicer here.

Didn't glue any part of Sam's timeline back in place or put it somewhere for keeping, but it also didn't feel like somebody had stuck a fist in the middle of her skull and then wriggled their fingers. She was in a dive. No. The ring. No. A speeder. No. A... fast food joint. Maybe. Sure smelled that way. However, for all intents and purposes, Sam was standing there, upright, which in most circles was a passable state of existence.

"Well, I think that's a grand idea," Dobb commented from below, gently patting Sam's arm in a way she didn't know how to process. "Wouldn't that be good, hen?"

They all knew what vet meant. They'd all no doubt seen a vet or two in their lifetimes. It was part and parcel of the lifestyle.

Sam looked down at the inscrutable Ugnaught and froze for a few seconds of absolute nothingness. She blinked through molasses, and then it was business as usual. "S'pose. Jus' need some glue tho'." For the eyebrow. For the nose. For the place where the cybernetic arm mount was tearing off flesh. Maybe for some loose teeth if there were some going spare.

Her brow furrowed, which in turn loosened the crust attempting to form on the bridge of her nose, causing it to ooze again. "Where da fuck are we?"

"We're getting hot dogs, Sam. Aver's treat, remember?"

"Eh?"

She did not remember.

 

[Aver Brand]

“Where’re you from, Dobb?” Small talk. Imagine. Next they were going to start swapping their lemon meringue pie recipes. Actually—

Aver backburnered the thought in favor of the fighter whose brain she’d rattled. It was at least partly her own fault that Sam was looking at her surroundings like a displaced Asharl panther. “You head on in, yeah? I’ll get Aesor.”

She met the pale man halfway to the counter, rag slung over one shoulder, three laminated menus in his hand. Aver caught his elbow, and his eyes flicked briefly to the ugnaught and mando at the table.

Not friends? he asked with a brow.

Aver shook her head. “The brawler – Sam – her shoulder’s fucked. Broke her nose, too.”

“Got it.” He nodded and handed her the gourmedog menus. “The smaller one, she’s fine?”

“Dandy. And Tanner?”

“Yeah?”

Aver tapped the center of his chest, where the ka’rta beskar would sit if the man were still in his armor. “She’s one of yours.”

Cue both brows, now. “Noted.”

The half-arkanian approached the two mercenaries with his affable smile firmly in place. “I can talk you through the menu while we get you fixed up.”

He led the way to the backroom, which was indeed outfitted with all the paraphernalia needed to stitch a gangbanger back together. Aesor nodded at the simple cot while he rolled up his sleeves, fetched familiar instruments, and disinfected his hands. If some telling tattoos were revealed in the process, well, he’d let the woman open that can of worms if and when she wanted to.

“I’m Aesor.” He slid closer on a banged-up swivel chair, his tone now that of a no-nonsense field medic. “Hold still while I scan you. How’s the head? Vision? Hearing?”

Outside, Aver had assumed her corner-booth throne. She’d deposited the menu in front of Dobb, knowing that Kojak would’ve begun whipping up her regular order the second she’d walked in.

 

[Sam Rodarch]

"Gentes, technically. Never saw it," Dobb answered, betraying the tight-lipped mercenary archetype with one fell swoop. "My lot were shipped out before I was born. Gas platform, contract work, generations paying off a debt nobody could show us the paper for." The Ugnaught divulged in the manner in which she divulged everything, which is to say, very brightly. "Awful food. That's what stuck in my craw. Just awful."

Sam, meanwhile, was experiencing the VIP treatment, which on the surface seemed like an ironic statement but really wasn't. This place had a better medical setup than half the backwater shitholes that she'd fought out of. Felt like a private hospital in comparison.

She was running three beats behind on a brain that had been bounced more than Zelton on a pleasure cruise. Her eyes caught the tattoos as he washed his hands, but it couldn't click into place. It jammed in the processing, getting clogged up with post-fight nausea and the grit comedown. Didn't feel great, that was for fucking certain, but she didn't feel great, and Sam couldn't pick the layers apart of why.

"Dunno," she answered, after taking too long to answer, sitting still for the scan as asked. It wasn't an evasion of the truth; it was the baseline. Yeah, couple of big bumps tonight. Brow split. Nose fucked. "S'fine." But she'd been getting her bell rung for eighteen years. It'd be wrong if the bell wasn't ringing. Maybe a bit slower than usual, but no fighter walked into a room and announced that they were slow, no matter how obvious it was.

"It's da... nose," Sam offered, lifting her organic hand to gently pinch at the crushed bridge. Fine tremor in the hand, small delay to find the word. "Fucked it."

Back in the booth, Dobb considered the menu with great enthusiasm, really drinking in each available variety of gourmet hot dog. She took it seriously. Food was serious business. As serious as permacrete detonators. "Well, it all looks delightful! Is there a house special? Better yet, it's your last meal on the face of this galaxy; what are you ordering, love?

 

[Aver Brand]

Aesor studied his patient with a resigned smile.

“It’s more than the nose,” he reprimanded as he prepped the healing patches, one eye on the scanner output. Nothing he hadn’t seen before, though never all together on the same person. Would’ve been a bigger shock that Sam was still functioning, but… Rodarch.

You could take the woman out of the clan, but not the clan out of the woman. Hard-headed bastards, every single one of them.

“Up.” He maneuvered her by the chin and set her nose without warning or ceremony. A second later, he was applying the kolto seals to every broken bit of her face. “Now the arm,” he commanded as he adjusted one of the cot’s supports for Sam to lay out the half-cybernetic limb.

That would take a bit more work.

For her part, Aver was content to watch the ugnaught peruse her options. A nameless waitress brought them drinks halfway through the menu: a pitcher of CorusCan and a highball of Fightin’ Chance, an anacoholic, isotonic cocktail chock-full of electrolytes, bacta, and cactus juice.

Tanner had given Kojak a heads-up, then. She smiled, sipped the chilled beer, and leaned forward, ready to answer any and all questions about gourmedogs.

“...it’s your last meal—”

Aver stopped listening. Time slowed down to molasses. Every muscle in her body tensed.

She’d given her proper name, no alias, which wasn’t common, exactly, but her face wasn’t a known entity, she was in plainsclothes, hadn’t graced the cover of Badass Weekly in a decade, and she’d been in armor then, obviously, and anyway Dobb had been perfectly amicable so far, didn’t seem like that good an actress, and even if she’d put two and two together, they shared an industry after all, she wouldn’t set off an explosive with Sam two meters away, too much motherly energy there, plus if there were a bomb, her premonition would warn her and she’d be out on the street in a second, pop a barrier—

“Well.” Aver managed a chuckle just this side of strained. “I got my custom dog. Annajan spice and blue meat. Up your alley?”

 

[Sam Rodarch]

Sam didn't have any retort for the man with the scanner; it would have been hard to find one on a clear day, if such a thing existed for her, never mind right now. The equilibrium was fucked, both internally and externally. Here this stranger was, clan tattoos and competence, giving her a mild telling off like it was normal. It probably was normal. Maybe. Sam felt it as uncomfortable nausea, or rather felt nauseous because she'd been sparked twice in one night and her brain was screaming.

There was no flinch when he reset her nose; the thick, familiar sound of bone and cartilage shifting that reverberated through her head was always more unpleasant to hear than feel. Her eyes welled with fresh tears, as nose trauma was wont to do. Would be a belter when the swelling and bruising set in properly.

She placed her arm on the support and, for the first time, actually surveyed the damage herself, or at least the damage that mattered to her. The four-fingered cybernetic hand opened and closed, and she gave the wrist some rotation, still gripped, still moved but a beat late. "Lag 'dere," she commented, focused on what she identified as the problem. She did not identify the rest. The shoulder sitting lower, the way the mount shifted, or the absolute state of the flesh at the join. Torn, ragged edges that still slowly wept, the part where she met the limb, a swollen, already bruised mess of punishment. The blood that had run into the guts of the arm had already turned tacky, mingling with ferrocrete dust from the floor.

Thankfully, that sight was in another room.

"You all right, hen? You look a bit tense," Dobb commented, seemingly unaware as she peered over at Aver from the top of her menu. For a moment, the woman's neck was as rigid as a constipated Gammorean on the bog. Then it was straight back to the dogs. "Right, that's what I'm having then," the Ugnaught said, placing the menu back down on the table. "You'd not recommend it if it was rubbish, and I'd only sit here reading for an hour and end up with the plain one and be annoyed."

Then Dobb nodded towards Aver's hand with a smile. "That's a lovely ring," she said warmly, clasping her hands together on the table. "Who's the lucky one, then?"

 

[Aver Brand]

Aesor made no effort to hide his concern. The lag was the least of Sam’s problems. A symptom of deeper issues, really.

A minute passed as he worked in silence on the irritated, swollen flesh around the cybernetic socket.

“Does it have a quick-release?” he asked after the external mess was taken care of. If this were any sort of standard model, he could’ve brought up the schematics to check, but… “Shit’s got into the join. I need to clean the whole thing or you’re liable to lose the rest of the arm.”

No sugarcoating. Giving it to the brawler plain was the most likely to penetrate her thick skull, anyway.

Outside, Aver sidestepped the question. “You won’t be disappointed,” she nodded in approval at Dobb’s choice.

And if the premier demo expert was here to blow her up, it would liven up her week at least.

She glanced down and laughed. Ring was on the wrong finger to be a signifier of that regressive, patriarchal institution of the imperial core.

…is what Aver might’ve said, if she knew such big words.

Though hell, maybe she did. She could’ve taken up 467th wave feminist literature. Had a lot of time on her hands these days, and her paws in particular were given to devil’s work when idle.

“I’m not married,” she replied with a wry smile. A gesture to Kojak for a double of her order, and then Aver relaxed back into the booth.

“I wear this so I’m less of a sociopath.” A beat. A wink. “You got anyone?”

 

[Sam Rodarch]

"Dunno." She looked at it again. "S'never come off." Sam paused for a moment before unhelpfully making an addendum. "Not since."

Of course, Aesor would be able to see with eyes and a scanner that 'not since' meant, more specifically, that the limb had once been a proper prosthetic that could be removed, serviced, and cleaned like most civilised cybernetic limbs were, was torn off the hard way, and then reattached on the cheap and anchored into the bone, rather than articulated.

"Got'it modded inside. She took summat outta it. Tha thing that..." Sam trailed off, moving the four remaining figures on the arm while her memory tried and failed to find what Mox said she had done to the arm and what the parts were called. "Thing that stopped it hittin' proper. Took 'dat out."

Sam had at least offered a morsel of information in the drawl. Not great information. A prison upgrade, by a woman with limited access to tools and a dream. The rest of the puzzle was on him to see. No governor on an arm anchored to bone, badly. Every big swing at full power pulled, transmitting all the force into flesh, nerve and bone.

And she liked to swing.

"Can ya fix da lag?" She asked, seemingly not phased by the prospect of losing flesh or getting it cleaned, but instead losing a very specific, violent function.

Meanwhile, where preferred to reside, Dobb nodded at Aver's 'sociopath' acknowledgement like it was a very sensible thing to do. Whether it was a joke, a confession, or one dressed up as the other was neither here nor there. However, it did resonate with the Ugnaught, who couldn't understand why her love of levelling buildings and sharing her homecooked meals was sometimes seen as unsettling.

"Not like that, no," Dobb answered, after having thought about the question with earnest interest. "Never came round to it. Mercenary life. You're always going, aren't you? And by the time you're not going, you've got a ship full, and there's no room." She shrugged. "It's not a sad thing, I don't think. Everybody assumes it's a sad thing."

The Ugnaught paused to pour herself a glass of whatever was in the pitcher; she'd never been one for the drink, but was very much in the mindset of not rejecting the hospitality of others.

"Besides, the crew keeps me busy. Always mouths to try and feed. We only picked up Sam a few weeks ago, the poor thing, but it's one more mouth."

 

[Aver Brand]

Inside.

More pieces clicked into place for Aesor as Sam stumbled through an explanation. Maybe it was the pain receding as kolto flooded her system. Maybe just the adrenaline finally fizzling out.

Harder to fix a botched prison job than to do it, always. If the brawler even wanted it fixed. Nasty as they were, bone-anchors had their advantages.

“Not the lag, no. Not a mechie.” Aesor liberally sprayed kolto aerosol into the join. It would have to do for now. Just had to convince the woman to stop rolling around in gutter debris. Or else slap some kind of seal on it.

“Got one back of house, though,” he tried for a little humor, snapped off his gloves, and strode to the door.

Meanwhile, Aver quirked a brow in a thoroughly learned expression. The way Dobb doted on Sam, the merc had assumed a longer, daughter-adjacent relationship. She opened her mouth to ask after the familial dynamics when Aesor popped out.

“Done all I could, but the cybernetic’s janky.”

Aver hummed. “Can have a look.” A glance at Dobb. “Bet you’d get a kick out of the Street Food Wars of 868 ABY.”

She walked past Aesor with a meaningful look, and they traded places. STAFF ONLY hissed closed behind the merc as she took in the brawler.

Patched up, but everyone looked worse under harsh medical lights, and Sam’s face was doing her no favors. Aver slid her gaze to the outstretched metal limb, pursed her lips, and sat down on the little swivel chair.

“I can fix it.” She said, met those bleary eyes straight on. “Or you lot can hang around a couple more days, and I can get you sorted with a replacement that won’t black you out every time you swing and miss.”

Or swing and hit hard enough, for that matter.

When she caught up with Bea about this incident, the blonde was going to laugh herself out the booth and call her some choice names, no doubt. Aver held back the preemptive sigh.

No point having more credits then god if you didn’t put them to occasional use.

 

[Sam Rodarch]

Sam made a low affirmative noise from the back of her throat. She didn't expect much. Didn't expect a fancy back room with a proper cot and a man with a scanner. She was more of an industrial-solvent-and-staples kind of girl. So really, even if he couldn't fix the arm, he'd already exceeded bottom-of-the-barrel expectations.

Back of house.

What house?

Her finger still wasn't on the pulse of where exactly 'house' was, or why she was here, or when she was here. The recollection slipped through in fragments, inconsistent and scattered. Headbutts, and hot dogs...?

That didn't seem right.

When he stepped away, she just sat with herself, feeling it all. The grit crash always came back with interest; every inch of exhaustion and pain slowly rolled back in on a thick cloud. Felt like being fucking crushed from the inside, every time. She closed her eyes and grimaced, flexing the tension in her jaw. In the ring it was the fighter; coiled, honed, impassive, but on the cot it was the wreck; braced, weathered, sallow. Same person, just a different light.

Then the woman who had nearly caved in her nose was parked in front of her, offering a fix, or even a replacement. There was no animosity in the aftermath; it was a solid rule of the ring, and if she swore loathing and vengeance on every single person that beat her, then there wouldn't have been time left for anything else.

"Not up ta me how long we stayin'," Sam answered, squinting back at her, as if it might have made the light any more bearable.

A new arm wasn't an undesirable offer, and one that her own shoulder was begging her to take. But there was no such thing as something for nothing, especially not from a stranger, and for as dense as Sam Rodarch was in every one of her thirty-four years of getting her pan smashed, she knew the math on this one.

"What d'ya want fer it?" She asked, no accusation there.

 

[Aver Brand]

"Not a democratic crew you run with, then?" Aver inspected the mismatched alloy on display. "You got a good boss, at least?"

A young Ygdris had witnessed plenty of violent surgeries, participated in plenty more. First as the little runt fetching instruments, then as the bigger runt holding down a bleeding, screaming gangster as what passed for a field medic (or, once, memorably, an actual droid) cut off the ruined flesh to be replaced by metal, circuitry, and hydraulics.

The next question pulled her right out of her souvenirs. Aver Brand blinked and looked Sam Rodarch in the eye.

What do you want for it?

Never in her half-century of existence had she not had an answer to that question. Want had driven her out of slavery, drenched in blood; want had stowed her away on a three-dozen ships, always towards the glittering promise of the galactic core; want had burned her, forged her, curled her hands into fists over and over again until she stood triumphant at the top of all worlds, defiant in the face of every authority.

"Sparring partner?" she ventured, voice tilting upwards, a wonder in and of itself. How often did Aver ask for anything? Of people?

Demands were safer. Orders even better. No room for free will meant no room for rejection.

Well. Des would be proud, at least.

 

[Sam Rodarch]

The word 'democratic' skittered off Sam's dome and straight into the bin, and instead she focused on what did make sense.

She'd never thought of Rade as her boss. It was Rade's crew, right enough. She lived on the ship with them. Was down to do jobs with them. It did, in effect, make Rade her boss. But it was alien to think of life in ordinary employment terms when Sam's world for so long had been purses, promoters and cuts. Boss, probably. Cellmate. Accomplice. The person who witnessed the bottom and stepped in. Could have let the new blood choke and die, and kept the cell to herself for a while longer. Didn't.

She 'didn't fancy the noise.'

"Yea'. She's awright," Sam answered gruffly, which was actually the highest praise available out of Sam Rodarch's mouth.

Sam's brow then furrowed, reminding her that there were parts of her face that kolto seals were actively trying to work on. It read as confusion, which, as far as things were going, at least meant comprehension.

A sparring partner.

"What d'ya want that for?" She asked bluntly. Didn't sound like a joke, but it didn't sound right either. From her experience, sparring was something that happened between equals, a training arrangement that benefited both parties. Their fight, and that was a generous description, had been something of a dismantling by her recollection. Arse handed back to her on a plate, outclassed, and while Sam wasn't cognitively with it on the chain of events, she wasn't entirely sure that she'd landed a single blow. "Don't seem like ya'd get much outta it."

Well...

"'Less you wantit ta smash ma face in for kicks."

 

[Aver Brand]

What was it with one-armed cripples and incisive questions?

Seemed every time now she went out for some base, bloody entertainment, Aver ended up with a new attachment for her troubles.

Was this how people made friends?

The mercenary grimaced at nothing in particular, dragged her thoughts back into the KRK backroom and the brawler slumped on the gurney.

"And me asking you to guard was, what? Reverse psychology?" She raised a brow and motioned to the arm. "Pain sensors're modded out, yeah?"

Aver turned to the stack of metal drawers against one wall and began to rummage around for slicer tools. Third from the bottom yielded a basic kit that she unrolled on her lap. After a quick visual inspection, the merc picked a small multiwrench and began to work on the medial plating.

"Anyway, you're not afraid to fight me. That's what I get out of it."

 

[Sam Rodarch]

Reverse psychology. Bold for a brain that couldn't even comprehend regular psychology.

"Dunno," Sam helpfully provided, looking down at the arm like it might have provided an answer. Mox had technically said a lot about the arm when she was upgrading it; most of it said to herself, musings of a prison techhead. Gone through the holes of a brain like a sieve. "Jus' took out da part dat stops holdin' it back." Governor. Pain limiter. Was there a difference? Did it limit pain before the force was capped? Sam would have been the last person in the room that knew. "Know it hurts like fuck ta miss."

While the woman who had broken her face rummaged for tools, Sam's head tilted back briefly, and was met by the sterile light of the backroom and a fresh wave of nausea that forced her head back forward and tilted down instead.

"Anyways, whaddaryou, ma coach?" Sam, who never had a proper coach, asked gruffly.

As the tinkering began, she could at least comprehend that her lack of fear had been noted as something valuable. Good. It was the point, one of the fundamental lessons on the Cairn, that you couldn't let fear be what overcame you. Fear of being hurt, fear of being killed, fear of killing. Better predators would always find those fears and devour you alongside them. The hard part was letting it go; then everything was quiet, easy.

"Weren't nothin' ta be 'fraid of," she said flatly, not as a slight against her opponent but just how she felt. "An' ya know, no guard don't work all of da time, but it works alotta da time." Naturally, the most conversation that could be extracted from Sam was about punching people and being punched. "If ya can tank da hit, go inta it. Den yer up close in dere guard wit' a free hit. Dancin's all time an' energy, like ya got nowhere else ta be. Rather hit once an' win dan fuck aroun'."