Private Of Fathers and Abuse

[Gatz Derrevar]

Ship: The Red Night
Weapons: Lightsaber
Tag: Corazona von Ascania

Cora was smiling. Genuinely smiling, and not some plastered on façade. R4 was a terrible repair droid, and irritating to a fault, but maybe he was good for something after all.

"The sleep which I lost from watching a movie, and only that activity."

"Whatever you say, Princess," Gatz rolled his eyes, as he stepped past the sliding door to the cockpit, "I'll get rid of your hickies when you wake up."

Then the door closed behind him, and Cora was left alone with a failing astromech still humming happily at her side. At least, R4 was humming happily until he realized something.

<Hey! He never gave me my hug!>

He let out a string of curses in binary, all of which painted Gatz in a very unflattering picture. But then, abruptly, he went silent. The old processor in his dome worked overtime, as he thought of ways to exact his revenge on the smuggler who chained him to this deathtrap of a ship, and reneged on the deals he made. Retribution was at hand. The foul smuggler would fall, caught red-handed.

R4's dome spun to eye Cora as she entered one of the small rooms aboard. He wheeled himself backwards, just close enough to poke her in the thigh with one of his manipulator arms.

<There's something you need to see.> He said, very cryptically, <Gatz isn't who you think he is.>

He gave Cora no time to process that, rolling himself into Gatz's room, opposite of the one she'd been given. He rolled himself over thick red carpet, past a mirror that had been shattered—but whatever glass pieces that had littered the ground had been vacuumed up long ago—and to the side of a queen-sized bed covered in thick blankets and way too many pillows.

His little manipulator arm rifled through something under the bed, until he pulled out an opaque plastic container. Another few seconds, and R4 pulled out a second, smaller container. Then, thinking better of whatever he was doing, he pushed the second container back under the frame.

<Look in that one,> R4 directed, rolling back out of the room, <you'll learn things about Gatz Derrevar that no one—not even Valery—knows. But you'll never look at him the same again.>

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

"Hmph." Was her only response to Gatz's remark about the bruises on her neck.

As R4 warbled in indignant binary at the lack of hug, Cora drifted towards the empty cabin. The lost sleep was starting to catch up with her, and she was looking forward to a nap.

The room was spartan by her tastes, but it was clean and neat and that was all that mattered. Before she could make it to the bed, something prodded her leg.

<There's something you need to see.> He said, very cryptically, <Gatz isn't who you think he is.>

Tired eyes flared. What did R4 mean by that? Cora knew pieces of Gatz's troubled past, but was there something else added into the mix? Something damning? She almost didn't want to know.

The Knight found herself following along, glancing in either direction as she crossed the threshold into Gatz's quarters. Clean too, even if his taste was reminiscent of a holofilm philanderer. Who needed that many pillows?

There was one piece to the scene that her gaze lingered on for more than a moment. The frame of the shattered mirror.

"I really shouldn't. This is an invasion of his privacy-"

The plastic container was unassuming and foreboding all at once, and she stiffly moved towards it. Kneeling down, her hands hovered over the lid. I really shouldn't do this, she thought. It's too invasive, and people are allowed to have their secrets. But what if it's something like…

Like his spice stash, or other illegal materials? Something that could get him thrown out of the Order? She didn’t want that, but maybe if she knew, something could be done about it before things came to a head.

Deft fingers quietly removed the lid. Was she ready for something that could alter the way she looked at Gatz forever?

Wide-eyed, Cora lifted the copy of Taming the Devaronian Devil from the pile. Beneath it, other titles were scattered - her entire collection, along with a few other authors who wrote in a similar genre.

Despite already knowing that Gatz was a Lady Velvet fan and despite being Lady Velvet herself, Cora went beet red.

"O-oh," was all she could say.

 

[Gatz Derrevar]

Ship: The Red Night
Weapons: Lightsaber
Tag: Corazona von Ascania

<Do you understand now?> R4 chimed in from the doorway, <he isn't some suave lady killer, no matter what he wants you to think.>

The lights on his chassis blinked ominously. His revenge was almost complete, but the pretty Jedi finding Gatz's secret smut stash wasn't enough on its own. Oh, no, Gatz had to know that Cora knew. It had to be an unequivocal truth between the two of them: that the dashing smuggler read trashy romance novels, and the Princess of Ukatis knew, and would always know.

<He's a romantic.> And then the droid paused, wondering if he should take things up a notch, <and he purchased those novels to learn how to seduce pretty young noble women. He's probably trying to seduce you!>

Then R4 left once more, leaving Cora with a revelation with an impact comparable to a turbo laser bombarding a city—which, oddly enough, was an impact she was all too familiar with. With his work done, Cora in Gatz's room holding his prized possessions, and Gatz almost certainly caught in a noose, R4-Z3 whistled his way down to the cargo bay to finally fix those lights.

Moments, and one jump to lightspeed later, Gatz stepped out of the cockpit. He took two steps, before noticing that his door was ajar. Probably R4 snooping around for another power converter, thinking that he was hoarding them away from the droid for some reason. Damn droid had a faulty logic circuit.

"Tin Can," Gatz tried to keep his voice down, assuming Cora was laying down for some shut-eye, "how many times do I have to tell you to stop snooping through my stuff! There's nothing in—"

Gatz stopped, eyes wide, as he spotted Cora kneeling at the side of his bed, his First Edition of Taming the Devaronian Devil in her hands.

And for once, he had nothing to say. No crude jokes, no good-natured ribbing. Just a slow blush creeping up his face, as he realized that Cora had just learned something about him that he'd never shared with anyone before.