First Reply Where you lookin' to go, boss?

[In Rhan]

The Dancer in Green, somewhere near the Core​

All things considered, The Dancer in Green was a fairly large ship. The old Besaid-Class Freighter had been slightly altered over the years in a variety of ways - notably, most of the crew quarters had been removed to make room for extra storage, including a large frozen section for perishables. But the first thing that most people noticed were the plants. In Rhan was an amateur botanist by trade, in the oldest sense of the word. The dozens of flower pots, hydroponics trays, and sealed environments had nothing to do with the way the Pantoran woman earned her credits, and were likely more her calling than long-distance freight was (if such a thing could be believed). Nearly every plant served a purpose, providing herbs, veg, fruit, and similar functions. Some were simply flowers. All added to the atmosphere of the ship - the scent of rust and ozone offset by a floral bouquet and fresh herbs in the sections of the ship that In called home.

---

While In was predominantly a long-hauler, anyone who worked for herself had to keep an open mind to possibility when it presented itself. In In's case, that meant supplementing her income whenever possible. Having loaded up with a full berth at a Core world with a route planned far out to the Outer Rim, she'd posted up on the station bulletin that she was willing to take on passengers heading in her direction. A modest fee for a comfortable room & board, along with a slice of the cargo bay for personal effects. Maybe a swoop bike and some personal effects, more if they wanted to make use of the auxiliary storage. Minimum questions asked. The main rules were explained before takeoff - no slaves, no zombies. A reduced rate arranged for anyone who wanted to work as crew and defer the cost a bit. In was nothing of not a compassionate person.

Only one customer had taken her up on the offer, and that was fine. They had a schedule to keep.

As The Dancer in Green left the planet, In glanced back over her shoulder into the comfortable galley - filled with hydroponics trays and the scent of good food, the main place to be on the ship that wasn't a private room. "Alright - hyperspace in 5 minutes. Where you looking to go, boss?" The lanky Pantoran woman asked cheerfully.

 

[Xoff Chantin]

Xoff Chantin

Outfit: Something Nice

He’d been silent for most of the pre-launch, tucked deep into the far corner of the galley like something freshly unboxed and not ready to be placed where he was supposed to go.

Xoff sat on the cushioned bench with one boot propped under him, arms resting on the table. He hadn’t unzipped the bodysuit beyond the collar, hadn’t slept, and hadn’t said more than what was necessary to get aboard. Now, with the ship purring beneath him and the Pantoran’s cheerful tone grating against the side of his skull, he finally spoke.

His voice was low, yet still carried his refined lilt. Something that had been broken apart and put back together with trembling hands.

“Nal Hutta,” he said. “Black Sun space. Chantin estate.”

A pause. Then, as if remembering something vital–
–he let the thoughtt go after a moments hesitation.

His eyes remained fixed on a blue blossom clinging to its stalk in the nearest tray. It was very beautiful.
He wanted to tear the petals off, one by one.
Instead, he leaned back and folded his hands. “I’ll pay double if you don’t ask about the wedding ring.”

There wasn’t one on his finger.
But the tan line was still visible.

In Rhan​

 

[In Rhan]

The nameless man currently sulking in In's galley was, if she was being perfectly forthright, one of the most gorgeous individuals she'd ever seen. The way he was put together, the way his outfit had been selected, the accessories and accoutrements and trappings - flawless, both by her (limited) understanding of fashion and her (somewhat more developed) opinions about what made a man look nice. Granted, she entirely knew that this was likely informed partly by fact that he was a Zeltron. But not all of it.

More importantly than that, he seemed to be having a profoundly horrible day. And she understood that, even knew a little bit about that. She'd felt like that a couple of times, including when she and her then-wife had gotten into the last of a year and a half worth of fights that'd ended with shots fired and bitter recriminations that still informed how In interacted with people. The sort of truths that cut deep because they were delivered by someone who knew what you actually were underneath it all.

She wondered if the nameless, gorgeous man was having a day like that. She wasn't about to ask about it, OR the tan line. She'd had her own once.

"Sure thing, boss." In promised as she moved into the galley, bustling about in the attatched kitchenette. Most of the stock appliances had been replaced at one point or another. Shelves were filled with secured jars containing a small treasure trove of ingredients and experiments - dried herbs, seasonings, jars of pickling or fermenting vegetables each carefully labeled and secured with straps. A fresh dozen brewer's bottles stuffed with pine needles and bubbling liquid.

The Pantoran smuggler tried very, very hard to keep the pity out of her voice while leaving the compassion in. "Doesn't count as asking to say you look like you've had a real one. How about a drink?" She asked carefully, pouring two glasses of fizzy spruce beer from one of the brewer's bottles.

 

[Xoff Chantin]

He accepted the glass with both hands—graceful, deliberate, like he was worried it might break if he touched it wrong. The drink smelled like something green and painful. He took a small sip.

"...Tastes like a forest."

It was dry, not cruel. Xoff kept his eyes on the rim of the glass, then the blue flower again, then the rings of condensation forming beneath his palm. “Thanks,” he said quietly, absently.

Then, without lifting his head:
“I’m not usually like this.”

He let that sit for a beat too long. It sounded like shame. Or maybe just nostalgia. Then he added, voice lighter—

“Usually I’m worse.”

A faint smile. It didn’t reach his eyes. But it was something.
A hook in the ice.

 

[In Rhan]

"...Tastes like a forest."

"The primary ingredient is forest." In confirmed glibly, sipping her own glass. Much like a gin & tonic - or really any gin-heavy cocktail - spruce beer was best enjoyed while sipping. The taste of conifers and juniper were alike in the very greenness of them, and the way they tended to attack the palette.

The lanky pilot was content to let the moment open up quietly, give her passenger the time and quiet he needed to work his feelings into a couple of words. She was nothing if not patient. Years of flying on her own, months of flying with a quiet and introspective Miraluka alongside of her - In was well used to letting the silence breathe until it wanted to be broken. She left a surprisingly elegant cigarette case sitting in the middle of the table, bearing the branding of a club she'd danced at once upon a time. An unspoken invitation. Tobacco on one side, marcan on the other, both grown and wrapped on the ship.

"Honestly?" In murmured thoughtfully. "I've always felt that most people have a pretty poor idea of what constitutes their 'worst'" She mused. "Sure, the rare few who hit the bottom of whatever they are without breaking might be able to take an honest appraisal of what's going on in their heart of hearts. Maybe that's you."

Pretty Zeltron with something to lose weren't usually looking to go towards Nal Hutta.

She furrowed her brow and offered a mild smile. A very cautious smile, like placing a supportive hand on a should that might've been broken recently. "Sorry for soundin' like a fortune cookie, there." In muttered. "A bartender said that to me once, and it's stuck in my head ever since."

 

[Xoff Chantin]

He traced the condensation ring on the table with one gloved fingertip. Just a slow, circular motion—absentminded. Too precise to be accidental.

“Fortune cookie or not,” he murmured, “you’re not wrong.”

His eyes stayed low, lashes dark against skin gone still. Then, with the faintest tilt of his head—

“There was a time I thought my worst was crying in the rain outside a nightclub on Denon. Or slapping a senator at a funeral.” He paused for a moment, considering. “But turns out it’s not that. It’s holostreaming a Hutt Cartel beheading in carnival attire.”

He took another draught of the spruce beer like it was water. Then he glanced up, and for a moment he looked heartbreakingly young. Too young to be exhausted this much, in a way that didn’t come from sleep deprivation. Then the mask slid gently back into place. Not a hard wall. Just a velvet curtain.

“So,” he said, tone resettling like silk over a scar, “maybe your bartender person was right. I didn’t break back then.”

His fingers stopped tracing. One tap. Just one.

“But maybe I should have. Maybe I have worse left in me.”

In Rhan​

 

[In Rhan]

Krong.

In considered for a moment that she was sitting across from somebody who had performed a live execution for entertainment. Her usual curses didn't feel the right level of expletive for that sort of situation. Maybe one of Niysha's soft 'Bogan' might've done the trick, something that invoked a deity. Made them look at this sort of thing and take account for it. It wasn't the worst thing In had heard of - or seen - for that matter, but it WAS farkled. And the man across from her knew it plain and well. He carried it like a chain across his shoulders, among the everything else weighing him down.

In sighed quietly and reached forward, taking and lighting a cigarette with a well-practiced motion. A conversation like this needed more than one substance. She then topped both of their glasses off before taking a small puff.

"Man. I was going to talk about my ex-wife shooting me in the stomach, but." In croaked. "Feels almost disrespectful by comparison. The scales are all out of order. But I got one for you."

A thoughtful pause. In prodded at one of the pine needles that had made its way into her glass, pressing it into an ice cube. "My girlfriend's a Sith." She confessed readily. "Thought that meant she'd probably killed hundreds or thousands of people, when she told me. Then I found out she's one of the sweeter, most thoughtful people I know. So I figured that was her, my idea was wrong." In explained. "Turns out? Both are probably true. So I figured, hey - maybe she's put that life behind her. A bad past doesn't have to be a bad future, anyone can make a change. Ten years ago I was a stripper, who am I to try and figure out the trajectory her life might take?"

In sat back in her chair, taking a deep drag. The sort where you kept going until it burned, and the smoke kept curling on your tongue long after you'd exhaled. "Only she goes back there, now. Pretty regular. She's got a whole other woman, who IS that first idea of a Sith. How the frong am I supposed to reconcile the her that goes out of her way to avoid taking life and has helped me save dozens of souls with the her that's gleefully hanging off of the leg of a mass murderer?" In asked bleakly, frustrated. "I gotta ask myself - am I making excuses for her? Am I the one with the fucked up head? Am I complicit in murder by helpin' her go off to support this woman because it's what she wants, when she already clawed her way out of the Sith's claws once before? Am I comprimising my ethics by loving her, or am I shortchanging my love for her by bringing my ethics to the front?"

 

[Xoff Chantin]

Xoff let out a dry, mirthless, almost sardonic laugh.
He brought the glass to his lips again, eyes half-lidded, expression carved into something unreadable.

“Yes,” he said flatly. “The least you could do is be honest with yourself about that. You are complicit, as is anyone who’s ever loved a monster. Or maybe someone who just fancies themselves a monster's plaything 'on the side'. Sounds like you have both, dearie.”

He took a slow drag from one of her offered cigarettes, letting it burn down with precision.

“You don’t have a fucked up head, Ms. Driver, you just haven’t lied to yourself quite thoroughly enough yet.”

He leaned back.

"I should know. My husband is a Hutt."

A sigh, just short of bitterness.

"The Hutt."

 

[In Rhan]

In ran through the Hutts she'd known who off of the top of her head would've had a Zeltron prettyboy as a husband. The list was shorter than she'd probably thought at the start. She didn't know many Hutts. Even so, it would have been bad form to run down a list to try and determine which one he was talking about, so In didn't.

It wasn't like she didn't have anything else to think about. The degree to which In was complicit in Niysha's hypothetical crimes or her girlfriend's completely plausible plans was... something that'd weighed on her a fair bit. She wasn't about to take responsibility for the latter. Not really. In was a long-haul trucker with a side-hustle in smuggling, Serina likely had several platoons of war-trained battle-catamites cultists at her deranged beck and call. Niysha probably could if she wanted. She didn't, but she could. She might even be pretty good at it.

Chilling.

In considered the cherry on her cigarette as she nursed her spruce beer. Her brow furrowed for a moment. She lifted the glass in an unambitious toast.

"Fark that's bleak." In chuckled bitterly.

 

[Xoff Chantin]

Xoff took another slow sip, watching In over the rim of his glass like someone savoring the final notes of a symphony, minor key, low strings, bleeding violas.

Her emotional signature was messy. Strained. And real.
Good.
He hated feeling like the only haunted thing in the room.

“Well,” he said softly, lips quirking just shy of a smile, “at least we’re both a little farked in the head. I’m not headed to Nal Hutta for fun.” He tilted his head faintly, a sigh already forming in his chest. “I’m going back to the estate. To collect my things.”

One eyebrow lifted, a gesture halfway between irony and defeat.

“You want bleak? Try to divorce a Hutt.”

He said it like someone admitting they were about to fight a rancor with a spoon.

“I don’t know if it’s legally possible. I’m fairly certain there’ll be a price on my head just for filing. Hells, he keeps an enslaved Gen'Dai locked in the basement to pummel to pulp twice a week as 'exercise'.”

He took the cigarette down to the filter. Flicked it into the tray with studied elegance.

“But I left behind my wardrobe, my gun safe, and, gods help me, a pet blurrg with separation anxiety.”

He folded his hands.

“So. Here I am.”

In Rhan​

 

[In Rhan]

How far could one woman's hero syndrome carry her? Today was a day for straining the limits of her self preservation instinct - In had always jumped in way too deeply, way too quickly with people over emotional bonds that were far too green for her level of commitment. But this? Man. She may have possibly found her bridge too far, and the rotten sink in her gut over that thought just made it worse. If SHE wouldn't extend a hand, who possibly would? Was it worth getting her ship obliterated and a bounty lodged on her to help somebody who'd performed entertainment executions retrieve some fishnets and a pet?

Absolutely farkled.

"Poor blurrg." In commented quietly, stubbing out her cigarette. She folded her arms on the table and gave the nameless man a sympathetic look. "You got a plan for this heist? Or... I dunno." She waved vaguely towards a horizon that didn't exist, right about the time the hyperdrive calculations concluded and The Dancer's skipdrive slipped them smoothly into hyperspace. "Somewhere you wanna see before you get there? Just in case?" In invited quietly.

 

[Xoff Chantin]

Xoff waved a hand slowly, like brushing away smoke.

“Relax. It’s not a heist.”

He said it the way someone might say this isn't my first body disposal. Calm. Reassuring. Bitter.

“The guards think I’m just coming home to pack. The Deathmark Collectors don’t suspect a thing. I’m still in the system as ‘beloved spouse’ with clearance codes and bedroom access.”

He took another long sip. This one lingered.

“Whottoomuzz is off-world, currently fighting in some gods-forsaken Sith death tournament. Bloodsports, rituals, blades.”

The corner of his mouth twitched. Not quite a smile. Not quite a grimace. Something far more tired.

“The Black Sun just put a bounty on him. Dead only. Two hundred forty thousand credits.”

He tapped a gloved finger once against the rim of his glass.

“No tracking. No questions. No trials.”

A pause. Longer this time. He didn’t look at her when he spoke next.

“I seriously doubt I’ll run into any resistance.”

He reached for another cigarette. Hands still elegant. Slight shake in the fingers.

“I’d be more worried if he survives.”

Another beat.

“…Because if he does, I’m going to have to look him in the eye. And pretend like I didn’t feel it. That… thing he became in the arena.”

Xoff lit the cigarette. His voice dropped.

“Zeltron empathy is a schutta sometimes.”

The cigarette fumbled out of his fingers. He reached down to retrieve it, shakier than before.

He finally looked up. The usual elegance was still there. Every word calculated, every movement smooth, but his eyes were distant. Like someone still watching that moment play out. The bloodlust and the violence.

“It was like watching him... with that sith thing... right in front of me. In front of a stadium–”

He cut himself off. That was all he said. He didn’t elaborate. Just smoked, quiet now.

 

[In Rhan]

Zeltron empathy as a curse more than a blessing. You hated to see it. In glanced down at the table, considered the stretch of her fingers against the smooth plastic top. Came up short. This was an issue that went deeper than her ability to solve, she could only help stem the bleeding. Maybe. The nameless man was clearly in a horrible place, and for what sounded like good reason. It was sorely tempting to focus on the nuts and bolts, the mundane realities of things, because that was how In's mind worked - did he have people who could help him pack? Did he have a place to go after collecting his things? Where would he live, how would he eat, did he need a ride? How would he protect himself from reprisal?

Absurd questions. No Hutt she could imagine would have a short-sighted fool for a spouse, even if there was no chance the power dynamic wasn't equal A concubine, maybe.

Which meant that her ability to help with this situation was somewhat limited to two factors - delivering on the transport as negotiated (which she'd absolutely do) and helping stem the emotional bleeding. In was much worse at that second portion, despite her best intentions. Worse, her reflex was to cajole, cheer, and redirect - she got the distinct impression that he wanted to wallow for awhile. Or perhaps that he needed to. Some miseries needed time to breathe, and you had to take your time getting used to to weight of them. Even the best-intentioned attempt to relieve that burden would come off as disingenuous. Almost inappropriate.

In distributed the last of the spruce beer into their glasses, setting aside the empty brewer's bottle with the depleted pine needles clinging to the inside. "Can he walk it back? So to speak." The Pantoran woman asked quietly, lacking any judgement that she might need to keep out of her voice. "Win you over someday, make it right - whatever?"

 

[Xoff Chantin]

Xoff sighed. The kind of sigh that started in the spine and radiated outward in a slow, disappointed wave.

He swirled the last of the spruce beer in his glass. Let it settle.

“Probably,” he said at last. Not proud. Not pleased.

“I’d like to think I won’t. That I’ll hold the line this time, keep some shred of dignity.”

A hollow smile, just at the corner of his mouth.

“But odds are, if he survives the tournament, I’ll show up on his doorstep. All sulk and sequins. Or... ”

He took a final sip. Set the glass down gently.

“Or wait just long enough for a bounty hunter to drag me there in chains.”

He leaned his head back against the wall, staring at the ceiling.

“That’s how this story usually ends.”

His anger dulled to bitterness, voice just sounded tired. Tired of himself most of all.

In Rhan​

 

[In Rhan]

"Obviously, our situations aren't the same." In confessed quietly. "The most my ex was in charge of was a modest department of small-time researchers. But..."

In shrugged a shoulder, leaning on the table. "Once I thought I couldn't survive without her. Convinced myself that I was going to be her pretty little piece while she quietly made her way up in the corporate world. And never felt more free than the day I woke up and realized I hadn't thought about her in weeks."

The Pantoran woman offered a sheepish smile. "The Galaxy is a big place. Bounty Hunters can't be everywhere. There's some exciting things happening out at Companion Grek these days - handsome guy like you could probably get his claws in on the ground floor. Be the kind of big that's untouchable by a bounty hunter."

"It's a long shot, but if the alternative to failing on your own terms is going back to him anyway - why not bet on yourself?" She asked quietly. "If this is a temporary misery and you can forgive and go back, I guess it's a bit presumptive of me to suggest. But I've been able to make good credit out there, and I've probably got chits and bits of expertise compared to a high roller like you.

In tipped her mostly empty glass towards Xoff Chantin . "One schutta to another."