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Clarylla
That's 'antidisestablish- mentarianism' with five I's, deary.
92 posts
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Data Fiend, Instinctive Grammarian, Consummate Lexophile
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last online May 27, 2014 11:28:12 GMT -5
Youngling
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Aug 9, 2011 16:29:08 GMT -5
Post by Clarylla on Aug 9, 2011 16:29:08 GMT -5
"She was the prettiest thing I'd ever seen,
Sittin' right there in front of me.
Those perfect curves, she was long and leeeeeeean..." Sforza paused and twaddled out a modulation, holding the last note of the line just long enough to let the audience voice scattered anticipatory hoots and whistles. "...'cause you know nothin' runs like a Corellian YG!" The spacers' cantina exploded into appreciative laughter and applause at the mention of the ungainly freighter, and Sforza let her fingers bound into the pounding chorus. "Ohhhhhhhh the Mon Calamari got their silvery..."
It was a simple song, really, popular in nearly all of the spaceports in which Sforza had played. Most spacers weren't picky about their music, as long as it had raunchy lyrics, blatant puns, or a good solid beat. They came, they drank their lum and their whiskey, they tossed pocket change in her tip jar, they ogled the dancing girls, and they occasionally started fights. It could've been almost any cantina on any planet. Sure, there were slight differences in decor, maybe the bartender was a droid instead of an organic being, but it was pretty straightforward. Get up on the stage, play her set, mooch as much free booze as she could, repeat ad infinitum. Heck, eighty percent of the time, nobody requested anything outside of her standard two-dozen-song set.
Savages. she thought to herself, but made sure to keep her fine-boned face neutral as she hit the final chords, stood, and bowed. "Thangyaverramuch, y've been a wunnerful audience. M'name's Sforza Ndo, and I'll be playing 'ere all week." she slurred out, paused for a beat, then added a coda: "Except, of course, for the nex' fifteen minutes, in which I'll be perusing this fine eshtablishment's selection of intoxicating beverages."
That got a laugh, as always. She flipped up the little holograph - Will return in 15 minutes. - on the top of the nargalon and began to wade through the relatively crowded cantina to the bar. Sure, it was only...four in the afternoon? Or was it in the morning?...but hey, it's always five o'clock somewhere. And she needed a drink. Her hands were definitely not as responsive on the last song as they should have been, not to get out that last run of arpeggiato'd chords. Stupid barkeep. It had taken fifteen minutes to convince him that yes, she really did play better drunk than sober, and even then he'd only poured a measly glass of Jawa juice, cut with seltzer. A single glass! She'd seen higher concentrations of alcohol in appendage sanitizer.
Ducking and dodging - small frames were not built for pushing through burly spacers - Sforza made her way to the bar and clambered onto a tall stool with surprising ease. I need a drink, and no watered-down Jawa juice for me this time. Waving one shiny mechanical hand, she attempted to get the barkeep's attention...but the fact that she'd managed to sit between a lanky Gungan on one side and a huge Cathar on the other meant that the tiny Omwati woman was almost completely eclipsed. "Hey. Hey! Bartender!"
No result or response from the corpulant being, so Sforza tightened her diaphragm and projected, repeating her demand loudly enough that the Cathar on her left looked down and growled, "Pipe down, little voman. Some of us are trrryink to drrrink."
Sforza glared up...and up...and up...over her glasses, dark eyes indignant. "Some of ush are tryin' to get a drink, fuzzball." She returned to her efforts to catch the bartender's attention, ignoring the warning rumbles from the giant felinoid as her voice got progressively louder and shriller. "A Pica Thundercloud - hey, I'm talkin' to you, mishter! Do you ev'n know how t' mix one of those?"
Undoubtedly, this was not the wisest course of action. Then again, Sforza had never been the wisest when it came to beings getting between her and her alcohol...
ooc// The Cathar is just a random NPC, as is the bartender. The Gungan can either be Glem or just a random NPC. Have at it, folks! ^^
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Mara
nothing worth anything ever goes down easy
9,275 posts
55 likes
the one and only
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last online May 2, 2022 22:30:17 GMT -5
Master
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Aug 14, 2011 0:16:44 GMT -5
Post by Mara on Aug 14, 2011 0:16:44 GMT -5
(((I hope I understood right that the bartender is a droid… If not, I can edit.)))
[…from the Smuggler Contingency]
Pak wasn’t entirely sure how or why he had ended up back on Bothawui at the current moment, but that wasn’t his most pressing concern. Whether or not he had done it purposely or just pressed a location saved in his most recent trips in the navicomputer wasn’t important. After all that business on Jaemus—and boy, it had been a doozy!—he was ready to get himself sloshed silly. And this planet was as good as any other for that purpose. Those Bothans knew their drinks. That Rylothian rum he had stumbled on on his last trip had been beautifully delicious. But this time he knew better than to find an upscale establishment. The Balosar wanted something more his type. And preferably as close to his ship’s berth as possible.
After getting the Crimson Requiem all put to bed, and putting in an order for a few cans of red paint to fix her up after the do-gooding ruckus with the other smugglers, Pak wandered the spaceport, looking for the nearest place he could satisfy his itch. Happily for him and his vision of a future nasty hangover, he found something just a couple blocks down. And it was completely his kind of place: a scum of hive and villainy, if one might say so. Being near the spaceport, it was filled with all kinds of beings; no need to feel uncomfortable surrounded by Bothans in this cantina. When he stepped in the door, he closed his pale blue eyes and smiled, taking in all the smells he had come to love: alcohol, various types of old and new urine, grime, dirt, oil, ship fuel, and a host of other odors.
Finally going in, he headed straight for the bar, finding an empty stool on the other side of a Gungan. The appearance of which, if he hadn’t been so focused on getting his fix, would have caused him some pause and contemplation. But at the moment, he only had eyes for the racks of bottles on the wall before him. They were so pretty… Where would he start? Pak couldn’t recognize anything like that rum he had had, but that was no big deal. He had a couple spare back in his ship that he had bought. Plus, he was always up for something new.
Though not a tall being—shorter than the average human male—Pak’s one advantage were his antennapalps, helping him stand out a bit. But what really helped him gain the bartender’s attention was the pile of credits he clattered on the bar top. Hearing the potential payday coming his way, the droid appeared in front of the Balosar. Pak grinned. “Ah, my good man. A bottle of your finest whiskey, please. And don’t spare the expense. I’m good for it.” He indicated the credits, and the droid nodded. Though not entirely happy to be called ‘man,’ it was willing to deal with an annoying customer along as the organic was paying him.
A few minutes later Pak was sipping on his second glass of whiskey, the bottle in his other hand. It would have been blissful if it hadn’t been for that screechingly loud female voice yelling at the bartender interrupting his thoughts. The Balosar could deal with plenty of things, able to relax among the noisiest situations, like this full cantina, but that voice… he grimaced. Thinking to find a way to shut her up, he leaned forward, looking to his left, past the Gungan. The offender looking to be an Omwati, though he wasn’t sure, with that arm. About to yell back at her to shut the hell up, another thought came to him. Something that should be mutually satisfactory to them both. He plopped another couple of credits on the bar. “Hey, barkeep, get the lady what she wants. It’d do the rest of us a galaxy of good.”
As the bartender droid took the credits and went off to do so, a Kiffar male on Pak’s right grunted in satisfaction. Apparently Pak wasn’t the only one annoyed by the noisy Omwati. The Balosar grinned at his neighbor and turned back to his whiskey glass, not noticing the expression the woman would have made when the requested drink suddenly appeared in front of her. He was too busy working off his nerves from days before. A few more drinks and he would be properly relaxed. Then, it would be time for some hard liquor, and he could properly enjoy himself. Until then, there was the whiskey and the relative comforting overlapping conversations of the cantina. What could be better?
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Kella
Fire and Blood
4,089 posts
5 likes
Fire cannot kill a dragon.
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last online Oct 30, 2014 9:41:46 GMT -5
Master
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Aug 14, 2011 23:42:26 GMT -5
Post by Kella on Aug 14, 2011 23:42:26 GMT -5
Glem stared blankly at her glass. It had ice cubes in it.
"I always end up in the middle of these things," she lamented. "I mean, for once, it would be nice to end up somewhere normal. With a whole bunch of devastatingly-shy people. I would like to go to a bar for devastatingly-shy people. But no, I end up coming here, and of course I end up with awhiny schutta on the left and some lilly-liver on the right." She finally looked away from her glance, giving the Omwati a reassuring look. "Offense entirely intended," she assured.
Glem looked back at her glass. "Is it really too much to ask?"
A crooning noise replied, from the Gizka who perched on Glem's lap.
"Thank you for listening, Greek. You're my only friend."
The Gizka gurgled happily. Glem fed him an icecube.
"I want someone to buy me a drink. Maybe I should be loud and whiny and someone will reward my terrible behavior." She contemplated this a moment, then turned again to the Omwati with a comforting look. "Again, ma'am, offense entirely intended."
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Clarylla
That's 'antidisestablish- mentarianism' with five I's, deary.
92 posts
0 likes
Data Fiend, Instinctive Grammarian, Consummate Lexophile
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last online May 27, 2014 11:28:12 GMT -5
Youngling
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Aug 19, 2011 21:54:41 GMT -5
Post by Clarylla on Aug 19, 2011 21:54:41 GMT -5
A clatter of credit chips momentarily distracted Sforza from her attempts to catch the barkeep's attention. Leaning forward, teetering precariously on her tall stool, she spotted the gleaming pile in front of a...thingamajig. She couldn't remember the exact species name, but it was a he, and a humanoid of some sort. The loaded being said something to the barkeep droid, and it scuttled off, but Sforza was occupied in eyeing the credits. He'd better be a good tipper, 'cause if I have to walk out of here without some of that, I'll be ticked.
And then the barkeep droid plunked a beautiful bottle of whiskey in front of the Balosar - yes, that was the word she'd wanted - and Sforza was reminded of why she was in such an unstable position to begin with. She took a deep breath. "Hey!" she yelled over the ambient noise, "You crinking bucket of bolts, I was bloody well here first! Where's my Pica vapin' Thundercloud?"
The barkeep should be listening to her, spast it! If she didn't get her drink right now, Sforza swore that she'd march right out of the spacer's bar and leave Bothuwai for good. The Guild could rail all it wanted to about broken contracts. She'd signed no papers, and there was nothing but the door between her and leaving. (She expressed the sentiment in no uncertain terms, but got no results.) The droid ignored the indignant Omwati, who continued to swear up and down as the barkeep attended to not one, not two, but five more customers. This delay, of course, only served to infuriate Sforza into greater feats of profanity-laced ranting...and irritate the massive Cathar on her right.
"Ivan," as the huge felinoid's namepatch read, was actually reaching out one giant paw to make Sforza forcibly shut up when out of nowhere, a glass appeared in front of her nose. She abruptly broke off in mid-insult as her eyes refocused. What in the Core's name... The container was tall, nearly as tall as one of Sforza's forearms was long, and narrow, almost like an oversized champagne flute without a stem. The liquid it held was thick, almost a syrup, with thin swirls of bright blue laced through clear amber.
The part that held Sforza's attention, though, was not the body of the drink, but the dark, smoky head. It foamed and rolled, sparking with flashes of light as the chemicals interacted. "Oh..." she breathed softly, watching the tiny "thundercloud" roil and blink.
Sforza probably would have sat there until the charges ran out, watching the light show, but a world-weary, cynical voice to her left said something about a "whiny schutta."
"Offence entirely intended," the Gungan added in a somewhat pleasant tone, giving Sforza a look that was probably meant to be reassuring.
Had Sforza been at her normal levels of intoxication, she probably would have smiled happily at the female Gungan and started in on her Thundercloud. However, right now, she was nearly stone-cold sober.
Dark eyes narrowed angrily behind round glasses, but prudence - the amphibious creature had nearly a foot and probably fifty pounds on Sforza, after all - kept her "Schutta yourself, froggy." retort nearly inaudible. Sforza pointedly turned away and took an angry swallow of her Thundercloud, mentally raging, I'm no more a schutta than she's a - a -
As the super-concentrated alcohol hit her empty stomach, Sforza's train of thoughts jumped the tracks and crashed into a fireworks factory. Her head fell backwards, her eyes rolled back in said head, and the little Omwati toppled over sideways, nearly comatose from the Thundercloud. She bounced from side to side, ricocheting off the Cathar before crashing into the rude Gungan and ending up somewhere in the vicinity of the floor, giggling faintly to herself...
~~~~~~~~~~~
Ivan growled dangerously when his post-work drink was interrupted again, this time by someone thumping his elbow and sending lum down his front. He stood, angry, and slammed his mug onto the bar. This time, he swore to himself, the little blue freak would not get off so easily. This time, he would see exactly how far that little body would bounce.
The Cathar spun with the cat-like grace of his species, ready to grab the musician and heave her through a window, but he saw only a purple Gungan, petting a freakish-looking Gizka. "So," he snarled, pushing up the sleeves of his mechanic's coverall, "you tink to mess vith a Djorrrrvak, leetle frrrroggy? Ivan, he teach joo morre rrrrespeck betterrr." Reaching out with both enormous forepaws, he bared his teeth and grabbed at the Gungan's shoulders...
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Mara
nothing worth anything ever goes down easy
9,275 posts
55 likes
the one and only
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last online May 2, 2022 22:30:17 GMT -5
Master
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Aug 30, 2011 18:40:15 GMT -5
Post by Mara on Aug 30, 2011 18:40:15 GMT -5
(((Hmm… I thought the Cathar was on Sforza’s left, Glem on her right, not vice versa…
Cathar – Sforza – Glem – Pak – random Kiffar… Unless I got confused? Anyway, no biggie…)))
He licked his lips, savoring the last few drops of his glass of whiskey. It was an entirely needless gesture, since Pak had a full bottle of the stuff, but he was going to enjoy these first few drinks. No guzzling for him right now, mouth on the bottle’s neck. He would go slowly, treating it as he would have—sometimes, depending on the situation presented—treated a beautiful female. Of course, now this was as close as he would get to any kind of romantic relationship, unless he counted his ship. His only real love, Shenhua, was gone, her memory never to be replaced. No more organic love for him; Pak only had eyes for the Requiem, alcohol, and jobs with ample credits, not necessarily in that order.
Forcefully he tucked the thoughts of Shen away. They always came unbidden, and most of the time he just let his memories of her wash over him. He didn’t really care that sometimes they almost completely incapacitated him, the only thing keeping him from a deep, incurable depression being his supply of alcohol. But this was no time to be getting depressed. Not yet. He had more drinking to do that he wanted to enjoy, at least for a while longer. Pak grabbed the bottle and poured another glass, taking a quick gulp, and refilling it again. He smiled as the amber liquid warmed his insides, keeping his mind focused on the present, not the past.
Any conversations from the others sitting nearby at the bar went unnoticed to the Balosar. He was using a good share of his concentration to make his concentration disappear. Though the alcohol was an easy way to keep his mind free, retracting his antennapalps was an added bonus. With them detracted, he wouldn’t be distracted by any fluctuations in the emotional fields of anyone nearby. The whiskey helped dull his senses, but his ‘palps could still sense some of the louder auras through the alcoholic cloud. Now, he was just any other being enjoying a good drink and ignoring the goings-on around him. And it would be a relaxing few hours for him and his drinks, putting away the stresses of Jaemus and preparing for the next job and destination.
Until a rather ruckus commotion nearby jostled into his relative peace and quiet, something that was hard to ignore, even for him. With a groan and a roll of his eyes, he reached back inside his pocket for some more credits. If that annoying little Omwati was disturbing his whiskey alone time again… Pak sipped from his glass and prepared to turn around to deal with the nuisance once more. Maybe she just reacted to alcohol more flamboyantly, unlike Pak who just usually became quieter, sometimes insightful, but usually just happily intoxicated, until the depression set in again after a few additional drinks past when normal beings stopped imbibing.
But when the Balosar did turn around to his left, he didn’t see the female whose drink he had paid for. Instead, there was just the Gungan and—and a very angry-looking cat man looking to shove the Gungan into his lap. With all his focus mostly on his drinking and his antennapalps still hidden, he couldn’t be sure of the species or whether the furry male was actually filled with rage. Pak made an educated guess, though, after he squeezed his eyes shut and opened them, just to make sure he hadn’t misremembered taking a deathstick, the whole situation being a hallucination. The angry being was still there, still going after the Gungan. He made a split-second decision, the half bottle of whiskey not really affecting his motion yet.
Pak grabbed the bottle, left the glass on the bartop, and jumped off his stool, letting the other two beings to themselves to work out their differences without him being in the way. He was pretty sure it would hurt if the cat man decided to drop the Gungan on him, or vice versa. Though a former military man, the Balosar wasn’t really the confrontational type, preferring to just avoid any potential dangerous situations. And he wasn’t up to trying to diffuse it with words; if he had, he would probably just earn the cat man’s ire, instead of doing some good.
His getaway would have meant he could find another seat in the cantina, preferably away from the bar fight about to happen, if he hadn’t tripped over the Omwati sprawled on the floor and landed half on her. And then it was almost like slow motion, as the bottle of whiskey slipped from his grasp and soared away, smashing into the floor a couple meters away. Pak cried out in pain, not of himself or whether he had harmed the female, but because he had just lost some perfectly good whiskey, all paid for. He stared at the broken glass and puddle of alcohol for a moment before coming back to himself. The Balosar rolled off of the Omwati, not bothering to stand up. No longer heartbroken, he was angry at having lost his bottle of whiskey, all the prone woman’s fault. He swore, some oaths learned from a childhood on Balosar, some new ones picked up in the Republic military, all aimed at the Omwati or the situation in general.
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