A Crash Course In Owing Debts

[Rabbit]

---

The Smuggler's Moon was, quiet possibly, Kilia Tharen's least favorite place in the galaxy. Well...least favorite in the places she'd visited thus far in her short 20 years.

Nar Shaddaa was loud and crowded. Virtually every alleyway reeked of stale spice and alcohol-laced vomit. She'd had to fight her conscious every time she'd walked by open-air actions that were very obviously selling slaves. The further down in levels she went, the more she was convinced that everything was built on and of trash.

And now she was in the worst of worst places - the Red Light Sector. The young Corellian woman had to fight from wrinkling her nose in outward distaste. There was entirely too much naked flesh on display and she'd only walked into the sector five minutes before. Not that Kilia was squeamish about naked flesh, or even a prude...quite the opposite. She just...thought that sort of thing didn't belong in such...public...spaces.

"Hey, beautiful! Thirty minutes and I'll give ya' the best time of your life!" a barely-dressed Mirialan whistled at her from a nearby alcove.

Never had Kilia wished more for the safe darkness of her robe's hood. She was dressed in simple, unassuming, "civilian" clothes - no robes, or obis, or anything to outwardly indicate that she was a Jedi. But, if she'd had her robe, she'd have been able to entire this den of...debauchery...with her hood pulled up. Then, at least, every being around her wouldn't have seen the very obvious blush that blossomed in her cheeks...

And spread across her whole face.

She'd also have been able to hide the way her eyes wandered, against her better will, over the Mirialan's bare chest and arms. The young Jedi would have rather died than ever admit that she secretly found Mirialan tattoos to be quite...eye-catching.

The man, who didn't look much older than her, definitely caught the way her face flared up and the way her eyes flickered over to him without meeting his eyes. Kilia caught the Mirialan (who was almost certainly a slave - her heart broke at the thought) smile, just as she tore her eyes back to front-and-center.

She was here on Jedi business, dammit. She was here to find the filthy, lying, slimy pirate who had somehow obtained a Sith artifact of extremely disturbing power, and who intended to auction it to the highest bidder. There wasn't a Jedi privy to her mission, who didn't know that the "highest bidder" was going to be a Sith themselves. Under no circumstances, was that artifact to fall into the enemy's hands...

And here she was, blushing like an idiot over a half-naked slave's proposition.

Get a grip, Tharen! she scolded herself as she lengthened her stride in the hope of passing the young slave as quickly as she could. You're not -

"Rather presumptuious, don't you think?" a sultry purr broke into Kilia's thoughts and her steps faltered again as she turned her head to blink owlishly at a (admittedly beautiful) Rutian Twi'lek woman who had all but materialized at the Mirialan's side.

The other woman laughed softly and tossed a lekku over her shoulder.

"What's to say she doesn't like women?"

"No, thank you," Kilia muttered almost under her breath as she broke out into a hurried half-trot.

Anything to put as much distance as she could between her and the laughter behind her. It wasn't so much that they were both laughing at her perceived innocence...but that the laughter had desperation beneath it. It hurt Kilia's heart to hear.

She couldn't save them all. She couldn't even save one.

She was here for the artifact. That was it. Get it. Get out. Go home.

No side-quests. No distractions. And most especially, NO heroics...

[Dutch]

… And then the glass wall of another brothel before the Jedi suddenly exploded into a shower of shimmering shards, each capturing a different color of red light district neon. Two massive humanoids came crashing through, one a colossal herglic which bodily tossed a feeorin it held overhead, a powerful “HAUUM!” escaping his blowhole with the effort. From behind the titanic cetacean ran a gaggle of screaming prostitutes in various species, while curses in basic, huttese and other dialects accented the sound of blasters firing and furniture breaking from behind the bloodied and scowling herglic. The feeorin it threw tumbled and struggled to right himself, long muscled limbs grasping for purchase. He would nearly crush a petite some-human, both large hands swept forward to stop himself against the wall behind her, the variety of golden, bejeweled rings adorning each of his fingers ringing next to each side of her head. Stopped with just enough room to not smash her, a splash of rich blue blood spattered across her and the wall.

The azure color would stand out as it ran down the bright purple leather of the feeorin’s pants, clearly custom made and very expensive. They matched the only other garment he wore, a vest cut from the same leather of his pants, fitted to hug the width of his rib cage and spattered with other shades of blood. A single blaster wound was easily visible, the singed flesh still smoking from just under his left pectoral. Blood dripped heaviest from the shiv stuck out at the man’s left oblique, his lower back and abdomen exposed from the vest’s shorter cut and the feeorin’s audacious vanity. His upper body rose and fell steadily with breath, and caused the sensory tendrils crowning him to shift and tumble, the bejeweled rings adorning them chiming. The brawny figure was marked with many more cuts, bruises and other wounds, yet despite this the feeorin smiled extrinsically down at the human in a charmed way.

“Shit. That was close. You-” He began, but paused at the sound of heavy, glass grinding footfalls. The turquoise skinned man shifted to stand upright before her, and regarded with pale yellow eyes where his blood had splashed across the poor girl, the sound of massive boots stomping closer. “-This won’t take long, don’t move princess.”

The feeorin turned to face a very large, very angry looking herglic which cracked the three knuckles of his right hand in an audible ’POP! POP! POP!' on approach. Glass beneath the cetacean’s wide boots crunched as he marched, but the blue-skinned man only cracked his neck with a turn of his head and waited. The reason would be evident by the feeorin’s completely bare feet, not the best for walking into a street littered with sharpness. Though the two were near equals in height, the herglic’s sheer mass loomed around the feeorin as it arrived and swung a tree like arm at them. 

Both of the feeorin’s muscled arms snapped up to expertly block the attack at a giant wrist, his torso rolling with the blow to shift and toss a cheeky right jab. Jeweled fingers slammed into the herglic’s eye, and the beast brayed in surprise agony. It flinched, and a vindictive left cross rolled from the feeorin’s wide shoulders with the opening. He exhaled sharply with it, and the punch smacked audibly right into the center of the whale-like face.

”HAUUM!” The herglic blared loudly, stunned, and couldn’t stop the following right hook. Nor the left uppercut. Nor the finishing right cross, powered from that same side’s foot where it had visibly pushed off the street for added power. The swift and masterful combo lasted less than a moment, and the herglic stumbled backwards. Both arms raised once more in a defensive stance, the feeorin watched as his opponent blinked before dazed eyes rolled back. It fell with a crash and shimmer of littered glass, the knocked out behemoth now snoring loudly. The feeorin laughed, deep and full as he shook a swollen left fist at the downed herglic, and more blood splashed down his back from where the shiv stuck out from under his vest. He turned back to face the female as his arms lowered and his stance relaxed; bruised, bloodied, bejeweled hands now settled upon a thick, solid gold reek skull belt buckle. The alien grinned again, and winked at the petite human. 

“You OK?"

[Rabbit]

Flustered as she was by the propositioning of not just one, but two prostitutes, and distracted by her thoughts, Kilia was wholly unprepared for the chaos that exploded out of a building at precisely the moment that she was passing it. The one consolation she had, was that she'd been passing the establishment on the side of the street opposite it, so she wasn't directly in the way of the two enormous beings that rumbled out through the door.

Unfortunately, she wasn't far enough from them, to avoid getting caught up in the kerfuffle regardless. An enormous Feeorin hurtled across the way and practically pinned her against the wall she'd been walking by. Kilia couldn't help a startled little squeak - this was a bit much. She instinctively raised her hands, as if to stop him, but she was so flabbergasted by the random outburst of activity, that she didn't channel the Force as she had been taught long ago to do. So, it was the Feeorin who stopped his forward motion, by slamming his hands up against the wall behind her. For her part, Kilia's raised palms connected immediately with his warm turquoise skin...and muscles beneath that skin that were as solid to the touch as the building against her back.

To her eternal embarrassment, she could feel her cheeks heat and she knew that every damn freckle would now stand out in stark contrast to the blush that now colored her face. This was definitely the closest she'd ever been to a male who didn't have three layers of robes between him and her. Kilia's green eyes were wide and she was too stunned to even lift her chin and look the Feeorin in the face. Instead, her gaze remained riveted on her hands and the muscular chest beneath them...

Something warm was seeping through her robes and the realization of it jolted the young Padawan into her senses. She heard the Feeorin say something, but she didn't catch it, as her attention was now directed toward the bright blue blood that was seeping out beneath her left hand. From there, her gaze traveled over him quickly, as she categorized the blaster bolt wound, several bleeding gashes on his torso and arms...gashes that were bleeding all over her, too.

The Feeorin moved as she tried to finish her inspection of his injuries. Had she been a little older, a little wiser, Kilia would have taken that opportunity to slip away, while the Feeorin was finishing up with his Herglic opponent. But, in moments like this, her inherent gentleness got the better of her - she stayed put, eyes slightly narrowed as she continued to mentally notate the Feeorin's injuries. She felt a sandy-red eyebrow lift in surprise as she spotted the shiv stuck firmly into his side - he had a blaster burn and a penetrating knife wound and he was still fighting as if he barely registered the pain.

The Herglic went down with a guttural wail and triumphant, the Feeorin turned back toward her. Kilia had to tilt her head back in order to look him in the eye, especially as he walked closer to her. The Feeorin practically loomed over him...but for some inexplicable reason, he seemed to be in a rather cheerful mood. In fact, he was asking her how she was!

The young padawan sputtered for a moment as she shook her head in disbelief.

"I'm just fine," Kilia finally managed to get the words out; her gaze latched onto the shiv in his left oblique. "I think the better question is, how are you?"

She paused for a moment as she lifted her gaze cautiously up toward his again. She'd never met a Feeorin before, but she instinctively knew that this one was a credit to his species. After a brief second or two of silence, she did the most Jedi thing she could think of, in the moment.

"I can help you with those," Kilia waved a hand stained with his blood toward him to indicate his injuries in general. "Although," she leaned a bit to the side to glance around him at the pandemonium that was still sounding out of what was clearly a brothel; she fought the urge to wrinkle her nose.

Well...now she knew what he had been up to before this had all broken out. She eyed the unfortunate Herglic and stifled a sigh. How much she wouldn't bet that the two had gotten into a fight over a prostitute...or... Kilia glanced back at the Feeorin and sized him up for a moment. Or, quite possibly a few prostitutes.

"We might want to step away from all this to do that. To clean you up, that is. If you want."

Aaaaand...so much for "no heroics"...

[Dutch]

“A Stitch Girl?” The feeorin replied after watching the petite humanoid take everything in, his deep and smooth voice spoken through catlike lips still curled with amusement. “Not my usual kink, but you have that ‘innocent Jedi’ look about you, and great timing.” The larger being shifted to take the hand she had held out, so small and light in his as he regarded the blue blood splashed over it. He wiped some of it away with a single deft finger of his other hand, the assorted gemstones of his rings glinting in the neon filled night.

“If you’re offering, my place is in the next district. Got everything we’d need.” He purred as his finger finished wiping away the blood from her hand. A tilt of his tendril-crowned head in the direction they’d need to go causing their bejeweled ornaments to chime lightly with the motion, while also catching Nar Shadaa’s unnatural light.

“OH! OH! MY POOR BALEEN!” A sudden voice intruded, loud, harsh and heavily slurred. Out from the disheveled brothel shuffled an older weequay, all wiry limbs and leathers adorned with various swoop championship medals. His eyes were so squinted he couldn’t possibly see from them, and yet he scooted confidently forward with both hands running over his three thick braids. The broken glass littering the street crunched under the boots he wore- over sized, well past calf height (for him) and made of the same rich purple leather of the feeorin’s clothing. They were so large on him, that one could see the weequay’s own knee-high boots worn beneath the others.

“BALEEN!? EH? BALEEN!? Did ol’ Gusha do this to ya? EH?” The weequay shouted at the unconscious herglic, his knobby hands raised in question. They gripped the cetecean’s tunic, and the gangster began to awkwardly climb onto the larger man’s chest, now standing on it in the feeorin’s wide boots. He crouched down smoothly and slapped the downed being a few times, but it only continued to snore through his blowhole. A literal mob of gangsters- all wearing various shades of the same off-yellow leathers as the weequay, followed from the broken brothel facade, many already pointing blasters at the feeorin and the girl, others flourishing their variety of weapons, from vibro to makeshift.

The gang leered and jeered at the polar pair, but none acted. Many glanced to their apparent leader for some command, but he only continued to shout at Baleen and occasionally slap him. A loud BANG! sounded from what the feeorin guessed was a grenade within, and a rodian in red leathers tried to flee from the brothel past the yellows, but his rival gang’s garb betrayed him. A vibrosword from the mob cut his head clean off, and the weequay sighed loudly before shifting to sit cross legged atop the herglic. He turned his squinted, smiling face from the feeorin to the small human, and gestured both calloused hands towards them.

“What what!? First ya spurn my whores, then ya wreck my brothel and my boy Baleen, now here I find ya cozying up to some stranger’s whore, and you still owe me!?” He shouted, the weequay likely as aware of his volume as his sobriety. From within a horrible series of violent crashes sounded, the fighting only getting rowdier, an all out brawl in the brothel by the sound and the smoke beginning to waft from within, evidently beginning to catch fire.

The feeorin had shifted through all this to put himself between the little human and the gang better, while also subtly positioning himself closer to the line of swoop bikes parked on the street he noticed in his peripherals. His hands had returned to the gaudy golden belt buckle, it and his other treasures shining in the blooming firelight. He still smiled throughout, and the weequay smiled back with perfect white teeth, his gang’s impatience beginning to show as they shifted and shouted for action.

“You’re a great fighter, Gusha, but a shitty pazaak player.” The gangster said with a wag of his crooked finger, squinted lids trying to see the female behind the feeorin better. “Gimme yer golds, and yer girl, and we’ll call it even. I’ll even let you live.” He crooned, that finger now twisted to turn and beckon for the human to come his way. The feeorin let one of his muscled arms roll from his belt to block the girl from doing so, looking down at her for a slow second before returning his gaze back to the weequay.

“No.” He said simply with a raised brow and calm expression.

“What!? No!? What!? You would throw away fifty years of friendship!? Over some glit and a tight fit!?” The weequay balked and shouted in utter disbelief. He huffed and shifted to stand upon the herglic’s chest, hands rested upon slim hips as he shook his head- as if making some dire, heavy decision.

“I thought chumming you up would help my Black Vulkars, but after so long with so little return…” He sighed as a comlink was pulled from one of his jacket’s many pockets, and brought to his fringed lips. “... I can at least be known as the man what killed you.”

“This is Honcho Saiq! Put a bounty out! Kill Gusha Blue! Bring me his pretty bitch!” Saiq hollered as he squeezed the comlink. That’s when Gusha Blue suddenly lunged to grip the nearest swoop bike, then with a grunt, a fresh spurt of blood from his stabbed oblique and a shout he bodily chucked the vehicle at the mob of gangsters, and the street ignited with blasterfire.

[Rabbit]

The entire exchange between the Weequay and the Feeorin left Kilia sputtering and redder than her own hair.

It all started, really, with the Feeorin - who, she gathered rather quickly, was named "Gusha" - and his initial acceptance of her offer of help. Her brain tripped so hard over the phrase "not my usual kink" that she almost missed the "'innocent Jedi' look about you'" part that immediately followed.

"Hold on a second-" she started to protest, but was distracted by the way the Feeorin's giant hand practically swallowed hers - and by the way he casually brushed his blood off of her hand. The young Jedi found herself at a loss for words, especially when he made the offer to take them to "his place" - which was absolutely not what Kilia had intended. She just wanted to get him to disengage from his current circumstances long enough for her to sit him down somewhere semi-public, so she could get that damn shiv out of his side and some of his cuts patched up. She was talking kolto-patches and a little subtle Jedi Healing...not...whatever in the Nine Corellian Hells he was suggesting.

And what he was suggesting sounded...well...rather...suggestive, to say the least. Kilia was fairly certain that if she blushed any harder, she'd pass out from all the blood suddenly rushing to one location.

"It's really not-" she tried to get the last half of that sentence out ("-like that!"), but a loud, overly-dramatic wail that she was fairly certain was just for show interrupted any fumbling protestations she was frantically trying to get out.

Again, had she been a little older and a little wiser, she would have taken that second opportunity to ghost from the premises. The Feeorin's bright blue blood kept her frozen in her tracks, however - despite all the innuendo that seemed to have spun from her completely innocent and well-intentioned offer, the young Padawan found herself hell-bent on seeing to it that the thick-headed alien didn't end up another casualty of Nar Shaddaa's gang wars.

Later, however, when she looked back on the situation, she'd see with clearer eyes that Gusha was quite capable of taking care of himself. He had hardly needed the medical intervention of an awkward and fledgling Jedi. But, hindsight was twenty-twenty...and in the present circumstances, Kilia was blinded by her desire to save a life at all costs.

Even at the cost of her personal dignity. She couldn't recall a single time in her whole life when she had been mistaken for a prostitute. She found herself sputtering incoherently from behind the Feeorin's ridiculously wide back, which he seemed intent on keeping between her and the Weequay's prying gaze. As if she needed protecting!

Kilia did manage to peek around Gusha's back, just for a second, before he shifted again and blocked her view of the Weequay and the gathering horde of yellow-clad gangsters. Okay...so maybe she did need a little bit of protection. There were definitely more of them than her or Gusha...and while a Jedi Master could take on the Weequay's minions on their own, she certainly couldn't. Not least of all, because the fighting arts had never really been her forte...

The young Corellian Jedi was definitely more at home in the Jedi Archives, or with her nose in a holo-book, or out in the middle of nowhere, scrounging around for ancient holocrons. She was a healer of some meager skills (nothing to really brag about, but her aptitude there was decent enough), and a researcher, and quite talented at dismantling dangerous Dark artifacts. Kilia was strong in the Force, for sure...but she simply wasn't a fighter.

Of course...how she was going to hold her own against a Sith was yet to be determined... This mission was definitely up there, in terms of what pushed Kilia to the limits of her weaker talents. Her hope was to find the artifact before the stealing pirate scum went anywhere near an auction house or an awaiting Sith.

The artifact! the thought jolted Kilia from her wide-eyed, blushing fixation on the impressive display of physical fortitude that towered over her. I've gotta' get to it before it gets to a buyer!

And here she was, wasting her time on the usual Nar Shaddaa ne'er-do'well. She was just about to tell herself that Gusha could take care of herself, when something the Weequay said pulled her back into the drama unfolding around her.

"...You would throw away fifty years of friendship!? Over some glit and a tight fit!"

"What!?" Kilia blurted out without even thinking. "Excuse me?!"

No one seemed to hear her, or care. She sputtered incoherently behind the Feeorin for several seconds, the tips of her ears practically on fire.

How...how...crass!

Then there was the parting insult - "Bring me his pretty bitch!"

"I'm not a kriffing prostitute!" Kilia's temper finally flared and she shouted as loudly as she could over the escalating violence; she stomped her foot in sheer frustration, both insulted and appalled at the Weequay's assumptions. "And I not 'his' - or anybody's! I just met -"

Her tirade (which was basically ignored by everyone anyway) was inturrupted as the blue-skinned wall of muscle in front of her abruptly lunged to the side and she had a clear view of a group of Black Vulkars opening fire.

"-You bloody idiot!" she shouted as she instinctively reached out toward the Feeorin.

She got drenched in blood, for all of her bother. When the alien moved, a fresh gush of blood soaked the front of Kilia's tunic. To her credit, the Padawan didn't skip a beat (though, inwardly, she was squealing something along the lines of "gross!"), and she grabbed a firm fistful of the back of Gusha's bright purple vest.

"Would you give it a break?!" she yelled over the cacophany of firing blasters.

Kilia dug her heels in and pulled back, without really thinking the action through. The Feeorin was about five times her size and weight...grabbing him by a piece of clothing that didn't even close in the front was hardly going to stop him dead in his tracks. Or, even slow him down. The Jedi yelped in surprise as the vest tore straight down the middle of Gusha's back and as he twisted toward their attackers, the half she was holding slid clean off of his arm. The end result was that she tumbled backwards and fell rather hard against the ground, holding a piece of torn purple cloth and having made absolutely no effect whatsoever on the Feeorin's progress.

The pavement collided painfully with Kilia's hip as she managed to roll at the last minute and avoid smacking her tailbone against the unforgiving duracrete beneath them all. She grunted a bit in pain, especially since she threw out her hands to help break her fall and scraped up her palms for all of her trouble. The tumble only managed to spike her temper even further.

Without skipping a beat of her own, Kilia pushed herself back to her feet and she waved the scrap of purple vest at the Feeorin for all the world like she was scolding a youngling back at the Temple.

"Would you -"

Blaster fire whizzed past her head and made some of the hairs in her ponytail sizzle.

Oops!

She bolted toward the only substantial cover available to her - Gusha himself. On an impulse, Kilia grabbed him around his middle (her arms didn't even meet around his waist) and pulled back. It was futile, and she knew it, but she figured that maybe an unexpected "attachment" might get his attention better than all of her hollering.

Though, she persisted on hollering, her voice only slightly muffled by the fact that her cheek was now pressed against the bloody middle of his heaving back.

"Would you disengage, you idiot, before you kriffin' bleed out every where! I can't bring your stupid ass back to life, you know!"

[Dutch]

The feeorin peered back at the little woman wrapped against his waist, a metal sign advertising Corellia Crisps in failing neon sparking in his bejeweled digits, from where it had been torn from the street wall seconds earlier. It absorbed the hail of blasterfire like a shield, his pale yellow eyes now peering back over the sign at the gangsters as they grew bolder. The deaths of a pair of thugs- now crumpled heaps under the thrown swoop- didn’t seem to deter the gang at all, those brandishing melee weapons now encroaching closer, their taunts and whoops melding with the thunder of blasterfire. Gusha could hear the girl still, her tiny voice berating him at his back, literally, distracting as her lips brushed against his recently bared back. He felt a mix of amused pity for the girl, as she seemed to freak out at the sudden display of violence. It dawned on Gusha Blue that she may have been more of a juvenile than he had estimated. Humans aged weird, and quickly. At least to his feeorin sensibilities.

“You’re right, no Jedi here to wiggle their fingers and save us.” Gusha rumbled in reply, almost casually as if it was just another conversation. Not that he needed anyone to save him, he thought vainly. The feeorin began to backpedal, careful to see with sensation where his bare feet stepped to avoid jagged debris and the human’s tiny feet. He held the Corellia Crisps sign high to better carry it, and barked a laugh as he bashed a brash balosar with it, the attempt to lunge around the burly man with a vibroknife ending with am audibly cracking cranium. The gangster crumpled with bent antennapalps and a dented forehead, with barely a wheeze given. His fellows attempting to melee the feeorin backed off a bit, but not without a few jeering or outright guffawing at the thwarted attempt.

“Hold on, and remember to breath.” The man said over his shoulder, his tone a smooth reassuring baritone. Soon after he was suddenly slinging the sign at Saiq and his Vulkars, more a distraction than anything else as the massive man shifted and leaped with surprising distance onto the nearest footway. His extremities were beginning to feel chill with what he guessed was shock, and Gusha Blue filled his lungs deeply with the Red Light District's salty air, the motion visibly moving the human clinging to his back. He exhaled hotly, and pushed to lope down the street as a single large hand swooped down to grip the human by her hip and upper thigh, and scooped her higher to basically mount him at the small of his back. Foolishly though, as he felt something of hers brush the shiv still stuck in his side, and grunted with the bloom of renewed pain and hot wash of blood. It roiled in protest with each stride of his long, powerful legs as he loped into the crowd of pedestrians filing down the street. Most were smart enough to move.

“Run, run, Gusha Blue! Run, run!” Echoed Honcho Saiq from somewhere around the corner of the alley behind them, starting a chant by the Black Vulkars as a colossal crash of what Gusha guessed was the brothel suddenly collapsing turned the chanting to screaming.