The Price is Right (Tal)

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

Zelada'ven sat in a cantina in an outlying city on Iridonia, painfully aware of one new fact. He really hated the cold. Yeah, it wasn't as if Tatooine was his favorite spot in the galaxy, it wasn't. But just as much as he hated sand, he hated ice. It was damned cold, it was slick, and on Iridonia it was everywhere. Frozen, miserable planet that wasn't even a member of the Republic or the Sith.

Yeah, he was under the impression the Sith were playing ball with the Iridonian Zabraks under the table or behind the curtain, but he couldn't prove it. Not like he was interested anyway. He'd thought with turmoil and in such a rough and inhospitable world there'd surely be a call for skilled mercenaries. Instead he'd had only two jobs, one of which was guarding a shipment of spice someone was smuggling in, and the other was clearing out a nest of some local predator from a docking bay. It had paid just barely enough for his expenses, and not quite enough to get off the miserable planet.

Luckily he had his trusty grey coat, with a very warm lining. Regrettably it didn't have a hood, and his lekku were cold, which was hardly a pleasurable experience for a Twi'lek. Luckily the miserable cantina had a small heater which was slowly but steadily bringing the room temperature up to something bearable, and the brandy he was drinking helped with that too, warming him up a bit.

He looked around the room again, and remained unimpressed. It was like no one in the bar was alive, just shadows who wanted to remain unseen and silent. There wasn't so much as a song from hidden speakers playing. This was a place everyone came to get drunk in, not a place to relax. And that was vaguely disappointing to the burly Rutian Twi'lek.

With his foot he tapped his duffle bag, verifying it was still there. It had more than just a change of clothes, it held his Hutt disruptor, which was tucked conveniently out of sight but definitely not out of mind. His blaster pistol, an Anduran striker, was on a holster however within convenient reach.

Satisfied with the safety of his worldly possessions, Zelada poured himself another glass of brandy from the bottle and sipped at it. There were six feet, four inches, and nearly 250 pounds of him, which meant it would probably take that whole bottle to impact him. Luckily he could afford that whole bottle.

Zelada turned as the door opened, frowning as he did so at the gust of cold air that poured in. Damn. Just when I was getting warm..."

[Talau the Ever-Lurking]

”…and of course we had to come during their winter and land near one of their polar caps. Do you have any idea what this is doing to my systems?”

The auburn sighed at the little draconic droid curled around her shoulders and huddled as close to the woman as possible. Personally, Aunna was doing just fine in the winter weather. Brown gloves kept her hands warm enough, her boots did the job just fine for her feet, and her long dark green and yellow coat kept the rest of her warm enough with her hood up. Since the coat itself fell to about her knees there was little enough of her legs that was left exposed to the cold and even then her brown pants didn’t allow much of the weather bite through. Eressea, however, was having a worse time of it.

”Yes, actually, I do. I tried to get you to ride in the pack where you wouldn’t be so cold, but you’re the one that refused, remember?” That got the REA to quiet up with the complaints about the cold and her systems. Finally, however, she’d sigh and pause, looking around the practically empty street. ”Alright, how about we get inside somewhere, then. Get me a drink and you some time to warm up, sound good?”

The little grumble that came from the area of her shoulder was, likely, an affirmative of sorts.

Neither of them had intended on stopping here to begin with, actually. Their destination had been Kashyyyk, but conflict in the system between the zabrak and the wookiees had been steadily getting worse…which had caused problems in the space lanes. Still, Aunna attempted to assuage her little companion by assuring her that there must be some reason they were meant to be there, even if they didn’t know it yet. Eressea hardly believed that…”Yes, there’s a reason we’re here,” she’d said, “it’s because people are causing problems that keep us from getting where we’re going.”

A subtle grip of Eressea’s claws on her shoulder had the woman pausing in her walk again and glancing over to the little droid. The silver colored head tipped in the direction of a small building. ”It’s a pub, by the sign on it…and I’m seeing several heat signatures but…”

”…but it looks and feels dead.”

The completed thought only made Eressea nod slightly, Aunna shrugging a bit in her coat and resting her hand on butt of the blaster hanging on her belt. Her primary weapon was hidden beneath the folds of material that made up her coat, but the blaster provided a weapon for others to see and either approach her warily, or dismiss her as less of a threat than themselves. The fact that the bar seemed so dismal wasn’t exactly a good sign. ”Maybe it’s just the weather…” she muttered as she headed in that direction, more to herself than the Familiar perched on her shoulder.

”I just hope it’s warmer in there than it is out here.”

That was the expected reply, alright.

One hand pulled the door open, letting some of the warm(ish) air hit them both in the face…not that Eressea could feel it, really, but her sensors marked the change. It was habit that had the woman stepping inside swiftly and closing the door behind her with a jingle of the bell. Allowing her eyes to adjust to the dim light after the glare of the snow outside, Aunna pushed back her hood so that the material rested over the back of her familiar, hiding almost all of the little droid except for her head and front claws…and the thick, circular and hollow end of her tail curled over the opposite shoulder.

It was truly deader than a doornail in this bar…even the drunks weren’t rowdy, and that was saying something.

Making her way over to the bar, she’d slide onto an unoccupied stool near a particularly burly looking twi’lek man and knock twice on the synthwood counter top. The zabrak barkeep was busy at the other end washing some glasses and then changing out a tap of…some kind of alcohol. She couldn’t read what the tap said, it was all Zabraki to her.

Likely because it was zabraki.

Still, the knock got the man’s attention and he shuffled over rubbing his hands on the towel tucked into the apron around his (almost) portly waist. As Aunna ordered her drink, Eressea was busy scanning the faces in the area…a small time shipper, an ‘identity-less’ drunk (it was always nice when she didn’t have a name to go with a face, tended to mean they hadn’t done anything worth noticing), a couple of small-time crooks that had just gotten bail, some more ID-lacking zabraks…and then there was the man beside them…a mercenary. She was just thrilled by that prospect.

Behind her HUD several programs jumped to life.

Green-shaded eyes were following her companion’s previous scanning patterns in a much more…human…way not long after. In general she didn’t like the place, it was foreboding, or was it depressing? Perhaps it was both. Finally she finished her studies of one side of the room and started on the other, beginning with the twi’lek beside her. Unlike her companion, however, she offered a smile and a simple nod as she swiftly took in the details. The pack at his feet was actually what caught her attention more than anything else…well, beside his very presence here, that is.

”Stuck here too, hmm? Never knew a twi’lek that liked cold enough to come to a place like this if they had the option.”

...Maybe it would open up a conversation and help the place seem less...dismal.

That, or maybe she was getting herself into trouble again...

She was never sure these days.

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

”Stuck here too, hmm? Never knew a twi’lek that liked cold enough to come to a place like this if they had the option.”

Zelada looked over at the human woman who'd spoke to him with a perplexed look on his chiseled features. He was considerably hampered by not speaking more than a few words of Basic, which held true for comprehension as well. His language of choice was Huttese, closely followed by Ryl, which were the hallmarks of spending most of his life in Hutt Space.

Something about this place, and him, he knew the word Twi'lek after all quite easily, and another something about liking the cold. Mentally he strung that whole thing together and chewed it over.

Here. Twi'lek that liked cold.

She must have assumed he was here because he liked cold. Well there was a patently false assumption. No he was trapped here without the money to leave, not out of any desire to say. Now how to get that point across...

"I not like cold, my Basic not so good yes? You speak Huttese?" He enquired hopefully.

It wasn't as if he didn't want a conversation, quite to the contrary, he wanted anything to liven up this dreary and miserable bar. No music, no company, and only one woman now...

Woman. This one was very pretty, and he couldn't help but notice. He'd had quite a few flings and dates in his time, but they'd been mostly with his own people, the Twi'leks. Hell, tattooed onto his biceps were his two great lost loves, his ex-girlfriends. They were both Twi'leks, green and yellow respectively.

Now humans... They tended to be a little less graceful in their movements, but they were still rather pretty. All that hair was interesting for sure, so exotic. He'd had the opportunity to feel it before, soft and silky. So very alien.

Mentally he was wondering what her hair would feel like, and it was possible he might have turned on the charm to find out. But alas, there was a communications barrier.

Well, who knew? Maybe she spoke Huttese. Anything was possible, and stranger things had happened.

[Talau the Ever-Lurking]

The man certainly took a long time to respond, looking at her calmly enough but he felt at least slightly perplexed. For the life of her she couldn’t understand why he’d be so confused about her comment…and he didn’t seem annoyed by her, so it wasn’t likely that he was confused simply because she’d spoken to him…

…then he spoke.

Well that explains the confusion, she mused silently. Huttese wasn’t exactly something she’d spoken in a good while, and even when she had been using it she understood far more than she spoke. It was a good thing she had Eressea, if things got mixed up there was a translator around as well. Chuckling slightly she shook her head and held up a hand. <<Don’t speak Huttese well. Little bits and not for long time.>> It was the truth, anyway, and if it wasn’t obvious from the words, the inflection and choppy, short, phrasing would get the point across well enough.

<<You can’t go from here also? I don’t know a lot of twi’lek like the cold to go to part of a planet like this.>>

From her shoulder an almost amused sounding, tolerating, sigh could be heard as the REA shifted and coiled under her hoor and across her shoulders. Eressea was turning around so that her head was now facing the twi’lek man, that prehensile(ish) tail curling around to rest against Aunna’s collar bone and remain trained in the direction of the blue mercenary…just in case. <<What my companion is attempting to say, poorly mind you, is that she’s surprised to see one of your people here due to the cold, and she was wondering if you were forced to come here like we have been because of the…tension…in the area.>>

Aunna sighed and rubbed at her forehead a little before holding out a hand to him. <<Raelyn. Droid is Eressea. She is…>> Aunna had to pause for a moment, trying to unbury a suitable term and instead leaving space open for the REA to fill in the blank.

<<Capable? Competent? ….coherent?>>

That last word held a tone of smug teasing to it that Aunna could only smirk at.

<<…annoying.>>

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

Zelada perked right up when the woman started to speak Huttese. Not well, but it was probably better than his Basic. And then, even better, the mechanical voice of a droid spoke up in Huttese as well. Between the two voices, there was no small degree of witty banter, and the Twi'lek merc had to admit he was definitely amused. Those two knew how to liven up a dead room.

Not that it took much to liven it up.

Zelada chuckled in between sips of brandy as he listened to the two, particularly savoring the characterization of the droid as 'annoying.' Yeah, he'd known more than a few droids who fit that bill.

Droids. He wasn't the most keen on them, but he didn't hold anything against them either. They were simply a part of the scenery for him. And occasionally he had to deal with combat droids in less than friendly circumstances.

This droid seemed friendly enough though, as did the woman. That was enough to make him smile, flashing a broad blue grin at her.

"I hate cold, I really do. If I'd known Iridonia was this damn cold I never would have come here. Why can't they ever hire a merc to go Pantolomin?" Zelada laughed, referencing the luxurious resort world of undersea casinos.

(OOC: Short, sorry. Wasn't feeling it)

[Talau the Ever-Lurking]

Eressea seemed…nonplussed…by the reply she got, though her visor swiftly tinted from a pale yellow to an amused green. Honestly it was all in good fun, and it would have shown more if she hadn’t had to shut down her holo-projectors to reroute power to internal heating systems in hopes of keeping herself from freezing over. The smile from the man earned one in return from Aunna who had to listen hard to what he was saying to catch the words she recognized. It took a moment for her mind to re-translate and fill in the blanks, Eressea’s ‘voice’ coming through into her companion’s ear-piece to fill in the rest subtly. Finally she nodded and chuckled a bit.

<<Better cold than hot for me. Can wear more, can’t take more off,>> she replied with a chuckle and a shrug. <<Eressea does not like cold, for…>>

<<understandable>>

<<Thank you…understandable…reasons.>> Aunna seemed to pause a moment after that, thinking over her next words in an attempt to remember the correct ones. <<You are a mercenary? Hmm…Pantolomin would be nice job.>>

Eressea huffed a chuckle. <<It would be more likely to find a spy there than a mercenary, but I have heard that some of the more prominent bounty hunters find their bounties there.>>

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

Zelada chuckled at the crack about Pantolomin, and he had to admit the idea of Zelada'ven, super spy, was really quite appealing. Dashing man of mystery, hit with the ladies, crack shot with a pistol. Intrigue, suspense, women. Also presumably the finest sparkling wines served at an icy temperature. Class, luxury, refinement.

Yeah, that prompted a grin all right.

The Rutian Twi'lek man wasn't that complicated, wasn't a suave and debonair master of intrigue and refined connoisseur. He was a pretty normal guy, who just wanted a beer after a day's work. And work was just about anything now, though under the best of circumstances it was with private armies. He just had one problem holding him back.

Ethics. Zel was an ethical merc, who didn't want to run around blasting widows and orphans for a few credits. He'd gotten his fill of that serving under the Hutts, and didn't want any more of it. Sure, it meant he lost a few jobs. But he could sleep at night with a clear conscious. In his opinion, that mattered more.

"Yeah, I could handle that. Sunny beaches, little bit of danger, beautiful women... Present company included." He winked at the human woman and chuckled.

A little charm never hurt anyone. But he moved on anyway.

"Anything is better than Iridonia, this frozen ball of ice is miserable. And there's no work to come by either, no one seems to have the money to hire a merc, or the inclination. There's just a few scattered feuds that these Zabraks want to settle personally, and there's not much in the way of bandits to fight. I really want to get to Coruscant, I know I can get a job there, sign on with a PMC or something. I don't suppose you want to hire a merc?"

[Talau the Ever-Lurking]

Aunna could all but see the holo-vid-worthy images coming to life behind the man’s eyes…she didn’t even need the force to do it. Then again, what man wouldn’t dream of that sort of life as one point or another. Hells, it didn’t even need to be a man for that statement to be true. As he commented on his thoughts she nodded silently and took her drink from the barman, taking a little drink of it. Finally she’d chuckle a bit and shake her head.

<<Thank you, but do not flatter. Trust me…not a good idea.>> For a moment she’d managed to forget the fact that she didn’t have a jealously protective dark jedi attached to her any more. Unfortunately that moment was short lived. It showed in a slight furrow of her brow and darkening of her expression, but was gone (visibly anyway) only a moment later. It would be better for her, perhaps, if people believed that she still had said dark jedi attached to her. After all, he’d used her to his advantage…why shouldn’t she use him in the same way?

<<This is only a small portion of Iridonia, you know, not all of it is this cold. This inhospitable, certainly, but not all of it this frigid, Mister…?>> Eressea paused there, certainly able (but unwilling) to let on that she knew who this man was. She didn’t like the idea of others knowing what she was or wasn’t capable of if she could help it…no, much better that she let them guess and give herself and Aunna a potential leg up.

Aunna nodded in agreement with Eressea even as she thought over the last of his words. Did she need, or want, to hire a mercenary? Certainly he could be useful if things got difficult like they had back on Onderon. She was going to have to make her way toward Corellia, also, in the near future…and that wasn’t going to be easy. Even for as much as Vex had helped her, as clever and careful as she could be, even despite having Eressea with her, Aunna knew that getting to the Core was only going to get more and more difficult. This time, when she spoke, instead of speaking her broken Huttese she looked to Eressea, speaking in the flowing lilt of Olys Corellisi.

<<I don’t know, Eres, this could be a good idea, especially as we get closer to the Core. Things are going to get even more difficult, especially around Corellia. The last time I was there…>>

Eressea simply nodded. She knew the story and had seen the news, hell she’d been there to see the aftermath of it all. The news had made it out to be worse than it was. No one had been killed, only minor damage to the Borgonia estate and the adjoining orchard, yes a jedi had nearly died but she too had made a full recovery after being left alive (when she very easily could have been dead), people had been frightened, certainly, but it wasn’t the scene of absolute horror that the press had made it out to be. The only real casualty had been her cousin, Ayer, and even then his SOUL drive had remained intact…with a new chassis he’d been practically good as new. Still, it all meant that Aunna was going to be a high priority target for anyone on Corellia who didn’t know the truth of the whole situation.

…That meant just about everybody.

Finally Aunna sighed and looked at the Twi’lek man more seriously, speaking in Huttese once more. <<Can’t decide before I know what you are called and read up. I have little trust these days. No offense. I am in a bad place.>>

<<Difficult.>>

Aunna huffed an annoyed sigh. <<That also..>>

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

(OOC: I totally forgot about this thread. Sorry!)

"Zelada'ven." The blue Twi'lek said with a slight bow of his head, a deferential show of respect to a lady. He added another line in Huttese worth saying. "But you can call me Zel."

Promptly the woman turned to the droid and began a conversation in some language he didn't speak. And that, he assumed, was his cue to sit back and have his drink in peace for a few minutes while they talked it over.

'It' presumably being his offer for a mercenary. You never really knew after all, maybe his offhand remark would land him a job, or at least get him off this rock and into the Core Worlds where he'd been wanting to go. He had a feeling Coruscant was the place to be.

He took another sip from his glass, rolling the alcohol around his mouth before swallowing it, feeling the burn down his throat and the pleasant warmth in his stomach.

Luckily the conversation between woman and droid didn't last long, and he was back in it promptly.

"I know all about bad places. I crossed a Hutt once. If you're in one of them now, maybe you ned to hire a merc to watch your back for a bit. I'll work for transport off this iceball and food, keep you company as far as the Core."