Appearances Can Deceive (Kella)

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

"Please..." A desperate voice cut through the night air in a back alley of Coruscant's lower city. It was a seedy place to be sure, while in a bustling district, the alley itself was filled with refuse containers, grime, and assorted vermin feeding off the garbage thrown out by restaurants. The smell was distinct and pungent, and it filled the speaker's nose.

"No. Now a little birdie told me you just got a big windfall, a whole bunch of credits that fell into your lap. Now I happen to know a few hundred of them are mine, and you owe me. I've let you slip a couple times before, but I need what's mine."

"Don't be that way Kell," Ervisa Therani said weakly, placid grey eyes visible in the light cast by the rear light of a bar. "You know I'll pay you back, but I've got to live."

She was tired, immensely tired. Her recent windfall had bought her some rest, but perversely she felt all the more tired as she let herself slip back into her routine. It had been tempting to live large for a few weeks, but it made more sense for once to keep that money untouched, and to leave it safe for later use. For once she'd listened to her head instead of her heart.

Yeah, she'd learned a few lessons about that.

Lost love, lost hopes. She'd sunk pretty much as far as she could go. And part of her considered that maybe she deserved it. Ervisa wasn't a really moral person. Killing? Yes. Lies? Always, especially to herself. Stealing? When she could get away with it. And then there were the things she was to blame for. Deaths, despair. And her own dumb mistakes. She still felt the burning of her cheeks when she thought back to confessing love for another rover.

She should've known hearts like theirs didn't settle down.

With all that in mind, she didn't resist as two Niktos grabbed her arms and Kell made a fist. He slammed it into her stomach once, twice, three times. Each time she exhaled sharply and her body protested the vice grip on her arms and the blows to her belly. But she knew this would pass. Kell would get over his anger, decide she'd learned her lesson, and then drop her into the slimy alley and leave her to walk home and nurse her bruises.

Then a few days later she'd pay him.

[Kella]

It was a good night to spend in a bar.

This bar, in particular. Naavechi rather liked it. Granted, every time she told anyone that, she got even stranger looks than usual. Apparently the bar, and this part of town, had a bad reputation.

Naavechi could understand why. The streets and the people here were dirty, as was most of the money they spent. It was a place of honest crime. That's what Naavechi liked about it, she'd realized. It wasn't all that much 'worse' than the rest of Coruscant, it was just that no one tried to hide it. And the obviousness of secrets was appealing to her.

Besides, she was perfectly safe.

Rusty sat dutifully by her side, resting his head on the low bar table. Something about his eight foot length, twenty talons, and hooked beak kept the more malevolent patrons at bay. The owner had protested until Rusty had begun to recite the fundamental theorems of hyperspace travel, at which point he shrugged and went about his business. Now the Graarl was a familiar enough presence in the bar, and Naavechi had made a few friends -- mostly grizzled old mercenaries whose drunken war stories found in her a willing ear.

This night, however, had been spent conversing with the tinkle of ice in her glass. She almost couldn't taste the liquor, under the tang of fruit juice, but she could feel the buzz. A deadline had her stressed and she needed to unwind.

In a lot of ways, buying the drink was more a formality. She found the bustle and hum of the place as reassuring as anything else. In the city-planet, a drink at a bar was much cheaper than admission to one of the 'green plazas'.

Rusty yawned, running his tongue over the edge of his beak. "Some guy over there keeps staring at you."

Naavechi blinked. "Hmm, what?"

Rusty lolled his gaze to Naavechi. "And you're staring back how much liquor's in that?"

"Oh hush you, I'm barely buzzed." She swatted lazily at him. "Besides, he's... attractive."

Rusty's eyes narrowed at his friend, then he turned to stare at the young man for himself. Then Rusty's expression suddenly brightened, just as the young man felt the predatory stare and scurried out of the bar, small case in tow.

"Oh you were staring at his case."

Naavechi shrugged. "Trying to figure out what instrument was in it."

"Were you being... deceptive?" Rusty teased.

"I did not lie, I just did not feel like talk--"

"Shh."

"Don't 'Shh' m--"

"Shhh!"

"Hmph."

Rusty's eyes lost their focus and wandered to the floor, and he appeared in deep thought. When he finally met Naavechi's eyes again, she found his expression deeply concerning.

"I hear something," he said quietly. "It sounds like a fight. The one-sided kind."

"Where?"

Rusty's head bobbed toward the door of the bar. Naavechi was out on the street before Rusty could even work up a warning hiss. There was no consideration that the beaten party was deserving, no caution concerning the armament of the attacker. Only Naavechi, rushing blindly and boldly off because someone needed help.

Rusty loved that woman, but gorram sometimes he did not love saving her ass. Bounding after, he arrived at her side just as she was realizing she had no idea where she was going.

"This way," Rusty said lowly, rounding the front of the building and stepping into the mouth of the alley.

Naavechi quickly followed, and what she saw made the heat of anger flare in her chest. The Mirialan doubled over, the two looming Nikto's, the thug and his fist.

"Hey!" she shouted, over Rusty's hasty shushing. "Get away from her!"

Rusty, realizing that they were past the point of no return, conjured from deep within his belly a loud, terrible, shrieking roar, and snapped out his wings to full width for dramatic flair.

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

A loud roar cut through the night, and Ervisa, Kell, and the two thugs both looked to the source. One of the Niktos released his hold and backed away from Rusty, but the other Nikto pulled out a vibroblade, and Kell stood his ground.

The human frowned.

"Go away. This is none of your business. If you're real lucky Jola here won't cut you up."

Ervisa stared over at the duo who had interrupted her beating, and looked at them with a vacant expression from a position half-kneeling and half-standing, nursing the blow to her stomach. Her breathing gradually recovered, and by the time Koll was replying she was mumbling a few soft words no one was likely to hear.

"I'll be fine... Jus' leave me here..."

Kell noticed and kneed the Mirialan woman in the stomach, and she doubled over coughing.

"Shut your mouth wh*re."

The human drug dealer folded his arms and looked back at the interlopers ruining his night. His hard jaw was set and his eyes gleamed in the dark.

"Get the hell out of here."

[Kella]

"Here is about to be hell for you." Naavechi's hands tightened into fists.

"Come now, Naavechi, mind your language," Rusty said. The Niktos' eyes grew wide, and Rusty charged at the one with the blade, tackling him in a flash of claws and beak and a gutteral snarl.

Naavechi surged forward at the ringleader, ducking his heavy swing and punching him hard in the Jaw. The second Nikto sprinted away from the screams of the first. Naavechi side-stepped another swing, this tike kicking the thug in the stomach. He stumbled back. "Not so fun when she can fight back is it."

"What the Hell," Kell growled. Rusty lunged towards him, growling.

Naavechi pulled the com unit from her pocket. "Hello, yes, I've got an emergency situation on--"

"I'm leaving! Dammit. I'll be back for you," he narrowed his eyes at Ervisa, spat at Naavechi's feet and trudged out of the alley. The second Nikto raced after him, eyes wide with fear, but otherwise unscathed.

"Sorry for the theatrics!" Rusty called after.

Naavechi was already kneeling next to Ervisa, a steadying hand on her shoulder. "Are you alright?"

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

Ervisa managed to straighten herself sooner than anticipated, her toned body still standing up to injury despite her failing health. Her breathing was still a little ragged, interspersed with coughs, but it was improving, improving enough for the Mirialan woman to look around her and see who her rescuers were.

A woman, muscular but well-figured, and with the most incredibly colorful and strange skin. Her eyes were completely black, which Ervisa found slightly odd. She was still too distant to find that particularly troubling forever. For a quick moment thought at the sight of the other rescuer, the unhappy Mirialan thought she might have been high again. It was a bonafide dragon.

Apparently there was some species of dragons that she had never met.

As to the question...

"Yeah," Ervisa said weakly as she coughed again. "I've been worse..."

The Mirialan straightened as much as she could and took a deep breath, without coughing this time. She let it out slowly again before taking a few steps and leaning against the wall. She fumbled in her purse for a cigarette and lit it, placing it between her lips before she spoke again.

"He would have given up after a few more minutes. You didn't have to go to any trouble."

Ervisa had taken on a fatalistic streak, a sense that whatever happened would happen without her control or input. She would have tolerated the full beating and tried to overcome her own pain by herself, but she supposed this was fine.

Kell wouldn't be happy now though. Not by a long shot. This experience was going to come out of Ervisa's hide. He'd be livid after this. She wasn't looking forward to that.

"It'll be worse next time now..." Ervisa said quietly, half to herself and half to no one.

[Kella]

"See Naavechi, she just said, we needn't have gone to the trouble," Rusty said, but Naavechi ignored him.

"Those are terrible for your health," Naavechi said, wrinkling her nose at the acrid smell of the cigarette. "I do not understand why you would intentionally poison your body. I also do not understand what you mean by 'next time', if you do not want it to continue, make it stop."

What a strange woman. Naavechi had an naive inclination to assume some common ground with the other tattooed species, like the Mirialians and the Kiffar. Rusty kept telling her that those tattoos were static, that they revealed little more than the blank skin of the humans, and Naavechi believed him. Still, the decisions and attitudes of some people she could not comprehend.

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

Poison her body. Now there was something. If only she knew the half of it. Spice, the occasional death stick... Combine that with a drinking habit and horrible hours, spending days awake... Ervisa was a wreck. She might have looked pretty still, but it had only been a month and a few days since she'd started her job. In twice that time, the flesh on her ribs would thin away to reveal bones, the sunken hollows under her eyes would become permanent, her muscular arms and stomach would dwindle, and her sleek, waist-length black hair would look tangled and dead.

Time was fast closing in on the Mirialan Jedi-turned-prostitute. Her own habits were slowly destroying her, with increasing rapidity. She tried to ignore that fact, and it wasn't so hard to do so, to live just one day at a time.

"I can' just make it stop," Ervisa said between drags on her tabac cigarette, "I owe him money. Work's hard, some days it's not so good. Takes a few days to earn enough to pay him. Problem's that Kell, he's not so keen on the whole patience thing. Wants my money here and now. I can't pay, he roughs me up a little. Thinks it'll teach me for the next time."


The Mirialan woman shrugged as she started to pull masses of tousled hair off her face and tie it into a long ponytail, perching the cigarette between her lips the whole time. When she finished, she returned it to her hand.

"So, nuthin' I can do. Just have to pick myself up again."

Fatalistic resignation mingled with self-determination.

[Kella]

"Well that's a stupid way of looking at things." The comment was punctuated by a deep cough as her body reeled from the acrid smoke. The smog of civilized areas always gave her a nagging headache, and there were some things she just could not get used to. Naavechi snatched the cigarette out of the Mirialan's hand and dropped it to the ground, grinding it with her foot like she'd seen so many others do.

It was as if she thought helping this woman out would be so simple. Drop your problems, grind them under your foot, move on.

"You're not picking yourself up, you're throwing yourself back into the pit. So, do the work, get the money, pay him off, then leave the planet."

Though Naavechi was singularly focused, Rusty was warily scanning the alley, only partially paying attention to his friend's heroics. The Graarl was far more interested in making sure Naavechi stayed alive than in helping her with her pet projects.

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

Ervisa silently watched with a mixture of surprise and amusement as her cigarette was tossed onto the ground and extinguished. Apparently her rescuer wasn't too keen on tabac. Her loss really.

The Mirialan had a whole pack of cigarettes left, and she tucked them away into her purse for later, making a note not to smoke in front of the woman. No big deal, she'd have plenty of time to do it later.

Do the work. Somehow Ervisa doubted her 'savior' knew what kind of work that was, as few people would advocate doing it, even to pay off debts. Pay him off. Sure, she could pay him. But then she'd have to pay him again and again, and it would degenerate with time. The Mirialan woman had the nagging feeling that was obvious to her wasn't to Naavechi.

Anyone who'd been in that club for more than three hours knew exactly who Kell was, what he sold, and how much he sold it for. As drug dealers went, he wasn't very subtle. Somehow this unusual duo hadn't got the memo on what kind of arrangement this was.

When Ervisa put two and two together and got that result, she laughed.

"You haven't figured it? Well, you would eventually. Kell's my dealer. I'll be crawling back to him in a day or two, and he'll just take it out on me then. Probably worse than this time would have been."

There was something horribly depressing about the way the Mirialan woman said that. There was a definitive nature to her summary of future events, as if they were fixed and immoveable. Her routine had grown so absolute and narrow in spectrum that a deviation from it, the idea of simply leaving, was viewed as impossible and not given a second thought. She had no hope, only a grim sense of what her halfhearted choices would bring. And even those seemed less like choices with each passing day.

[Kella]

"Dealer?" Naavechi's mind whirled, trying to remember where else she'd heard that word. She hadn't been speaking Basic for long. Dealer, dealer, something clicked. "Pazaak?"

"No, Naavechi," Rusty sighed, eyes watching the street beyond the mouth of the alley. "Drugs."

The hollow shells of people sinking into the sides of buildings, the stench, the broken ramblings, those where the other things to which Rusty had given the word 'drugs'. Naavechi spun back to face the woman, eyes widening with surprise, then quickly narrowing.

"Then don't crawl back," she said, with the fire of passion. "Stand up, and walk away. It's not too late." She turned back to Rusty. "Right?"

He gave the Mirialan an assessing look, up and down, analyzing her physical state. "She's not too far gone."

"See," she turned back, "You're not too far gone."

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

"Stand up and walk away?" Ervisa repeated, not in a sense of intellectual musing, but rather savoring the words as someone repeating a humorous anecdote they'd just heard aloud. It was amusing in a perverse way.

One does not simply stand up and walk away. Ervisa had, of course, tried it in one of her first week's lucid moments. She'd made it four days before relapsing in the midst of withdrawals. Since then she hadn't tried, but she had made a genuine, good-faith effort. The problem was that such efforts were not enough. It took more than good intentions to end an addiction.

As to being in good shape... It was true Ervisa had been resisting the damaging effects well, possibly due to her connection with the Force, but it had helped that before her fall from grace she'd been in excellent shape. Apart from her liver and her lungs, but no one lived forever. Of course a little medical treatment down the line could undo all of these problems, but that was something she definitely couldn't afford now. Not unless she delved deep into the ten thousand credits that stranger had payed her.

Despite his dire warnings of dangers, nothing had befallen her. Except Kell somehow picking up the idea she'd come into that money and trying to beat her out of it.

But, not far gone.

"I'm still pretty. I can charge a good price on the streets, I've been saving up what I can, but it's all I can do to pay Kell and still keep food on the table. I do what it takes, but I don't see a way out. In a few years I'll be too far gone, and I don't know what I'll do then."

Ervisa frowned and folded her arms, looking at the pair of companions with furrowed brows.

[Kella]

"Charge a good price for what?"

Naavechi's mind was still reeling, processing, falling back into Nihrani as she thought. It was a bad habit, Rusty kept telling her that, but there was just so much to absorb about these new places, new cultures.

At the moment, Rusty was not being particularly helpful. He'd taken to pacing the width of the alley, tail whipping back and forth. Despite his seeming agitation, Naavechi felt no fear.

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

Ervisa blinked with surprise before glancing down at her clothes and realizing she looked normal. None of her work attire was visible. Well, that meant she was a little covert, since the constant bustle of Coruscant meant there were very few locals to recognize her by site. And, of course, the clientele was constantly rotating.

Naavechi must have been passing through as well, and recently.

Of course there was always the interesting topic of how to raise her profession when asked. There were multiple ways to do it of course, varying based upon schools of thought. There was something to be said for the blunt and straight forward "I'm a prostitute," as well as the indirect "I provide certain services." And of course there was moderation.

"I'm an independent contractor. I provide services of an intimate nature to customers, in exchange for a fee."

The Mirialan woman looked at the other humanoid out of the corner of her eye as she turned her head away to stare down the alley out onto a street filled with neon signs. She wanted to observe what happened next, but wanted an excuse for detachment.

[Kella]

Rusty paused in his pacing and sighed raggedly. Naavechi was still trying to recall the words 'contractor' and 'intimate', knowing she was missing something important as Rusty came to stand beside her.

"She's a prostitute, Naavechi."

"A what?" Nihrani didn't have a word for it, because they didn't have people to which that word would apply.

"She gives ugoni to anyone, in exchange for money."

Naavechi's eyes flashed wide with horror, the colors in her skin seeming to flush brighter. First shock, then anger overtook her face.

"What?" She demanded. But her anger soon faded to confusion. "Why," she implored, "Why do you do this?" She sounded like a small girl, trying to understand why her puppy had died.

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

Much to Ervisa's surprise, the colors on Naavechi's skin seemed to change. Her face did as well, passing through at least two emotions. Moreover, she seemed angry, angry and disturbed. It was more than the Mirialan had ever expected.

Prostitution was a fact of life all across the galaxy, on countless worlds. It was the galaxy's oldest profession, spanning many races and genders. The idea that someone would have such a strong and strange reaction to a fact of life was more than a little odd.

It wasn't as if the Mirialan woman was really fond of her job, but it was a living, and more honest than being a lawyer. Well, depending on the lawyer.

"Why do I do it?" Ervisa echoed. "Well, I was a pilot. But no one was about to hire a pilot high on spice. Couldn't get a job in food service, so I had to rely on something else. Guess I was pretty good at sex, so I, uh, just went from there. Wasn't all that hard really. Work's not usually bad. Just... no dignity."

[Kella]

Indignation held the words in Naavechi's throat, until all she could choke out was, "You are a stupid woman!"

She raised a hand to her temple, still searching for words. "No dignity, no dignity is... is... Moorte."

"She means death," Rusty said, glancing at his friend before turning his gaze on the Mirialan. "No dignity means no spirit, no spirit means no life, where we come from."

"Moorte..." Naavechi repeated, hand dropping to a fist that she pressed to her lips. She reached out a hand towards the woman's face, then quickly drew it back as if stung. She swallowed hard, steeling her nerves, then extended her hand again, this time at the level of a handshake, as she had been learning.

"My name is Naavechi Rijaal. What is yours?" There was no caution, no fear in her voice, only compassion.

Rusty had been right. She was not too far gone.

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

Ervisa would have had all right to get angry, or to get hostile. It wasn't often you were called a stupid woman. Of course there was a lot of talk like that during some sessions with clients, but she just ignored it. This was a little harder to ignore, and the sheer simplicity of the insult took her aback.

Instead of frowning or glowering, Ervisa looked for all the world like a deflated balloon. She exhaled slowly, and as she did her shoulders sank and her head looked down. Her eyes stared at the dank floor beneath her feet, avoiding contact.

It was hard to get sent the same message every day and not take it to heart. Idiot. Stupid girl. Dumb wh*re. Fool. Oaf. B*tch. There were so many insults sent her way, that one more from a person who had seemed kind weighed on her shoulders more heavily than all of the previous ones. It was a delayed reaction of sorts.

Ervisa only looked up when she saw a hand extend, and heard a change in the tone of voice. Furtively, she looked up and her grey eyes met with Naavechi's black ones. The blue flecks in them seemed to sparkle again for an instant, the way they used to.

It was with a degree of hope in her voice that the Mirialan answered.

"Ervisa."

[Kella]

"Do you have a family name? A surname? Or just Ervisa?" It was a question of habit, of familiarity. Though it did not really matter if she knew the woman's family name, or if that surname was actually a family name at all, it let Naavechi remember that this woman did, at one point, have a family.

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

"Therani," Ervisa provided as her own hand reached out slowly to grasp the proffered hand, diamond tattoos standing out on the emerald green skin like soldiers on a lush parade ground.

It had been a while since anyone had used her last name, herself included. She'd used aliases on all those job applications, and she never introduced herself by that name.

It felt a little odd to be saying it again. It brought her back to all those days when her last name had been used. Youngling Therani, color inside the lines. Padawan Therani, be careful with your saber! Knight Therani, color inside the lines!

That was a lifetime ago, and suddenly she felt very old.

[Kella]

"Therani," Naavechi repeated. Other than the 'th', which came out more like a hard 't', the syllables felt familiar on her tongue, similar to those in Nihrani. Her accent seemed to give the vowels a life and fullness.

"Ervisa Therani, you need to find your spirit again." Her words were forceful, but not harsh.