[Oatara] Righteous Cowboy Lightning (Mike)

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

Ervisa breathed deeply of the clear morning air, admiring the few clouds in the sky for a few seconds of silence, her footfalls and Horst's the only pressing sound, punctuated by the occasional sounds of training or of helicopter rotors in the distance.

They were most of the way to the mess hall when Horst actually broke the silence to ask her a personal question.

"Mirial," She answered. "Backwater place, freezing cold and piss poor. Never spent very long there, got scooped up by a Jedi pretty swiftly, taken to Coruscant. Grew up there."

She could still recollect her childhood in the nurseries, playing with various communal toys. Building blocks had been her favorite, once assembling a pretty decent scale replica of the High Council chamber.

"I wanna be a High Councilor some day!"

"Hold on to that dream Ervisa, it's precious. Never let it go."

Yeah, she could remember. It felt bittersweet to remember the bright and social little girl in the Jedi Temple who'd dreamed big, who'd always been quick with a lightsaber and chipper.

Hard to believe what she'd grown up into.

That phrase was true. Time makes fools of us all. Ervisa more so than others it seemed. The very thought of how far she'd strayed from her goals put a bitter taste in the Mirialan woman's mouth, and turned her head and spat.

"How bout you? Probably a better story than mine."

Ervisa's feet carried her up to the door of the Mess, and she pushed it open, walking through to a mostly-empty room, though food was still out for those latecomers, or people who wanted food after a morning training session.

Green hands grabbed a tray and she progressed down the line, scooping up incredibly carby foods. Biscuits, gravy, bacon, sausage, and a stack of pancakes with syrup.

She added a mug of black coffee and some silverware and headed for an out of the way table. Once there she sat and dug into her food without standing on ceremony.

[Fromikeable]

Horst listened intently as Ervisa actually came forward with a legitimate answer. Either this whole "knowing people" thing was easier than he thought, or Ervisa thought too little of the information to consider it very telling. Either way, he looked at her as she talked, absorbing the knowledge.

Horst had never heard of Mirial, but he perked up in interest when Ervisa mentioned that she'd grown up on Coruscant. His excitement died a bit when he realized that she wouldn't have grown up like he did; he had been a penniless orphan running around the streets before being taken in by some mechanic. Ervisa had gotten to grow up in the Jedi Temple, doing whatever the heck it was that young Jedi did as kids. He was tempted to ask her about it, but decided not to.

She returned the question after spitting, and he smiled a little as they entered the mess hall. Horst followed behind her, piling bacon and flapjacks onto his tray as he started talking.

"Born on Coruscant, down in the dark parts no one likes ta' talk about. Parents were both dead the day I started breathin'." For a minute, Horst was quiet as he poured himself a glass of orange juice and followed Ervisa to a table. A few of the other late-comers looked over, but few looked particularly interested. Horst stuffed a piece of bacon into his mouth and practically swallowed it whole before continuing.

"Met a guy, a mechanic, who probably saved my life. Moved to Corellia before I became a teenager. Grew up there, really." He paused, considering his own words.

"Got to say though; I've always hated Coruscant." Horst saw his opportunity, downed a flajack, sipped his orange juice, and then seized it.

"What was it like, growin' up as a Jedi?"

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

Corellia. Made sense, there was a bit of a Corellian vibe Horst gave off. Maybe that was why she'd gone for him, there was just something about Corellians that drove her wild.

Well this one sure hadn't disappointed.

Ervisa speared a bite of pancake and swallowed the substance, moving on to a piece of bacon and a spoonful of biscuit drenched in gravy before Horst asked her another question, the natural one really. What was it like growing up in the Jedi Order.

"It's kind of hard to describe. I didn't have a conventional childhood to compare it with, so there's not really a fram of reference. You've got no parents, and as soon as you're old enough they put you into a Youngling clan, with a bunch of other kids. Mine had twenty Younglings in it, and they were all like siblings more or less. There were some good friends, and others you just wanted to punch in the face."

Ervisa sipped her coffee and had another bite of her food before continuing with her description.

"You get to stay a Youngling learning about the Force and normal stuff until sometime between 11ish and 13, when you're either chosen as a Padawan, that's an apprentice, or you get sent to the Corps, which is kind of like dropping out of school. I got to be a Padawan on time, apprenticed to a very nice Echani man."

The Mirialan woman turned to her food yet again and stayed silent for a few seconds before she looked back to Horst, one eye narrowed slightly in a look of suspicion.

"You're not trying to get touchy-feely and bond with me, are you?"

[Fromikeable]

Horst ate silently, listening to Ervisa describe the childhood of a Jedi. He'd never been able to talk to a product of that crazy place before, so to hear it straight from the source was fascinating. He almost choked a few times, forgetting to chew his food in his interest.

He had wondered what life was like in the giant Temple, and now he knew; it was actually pretty expectant. Horst tried to imagine growing up knowing that at about the age he and Rorry moved to Corellia, every kid was expected to find some teacher and stay with them for gods-know how long.

"Sounds like a whole helluva lot of stress to shove on a bunch of kids," he remarked, downing the rest of his orange juice. He renewed his attack on his bacon when Ervisa paused, figuring out that he was digging for information.

For a second, he paused as well, mid-chew with a piece of bacon sticking out of his lips. He regained his motor-control then and swallowed the fried pork before answering.

"Well, we did just sleep together." Horst said it frankly, consuming a second piece of bacon and shrugging a bit.

"And I wouldn't say 'touchy-feely'. More like I want to know who I'm screwing, ya' know?"

He quickly consumed a third piece of pork before adding, "Besides, you're more interesting than you think."

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

"A woman." Ervisa said. "That's all you really need to know."

She chewed over another bite of biscuit and gravy before swallowing and elaborating on his point.

"I never said I wasn't interesting. But if you knew all about me, you'd never look at me the same way. You'd either stare at me with pity for a poor woman gone astray, loathe me for my weakness, or hold my failures against me."

Ervisa's voice was serious for once, the sound of someone speaking with conviction. She knew absolutely that this was the case, without a shadow of doubt that things might be different. This was the way it was.

If Horst hadn't already figured her out, she wasn't about to just spill everything to him because they'd had sex. She wasn't that emotional, that invested in knowing who she was sleeping with. It was merely enough for her to know that she was a woman and her partner was an attractive man.

"All you need to know about me," Ervisa said, "Is that I'm a woman, with needs, and you're a man, also with needs. Together we can have some fun. But I'm not in this because I want to marry you, or because I want to date you."

[Fromikeable]

Horst stopped eating again as Ervisa's tone grew deftly serious; a reaction he knew was dangerous. She made it crystal clear; he wasn't there to be her boyfriend or her friend or even necessarily her acquaintance.

Just her slam-piece. Horst put down his fork, surprised. He never thought in a million years that he'd be used for his body one day. On the one hand, it was a bit disconcerting, but on the other hand, it was downright hilarious. Horst ended his silence with a small grin, moving his flapjacks around with his fork. His mind was hurt, surprised, expecting, and amused all in the same instant.

The silence continued for another second or two.

"Okay then..." Horst sighed again, closing his eyes and simply focusing on the air coming into and leaving his lungs. His mind scolded him again for thinking differently, and meanwhile his body showed utter apathy, almost finding it hilarious that he expected different from a woman like Ervisa.

That's what I get for following my crotch...

"I know it's probably not worth much," he added, stuffing another flapjack into his gullet and eating it down, considerably slower now. He swallowed, exhaled, and then finished his thought.

"But it takes a helluva story to make me change my mind." With that, he was quiet again, hoping breakfast isn't about to end with Ervisa storming out in a rage. He'd put his stubbornness to work for him before, and he was prepared to do it again, even if this time it's done silently. His morality demanded that he still try and get to know her, but both his mind and body knew better, instead opting to keep to what he already knows.

He'd learned enough to know that no one talks about things unless they choose to.

Even still, it seemed that he'd always have that small sliver of hope.

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

"It's not your mind I'm worried about, it's your heart."

Ervisa finished up her pancakes and pushed the empty plate away before downing the rest of her coffee. Then she rose and stood tall over the table.

"I don't want you thinking you can save me, or trying to be my hero. Nothing good can come of it."

She didn't want a rescue. She didn't want a hero. She wanted to die alone in a hole somewhere where no one she ever knew would be able to find her. Or barring that, she wanted to die nobly, and be burned on a pyre like her Padawan who had gone before her.

It was too late for her to turn her life wholly around. She'd been at the lowest, and she'd recovered, but not completely. She was now a sl*t instead of a wh0re, and a drunk instead of a junkie. But she wasn't a virgin, she wasn't noble, and she wasn't pure as the new-fallen snow.

Instead she was like snow that had fallen weeks ago, and was now stained and dirty from being trampled on, no longer white at all, and with no promise of ever regaining its beauty.

That was Ervisa.

The Mirialan woman carried her tray to the return area and set it down, walking out through the doors into the sunshine, pulling on her sunglasses as she headed for the tarmac.

[Fromikeable]

Hero? Horst tried not to laugh at that one. What sort of hero was he? The last time he checked, there weren't any fairy tales about 40-year-old walking-scruff balls with the elegance of an explosion and about twice the subtly. Beyond that he was sailor-tongued, drinking hopeless-romantic with all the luck with the opposite sex of a bag of crushed glass.

A regular knight in shining armor.

He took the heart comment a gravely though. He knew, in fact, that his heart probably got up and left a long time ago, leaving a tendon behind for him to be forever plagued by. It was his lone heart string; a thin piece of stone flesh that had gathered dust for the last 4 years.

His spirit had been crushed all of those years ago, and, though not through lack of trying, his spirit had just never moved back in.

Sighing, Horst opened his eyes as Ervisa began to leave. Shuffling out of the table, he slid his tray of flapjacks to the next table, not bothering to take the time to scrape it off and deposit it in the correct spot. The guy who received it looked at the departing Commander confused, but then shrugged and poured some additional syrup on the carbs. By the time he began to polish them off, Horst was out the door, jogging to catch up with Ervisa.

Catching her right outside, he slowed to a stop beside her, looking off in the distance. A division of trainee's ran by, and a chopper passed over-head. Horst waited until the noises of both are gone, and then resumed their conversation. He smirked a dark smirk, almost challenging her to prove him wrong.

"Me? A hero? I guess you don't know who you're talkin' to either."

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

Ervisa stopped walking after Horst spoke. She hadn't expected him to follow her, and least of all to say he wasn't interested in playing the hero. That was a pretty funny statement to make since she'd seen heroes before in her life.

There were men she'd met in her seven years of wandering and sleeping around who had wanted to rescue her from her existence, who wanted to put her in finery and treat her like a princess, or men who deluded themselves into thinking they could fix her through love. They'd never realized she wasn't interested in being helped, that she'd never wanted a relationship with anyone but one man.

They deluded themselves into thinking they could be the hero, the Knight in Shining Armor, for Ervisa Therani. They wanted to fix her problems, deal with her damage. They were all smitten with her and felt some entitlement to her.

The first sign was demanding to know more about her. They weren't ever content to be with a beautiful woman and leave it at that, they wanted to know all about her. Then they started to develop real feelings for her.

Then Ervisa had to shoot them down and be a heartbreaker.

"You want to know more about me because you like me, once you know enough about me you'll think you can try to fix me, and then you'll try to be Ervisa's hero. You'll fail, and we'll both leave bitter and angry with each other. It's happened before."

Ervisa resumed her walk towards the tarmac, and the hangar where her bird was being repaired, which was her destination. She was really hoping Horst didn't try to press the hero issue any further. Odds were he really didn't consider himself a hero, but she doubted that was going to keep him from trying.

[Fromikeable]

Host listened grimly as Ervisa described what had happened numerous times before. She met a nice guy. They shagged. He grew attached. He tried to help her. She refused. He tried anyway. She broke it off and left them both more broken then they had gone in.

For a second, he considered what his plan had been. He would've asked her more about herself. She probably would have denied him. He would've tried to befriend her anyway, and this whole ordeal would've been over a lot sooner than they both hoped.

Horst knew about fixing things. Being a mechanic, he had just told his engineers-in-training his little creed-o the other day: if you have the pieces, you can fix anything.

Did he have the pieces to fix Ervisa, though?

Not even a few. Horst sighed, still walking with her. For once, blind-headed determination seemed more like a hindrance than it did a strength. But what could he do? All he had done over his entire life was strive for something until it was his. He didn't know any other way to do things, or accomplish goals.

Maybe it's time ta' learn then.

"Fine," he conceited, squinting at the taste of defeat. For a woman that brought him so much pleasure, Ervisa sure seemed to be knocking him down to size today. He hadn't lost this much of anything since he and Geog had bet their life-savings on a speeder race.

For a second, he was silent again, thinking with a face of concentration. Surely he knew how to do more than just charge his problems down the conventional way, right?

...

Okay, so maybe he didn't. He was still going to try though, even if it was a bit less direct.

"If that's how ya' feel about it, I won't say a thing." Being a man of his word, he shut his jaw and put his hands in his pockets, walking in total silence. He looked at her every once in a while with a curious glance until they reached the tarmac. He resisted the urge to break the lack of sound, though. He knew better than to drive her off.

Then he'd really never get to know her.

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

Much to Ervisa's surprise, Horst stopped probing, protesting, and otherwise talking. No more questions, no more trying to get to know her. It was... Surprising. She'd been convinced he was going to stubbornly keep insisting on being a hero...

She'd thought it was too late actually, that once he'd known about her background, the time she'd spent a prisoner and the time she'd spent as a prostitute, he would have insisted on trying to fix a damaged woman like she was a worn out engine part.

Instead he seemed to be resigned to his status as a non-hero, as a physical partner. She really wasn't telepathically gifted to tell if he was just complying to respect her wishes or whether he'd really yielded. Either way it earned her some peace, but she had to end it on a brighter note.

As they passed by the entrance to a hangar, Ervisa reached out with her senses to see if it was empty. It was, and she grabbed Horst and pulled him inside.

The Mirialan planted a deep and fiery kiss onto his lips before pulling away and speaking.

"Tomorrow night, my quarters again."

Ervisa looked him in the eye for a long second, hoping he wasn't going to demand any assurances or further information. It should have been enough that they were both single and interested in some recreation.

This was going to be a new habit.

[Fromikeable]

Ervisa seemed surprised that Horst had actually shut it for once, and to be honest he was equally shocked. He still craved to know about her, but forced his jaw closed with all the strength he could muster.

Force wasn't the ans-

Ervisa pulled him into a hangar and smooched him fiercely for a minute. Surprised, Horst kissed back before she broke off. He looked around; the hangar was, luckily, deserted. It wasn't that he didn't want anyone to know, but more that he didn't want to try and have to explain something he didn't understand himself to someone else.

"Tomorrow night, my quarters again." Ervisa stared him down for a second, looking to see how he'd react. He stared back at her with the same passion as before, biting his tongue in his resistance to dig deeper. He'd try again later, which was apparently tomorrow night.

"I'll bring the ambiance." He replied, smirking ever so little. Even if he was going to continue digging, he'd might as well enjoy the sex while he was there. He hated treating Ervisa like a piece of meat, but that's how she seemed to want it, and he'd oblige her.

For now. He was still determined to get his answers, even if Ervisa was determined to keep them from him. He was already thinking of alternative tactics, almost treating the problem like a battle-field.

He shrugged his ideas off though, and pecked his new-found lover-devoid-of-love on the cheek before sticking his hands in his pockets and walking over to the hangar door. He turned on his heel and looked back at Ervisa.

He tried one last time to think of a way to describe what they had now. Whatever the heck it was...

I have no idea. Exasperated yet satisfied, Horst sighed with a small smile.

"C'mon, we've both got stuff to do."

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

Ervisa shot Horst a wink as she exited the hangar and headed for the one where her helo was undergoing repairs, to supervise and generally make herself handy.

Amazingly, Horst hadn't fought her. He hadn't tried to drag out more information, and most of all he hadn't made protestations of love or anything else similarly naive and annoying.

This did promise to be the beginning of something quite beneficial for both parties. Friends with benefits.

Ervisa ignored the 'no smoking' sign and lit up a cigarette on her way to the right hangar. There would be no one to stop her this time. Everything was going her way.

[End]