Nar Shaddaa

It was the same table. Different drink. Bottle of Corellian Whiskey. Two glasses. The Pantoran gunslinger had his trench coat on the back of his chair. His arm was extended forwards on the table. He wasn't checking his chrono, or even people watching.

No, this time, he was just watching the seat across from him. Waiting for someone to arrive.

She came in big irreflective shades, wearing dark crimson stovepipes and a blue jacket under a hip checkered coat. Small ribbons were tied at the end of her lekku. She had given an unfamiliar name to the waiter, Unya Massala.

"Lonesome men are very vulnerable so I'll take this place else someone more nefarious will take it."

She said with a soft laugh as she untied her cloak and let it slip on the chair.

He had gotten used to false names, alias', callsigns.

He didn't get used to the way she moved. He didn't think he wanted to. "And nefarious women are a credit a clutch, so please, have a seat." He grinned, as he opened the bottle, pouring her a glass, gently setting it before her.

He'd recognize her voice, no matter how she hid herself. "I'm glad you came."

She didn't let him forget what he couldn't get used to by walking around the chair and lowowering herself slowly to her trademark verge-seat. "Then I suppose I have come to make you glad." She teased, wrapping her fingers around the whiskey glass, not sipping just yet. "But the opening toast is on you." Her arched brow got above the frame of the shades ever so slightly.

"I supppse it is, Red." He watched her with focused intentions as she sat down, the slightest of purple hue taking his cheeks. Pouring himself a drink, he raised his glass.

Speaking in Mando'a. "To Peace. May she see Passion."

She bursted into a small laugh.

"Whatever that means. I choose to read it as lies not being able to obscure the truth. But peace there will be nonetheless, I have heard."

"That's what they're saying. Celebrations throughout the Smuggler's Moon. Everyone hoping that maybe, for the first time in Centuries, it will last." He masked is own laugh with the glass.

He wasn't very good with toasts. Room full of Hutts, sure, absolutely. Staring down angry customs officials and government check points while smuggling? Easy as anything else.

"But you're right. It'll be a lie, as things move to shadows. I also have heard the Hutts want everyone gone that isn't one if theirs. I guess even their hospitality has limits."

"They probably prepare to lash out and want to have uncluttered shooting range. Someone will be blamed for their humiliations." She mused quietly. "And yet, it will be shadows and proxies for a while. But it may also be a more favourable time to bring back the focus to... domestic affairs." She took a long sip.

"I've already begun laying some ground work. Putting out feelers. I sent a message home to my family this morning. I just have to tell the Tortoise. I'll wait till we're in hyperspace tonight." He held the glass, comforted by the chill of it. His eyes flitted upwards, watching the red twi'lek for a moment.

"Where are you off too, from here? Anywhere else after dropping your sister at school?"

"I certainly have some new acquaintances to purposefully cultivate. Convergence of interests is a passing thing, so this is not something to be postponed indefinitely."

She took a sip and undulated her shoulders in a wave that passed just once, relaxing her upper spine.

"The battle of narratives is ever on. The moment you think you're done your opponents are whispering to the other ear of your yesterday's ally. It is only when future is made to truly intertwine when things become a little more durable."

"The same in politics as it is in war, Red." Taking a long, drawn sip of it, before reaching to refill her glass, and then his. "Leadership requires constant reaffirmation. One of the first thinga I learned in officer training."

"I suppose that means this truly is a galaxy of intrigues. Makes sense, given everything we are."

"There will always be violence. It just morphs. What they wish to hail as peace will be anything but. You can call it intrigue if you will."

She moved her finger along the rim of the refilled glass.

"Bipolar wars are very constraining if you think of it."

"Depends on the rules of engagement. Total war can break those constraints, at the costs of billions." His owm amber eyes lowered, watching her finger dance along tbe rim. An eyebrow arched, before considering his own glass again.

The golden liquid moved steadily, as he rolled the glass in his hand. Again returning to watch her face, one that had been hidden for so long.

"Though respite from that kind of conflict can be welcome. To remember why you went to war."

Her tone shifted to one slightly lecturing as her golden eyes met his ambers.

"It actually makes them more stringent. Total war means totalitarian mobilisation, subjecting all agendas to a singular goal that is not truly your own. It only gives freedom to those who position themselves on the top of the game. It is through dispersed conflict that one can rise."

Her finger stayed on the rim.

"Always remember why you fight, not just when circumstances allow it."

"I'm not one to forget my reasons, Red. It's why I mustered out. Why I signed on with a crew of rogues and malcontents." A smirk, but not one of arrogance.

"This is the first time I've been in any sense of not being free in some time. I'm aware of the magnitude of the task it will take to rise."

"Good. It's a small galaxy. If you falter or demonstrate poor timing, there will be those who'll take notice." She wrapped her stomach with one hand, then exhaled a little stronger through nostrils in self-reproof.

And he did take notice. The way her nostrils flared as she exhaled, the subtle movements of hee fingers as her hand reached across her stomach.

This his eyes keeping their intent on hers. "My career has been one of planning and due diligence. You'll find me up to that task. You wouldn't have accepted me otherwise." His own deep breath, then another drink.

"How are you feeling?"

"Reminded of my insufficient planning and diligence that I need to transcend."

She mused.

"No-one is invincible. This is a promise and a memento."

"I'm sorry I... we didn't get there sooner." A hint of remorse, before he glanced away. The cool night air of the Uptown filling his nose, the aroma of the restaurant mixed with the scent of the whiskey. Perhaps even a hint of her perfume if she was wearing any.

"I felt your pain. Your... anger. Boring into the base of my skull..."

"At myself. I was played. I had been played for quite a while and had failed to see it. I am not sure how I think about the next chance I have been given, at someone's whim, for someone's scheming."

She thinned her lips. She did not wear perfume this time, but her perspiration had a natural scent of desert wind with a note of indeterminate floral sweetness.

"Your pity and remorse help neither of us unless you reforge them into more kinetic drives, like thirst for vengeance. There is a path to be free, and we have not walked it through yet. For victories, one needs power."

"It isn't pity." He looked back to her, a flash of something in his eyes. "It's knowing that I could sense you like that, through the Force, and I couldn't react fast enough." His glass set down with a bit more forecfulness than intended.

"Another time of feeling out of place, and hating it. For all my ways with words, and guiding emotions, all I can think is I am not yet strong enough." Fingers wrapped tightly around his drink, the cyan skin around his knuckles lightening from the tension.

"I cannot allow you to be played again. Not if I have anything in my power I can do. I cannot stand to feel you in pain again."

"Then learn to cope with this mental strain and exasperation because pain in many of its manifestations had been part and parcel of my life even before my life earned it's present direction. I grow through pain, though I do not like it to be senseless. So the best what can be done is to make sense of what has happened." She smiled darkly, her tilt moving her lekku. "And you are not the one to give me permissions, Durasay."

His gaze narrowed upon her smile, his grip relaxing. "Of course. It was meant as more a show of dedication to strengthening my own resolve than dreaming of you needing permission for anything..." He let his own smirk show, then turn serious as he spoke in Mando'a "... Master."

He sat up a bit straighter, bringing the glass of whiskey against his forehead for a moment. His gaze focused on the subtle way her lekku had moved, emphasized by the ribbons tied to them.

"And so you move forward. What is trying to make sense of it all telling you now?"

She looked at him in silence for a moment, saying nothing, apparently comfortable with silence. Once some time had passed she took a round ashtray from the table. It still had some stuck cigarette ash in it even though butts had been removed. Then, she swirled her whiskey and dipper her index finger in it, picking out exactly one drop, then releasing it near the rim of the ashtray. The droplet settled without spilling around into a small protrusion of alcohol. Soon, others would join them along the verge in just the right distance for them not to merge outright. Eventually they would, and dynamically so when she would start swirling the ashtray. A small, quite symmetric maelstrom whirled inside it as she was turning it to a tempo she understood. However, she continued until all the ash would be wiped off, and the denser liquid would slow into several big blobs, one at the centre, 2-3 others a bit off it in different direction. She then left it for him to investigate, casting the lekku to the back as she leaned away.

He leaned forwards, watching the swirling motion of ash and whiskey. Amber eyes moving to track the motions. Seemingly controlled chaos, swirling in the manner as dictated by Moyr.

A slow blink as he pondered the puzzle, then looking back up to the preternatural creature before him.

"A storm that is brewing? With nothing set in stone yet?"