Private Alors On Danse

[Beatrice Govan]

T H C G, W H S K S T T N

This was disgusting.

A pop-up space station, already an offensive idea in its own right. The concept was carnival in nature, cheap and cheerful but in reality, it was anything but. No, this floating entertainment district was apparently exclusive, with guest lists, code words and secret handshakes. Exclusive. She could have debated that, nobody here seemed to be the true crème de la crème. Didn't hold themselves properly. Or were her perceptions of importance now antiquated?

Perhaps, but at the very least, in the judgement of the woman with the golden arm, this place was absolutely ostentatious. Who names a space station 'whisk' and then doesn't even have the decency to spell it correctly?

Truly a creature of pretentious deviance.

Evelynn's nature drew her to T H C G, which the woman assumed to mean 'The Cage' but then again, there wasn't a cage at all, so it was up to debate. No, it was more of an arena in nature, reminiscent of an upper city duelling ring rather than a poorly lit rust pit. Further snobbery came demonstrated in the fight card, presented as a bloody menu, the sight of which caused the blonde's eyes to violently judder upwards and inwards.

Bare-knuckle brawling, shockboxing, melee duels, ranged duels, free-for-alls, battle royales. She couldn't doubt the variety upon the menu but the fact that it was a menu was cause for rage-based constipation itself.

She sat in the front row of the circular arena, the sole occupant of a table for four with her sneering gaze set in stone as it observed the cleaning droids in action between bouts. The diminutive woman couldn't help but compare and contrast T H C G to The Cauldron, her own former arena from a life been and gone. Incomparable. What was this pretentious, so-called exclusive slop compared to the grandiosity of a royal seal of approval? Where was the soul? The spectacle? They didn't even have any beasts.

A gloved hand snatched at the carafe occupying the centre of her table and poured a tall drink. It was a house concoction known as JUB, an effulgent orange beverage that smelled like Peragian fuel yet tasted like a tropical dream. Likely incredibly flammable.

It was already a regretful decision being here, why not make more terrible choices?

 

[Aver Brand]

Doubt had been her first reaction when the invitation to T H C G first crossed her desk – for the mercenary, not the kingpin – but now that she was standing on the plush red carpet with her own two lacquered shoes, she was… convinced? Delighted? Envious?

Mostly, she was Why hadn’t I thought of this?

Well, no matter. She – the kingpin, not the mercenary – wielded enough credits and power to bridge that gap. Aver decided, right there and then, that she would invest in this thing. Buy it up, spice it up, tighten it up (the security was the one thing lacking) and boom, recipe for success guaranteed.

Finally she could access all those hard-to-reach places rife with regulation and law enforcement bodies and provide the kind of entertainment that the wealthy elite so craved. Sure, some of them were willing to travel to less savory corners of the galaxy to scratch their itch; the majority never risked it, though.

Doorstep-deathmatch to the rescue.

Thus the bespoke besuited bastard brandished her brawl billet at the bouncer and marched grinning towards her spot. Ringside ticket, no less. If the proprietors of this pop-up joint were hoping to elicit her patronage with front-row seats to all the carnage and violence…

…it worked. Nobody was perfect, Aver Brand least of all people.

With a sigh of contentment the mercenary sunk into her chair, poured herself a glass of… JUB? and turned her sharp smile on the other occupant of the booth. And her sharp eyes, too, with all their hungry, electric subtlety.

“Good evening,” she murmured in her best sotto voice, tipping her drink in greeting. “Are you also part of the VIP package?”

Because honestly, they could’ve done far worse than slight, blonde, and cold.

 

[Beatrice Govan]

There was a voice, an uninvited voice pervading the air of her own private realm, interrupting both thought and atmosphere. Not only that, it was a voice that brokered explicit suggestion in regards to Evelynn's own profession.

She didn't react at first, the green of her eyes studiously examining the tall glass of luminescent rocket fuel before her, a black-gloved thumb and forefinger pinching at either side of the rim. A small sniff was granted, one that curled the woman's upper-lip into a practised sneer and yet still the Sith considered her glass for a few seconds longer.

At last her head turned, finally acknowledging the brute that had sat at her table and was helping herself to her beverage.

There were so many different reactions that this intrusion warranted. A swift yet devastating comeback. A scathing hour-long monologue about grace and decorum. Unrestrained bestial violence. Yet none of these came to the fold.

They couldn't.

Her presence here was a facade, a carefully spun web of mind trickery and deceit. She was not Evelynn, Dorn, Zambrano or otherwise. She was Beatrice Govan, logistics coordinator for a freight consultation firm. A dull yet scathing woman who dressed in preparation for a surprise conference call at all times. So tightly coiled and clenched as a human that one might fear that she would shatter at a glance. As severe and taut as the bun that held her hair, giving showcase to drastic cheekbones. Brittle, glacial, unapproachable.

Usually.

In a flash a datapad was presented and laid upon the table, practised fingers tapping the screen blindly as Evelynn continued to silently stare in moderate irritation, her gaze roving over and scrutinising every inch of her intruder's face; seeking flaws to audit in place of any meaningful or human eye contact.

“No,” came the robotic voice of the datapad, its text-to-speech function offering a strange cadence that mismatched with the blonde's face, “this is a separate, premium package. Payment upfront only.”

Beatrice Govan, former logistics coordinator and current make-believe mystery escort.

Her response would hopefully drive her trespasser away, unless they were some kind of lunatic that found need in diminutive ghastly mute women.

 

[Aver Brand]

“Cat got your tongue?”

Considering her own partner of thirty years was also mute, you’d think Aver would be a bit nicer about this sort of thing. But then she was Aver, and this was decidedly not her mate. If it were— well, no, it wouldn’t be, because Quietus didn’t care for blood sport, ostentatious displays of wealth, or the callous disregard the mercenary harbored for such events in particular.

Or, rather, the people involved with them. Aver Brand was only a step above the sort that left behind dead hookers in hotel rooms under fake names, if only because she preferred toys that didn’t break.

Smirking at nothing and everything, the mercenary finally deigned to take a sip of her drink. It took all of her considerable self-control not to cough as the booze went down, and her nostrils flared at the oil it left behind in her throat.

Well, clearly, the mixologist was getting fired first thing. Who the kark put karking starship fuel into a perfectly serviceable Coruscanti Blackout?

Aver dropped her tumbler back onto the table, lip curled in disgust. Now if only there were something nearby that could correct this awful taste… Her icy gaze panned right and took in the pinched, sharp features of the slight blonde.

“Premium package, hm?” Her eyes dipped lower, to the prim, businesslike getup. Not so unlike her own, though Aver doubted it came with the same plated reinforcement against high-caliber and compressed-cylinder rounds. “Which service do you work for?”

 

[Beatrice Govan]

Evelynn's expression challenged the woman's jibe, a brief eye-roll accompanied by a withering and quizzical wrinkle of features urging her to make better quips. What utter nonsense, why were cats even getting tongues in the first place?

Having grown strangely unconcerned with the former shame of public eating and drinking, the woman took her moment to display the wonders of a tongueless existence; picking up her glass, tilting her head back and quite literally tipping the contents down her neck. It was disconcerting sight for the ordinary who savoured swill upon their tongue and while Evelynn might have grown accustomed to such, she never did like bearing her throat so openly.

She questioned whether the orange liquid was actually a beverage for patrons or if it were disinfectant left behind by hapless custodians and found at the end of her thoughts that the woman was still here.

And.

Still.

Talking.

The waif leaned forward, this time staring at the spot between the woman's eyes as if she could look through both flesh and bone at a presumably empty mind. After all, what kind of brick-headed mutant could think that they were going to get serviceable company out of Evelynn?

Tap tap tap.

“An independent one.”

It was the premium, wasn't it? Why would she say premium? Why pretend to be so expensive and exclusive here, around these kinds of people? Then again, why sell your false escort persona as cheap? That would be so incredibly tragic.

“For five thousand credits I will pretend to be your disappointed wife for two hours. I will check the time every fifteen minutes and sigh wistfully, dreaming of the affair that I'm having with my yoga instructor,” she typed, her face remaining perfectly serious and acidic as she typed this complete nonsense, “ten thousand for the entire evening, and I'll slap you across the face at the end of the night.”

There was something truly thrilling in such mundane lies.

 

[Aver Brand]

Display was the word, indeed. Aver arched her brows at the show the escort made of downing the drink. Given the taste, such a wholesale approach was likely the only way to avoid spitting it right back out. Either that, or the woman had an iron gullet that belied her sallow countenance. This was Chaos, after all; everything was possible.

The pitch was something else, though.

Aver’s first – and for a long time, only – response was a slow blink. Eventually she smacked her lips, folded her hands in her lap, and offered the blonde a winning smile. “Novel niche.”

There was a chance someone had set up a legitimate, if extremely cynical service for the exact ilk of people that visited illegal blood brawls. The more likely option, though, was that this blonde didn’t particularly care for company and was full of inventive tactics in deterring it.

Whatever the truth, her evening would be all the more entertaining for it.

“Well, since my wife actually would be disappointed I’m here…” the mercenary trailed off as she reached into her suit, fiddling for a moment with the chipbook she carried for just such occasions. Leaning forward, she calmly set down a chit next to the translating tablet.

“Ten thousand for the evening—”

Aver paused, raising her hand to flag down an attendant for a tumbler of Whyren’s. Unhurried, she sparked up a Black Label, then turned to finish the thought wreathed in blue smoke.

“—and another ten if I can fuck you during the match.”

 

[Beatrice Govan]

Evelynn tried to imagine the type of person who would be so utterly tragic as to require such a service. So demented and lonely that the concept of living in a mundane and loveless existence was worth paying through the nose for. It was one thing to hire a facade of genuine affection, but to long for disdain? Lunacy.

Wait, no.

Why was this woman still here?

Still.

T A L K I N G?

And getTING READY TO PAY?!

Finally, she deigned to look into this maniac's eyes, expecting to see stained glass windows that revealed a maelstrom of chaos and mental decay. Of course, there was always a good chance that instead of being a large meat creature piloted by a single, diminished brain cell that Evelynn had in fact, played herself. She had crafted a ridiculous scenario, one that needed to be seen to be believed.

Then again, that was ten thousand credits on the table and the blonde was technically what was known in the business as a poor person.

In the space of around eight seconds, Evelynn's eyebrows expressed moderate displeasure, extreme displeasure, horrifying revelation and then careful consideration. Credits were credits after all. Get to be rude and abrasive for an entire evening and get paid for it? Couldn't forget the bonus slap afterwards, mechanical fingers whirled menacingly beneath black leather.

As she pocketed the credit chit the ante was upped.

She squinted at the woman (her client?) as if she had just grown a second head, a second head that had then started yodelling. Was this a reverse bluff? Some great pride-based insult? Or was Evelynn one word away from becoming an actual sex worker? She held up a single gloved finger, indicating that she needed a minute to consider the proposition as the Sith stared back out at the arena.

Aw, the cleaning droids had finished removing the viscera.

Did she find the notion degrading? Not particularly. In fact, she didn't find anything WiLdLy OuTrAgEoUs in the idea of sex. Ordinary people did it; actual logistic coordinators got karked at the weekend. The concept almost seemed mundane, but getting paid for it didn't, that seemed like a valid investment of time. Oh no, making a financial and pleasurable profit, how terrible. Really, who would say no? Evelynn briefly questioned what that last thought said about her own psyche.

A laugh. It scraped out of her mouth like loathsome rust from a disused voice.

Finally, the blonde returned full attention to the much taller woman, her sharp features fresh with a coating of bemused mirth. Fingers returned to the device, ready to end any and all anticipation.

“Fine, but not during the free-for-all,” the datapad stated in those same stark tones as before, “I want to actually watch that one.”

It was a thirty man deathmatch, after all.

A pause, the mirth vanished in a blink and the more natural scorn and derision crested upon Evelynn's face like it was born to be there.

“Did you order me a drink or did you just get for yourself? Typical. Selfish as usual.”

 

[Aver Brand]

Aver smoked and drank and watched the show unfold.

The escort mulling her offer, that is. For the moment, the visceral sounds of lives reduced to entertainment value were just that; background noise.

“Obviously,” the mercenary agreed. What kind of uncultured maniac would ignore a perfectly good battle royale going down five feet away from them? Aver was many things, but she was not that. “I was thinking ranged duels, myself.”

Why anyone would watch that sort of thing in an enclosed arena was beyond her. Maybe they’d lowered their standards for the premiere so as to cast the net as wide as possible. Maybe they just hadn’t hired an expert bloodfight coordinator to advise them against this sort of menu item.

One thing was for certain: under new management, such faux pas would not happen again.

Her grin blossomed fully around the cigarra as the blonde assumed her role with palpable zeal. Well – inasmuch as Aver could judge based on the vehemence of the tapping and the woman’s facial expressions. Which were… something, to be sure.

“Now, honey… we’ve talked about this.” Aver smiled wide and insincere, blue smoke filtering through her sharp teeth as she exhaled. “It’s not my fault you thought I’d change after marriage.”

With a snap of her fingers she seized the attention of the liveried attendant again, pointing at her glass and gesturing for the whole bottle.

“Don’t say I never did anything for you.”

 

[Beatrice Govan]

Ranged duels was perfectly agreeable. Marksmen were more often than not complete crayon sniffers who lived in a world of masturbatory toy collecting. Boys and their toys, phallic metaphors and all that. Not to mention they were usually Mandalorians.

The worst.

Ugh.

Evelynn didn't realise just how easy her part would be to play until she heard the word honey, which actually raked saccharine nails down the back of her skull and gave cause for a disgusted grimace. The reaction wasn't even a part of the fantasy, it was genuine. What a boon! Who knew that pretending to be in a committed relationship repulsed her so?

Really, given former circumstance, it made sense.

She scoffed, looking away with shoulders hunched and rigid, body language rooted in frigid rejection. Her electronic voice was a small tragedy in this scenario, yes, it was perfectly cold but it lacked all the correct emphasis that her inner voice longed to unleash.

“I hate when you do that,” the datapad stated as Evelynn shook her head and gestured to the attendant who was now on their second trip to retrieve the entire bottle, “snapping your fingers at the staff. It's disgraceful, making a show of yourself like that. You don't own them, you know.”

Said the former slave owner.

 

[Aver Brand]

With their affairs settled for the moment, Aver sank deeper into the plush upholstery and finally directed her gaze at the main event below: two shockboxers going at it at a furious pace, and it was already round… three, apparently.

Several teeth were already scattered around the ring, easily tracked by the blood-spatter paths that stained the sand each time one of the fighters connected.

THICK
w
e

t

á̸̛̬͚̟̦̼̭̄̈̀̚n̴͖̤̝͉͉̹̟̒̊̎̿̕į̸͓̝͓̝̆͑m̸̤̘͈̼̬͍͙̐́͐͛̉́̔͝ă̶̢̖̘͓͙͎̗͑̽̃͒l̶͈͍͕̼̺͇̪͗

sounds.

Aver licked her lips, abandoning the charade for a moment as her eyes lit up an electric blue. Her nostrils flared as she breathed in the fresh iron, sharp enough to pierce even the veil of her cigarra. It never failed to move the base beast in her breast, even now that every year saw her bloodlust calcify and her dread of retirement abate.

“And if I did?”

The weight of her gaze was slow to follow the cut of her words, reluctant to tear away from the sight of a smashed nose, a split lip, a gashed brow. Aver met those cold green eyes and stamped out the dregs of her smoke with unnecessary force.

“You’d just find something else to piss and moan about.”

 

[Beatrice Govan]

Oh, right.

The reason they were both presumably there in the first place, the violence. It was easy to forget these things when you were suddenly thrust into a terribly unhappy marriage. As her other half relaxed into the furniture, Evelynn leaned forward, not opening back up her body language with shoulders still hunched and elbows propped upon knees.

Shockboxing was a hit or miss, but thankfully neither combatant seemed particularly concerned with the state of their own faces.

This was the ideal.

Every meaty fist that connected with waiting flesh was a triumph. Not for technique or skill, no, Evelynn was no combat enthusiast. Nor for bloodshed and violence either, but those were not entirely unwanted. No, her stare drank in grunts and grimaces, shifting postures to accommodate bruised flesh from brutal blows. It was a look caught in the whites of eyes, so easy to find if you went looking.

Pain.

She felt like a recovering addict on the edge of relapse as she watched, knowing full well that they rejected such a gift, adrenaline smothering nerves and suffocating what was the truest sensation. What they drank in was a mere pittance. They were philistines, ignorant to immeasurable pleasure and power. Suffering was the great infernal engine oft-overlooked for more plebian contrivance.

They didn't deserve it.

I'm better now.

She longed to take it.

Without thinking Evelynn's gloved fingers interlaced beneath her chin and she squeezed, alchemised phrik crushgaunt s l o w l y applying pressure to brittle bone.

A callous remark brought her back, hands springing apart and head snapping to look back over her shoulder at her failing marriage. There was a moment, her interrupted stare intense and lips drawn back to give a little teeth before it settled into a more erstwhile glare.

“Like what? The fact that you're such a stranger to your own children that they couldn't pick you out of a lineup if they tried?”

The blonde tossed her head back and rolled her eyes before continuing the text-to-speech tirade.

“Or maybe the fact that you justify it because you provided wealth as if that would make us all love you.”

 

[Aver Brand]

While her unexpected companion for the evening was engrossed in the exchange of agony going on below, the gilded attendant finally arrived with the rest of the bottle she’d ordered. Aver dismissed the man with a tip and calmly busied herself with pouring the delectable amber liquid into the crystal tumbler the twi’lek had also brought.

She slid it across the smooth table towards the blonde and leaned back into her seat without a word. The woman’s transfixed half-profile was as good a moment as any to take a picture and forward it to her infochants. Disporting as it was to play-pretend a marriage on the rocks, Aver did not get to push sixty by trusting every novel piece of entertainment that fell into her lap.

So to speak.

“Now, now,” she chided and took a sip of her own drink, “don’t sell yourself short, darling. Ashton Jr. would never have moved out without your intervention. Blowing the pool boy in front of his window? Masterstroke.”

 

[Beatrice Govan]

Evelynn cringed for a moment, not for the sudden revelation of her tryst with the pool boy, no, but rather at the fact that they had named one of their fictional children Ashton Jr., which was quite frankly an abhorrent name.

After regaining composure upon learning that she had allowed her child to be named Ashton Jr. (who, by the way, really needed to leave the nest anyway) she shot back seething daggers and snatched away her provided beverage. Another benefit of niche domestic roleplay, free drinks and a vast improvement on JUB at that, not that she would have been able to tell given her lack of tongue.

“Oh, so you want to discuss infidelities?”

One had to imagine that in their marriage that the only people they weren't actually sleeping with was each other.

“Please, continue! Enlighten me from your high horse, after all, you are the patron saint of loyalty and devotion!”

 

[Aver Brand]

It was an abhorrent name, wasn’t it? Probably something she’d picked from the cobwebs of memory – a passing conversation with her mother about The Real Housewives of Coruscant or something of the sort. Or was it Zeltros Shore?

Startled out of her reverie by the tinny voice of the tablet, Aver set her tumbler back on the table and afforded a passing glance to the woman who would be her wife. The announcer drew her attention away a moment later, screaming for the whole station to hear that the melee duels would be next.

After a break for their sponsors. Snort. What kinda amateur hour was this?

“A woman has needs, honey.” Every endearment that fell from her lips seemed to be sharper, full of some bitter poison that had brewed rank and rotten through twenty years of marriage. “And at least I have the decency to do it in a hotel, not in the bed that I share with my fucking wife.”

She took a long swig of her drink and pinned the blonde with keen blue eyes.

“Not to mention the kitchen. Or the jacuzzi. Or my vintage fucking ‘35 Rian-327. Ruined the fucking upholstery,” Aver sneered, lips peeling back on sharp, sharp teeth. “You know how much I paid for that drexl leather?”

 

[Beatrice Govan]

“Oh, I didn't realise you actually cared about these things” the datapad retorted lightning quick as she turned her full body to face her client husband-wife “given that you're actually home maybe nine days out of the year!”

It was quite a talent really, the device now balanced upon her leg as she touch-typed the screen at a rate of knots with her right hand and gripped her drink in her left. A necessity really, you have to keep a swift tempo in these kinds of fake altercations. Evelynn leaned forward, her lower jaw jutting out in unison to supplement the venom of her stare.

“I'm just another thing to you, like the jacuzzi or your stupid fucking airspeeder! Just rotting at our so-called home until you feel the need to come and play with us!”

A voice boomed in the background, the betting company that sponsored these fights ensuring that nobody would be able to escape the knowledge that PTAOR 'SMASH HAMMER' CAM'ALE was fourteen-to-one to win the bout. While that name was on par with Ashton Jr. in terms of terribleness, those were pretty decent odds.

You couldn't deny it.

As she stared at her client opposite Evelynn felt a real genuine sense of animosity clinging to her chest. Something in this woman's face actually bothered her, that or the blonde was getting far too into her character work.

 

[Aver Brand]

“With the amount of bottles you demolish before noon, sweetheart, I’m not sure you’d notice the house collapsing around you, much less when I happen to be home or not.” Aver exhaled and leaned forward with her best worst smile. “And since we’re keeping score, you might want to count off out loud how many vacations you take per year on my dime.”

To say nothing of the SPA trips, beauty treatments, shopping hyperjumps, and whatever sundry surfeit of excess a trophy wife might enjoy. Aver wasn’t exactly married to the type.

Under the pretense of checking the betting site, the merc instead checked her infochants’ response. Her brow twitched minutely at the bullet-point report.

Well now.

“You know, honey, it occurs to me I should probably know your name.” She glanced back at the blonde, mouth a lopsided smirk. “For the divorce papers, at least.”

“You pick mine and I’ll pick yours.”

 

[Beatrice Govan]

Jealousy was beginning to creep into the picture, not in this double sham of a marriage but in this new fake life that she was living. Swanning around all day getting drunk and having copious amounts of sex, splashing all that wealth without having to lift a finger, what wasn't to like? The turbulent relationship with her spouse wasn't ideal but it seemed minor in the grand scheme of things.

Maybe she could live the rest of her life as a vapid gold digger, youth was still technically on her side. A touch unambitious, perhaps.

She ruminated on a name for her partner in wedded disaster with a swift drink, all the complex notes and flavours of the vintage whiskey lost as it simply slid down the back of Evelynn's throat. Ah, and it came to her like a magnificent revelation!

The barest traces of mirth stained the edge of the woman's lips as she typed in the name of her deplorable husband.

“Mike Hunt.”

Very mature.

 

[Aver Brand]

Mike Hunt. Bland, boring, and probably bald.

Apt.

Her next smile was unlike any other she’d granted the blonde as yet – this one reached her eyes, and not for the better. Aver wet her lips with the dregs of her Whyren’s, content to stretch out the wait, to catch the perfect moment when the announcer finally shut up—

“Evelynn Hunt,” she murmured into the blissful beat of silence. “Née Zambrano.”

 

[Beatrice Govan]

That smile.

As if she had something better than Mike Hunt? The blonde very much doubted th-

Shit.

She stiffened, the only indication that this big bloody bastard had just managed blind-sided her with four words, or more accurately two. This was mostly due to the fact that the facial expressions worn by the caustic wife were very similar to the ones that Evelynn herself used.

The playfully antagonistic atmosphere turned palpable at that moment as she very deliberately moved to place her tumbler and datapad back upon the table, like a hostage tidying their desk before execution. She wasn't planning on any great fight or flight instinct, but the charade of their marriage was now officially dead and buried.

No refunds.

And I suppose you think that was terribly clever?

Her mental voice hissed into the other woman's head like a frigid draft as she turned back to face whoever this person was. It was an entirely unpleasant experience and fashioned to be as such. It felt like the only way to claw back onto some sort of level pegging.

What do you want?

 

[Aver Brand]

Two could play at this cardless game of Sabacc – cold eyes and staid expressions, snuffing out reactions as though they were at a funeral. If that was the sort of thing you did(n’t) at a funeral. Was it? However much death followed Ygdris Val through her many iterations, she’d never once attended a funeral.

Unless you counted a whole damn planet.

Then the blonde was in her head, and Aver had to thank her younger self once again for the prudent investment in the subdermal Force disperser. It was moments like these – randomly running into the spawn of Zambrano – where it really came handy. Imagine if Evelynn would’ve been able to tell from the start that she was sitting next to a raging Forcer. Imagine Aver not being blind and doing the same with the blonde. Would’ve been a different evening, then.

Much less fun, though.

Of course it was clever, she composed back at the Zambrano, smug enough in her head to make up for her lack of expression.

Oh, nothing. I just wanted to know my partner in this loveless marriage. She smiled, finally, swirling her whisky about like a liquid pendulum. And here I am, married into royalty.