Private Alors On Danse

[Beatrice Govan]

I mean, she frowned, suddenly feeling defensive because hot dogs were apparently not obscure, avant-garde fare only recently discovered by herself and nobody else, I hadn't...

She felt foolish, her drunken pipe dream as of twenty seconds ago of introducing Aver Brand to a brand new culinary sensation of mechanically removed lips and asses crumbling before her very eyes.

...until, like, last year.

Evelynn's immeasurable disappointment was only furthered when she realised that she had left her alcoholic pudding upon the floor and that she was too drunk and defective to retrieve it despite being a former Sith fucking Sorceress capable of warping bloody reality. As the thought unfurled, the blonde just sat there, face knotted in genuine tragedy as if remembering the loss of a loved one.

But then she remembered the hot dogs, and that bread with questionable meat sounded like an amazing idea.

We should go and get some, the woman suggested, a wry grin hooking the edges of her mouth upwards as she looked to Aver with impish intent glimmering in her glazed gaze, and you should carry me.

 

[Aver Brand]

She hadn’t known about hot dogs most of her life? Aver nearly choked on her drink at the revelation, then shook her head. What a tragic, diminished existence.

As more of her Whyren’s disappeared down her throat, the mercenary watched Beatrice ponder the life choices that had led to her pushing fifty without having consumed a single hot dog. Not even the most basic combo of spiceless plastic and dried out bread! Don’t even get her started on the Anajjan variation of the dog, so inundated in spice that you couldn’t feel your tongue or your ass for a week afterward. To say nothing of the street food wars of 868 ABY, where the vendors on the famous corner of 16th and B began one-upping each other with ever more extravagant gourmedog recipes.

She sighed and looked at the wasted blonde at her side. Nobody in their right mind would ever call Aver Brand a moral person. Yet here, now, she knew in her heart of hearts that there was only one right thing to do, and by the Force, she would do it.

“We—”

In the space of a second, the mercenary downed the last of her drink, snuffed out her cigarra, stood, and picked up Beatrice Govan as if she were a feather.

“—are going to Cruscant for hot dogs. I know a place.”

 

[Beatrice Govan]

Evelynn wasn't entirely sure if her outlandish request was going to be met with a green light or a boot to the teeth but given how the rest of the evening had gone, who could be sure of anything anymore?

Tomorrow is for consequence.

Today is for hot dogs.

She cackled when Aver lifted her from the booth, strange disused mirth crackling forth from her throat as if it was a transmission from the radio of chaos itself. At this point, it was difficult to say whether this outcome was one based upon mirth or madness. Perhaps for the mercenary, this was the norm; drunken benders that ended in far-fetched trips for street food but for Evelynn this was some demented fantasy.

Tell me of this place, paint me a picture of hot dogs that make a voyage worthwhile.

For a moment she wondered if they could order JUB to go.

 

[Aver Brand]

Aver flicked a thick chit at the liveried servant as they passed the gawking man. It was enough to cover the alcohol, the JUB, and a small lakeside cottage besides. Her gaze hardened whenever someone was dumb enough to meet her eyes on the way to the elevator. A brief flash of predator teeth was all it took to send them scurrying back to their corners and the boring match.

They were already halfway back to the hangars when the blonde stirred from her drunken stupor to demand a tale of hot dogs, of all things. The mercenary snorted and looked down at the fragile bird in her arms.

“Beatrice, I’m many things,” she said, voice as warm as molten molasses, “but a storyteller ain’t one of ‘em.”

The elevator dinged and Aver strode straight for her ship de jour, the ramp already descending thanks to the great innovation of proximity keys. Technology, biatch.

“The toilet’s on the left if you need to puke,” came her distant voice as she deposited the woman on a couch and made for the cockpit. “Shouldn’t be more than an hour, though.”

–

She’d actually highballed the trip. In forty-three minutes her boots were once again on Coruscanti ferrocrete, her lungs thanklessly taking in the unique mix of smog and arrogance that pervaded the air of the planet that never slept.

Now there was just the matter of figuring out whether the blonde could once again walk on her own.

 

[Beatrice Govan]

Evelynn really needed to work on her habit of appearing to get kidnapped upon W H S K S T T N, it was quite frankly becoming embarrassing. Not that she was aware of such a thing as she basked in the sloppy, drunken enjoyment of being carried by what was, an exceptionally warm body.

But you have a wonderful voice for stories, Evelynn mentally murmured about an eternity after the window of that conversation had passed, finding herself being placed upon a couch and informed about the toilet as if she had the capability of standing up and getting there in the first place.

Thankfully, she didn't.

---

As it turned out, the blonde could not once again walk on her own and she made an awkward thin-lipped smile to Aver to indicate such. It wasn't a matter of Evelynn being so completely wrecked that had transformed her legs into useless spindles, but more a matter of her nanotech spine being a finicky bitch.

How was she supposed to have predicted that her body's replacement central support structure had bonded with Beatrice Govan and Beatrice Govan only?

Fucking Cortez.

Get over here, I'll climb onto your back.

 

[Aver Brand]

Snort. “No you won’t.”

Aver raised her brows at an innocent spaceport tech who happened to be puttering by. He winced, opened his mouth, and closed it with a click as the mercenary did the military one-eighty on her heel and marched back up the ramp to collect her crippled tagalong. She was miserably sober from the trip – the mercenary, not the blonde – because hey, having a metabolism on par with a fission reactor had its downsides.

“We’ll call a speeder like civilized people.” With a pointed look, the mercenary flipped open her tablet and keyed in for a car. The Mega network had serviced the Coruscanti traffic reliably for years, and Aver, for one, liked to tip the working man.

“Now, the essential question, Beatrice.” The redhead wheeled on the blonde, face as serious as anything. “Do you stand with 16th or B?”

 

[Beatrice Govan]

Ah, so they were civilised now, a far cry from the animals on the floor from approximately an hour ago. Evelynn snorted at the notion, but on the inside was somewhat devastated that her request to play jockey upon Aver's back at been denied.

The essential question was apparently a nonsense array of numbers and letters and the blonde could only surmise that either this was some kind of code, or that the JUB had a secondary kick that had rendered the listening part of her brain completely inoperable.

Judging from the expression on Aver's face it seemed as if the woman had asked a perfectly legitimate question.

I have no idea what you just said, Evelynn replied, having enough alcohol in her system to abandon any potential embarrassment of being caught not knowing something, please explain, and do it slowly.

 

[Aver Brand]

After a moment of consideration, Aver nodded and joined Beatrice on the couch in her lounge. It wasn’t particularly luxurious but it was comfortable and wide enough to fuck on when the mood struck during month-long voyages to or from Thral. Damn that planet and every hyperlane that ended lightyears out of its solar system.

She really ought to have the Shadowrun extended.

“Alright. We have,” she checked the utilitarian, phrik-cased watch on her wrist, “three minutes and a half. Should be enough.” The mercenary sat back, cleared her throat, and launched into the epic of the street food wars of 868 ABY.

“On the corner of 16th street on the 21st level in the Suma district – that’s north-eastern industrial – there’s this hole-in-the-wall called Kolmanz. Been there since before the One Sith occupation,” which is when Vrag had discovered its fast food gems, but that was besides the point, “and it has a fucking cult following. Ran by the same bith family since the start, far as I know. They started out with skewers and shishkabob, but they’re more famous for their gourmedog. Well, they’re more famous for the gourmedog now.

“See, in 865 another place opened across from Kolmanz; Rodarch & Kojak, a couple of retired mercs. Now, Kolmanz obviously had tradition on their side, but RnK were old spacers knew their way around all kinda cuisine and spices from the Outer Rim.

“Only took them a few years to rise in popularity. Fucking—” Aver gestured for the word, “meteoric, it was. There were queues outside RnK on B street, spilling out round the corner and you can bet your bony ass Kolmanz got salty as fuck about it.

“And then one calm, slow Taungsday in winter of 868, Kolmanz commissioned a fucking scraper-length ad above the shop, saying something like ‘the home of the OG spicedog’...” the mercenary grinned and bounced her brows at Beatrice, “and alllll Nether broke loose.

“Lasted the whole year long. They just kept buying out more and more ad space, slinging so much shit the local journos got on the story and blew it even more out of proportion. You ask me, they never had any real beef at all and it was just one genius publicity stunt cause fuck, they got an insane bump in traffic that year. Speeders basically couldn’t get through that junction because of all the folks waiting in line. It was cra—”

Her tablet lit up with the Mega app and an animated wave from a creepy anthropomorphic holo-car. Aver bared her teeth in disgust, quickly sweeping away the marketing abomination.

“Alright, up you go,” she said as she scooped the blonde into her arms again. “We’ll do the grand finale in the car.”

 

[Beatrice Govan]

It was hard to tell whether Evelynn was enraptured by the tale, incredibly inebriated, feeling the kick of the spice or all three, but the woman just sat and stared with mouth agape and hooded eyelids during the entire procession.

Was this real life?

Who knew that out there amongst the stars there was deep hot dog lore, with proud lineages and bold, new upstarts warring over meat and bread? Was this common knowledge? Was this what the common people were hiding from the upper echelons of aristocracy? There was an edge of insanity to it all the caused the woman to question her own mind.

The Street Food Wars of 868 ABY, by Palpatine's fucking ghost.

But she was hooked, so when the arrival of their speeder came (announced by a garish notification) Evelynn couldn't help but be outwardly aghast as she was picked up once again.

Are you fucking with me?

 

[Aver Brand]

Was this just fantasy?

I mean, it was Aver Brand, shitfaced redheaded butch and another similarly spelled word and a liar extraordinaire besides, so… could be? The Street Food Wars of 868 ABY could’ve been a baldfaced fib pulled straight out that diamond arse and the sloshed Beatrice-slash-Evelynn would never know the fucking difference.

But if she was going to lie, weren’t there far better lies to be told? I mean, what kind of monster would make up a fast food vendor epic just to deceive a crippled, reformed war criminal who was falling for the Galaxy’s tersest man?

“Even I ain’t that cruel,” she responded once they were comfortably sprawled in the back of the speeder. Once Aver was comfortable, anyway. “So, where were we? Ah, right—”

She sparked up again and wafted the smoke at the ceiling. “The whole thing got so heated by mid-summer that the media began running polls with the locals, trying to declare one spice dog the winner.

“Didn’t work. Obviously. Like some dumb piece of shit from the Floor Street Times knows what’s the difference between a Tatooine Ripper and a Wraith-Rancor crossbreed? This ain’t stock-shorting, Jimmy. Nailing the hot-sour balance of a sauce takes knowledge and talent.

“Anyway, several food networks got together after the failed polls and sent their critics to try out RnK and Kolmanz and give their hot takes on their pages. One guess how that turned out.” Aver raised her brows at Beatrice and snorted. “Every critique got brigaded by the opposing team, most got taken down, yadda yadda.

“Finally, Kolmanz and RnK get tired of the spinoff shit and decide to have one big cook-off at the end of summer. Just, like, serving spicedogs, for free, dawn ‘til dusk. Crazy times. Pretty sure the entire industry of Suma just straight-up ground to a halt that day. There’s, waitasec…” Aver trailed off as she scrambled to handle her datapad and cigarra at the same time, “here you go.”

Triumphant, she stuck a collage of pictures under the blonde’s nose, all of them showing a thick crowd and queues winding around every corner. People were lounging on abandoned taxis and speeders, chatting and laughing and singing. Folks were outside on their balconies above the street, joining in on the cooking with porta-grills. There were picnic tables and folding chairs strewn around. Card games. On-duty cops chatting with on-duty dealers because neither were getting their job done that day. Most importantly, every man, alien, cat, and droid in the picture was stuffing their face with a spice dog.

“Moral of the story, Beatrice—”

The Mega cab pulled over. Aver jumped out, rounded the car to pick up the blonde, and turned her to face the corner of 16th and B.

“The moral is, both spicedogs are amazing, taking sides is dumb, and we’re gonna get both flavors ‘cause Rodarch and Kolmanz got hitched three years ago.”

 

[Beatrice Govan]

The tale continued in the back of the speeder, Evelynn not bothering to move from her obviously uncomfortable and unnatural positioning, deciding to live her best life as if she were Aver Brand's discarded bloody shopping bags.

It didn't matter, the conclusion of the street food wars did.

Naturally, Evelynn had fallen into the trap of inwardly taking a side, opting for Rodarch & Kojak purely out of violent disdain for anything rooted in the realms of family tradition.

Her suspension of disbelief reached a breaking point somewhere around the point where there was a wholesome summer giveaway, her jaded opinion of others refusing to take stock that anybody in the great, fucking hole that was this galaxy would just give something away for free. This had apparently been anticipated, however, and when Evelynn was presented with actual evidence of such festivities she simply stared at the datapad in a blend of horror and amazement.

Look at them all, with their bloody frivolity.

How...wholesome.

She didn't have to let Aver know that she missed the moral by pre-emptively taking a side, and so the blonde promptly kept that thought to herself, albeit behind an awkward tight-lipped expression as the corner of 16th and B beckoned.

Is this a fever-dream? Am I still dead? Do they sell drinks?

 

[Aver Brand]

Still dead? There was a part of her that wanted to vocalize the question, but it was quiet and drunk and stuck back at the W H S K S T T N so too bad. The sober bits of Aver Brand were standing in the street and happily ignored that part of the statement echoing in her head.

“Wouldn’t be surprised if JUB has some virus mixed in, yes, they do sell drinks and no, I’m not buying them.”

Aver put her foot down. Then another, and another. In other words, Aver walked towards the KRK establishment now bridging the junction (totally illegal, but the district permit committee were all diehard fans of the spice dog and so turned a blind eye to the zoning violation).

The little bell dinged as they entered the vendor. Despite the wee hour, there were several customers ensconced in their booths and leaning on the counter, feasting on the delightful blend of spices in the dog, the bread, and the sauce.

Force, the sauce.

“Right.” The mercenary claimed a table in the back and flicked open the holomenu on the table. “Take your pick.”

 

[Beatrice Govan]

You leave the JUB out of this, Evelynn huffed, despite the fact that she herself would be lamenting the very existence of the potent orange cocktail in the near future.

She felt a streak of petulance within her as they entered the eatery, her soul apparently offended that Aver wasn't going to be providing drinks throughout this entire affair. Perhaps the concept of sobering up was too daunting as if she'd have some sort of crisis were she to realise what was actually happening.

Try not to think about it.

Instead, the woman chose to focus upon the menu or tried to. THE GUTBUSTER. Dear sweet Chaos. Her name was Evelynn and she had a golden fucking arm, what was she doing in the proximity of something called THE GUTBUSTER? She tilted her head, eyes flitting over the menu as she simply accepted the madness in the mundane.

Well, its obvious for me, she started, eyes focusing on BIG DICK'S DIRTY DOG, which had an atrocious amount of toppings, seeming more like a mountain of meals with a spicedog lost underneath, I'll have the classic, so that I may judge the dog at its roots.

She frowned, looking up and catching sight of a wall of flat-holos that featured a vast array of valued customers, the most prominent of which was an incredibly obese human who grinned through chins while holding a monstrous creation of bread, meat and sauce that seemed to defy gravity itself. Her frown suddenly resolved itself in silent understanding.

Ah, so that was BIG DICK.

What are you getting? El...Scorchio? The Cheesedog? A bit of Big Dick?

 

[Aver Brand]

I mean, honestly, what had she expected from a naming scheme concocted by a pair of retired mercenaries? Their breed was rarely known for anything other than shooting straight and hitting hard. Kojak was the accounting brains behind the operation, and Nether, Rodarch even had a degree in chemistry – the awful names were the least they could do to maintain their image.

“Little old me?”

She grinned and pointed at the lowest item under the Specials tab – DREAD REDHEAD BREAD – then waved down the waiter. His hair was as pale as his skin, a hint of a five o’clock shadow outlining his bright smile as he limped to their table.

“Aver! Your usual at your usual hour?”

The woman shrugged, her suit entirely out of place in the dingy plasteel booth. “We were in the neighborhood.”

“We, hmm?” The arkanian turned his red eyes on Beatrice with an amused eyebrow. “You must be the infamous blonde, then! Lovely to meet you.” He stuck out his hand with a grin, palm still rough with gun callouses. “I’m Aesor. You can call me Tanner, though.”

A wink, and then he pulled back into pleasant professionalism, pen poised above the tablet to take her order.

 

[Beatrice Govan]

Little old me?

She stared at the mercenary as if the woman had sprouted an extra head that had promptly started beatboxing. Aver Brand was the antithesis of the phrase little old me, and Evelynn, as the patron fucking saint of little old me's across the known galaxy was rightly offended.

Before she could pass true judgement, however, they were accosted by a server, who was apparently very familiar with the blonde's bender buddy.

Her usual at the usual hour? Did she have a different order depending on the time of day? Presumably.

You fat bastard, Evelynn hissed into Aver's head.

Then she herself faced scrutiny from the grizzled veteran of...hot dogs, being cast to play the part of infamous blonde, which caused much raising of internal eyebrows and a wry smile to play across lips, refined golden hand meeting old, leathery flesh.

It was right around this point that Evelynn realised that she had left her glorified speak'n'spell, cane and dignity back in the booth. Usually, she was reticent to speak into the minds of strang-

No, no, the pleasure is all mine, Tanner, she replied, broadcasting entertained tones into the minds of them both before shooting Aver a look that demanded to know more about infamous blondes.

I'm a spicedog novice, I'm afraid, so I'll stick with the classic. That is unless you have any personal recommendations.