Private Blood in the Mud

[Arris Windrun]

NAR KAAGA
- Hutt Space -

It rains on Nar Kaaga. The destitute, wayward, and enduring left their impressions in the mud.

Arris Windrun left her own mark, too. The cybernetic misfit spit blood into a puddle. "Ready for round two?" A voice called out from the Rowdy crowd, answered only by Arris' shrug as she stumbles back into the pit. Spectators roared and credits exchanged hands between argumentative grunts and shoves.

Her shockmitts rose from her waist and presented a sloppy, undisciplined display of boxer's gruff. Across from her stood the typical obstacle at an event like this. A tall, buff, smug, and bloodthirsty humanoid with scars that outnumbered virgin flesh. "What's the matter, wirehead? You're barely standing," he gloated.

Indeed Arris looked as if a passing breeze might knock her over, her torso slouched despite her cybernetic legs firm in the mud. "Yeah, well... I guess I just don't respect you enough to try hard." She mustered an antagonizing grin as rain and blood drizzled down her chin. The huddled mass of meat remained ignorant to their exchanges, focused instead on their own banter and bets.

"Those are your final words, schutta." He retorted and then delivered a powerful swing which swallowed the light from her eyes.

23 minutes later... Arris spit blood into a bathroom sink and looked up at a dusty mirror. She grimaced and braced as she pushed a dislodged eye back into the socket. "Gahh!" She grunted in pain as the nerve reconnected to the rest of her body, bringing light back to the right half of her world--though visual artifacts remained. She looked down at the vanity where her stim kit rested. She looked at the near-empty vial, the last of her supply with a glint of anxiety before she slapped the injector into the flesh of her stomach and then lit a roll of marcan. A knock on the door pulled her out of the trance.

"Hey, there's a line out here you know!" A voice called. Arris gave herself one last look in the mirror then walked out through a dank, herbal haze. The small crowd gathered outside the bathroom recoiled in disgust from the smell. Arris made her way to a booth in the back and slouched, content to remain part of the furniture.

Valery Noble

 

[Valery Noble]

​

Outfit: Smuggler Outfit
Weapons: Blasters

The air in the cantina was thick. Thick with spice smoke, the acrid stench of cheap liquor, and the ever-present murmur of criminals exchanging credits and whispers in equal measure. It wasn't her usual kind of place. Then again, places like this rarely were.

Valery sat at the bar, one arm resting against the counter, her fingers idly tracing the rim of her untouched drink. She wasn't here for the entertainment, for the bets and drunken revelry. She was here for information. The underworld had a way of knowing things before anyone else, and tonight, she was listening.

Still, she had watched the fight.

Not out of interest, not really. But because everything in a place like this was worth watching. The woman in the pit — Arris Windrun — had taken a beating. Stubborn, reckless, and seemingly unbothered by the damage. Valery had seen fighters like that before. The ones who kept getting back up, kept pressing forward, even when it looked like they shouldn't be standing.

Now, that same woman was dragging herself toward a booth, moving through the cantina like a battered specter. Valery exhaled through her nose, lifting her drink but not drinking. Her fiery gaze flicked to the side, watching as Arris sank into a seat, slouched and still bleeding from somewhere beneath the grime and synthetic flesh.

A Fighter — a Survivor, possibly on the run? She'd seen that kind of exhaustion before. After a moment, Valery finally took a sip of her drink, letting the warmth settle before she turned her attention back to the bar.

Though her senses remained focused on the woman.

Arris Windrun ​

 

[Arris Windrun]

Arris dragged from her marcan roll like it was starship fuel during a full burn, barely giving herself time to breathe anything else. The cantina crowd blurred together under dull senses and lax expectations, that was until a standout arrived on scene. Valery Noble stood out like a lone star against the void. She wasn't sure what it was exactly, an air of confidence? No, it was more like certainty, a kind of anchoring that bowed to no one else's chaos. Yet as she looked around, Arris noticed everyone else ignored the strange woman as if she weren't really there. Was she just another hallucination? Arris wondered if she needed to get her eyes checked after that beating.

She didn't realize how blatantly she was staring until her attention by the waitresses' passing movement. "Hey, where's that drink I ordered?" Windrun clicked over the cantina bass.

The waitress snapped back. "Your tab is full," she said on her way to another table.

Arris took one last drag as the joint turned to ashes between her fingers and was about to protest until a pair of hurried thugs marched over to her. An authoritative Ungrila followed closely by a large Zabrak mercenary in durasteel armor. "Miss Windrun," spoke the calm-tongued Ungrila.

"Austuan," she addressed. "To what do I owe the displeasure?"

The mercenary looked ready to grab her by the throat for that until Austuan raised his hand. "Credits, Miss Windrun. You owe me credits, not your displeasure... Though it does often amuse me how you humans like to quip when it's bad for you" The rest of the crowd maintained their ignorance towards the scene, but it was abundantly clear that the regulars knew to either fear or respect the man. "You promised me a victory and yet..." He gestured vaguely at her battered appearance. "No, Miss Arris, I'm afraid today it's my displeasure I'm concerned by."

The cyborg began to stand until the Zabrak enforcer shoved her back down. "Stay," they hissed.

Arris shrugged their hand off her shoulder and shot a frustrated glance before turning her fumes back towards Austuan. "What the frak, koochu!? Are we really doing this here? Now!?"

He looked around with smug satisfaction, drinking in the power he held over her in this place. "Why not?" He chuckled. "No one will blame me for closing a legitimate business transaction, as ugly as it may be." Austua took a deep breath before asserting himself. "I already went ahead and checked your credit... I am disappointed to say the least. A young human should know better than bet what she does not own."

"I can pay you back after the next--"

"No!" He cut her off and slammed his fists against the table, then took a spat into an empty glass and stood straight while he composed himself. "I wouldn't want your hardware damaged before it's extracted. There's no telling if it will even cover your losses at this point." His fingers snapped and suddenly the merc grabbed Arris by an arm and dragged her out of the chair.

She took a full swing with her opposite and crunched the Zabrak's jaw, ready to deliver another below until Austuan shoved a fully-charge stunstick into her neck. Arris nearly bit her tongue as the cyberware convulsed and her vision scrambled under fail-safe conditions. Austuan's muscle corrected their jaw before they grabbed Arris and dragged her stunned body towards the backdoor. Austuan gave a stern look at the room, a silent warning not to interfere. Whatever lull the room had been under during the last minute quickly returned to business as usual.

Valery Noble

 

[Valery Noble]

​

Outfit: Smuggler Outfit
Weapons: Blasters

She had seen it play out in a thousand different ways before. The slow approach, the smug arrogance of men who thought they owned the world around them. The way they fed off fear, off debt, off people too tired or too desperate to fight back. Arris wasn't afraid, though. Frustrated? Absolutely. But not afraid. Still, frustration didn't mean much when you were outnumbered, and when that stun-stick hit her neck, her body seized to resist.

The Zabrak hauled her up, still reeling, still dazed, and started dragging her toward the back door.

The cantina barely reacted. The regulars knew better than to interfere. The bartender wiped down the same glass he had been cleaning for the past five minutes. Business as usual. Valery sighed softly, unable to ignore what had happened, and rose from her seat.

Confident and certain.

She adjusted the cuffs of her sleeves as she stepped forward, her boots clicking against the floor. The haze of smoke curled in her wake, the hum of low conversation rippling around her as she weaved between tables. Then she stopped right in their path. The Zabrak's grip on Arris tightened, his jaw still sore from the punch she'd thrown. Austuan barely spared her a glance at first, his satisfaction evident — until he realized she wasn't moving.

Valery tilted her head slightly, her fiery gaze steady and unbothered.

"Let her go." Her voice wasn't raised. She didn't need it to be.

A pause.

"Nobody else needs to get hurt today."

Arris Windrun ​

 

[Arris Windrun]

Austuan gawked and then clacked his teeth, his expression shifted from smug to annoyed bordering on angry. "And who do we have here, a hero? A would-be rescuer? Or perhaps you have your own debts to collect from Miss Windrun?" He crossed his arms while the Zabrak looked at the boss unabated before turning those cold eyes back upon Valery and tightened his grip on Arris.

Valery's sudden intervention brought attention back to the scene, even the bartender paused for once and all but the jukebox were silent and watching. Meanwhile, there was a subtle twitch from Arris, too subtle for all but the most perceptive to notice. Her nerve enhancement system and bio-stabilizer implant were now just kicking in after that unexpected reboot. The systems prodded at her nerves to react, the mind to stay open, and all the glands in her body to secrete whatever hormones were necessary to invoke fight or flight. Though it felt violent on the inside, there was still only the faintest sign of activity from her body.

"No matter," the Ungrila continued, "I will only ask you this once. Step aside." He stressed those two words in the same way one might talk down to a servant. It was clear by tone and body language that his assessment of Valery was quick and dismissive. A man like Austuan was used to everything going his way. In his mind the only thing to fear was the boss above him, and never some apparent lowlife in the cantina.

Valery Noble

 

[Valery Noble]

​

Outfit: Smuggler Outfit
Weapons: Blasters

Valery sighed.

Why can't they ever just talk things out?

Her fiery gaze flicked between the two thugs — Austuan, standing there with his smug arrogance, and the Zabrak, gripping Arris like a prize won in a game he thought was already over. They never learned. They always underestimated the quiet ones. Valery took a slow step forward. Not aggressive, not rushed. Just enough to make them feel the space between them shrink. Enough to make them think.

"You're right," she said smoothly, her voice edged with something casual — almost bored. "I'm not here to collect a debt. I don't even know her." She nodded toward Arris, who was still dazed but starting to recover.

"But I do know how this ends."

Another step. "You're going to try to make an example out of her. You're going to think you have control over this situation." A third step forward. "But you don't." She smirked, tilting her head slightly.

A beat of silence.

Then Austuan scoffed, his patience snapping as he opened his mouth to order her to be taken out. The Zabrak barely had time to register the order before Valery moved. A flicker of motion, a blur of speed — before he could even raise a fist, her elbow slammed into his throat. He choked, stumbling, his grip on Arris faltering just enough.

She didn't let him recover.

A sharp pivot, a sweep of her leg — he hit the floor hard, his skull bouncing off the duracrete with a dull crack. Austuan cursed, scrambling for the stun-stick still in his grip. His mistake. Valery turned toward him, unhurried. She sidestepped effortlessly as he lunged, caught his wrist mid-strike, twisted — hard. The weapon clattered to the floor, and in the same motion, she drove her knee into his ribs. The air rushed out of him in a strangled wheeze, his confidence breaking alongside something in his chest.

He staggered back, clutching his side, wide-eyed. "You—"

Valery didn't let him finish.

A single, precise strike — knuckles to the temple — dropped him like a sack of bricks.

Silence, before she turned to Arris.

Arris Windrun ​

 

[Arris Windrun]

The whole encounter went down faster than anyone else in the room could react, Austuan and his enforcer most of all by their quick fall.

Others in the room inched forward, some looked ready to intervene but there was a startled uncertainty that stayed their involvement. Valery's pendulum swung from calm words to decisive violence in such a fashion none of them had ever seen on Nar Kaaga. It gave them critical pause.

As soon as the Zabrak went down, Arris had been freed from his grip. At first her body collapsed like a meteor, but at the last second her legs snapped into place and her torso hung like a ragdoll before she snapped upward with an audible crack of her spine. Her systems had pumped enough adrenaline to kill your average human, but her artificial heart worked double time to keep her organic tissue alive.

The downside of this countermeasure was nigh uncontrollable instinct, and impulses struck faster than any thought could. Arris had her foot held firmly on Austuan's throat by the next second. He weakly flailed his arms, desperate to push her off of him but the powered limb just wouldn't budge. If anything he was lucky it hadn't stomped his neck flat.

Arris' eyes grew wide, It was clear by her expression that she felt nothing but rage and fear in this moment, ready to put him away for good with the press of her metallic foot.

Valery Noble

 

[Valery Noble]

​

Outfit: Smuggler Outfit
Weapons: Blasters

Valery exhaled slowly, her stance still loose, still composed — even as the air in the cantina shifted. Uncertainty rippled through the gathered crowd, the regulars watching in stunned silence, unsure whether to intervene or keep their heads down. But Valery's focus wasn't on them.

It was on Arris.

The moment the cyborg moved, it was pure instinct — no hesitation, no thought. One second, she was standing there, free from the Zabrak's grip, and the next, her foot was on Austuan's throat. His hands clawed weakly at her ankle, gasping, panicked, but there was no give. No mercy.

Valery stepped forward, her fiery gaze locking onto Arris with quiet intensity.

"Remove your foot."

No anger. No barked command. Just a steady, firm voice that cut through the tension like a blade. Then, Valery took another step closer, just enough that her voice softened to let the words slip through the static in Arris' mind, past the adrenaline, past the rage.

"He's not worth it."

She didn't tell her to stop because it was the right thing to do. She didn't throw Jedi philosophy at her, didn't make it a moral lesson. She simply spoke the truth. Because Austuan wasn't worth it. Killing him wouldn't make the past easier. It wouldn't erase the debts or the pain or the cycles of violence that had gotten her here. It would just be another weight on her shoulders.

"Let him go."

Arris Windrun ​

 

[Arris Windrun]

Arris looked down at Austuan, she could see the panic in his eyes as he helplessly scratched at the paint of her ankle. She grimaced and glared, her attention shifting between the worm under foot and the woman who had just come to her rescue moments before. Her artificial heart pounded to keep her awake and alive.

Who are you to talk? Arris wondered as Valery advised her to let it go. "He was going to take me!" She snapped at her. "And you want me to let it go!?" Her anger was clearly not with Valery but that didn't prevent her from lashing out. Right now Arris found herself caught between two desires. The first to put the Ungrila out of her misery.

For a moment she released the pressure but did not remove her foot. Austuan wheezed, "I... answer to the Hutts..." He hissed. "They'll hunt you down." He managed to get out before her foot pressed back down, turning his next words into a pained gurgle.

She imagined what he would say anyway. Something about never outrunning the Cartel, that they could never allow such an insult to their hegemony. This whole situation felt particularly damned. At the boiling point of her frustrations, Arris let out a pained scream and looked back to Valery.

"I won't kill him," she spoke lowly and with anger. Arris removed her foot from his throat, and Austuan gasped with relief. That was until her foot came crashing back down, this time aimed at his shoulder which crunched audibly. He screamed and writhed on the ground as he cried under immense pain.

"I have to leave," she muttered then stormed towards the backdoor without even another glance towards Valery. Her cybernetic fist slammed a wall as she passed through and stepped out into the cold rain to catch her breath, and just simply be anywhere else for a change.

Valery Noble

 

[Valery Noble]

​

Outfit: Smuggler Outfit
Weapons: Blasters

The moment Arris stepped off Austuan's throat, Valery exhaled slowly, relief flickering through her fiery gaze. But it lasted only a second.

CRUNCH.

Austuan's scream cut through the cantina like a blade, his body writhing as his shoulder shattered under Arris' heel. The crowd flinched — some recoiling, others looking away. The air had been tense before, but now it was suffocating. Arris didn't wait. She turned sharply and stormed toward the back exit, her cybernetic fist slamming into the wall as she disappeared into the rain.

The sudden sound of a blaster leaving its holster sent a ripple of alarm through the cantina, pulling their attention away from Arris. Patrons stiffened, eyes widening as Valery, the Jedi — a Jedi — pulled her blaster free. Austuan barely had time to process it.

Pzzzt! Pzzzt!

Two quick stun bolts hit him and his Zabrak enforcer square in the chest, dropping them both before they could so much as crawl away. The thugs hit the ground in unconscious heaps, twitching slightly before going completely still. A silence settled over the cantina. Valery twirled the blaster once, slipping it back into its holster with practiced ease. "They'll be out for a while," she murmured.

She then turned without another word and pushed through the same back door Arris had taken.

The cold rain hit her instantly, drenching her in seconds. The scent of wet permacrete and metal filled the air, the neon glow of Nar Kaaga's streets barely cutting through the night. It was quiet out here, save for the distant hum of speeders and the occasional flicker of a faulty streetlight. And then she saw her.

Arris stood just ahead, her back turned, her frame tense. Her fists were clenched, her breathing uneven, the weight of everything pressing against her shoulders like an iron chain.

Valery hesitated for only a moment before stepping forward.

"Are you alright?"

Arris Windrun ​

 

[Arris Windrun]

Arris looked back over her shoulder at Valery then turned around, arms crossed while she slouched vulnerably.

"Is this your thing?" She asked in a rather accusatory tone, unsure how to gauge Valery's intervention. "I don't have any credits to give you if that's what you're after." It was hard, but not impossible, for her to accept the help of a stranger. In all her life every act came with an expectation to follow.

Get cybernetics, win fights. Every free drink had a job attached, and so on.

To watch someone step in and stand toe-to-toe with Austuan on his own turf, let alone take him down in a crowded cantina, was enough to paint a target on your back. Which reminded Arris of her new predicament... She had every reason to run but nowhere to go without a starship or ticket, and there was no way she could return to the pits while Austuan had it out for her.

"I should have killed him," she insisted with a clenched fist then reached into her jacket to pull out a roll and her lighter. It took her a couple tries to get it lit and she took a long drag in the rain. Anything to quiet the scream in her guts.

Lights flickered behind Arris' eyes as she now looked the closeted Jedi up and down. "You're a little well-dressed for a spacer," she mentioned with eyes boldly locked on the laces of her shirt, and then extended her hand with the marcan roll as a sort of peace offering.

Valery Noble

 

[Valery Noble]

​

Outfit: Smuggler Outfit
Weapons: Blasters

Valery arched a brow at the accusatory tone, but there was no offense taken — just mild amusement flickering in her gaze. When Arris finally fell silent, Valery exhaled, crossing her arms as she leaned casually against the rain-slicked wall. "I'm not after credits," she said, her voice even, steady. "Just answers."

Her gaze flicked down to the clenched fist, then back up to Arris' face as she took a drag from her roll. "Killing him would've just made your life harder. Hutts don't take kindly to that sort of thing. Even if they didn't put a bounty on you, every scumbag in that cantina would've seen an opportunity." Valery tilted her head slightly. "You'd be fighting for the rest of your life just to breathe."

The rain drummed softly against the metal and stone around them, the distant hum of Nar Kaaga's nightlife a dull reminder that the world didn't care about what had just happened here. It kept moving, kept churning, and people like Arris got swallowed up in it. Then, she caught it.

The subtle flicker of Arris' gaze, the way it lingered — not on her face, but lower.

Oh.

Valery smirked. Not particularly subtle, this one. "Good eye," she murmured, voice laced with amusement. "You're right — I'm not a spacer." She let the words hang there for a beat, not offering any more information than that. Then Arris extended the marcan roll, offering it in a silent peace offering.

Straightening slightly, she let her gaze drift toward the alley's exit before settling back on Arris, expression still edged with curiosity. "So," she finally asked, voice quieter, but no less firm. "Who were they? That man, that Zabrak. What do they want from you? Just credits?"

Arris Windrun ​