Public Corellia: Historic Sewer

[The Major]

The clock chimes, advancing— its toll consuming, reverberating waves of thunder cascading inside.

Within this turmoil of a distraught mind she could savor the bitter nepenthe, a cocktail to subvert the stinging rash that was loneliness. It clung to her, an infernal sludge thumping in time with every crash, despicably bearing down its onerous weight. No beating, no barking, nor kicking could convince this swirling ink to leave her in peace. So perhaps it was better to embrace forgetfulness and cherish its charming, cold blankness. She knew it was wrong, could feel the malicious retorts of rhetoric firing staccato— blind fire over a parapet to no effect. Nothing was going to fix or resist this, no friend to be found that could really help, and no fight that would bring Emilia back.

Nothing ever could.​

Wait.

Who?​

Location: CoCo Diner, Coronet City
Morale: Neutral
Outfit
Equipment: Datapad, FO-COMLINK Mk I, FO-LIPSTICK Mk I​

Sybil gasped awake, lifting her resting head off a table to look around in a sudden, shoving jolt of the hands while completely shocked and confused. For a moment, the vivid nightmare and the pressure she felt within it had redirected her focus so completely that she was utterly lost. As her gaze turned to a window half obscured by the crossing pattern of Alderaanian blinds, she could make out the outline of a manufacturing sector, steaming with vents of industry and a buzz with freight traffic. All this was backdropped by rising Corell, orange and hazy through the works of this city, lazily engaging in its path upwards degree by degree. Music with a synth beat popped lightly nearby, whisking about upon the air inoffensively.

Corellia. Yes. Core world: historic sewer and galactic coronet. Not unlike a crossroads as well.

The cloud in her mind fizzled out as she remembered her situation: traveling through the famous trade route to see how this part of the galaxy was fairing on her own lazy pace back to First Order space way out in the rim. Recently a joint operation between her adopted nation and the Galactic Alliance had proved successful enough in offering refugees upon Dellat and Minntoonie a glorified taxi ride away from frontlines. Eager not to rush back, Sybil diverted alone along this route once the mission was complete. So she wasn’t here on assignment, but this wasn’t precisely a declared vacation either. Regardless of muddled purpose, the Agent was dead set to come across some new sights, experiences, and sounds. She needed to try anything these days, because the options on how to curtail the ever intensifying nightmares were growing a little thin, and sordid drug abuse didn’t exactly seem capital in terms of choice. Yet.

Passing out in a diner booth with a cup of coffee on the table didn’t exactly strike her as a good start to her journey. Well, at least nobody but the waitress noticed in a dingy place like this. Plus, it was quite early in the morning. . .

 

[Jend-Ro Quill]

Quill stared morosely at his plate, which he'd have found delicious any other morning: flatcakes, berry-and-sourleaf cobbler, some kind of processed meat strips, a glass of namana-flavored juiceoid beverage. It clogged in his throat, sank in his gut like lead slurry, gummed up his teeth. The breakfast was too much. He pushed it away and determined to tip heavily.

Disappointment - disillusionment - had a way of stripping off all pretense and public face. This feeling of betrayal had cut his veins and come ryvving close to the arteries as well.

Ryvving - the epithet stick in his craw too. A holoscreen futzed in a high corner: a staticky, warbling skit from last night's late-night. A pair of vaguely familiar-looking comedians were interviewing each other in the guises of a journalist and Ryv Karis, Sword of the Jedi, whose first name was bleeped out. 'How did your name become a synonym for-?" And so forth.

"We have with us tonight Master BLEEP Karis. BLEEP, tell us about..."

Quill twitched his syrup-befouled fork pettily. The holoscreen should have turned off; instead, it sparked and died. In the next booth over, a woman jolted awake - had the holoscreen's death played a role?

One more existence torn up without need. Quill buried his head in his hands.

"Sorry about that," he mumbled belatedly.

The Major

 

[The Major]

Location: CoCo Diner, Coronet City
Morale: Neutral
Jend-Ro Quill | Allyson Locke
​

The buzz and friction in her brain as reality chased away the details of the nightmare faded from haze to a light mist. A little clarity was welcome, mirroring the ever rising sun filling the diner with more and more orange light. She would have possibly preferred to recall the message of the dream, instinct more than sense telling her that something important was being touched upon whenever there was a chance to steal some sleep. If anything, to comprehend such things might be a fruitful means to discovering the path which would help discard the crap of it all. Bogging her down. Weighing her down.

What nuisance.

Welcoming an interruption in the form of this stranger’s laconic apology, she took a measure of the man with white hair, smiling a little awkwardly as though she was nervous while quickly examining his face. Apprehension was a sloppy way to put it —in truth any jitter had more to do with rousing from slumber. At once, Sybil could intuit that there clung an air of frustration and dissatisfaction with the man. No telling why. So many things were being ruined and burned across in the Galactic East. Probably was a bad idea to ask questions or make comments to a stranger when one was a foreign agent, but what the Nether. Who was listening anyway?

“Nae bother, Mister. Was a bad dream anyway. . .” She took a sip of her caf —scrunched her nose at how cold it was— and then took another for good measure.

“. . . Are you feeling alright?” A tad belated as well.

 

[Jend-Ro Quill]

By this point the entire weight of Quill's head and upper body rested on the palm-heels dug into his eye sockets. He was miserable - and one of his elbows had found a sticky patch on the table - but at least in that private little dark world, he could ratchet down his engagement with reality.

"No," he mumbled. "I'm a Jedi Master. If I'm feeling alright in a galaxy this ryvving broken, what's ryvving broken is me. So of course there's plenty of Jedi who feel just fine."

He took a shaky breath and sat up straight. He'd been mostly talking to himself, hence the mumble, and wasn't sure how much she'd caught of it. Always great to come off as a...well, the word didn't materialize. Grumpy non-lucid being of a certain age. Thumper? Blaster? What was the term?

"Ignore me," he said, opening his eyes with an effort of will. "It's been a bad week and I was counting on a diner breakfast to fix things. It's possible I was misremembering diner breakfast."

The Major

 

[The Major]

Location: CoCo Diner, Coronet City
Morale: Neutral
Jend-Ro Quill | Allyson Locke

A jedi.

A jedi master.​

The internal snap, crackle, and pop of distrust bubbled up involuntarily within. Agent Training 101 for Fledgling Outer Rim Imperial Nations was pockmarked with all sorts of warnings against the treachery of Force Users. Well, it certainly wasn’t so hyperbolic, but opinions within the Agency could vary from wild romanticism, to cynicism, aversion, fetishizing —everything and nothing.

For her own part, Sybil had no idea where she was fitting in anything. So was this man an enemy? Was her mind already trapped in tricks? Was she so unimportant in any, every, regard that her fate was as meaningless as the processed synth looking meat on the Jedi’s plate? A date with the garbage can to rot away?

Who’s to say.​

“What do you mean by, ‘Ryvving,’ Mister Jedi Master, Sir? Not a term I’ve heard of before.” The Major hadn’t heard every word mumbled, but that term she definitely could make out. Ignoring him, like he had requested, was definitely the intelligent thing to do.

 

[Jend-Ro Quill]

"Feth, shouldn't have said anything." At long last he pushed the plate away and met her eyes - however briefly. "I'm Quill, just Quill. 'Ryvving,' 'ryv,' it's profanity, see. There's a famous or infamous Jedi named Ryv Karis, so 'ryv' wound up meaning something like 'going way too hard in a way that lacks a sense of proportion and gets people hurt' - to the point where it's turned into sort of a synonym for harsher language. And that's pretty much all you need to know to get a complete ryvving picture of Jedi politics."

With a grimace, he dragged the plate close again and speared a triangle of limp flatcake. The syrup therein had probably started its life cycle as industrial effluent. But it represented much-needed calories, so he chewed and swallowed and tried not to regret it.

"I'll shut up now, let you get back to sleep. Don't mind the rant."