Fateful Encounter

[Josh Dragovalor]

"Mmm. You would experience the physical limitations of old age longer. I think once your body has deteriorated enough, life does grow tiresome eventually."

She wasn't wrong in that. Even if she was wrong in many other things. She talked about how he should try living in the underworld, and he shrugged his shoulders. "I think I prefer doing what I'm doing. Thanks."

Though she had missed the meeting of him saying she was just surviving, and he let out a sigh. "That's just it. You're surviving. That's it. Nothing else. Nothing more. The hell's the point?" He asked, deciding to match her and losing the formality a bit. "You've taken things away from yourself. For what? Because you're scared that you're going to get hurt?" He asked, as he shrugged his shoulders. "You're gonna get hurt either way. That's life. Why not have what happiness you can, while you can? Sure, you live longer... But you won't live forever either. You can be cut down at anytime. Why live a miserable existence just because you're scared of a few of the hurtful parts. Being temporarily miserable verses permanently miserable.

I haven't lived as long as you and I probably won't. I've lost many people that I cared about. I'm going through a divorce, too, actually. That's not fun. But it doesn't erase the memories I have of happiness. Those don't go away."

[member="Lirka Ka"]

 

[Lirka Ka]

Lirka could've laughed at him, but she was deathly silent. Nothing moved on her face, as though it were a slab of ice. Of course, she thought the fool he was, come to the Underworld to work? Never. You come to the Underworld to learn, it thought to have the coldest and thickest of skins. Everyone could and would gladly kill you, you're a little welp in someone else's game. Or sometimes? You were none of these things and learned to survive in the worse of conditions. It made a person stronger, and no self-respecting Pit Fighter, former or otherwise, wouldn't value a way to become stronger.

"I live another day, and that's that. Bounty hunting adds that thrill, that excitement to make it matter. Have you ever felt the exhilaration of the hunt?"

The exhilartion was the Dark Side would run through her veins as she took another life. But her demeanor was ice cold, maybe he cut deep, maybe he didn't. She was a totally blank sheet now.

 

[Lirka Ka]

[member="Josh DragonsFlame"]

 

[Josh Dragovalor]

He watched her with a calm expression, as he would finally decide to remove his hood to be able to look her in the eyes as a peer, as an equal. Long blonde hair flowed down his back as brown eyes stared into hers with piqued curiosity.

"No, but I understand the thrill of battle. I am a warrior, always have been, always will be. Everything else leaves me when I fight, as my mind focuses entirely on what is in front of me. But when I am not in battle, it can be lonely without the company of others, people who I can trust, people I can speak to freely without worry. I'm not sure how you manage."

It would drive someone mad. Perhaps she actually had gone mad? A point to consider.

[member="Lirka Ka"]

 

[Lirka Ka]

“There are no allies in the pit. You’re rivals, looking to reap the bounties or fame and fortune in your own little pool of blood. No better way to do that than stabbing someone in the back.”

Ka showed a good skill at keeping herself simply cool now, a cold and almost calculated delivering of the raw truth of being a Pit Fighter for so long. So long...it warped her mind in all sorts of ways, it had become her life for so long: and then she went to the Underworld.

“And then, it’s the Underworld. You can’t trust anyone in the Underworld, wretched little rats they are.

And immediately she was able to switch right to a disdain in her voice.

[member="Josh DragonsFlame"]

 

[Josh Dragovalor]

He stared at her long and hard for a moment, studying her face now that his sight was no longer obscured. She had felt hardship, it seemed likely, but whether it had warped her mind or if she was just stubborn, that was a thread that he was still unravelling. The Jedi would stop to take a drink gently, before speaking.

"To be wary of who you trust is wise. But to never even look at someone else as anything more than a thing or something you could never attach to is just hurting yourself. You push others away... And with that, no matter how long you live, the end result is the same. You are alone. You are alone in and out of combat, and sometimes... You're going to need a hand in the field of combat. I am a warrior, make no mistake of that. A warrior highly regarded and very proud of his capabilities. But I understand that I am one. But someone that I work with well... With them, I am worth ten."

He shrugged at her last comments. "Well, this doesn't look like the world of the dead to me. I mean, it kind of does but I'm pretty sure it's not."

[member="Lirka Ka"]

 

[Lirka Ka]

Lirka was smarter than her brutish exterior gave off: she was starting to realize he was getting under her skin and that carefully kept up barrier to the outside. Damnable little cultist.

“In time we will just have to see, won’t we Cultist?”

It was going to be a game of deflections now, she had taken herself up with the CIS for whatever that was worth. But time was still to tell where she would end up in the Galaxy, a future within the Confederacy very well might be beginning to show itself.

“Metaphorically dead.”

[member="Josh DragonsFlame"]

 

[Josh Dragovalor]

Cultist.

The insult made him smile lightly. Of course she would say that. They always did.

"A cultist is one that blindly follows something, ignoring it's goods and bads and doing everything in accordance to it without exception or even considering alternatives, yes?" Josh would inquire calmly, staring at her with a curious eye. "So who exactly is the cultist amongst us?"

At her next statement, he looked around the establishment.

"It looks lively enough, I wouldn't call it dead in any sense. Or at least, on it's surface. It's heart? Perhaps."

[member="Lirka Ka"]

 

[Lirka Ka]

“You.”

Blunt. It seemed she had become far more interested in the booze rather than debating her philosophical views on the many Forces Religons (not but Cults in her eyes). They were all cultists worshipping the force in their own way and dragging the Galaxy through every hell every handful of years with it. Her distaste for them was nothing well hidden.

“Anyone can put on a facade. They’re all already dead.”

[member="Josh DragonsFlame"]

 

[Josh Dragovalor]

You, she had said. Cultist, she had called him. The Jedi did not react much, only smiled. He had been called worse. Her words did not phase him whatsoever... They were just the same sort of thing he had heard over and over from those without eyes to see. He didn't even bother to address it, it was so common, so typical, so tame. It wasn't worth the effort.

"If you were to fire a blaster shot in the centre table there... Would they not come alive?" He would ask, curious. "Would they not start dashing around, perhaps beginning to fire at their neighbors? An unruly bunch, sure... But I wouldn't be sure if I would call them dead just yet. Mentally though... Perhaps. This world does take it's toll" He would admit. "This world is a hole, let's be blunt. A dead hole, yes... But filled with much living.

Aren't you still living, yourself? Or are you, in all your loneliness and distrust... Already dead?"

[member="Lirka Ka"]

 

[Lirka Ka]

The irony was, she wasn't even attempting to provoke him. Any organized force religion was just a bunch of insane cultists to her, and she referred to them as such without a bat of the eye. It was simply normal now.

"Aren't you just a philosopher?"

She took a long swig of her booze, the stuff was disgusting. It was the usual junk you found on trashheaps like this, only redeeming quality was that it was nice and cheap.

"You win, I'll give you that much Cultist."

Cultist was easier to work with than some name she had no real need to remember either.

 

[Josh Dragovalor]

"Am I? I dunno, the stereotypes think most of us cultists are" Was the next joke to come out of his mouth, and a light smile tugged from the edge of his mouth. But it was the next thing she said that got a laugh out of him.

"The point I've wanted to make through this is... Try and live a little. Have fun, get to know some people, be happy. Yeah, nothing lasts forever. I had siblings. I outlived them. I had a wife. She abandoned me eventually. I've have friends... And the current crop is completely different from the one a few years ago. People come and go. Some stay, some don't... Part of life. But I'm living. Life is about the goods and the bads, and you learn nothing by running away from the goods just because eventually they'll be bad for awhile."

A small smirk crossed his face. "Unless you're telling me you're too good and wise to need to learn anything more?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "Don't listen to me, though, I'm just a cultist with no emotions."

[member="Lirka Ka"]

 

[Lirka Ka]

"I'm too drunk to talk philosophy."

With a grunt, she rose from her seat and tossed the credits to the bar and the bartender itself. She had grown tired of the Cultist, it drained her. Gave her enough to think about.

"Never said emotionless, just a cultist. Which you are."

That was half a joke from the cold Bounty Hunter before she made her way out of the bar and off to the greener pastures of the future.

[member="Josh DragonsFlame"]

 

[Josh Dragovalor]

"That would explain a lot."

The Jedi had no end to his sass, as she was likely growing to find out. But even he could tell she grew weary of him, so he would pay for his drinks seeing as he had a feeling he wasn't going to collect anymore information in this hole. He'd been here long enough.

"Oh, I'm hurt! M'lady, miss beautiful, radiant madam! You wound me! Me? A cultist?" The Jedi would respond with mock shock and hurt and a bit of purposeful overdramatism as he would place a hand over his heart. "And I thought we were just starting to kindle something beautiful!"

He watched as she would pay her end and get up to leave, deciding to give her the courtesy of leaving herself long before he would get up himself, seeing as she'd clearly had enough of his company. Josh would wiggle his fingers in a wave. "Nice meeting you!" He called as she left.

[member="Lirka Ka"]