He must have mistaken me for my brother…

[Corvus Raaf]

The polluted atmosphere of Ord Mantell casts strange hues across its surface as the sun sets on another dreary day. Corvus’ ship slowly descends from the sky and lands in a dilapidated hangar bay. From the vessel, Raven, a walkway is lowered, and a lone figure disembarks. A small group of locals looks on, but one glimpse of the passenger being sends them scurrying. That's not an unusual reaction to Jedi.

Corvus strides through the streets of Ord Mantell, her mind focused on her destination. She parts the sparse foot traffic with her very presence. As she approaches a pair of Chadra-Fan, she can sense their fear. The bat-like beings exude a scent that echoes the terror on their faces. Corvus smiles and nods, hoping to put them a little at ease.

She has come to speak a Chadra-Fan named Cisco, a secret double agent for either the One Sith or the Republic, or whichever side serves his immediate needs. For now, at least, he's working for the Pubbies. As the two scurry away, Corvus notes that neither of them matches his description.

As she turns off the main avenue onto a dark side street, she's being watched by a figure in the shadows. The figure isn't tracking her. It’s obvious she’s heading for the Drunken Wampa, the only place worth traveling this way for because it's the place to find out anything worth knowing on Ord Mantell.

The Drunken Wampa is teeming with activity as a myriad of species chatter in many languages, putting another day of dread behind them. Corvus spots the one she’s here to see, sitting in a dark, secluded corner, speaking to a Twi’lek. Corvus has never been to this cantina before. But she’s been in hundreds just like it, and she knew the type well. It was reasonably quiet, though from wariness rather than good manners; slightly boisterous, though with the restraint that came of the need to keep a low profile; and decorated in dilapidated scruffiness, with no apologies offered or expected.

It was, in short, the perfect place for a trap.

She sat in a booth and waited.

“Hello there,” The raspy voice came from her right.

Corvus glanced, it was, in fact, just a waitress. “Corellian Whiskey?” she asked, not wishing to appear too out of place. Blue Milk was not going to be a typical order.

Moments later, a small mug was placed in the table in front of her and she waited. The contact would make his way to her in due course.

[member="Ryiah Tenriem"]

 

[Ryiah Tenriem]

Ord Mantel. A small world, small in the annuls of history, one with damaged flora, a world where nature had once been torn apart, shredded asunder and left to rot in ruin. A perfect mirror of exactly how Ryiah Tenriem, former slave (former slave, former slave, the words kept repeating in her head, the only thing that kept her sane, proof of her freedom), former Dark Jedi Learner (former, former, again, that one word, so simple, so commonly used, the only string of sanity that the shattered mind of the Togruta could grasp onto, proof that she was no longer that twisted being) and former sane being sat.

The beautiful woman, purple skinned with white pigmentation that took the form of tattoos, was slumped over her seat within a random cantina she had stumbled into. Clasped in her hands, fingers pressing into the glass, was mug filled with something. Some drink that she had ordered by pointing at it. All she knew was that it had a clear colour, the clarity of the liquid broken by wisps of black here in there. That too was a perfect mirror of what she was like. She didn't know who she was anymore, the clear or the black, it had bended together like her mind had, mixing the max that she protected herself with and her true personality.

The Togruta was currently wearing a long, brown cloak made out of a rough fabric that pulled at her skin. However, it did its job. Her identity was hidden. He four lekku, two lay over his breasts and reached to the bottom of her rib cage while the other two lay across her back (long enough to reach mid-thigh), were obscured from view. Her slander face and dark, brown eyes were hidden in a shadow cast by the cowl of the robes while her Montrals tented the fabric, this being the only clue she wasn't human. Bellow her robe, Ryiah wore the same outfit she always wore, the one that she had been given on Togruti.

A thin film of tears covered her eyes momentarily before they were blinked away. She missed Togruti, a planet covered in nature. When she was but a child, Ryiah had ran through the grasslands bare-footed, the feeling of the soil beneath her feet, the fresh breeze whipping at her face and the grass gliding over her skin like ghostly fingers. Every sensation had brought her closer to nature, and so she now rejected it, cam to this dead planet.

She was broken, twisted, shattered and tainted, she had no desire to corrupt the nature and natural flows of the living planets she could walk over, so she exiled herself to the dead planets, where she could not harm nature, even if she wished so.

Her Lekku twitched slightly in shock as a woman with beauty rivalling that of a Goddess stepped into the Cantina. Her purple eyes striking and long dark hair falling past her shoulders, a tall and lithe body that did not display a frailty common to a woman who refused to pull her own weight but sat and waited for a man to do whatever they so wished instead. The confident strides as the woman approached the bar and her soft voice as she spoke.

"Blue Milk"

Every feature cut deep into the emotionally fragile Togruta, each look of lofty disdain that served as a barrier that the purple eyes held as they scanned the Cantina. the confidence in herself as a person no matter what. Oh how it reminder her of...

'No! No! No!'

Ryiah cut of her own thoughts with the steady chant. He fingers had uncoiled from where they had been tightly gripping the glass, the strength behind the grip slowly climbing and belaying the true power hidden in Ryiah's lithe and taunt muscles. Instead, they know wrapped around her face, palms digging into her eyes, as the cloaked woman sought not to lose control of her fragile state in such a place.

'No! No! No!'

Her silent, yet abnormally loud voice that echoed within his head, was the only thoughts running through her mind as she rocked back and forwards at the bag booth of the Cantina, ignored from everyone's view.


[member="Corvus Raaf"]

 

[Corvus Raaf]

“Excuse me?”

Corvus spun around, reflexively dropping her hand to the hilt of her saber. But it was just an ordinary human man.

Or rather, most of a man. Half of his face was covered in a flesh-colored medseal that had been stretched across the skin and hair, with a prosthetic eye bobbing along at the spot where his right eye would normally be.

It wasn’t just any eye, either. It was something alien-designed, glittering like a smaller version of an Arconian multifaceted eye. Even in the cantina’s dim light the effect was striking, unsettling, and strangely hypnotic.

With a jolt, Corvus realised she’d been staring and forced her gaze away. Not only was it rude, but a visual grab like that was exactly the sort of trick a clever assassin might use to draw his victim’s attention at a critical moment.

But the man’s hands were empty, with no blaster or blade in sight. In fact, his right hand wouldn’t have been of any use anyway. Twisted and misshapen, it was wrapped tightly in the same medseal as his face. Either it had been seriously damaged or else there was a prosthetic under there that had come from the same aliens who’d supplied him with that eye. “You might want to see about getting a different eye,” Corvus suggested, relaxing a bit.

“I need to see about a great many things,” the man said, hovering next to the table. His remaining eye flicked to her saber, then rose with an effort back to his face. “Allow me to introduce myself,” he continued. “My name is Celeb. My surname isn’t important. What is important is that I’ve been robbed of a great deal of money.”

“Sorry to hear it,” Corvus said. “You need to talk to the police.”

“They can’t help me,” he said. “I want my credits back, and I need someone who can handle himself. That’s why Iím here. I was hoping I could find someone. I believe you’re exactly the type of person I’m looking for.”

The man was determined. He read Corvus’ silence as a refusal. “I don’t want you to do it for free,” he said. “I can pay. I can pay very, very well.”

Corvus thought about it. It was probably still something petty, and hearing the guy out would be a complete waste of time. But sitting around a spaceport cantina probably would be, too.

And if she didn’t listen, there was a good chance the man would stay with her. “What can you tell me about the thief?”

[member="Ryiah Tenriem"]