Private Hot Wheels

[Beatrice Govan]

Oodles of Noodles, The Streets of Chinesti, Phaeda

If one had asked Evelynn Zambrano Dorn what she thought she would be doing on her path of reborn Sith ambition one of the answers that would not have been considered was physical therapy.

Ah, the joys of a fractured spine.

Now under the usual circumstance, there would have been an easy fix at hand. With enough credits and the right connections, the injury would have been remedied by just replacing the damn thing with a cybernetic variant. The woman held no attachment to flesh and bone; if it breaks, mend it with something that won't. Easy as you like.

However, fresh in the face of defection she found that there was a distinct lack of both credits and connections and thus here she was, on a sketchy little planet, sitting uselessly in a wheelchair and contemplating what could actually be afforded for lunch.

Oh, it was so humiliating.

Evelynn had just spent the last hour of her life in what could only be described as an adult baby stroller, being held aloft by a bumbling oaf as she attempted to drag her lame legs across the floor. Force, she'd never felt more incapable and force, all that encouraging advice!

Try to use your core, Claudia (as if she'd use her actual name)!

Remember to breathe!

Posture! Be tall!

Don't be discouraged, this process takes time, okay?

Ugh. Absolutely sickening, all she wanted to do was take the physiotherapist's positivity and shove it right up his...

Frustration still lingered in her mind as her wheelchair cut a path through the streets of the city. At the very least the blonde could rejoice in the fact that she seemed to be a rather anonymous individual here, although the precaution of plain clothes, gloves to hide her obvious golden arm and hair pulled into a severe bun aided greatly. No, her greatest problem here was bloody idiots not moving out of her way, causing her to have to stop and attempt to steer the motorised contraption all over the place.

Finally, Evelynn settled on a rather empty and rather run-down looking noodle bar (which was a foreign yet amusing concept to her regal sensibilities) mostly because the prices were worryingly cheap. Perhaps a poor choice, given that the chef behind the street bar couldn't actually see her sitting there.

To avoid outing herself as an obvious force-user the tongueless woman opted to communicate via a text-to-speech device handily installed onto a cheap little pocket computer.

“Hello? I would like to buy some noodles, please,” the awkward electronic voice said uselessly, it's volume unable to penetrate the noise of both the thrum of life around them and the hiss of the kitchen, “Hello? Can you hear me? Can you even see me?”

- - -
Amea Virou​

 

[Amea Virou]

Beatrice Govan

“Hello? I would like to buy some noodles, please. Hello? Can you hear me? Can you even see me?”

The tinned voice of a woman bound to a mobility aid snapped Amea out of her daydream. A cold wind blew through the street as she turned to look at the chef who seemed entirely unaware if not outright uninterested. His eyes met hers before Amea looked at the blonde in the wheelchair again and then back to the chef. His eyes set in the woman’s direction but his disinterest continued.

“The woman asked for your attention.” Amea said and put down the small bowl of noodles she had held on the small counter designated for customers. “Are you just going to ignore her?”

The man’s eyes set on Amea with a scoff before he turned back around to continue cooking the meals of those that had come before her. For a moment all Amea could do was let out the smallest of strained groans. Her eyes met with the blonde’s before she let out a prolonged sigh.

Amea’s eyes closed, she turned her attention back to the chef.

“Come on, you’re seriously going to play that card?” Her brow rose to question the man.

“Play what card?” The chef finally responded with an almost childish amount of feigned ignorance wallowing under his breath. “I see no-one here except you.”

 

[Beatrice Govan]

Thankfully the awkward voice of the device attracted somebody's attention, even if it wasn't the chef's. A woman, seated like a normal person at the bar, already enjoying her lunch. How could a task so pedestrian have suddenly become so difficult?

There were a few awkward glances exchanged between Evelynn and this other woman, with the stranger actually taking it upon herself to try and get the Sith served. Ugh, horrifying. She was Evelynn, former Queen and Silent Sister of Rattatak, daughter of the Emperor! She should have been plucking canapés off of golden platters, not confined to a wheelchair unable to get the attention of a poxy little street chef!

Now more than ever the woman felt like an utter child as she stared into the eyes of her new noodle mother with a half-furious, half-helpless expression fixed upon her gaunt features.

As the chef continued to not be aware of her presence (or at this point was he just ignoring her) Evelynn's mind turned to violence. Cold-blooded murder was always an option. It would be easy, even in this chair. The malicious alchemic power of the skeleton key could turn that chef into a pile of miserable ashes, even despite her lowly state of power.

Tempting, but altogether far too public.

Instead, the blonde opted to launch herself out of her chair and climbed up the barstool like some overly aggressive lizard. It wasn't terribly difficult, not with a cybernetic arm to pull the weight of her meagre frame, it was just awkward and the turning heads of passing civilians caused her usually ghostly cheeks to turn beet red.

From the stool her climb continued, gloved hand slamming onto the bar and searching for the edge so that she could pull herself up even further, emerald eyes blazing with complete indignation as her upper body practically slithered onto the surface.

“AH WOO I OOEH, PEA,” Evelynn demanded in aggressive vowels, her lack of tongue now very evident to both the chef and her new designated noodle mother. It wasn't a terribly dignified look, and upon reflection perhaps murder would have been preferable.

Amea Virou

 

[Amea Virou]

Beatrice Govan

It was hard not to notice the turmoil within the blonde woman. Yet it was an anger, frustration, and maybe even hate that seemed to have been tempered. It didn’t come unfurled, but it simmered there and it was hard not to assume that perhaps she was something far more than she seemed. Amea glanced over at the chef, yet again, and then at the woman, yet again. He wanted to ignore her then? There was something to his attitude that struck a wrong chord and Amea couldn’t help but frown.

And she was not alone with that. The blonde grabbed the counter and pulled herself up to attempt and shout the order in his face. The man, caught unaware, would finally acknowledge the blonde with a wide-eyed glance of sheer shock and surprise. And not just because she was that passionate about his noodles, but because without the voice modulator he really had no idea what she was even saying.

Amea, ever the mediator, stepped up to the bar again.

“She asked nicely,” She said and looked at the chef (yet again again) and then back at Evelynn (also yet again again). “I don’t think she’ll ask nicely again.”

The man blinked before he slowly began to turn around towards his stovetop to begin frying the noodles. Every other second he’d throw a glance over his shoulder to ensure that the deranged blonde wouldn’t try anything. Amea meanwhile couldn’t help but grin. Call it an appreciation for the fact that even in her position the blonde had the ability to make her intentions and desires more than crystal clear.

A bowl of noodles slipped up before Evelynn and the man quickly withdrew his hand from it as if expecting the paraplegic woman to tear it off.

 

[Beatrice Govan]

What a mercy it was that this woman was here, able to translate her maddening actions in the face of the idiotic, ignorant chef. It was a rather rare moment in which Evelynn found herself actively appreciating another sentient being.

As the street chef finally got to work and began cooking up a batch of noodles for the severe blonde, she turned her head and offered what attempted to be a warm smile but because she was still sprawled out across the counter looked more like a demented grin.

Attempting to find some semblance of dignity (which was futility as such a thing seemed to evade her entire existence) the woman carefully reversed, placing herself upon the barstool as a regular person would. Already there was a moderate concern about getting back into the wheelchair, the notion of asking for help not quite a part of a Sith's mindset.

Worry later, food first.

With noodles finally in her skeletal grasp, Evelynn considered not paying, given that such mistreatment warranted a meal on the house but ultimately decided against it, half-proud that she'd budgeted for food in the first place.

The bowl steamed before her, likely too hot to eat just yet but at least there was decent company. The Emperor's daughter turned her head, observing the other woman with both emerald eyes and through the Force.

Ah, not just an ordinary person. That made sense.

There was a sense of overall calmness within the brunette, a cause to be weary within the Sith, but that was just the surface. There was more that lurked beneath, darker yet fainter, more tantalising emotions that called out to Evelynn like blood in the water. Anger. Hatred, even. The barest traces, but still there.

Taking out her small device once more, the crippled Sith tapped away upon the screen, still preferring to talk through technology rather than telepathy.

“Thank you for your assistance,” the male electronic voice of the device said, “I do hope that I haven't made too much of a scene.”

Enough of a scene to ensure that the chef was watching his back and Evelynn inwardly smirked at that very fact as she took a few noodles from the bowl and awkwardly dropped them into her tongueless mouth, eating as if she were a baby bird.

Amea Virou

 

[Amea Virou]

Beatrice Govan

There was the tiniest flicker of a grin on Amea’s lips as she witnessed the tongueless woman eat. It wasn’t right to want to laugh, but it was also not a scene she could say she had ever seen before. Instead she her lips behind a nose scratch. She scrunched up, furrowed her brows in tension to dispel the sudden itch that spread across her face and promptly let her hand fall by her side before she grabbed her already half-eaten bowl from the counter.

“Who cares?” Amea responded to the blonde woman’s statement. “If they can’t stand someone telling some nerf herder off,” Amea said as she raised her voice and leaned towards the kitchen before she stood up straight again to continue eating her meal, sticks and all. “That’s their problem.”

With a well-practiced grip around the two sticks between her fingers and thumb Amea shuffled a noodle into her mouth and chewed it up, all the while looking at the other woman who quite clearly seemed to be sizing her up. She had caught her doing it before, but there she was doing it again. Her grin faded for just the briefest of moments before Amea exhaled with the small semblance of a chuckle.

“I hope you don’t mind, but I don’t see a lot of people in mobility aids like that these days.” She said and put the bowl down on the counter. “Freak accident at work, or… ?”

Stated as if Evelynn would naturally want to share the nature of her situation with a stranger.

 

[Beatrice Govan]

With an awkward mouth full of noodles, Evelynn snorted as the woman dispelled any notion of making a scene with an honest lack of grace. Sometimes you simply needed a foul-mouthed commoner to say it like it is.

With her more capable cybernetic hand in charge of the chopsticks and the noodles, her left was free to do all the typing, enabling the blonde to break free of all stuffy societal rules and talk with her mouth full. It was actually quite liberating, well, at least to her. It really was about the little things in life.

"Yes, you're quite right. Kark them."

Oh, now she was swearing. Force, street food, profanity? What was next? A trip to a cantina?

The woman pried into the state of her useless legs and what would have been another social faux-pas in polite society was tossed aside in preference for blunt curiosity. The crippled Sith had to appreciate the simplicity of it all. Thankfully, she already had her cover story prepared, the one that had also been shared to her cheap physical therapist.

"I was in a speeder accident and fractured my spine," the voice spoke, vocalising the lies tapped in from her fingers, "lacking the funds for proper medical care, they simply fused it back together and thus here I am, rehabilitating."

Like a poor person.

The truth was of course, far more violent in nature, a thankfully failed assassination by a blue brute trained in the art of pacifying Force users.

"Tell me, who do I have to thank for my dinner? I'd like to know more about my noodle saviour."

Amea Virou

 

[Amea Virou]

Beatrice Govan

Ooof. Amea slowly let out an empathetic exhale while her body tensed up with a visible cringe. It was her own fault, really. Nobody in their right mind asks another to think about such a moment, but at least the blonde seemed rather unphased by it as was evident in her wild chow-down with the enviable ability to both eat and speak without coming across as too rude about it. Amea nodded at the idea of rehabilitation and shuffle a piece of her own food into her mouth.

“Amea.” She said and swallowed the content in her mouth. “Amea Virou.”

A hand was extended if Evelynn would care for it at all.

“Have you got a name as well, stranger?”