Private Rescue on Balosar

[Inanna Harth]

Inanna still wasn’t used to the polluted atmosphere of Balosar. She was able to handle the toxins in the air, but that didn’t make breathing it any less unpleasant.

Thankfully, her destination was a bar that promised somewhat clean air, if not drinkable swill. She passed through the door, waited through the decontamination process, and stepped inside the pub proper. It was a bustling joint, filled with both native and offworlder patrons. Cigarra smoke marred the whole clean air gimmick, but it was at least better than the pollution outside.

But she wasn’t here to enjoy the booze or the company. Approaching the bar, she got the droid bartender’s attention only to ask, “I’m looking for Pod. Is he here?”

A noticeable silence descended upon those within earshot, leaving only the tinny jazz playing through the loudspeakers. Apparently Pod was a well-known fixture around these parts.

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[P O D]

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Inanna Harth​

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Ahhh...the joy that is Balosar. Where simply walking outside felt like a feat of survival, the pollution and thick smog in the air threatening to wrap your lungs in barb wire. Build walls around them so they could no longer expand, chain anchors to them so they may be dragged to the bottom of the sea. You suffocated, you drowned, you choked...you wondered how life had even survived in this putrid state. How newborns could enter this world and get enough good air to last more than a few hours. The factories not only emitted blotting smoke, they also warmed the surface of the planet. It was a hellish combination, one that made you sweat and writhe in the heat, all the while gasping - fighting for a decent breath. Pod likened it to a wildfire. A fire so unforgiving and intense that it boiled your blood and cooked your organs. The smoke that filled your nose and throat charred it from the inside out, your lungs shriveling and shaking with each heave and exhale. While perhaps the real extent of this cooking wasn't as drastic as what he envisioned, it never felt any less visceral. Balosar made every action feel laborious and aching.

Pod seemed to like the misery. He liked to feel like he was fighting, struggling for something. He liked being at the will of someone, or something else. He liked how the planet had such a grip hold on it's occupants - on him. The dominance it demanded so effortlessly over their minds and bodies. The hostile environment of Balosar was certainly not for the weak. No one could escape it, and Pod could admire that. He succumbed willingly to it's torturous conditions. Diligently, dutifully.

He would cough as he walked to the pub, as he sidled up to the bar, as he choked on his drink. He would cough as he sat down at a booth, as regulars tugged on his oversized sleeves begging for a temporary anecdote to their death stick addition. He would cough as he batted them away, hissing at their unwanted touch. This happened to him regularly. The way he swatted rouge advances away seemed second nature to him, muscle memory. The pubgoers knew him to be one of the bigger death stick dealers in the underworld, a man considered to have his fingers (or rather, his tentacles) in many crime-ridden pies. The aura he seemed to give off was reserved and respectable, yet looming...impending and upsetting. UGLY.

Perhaps that would be reason enough to explain the hush over the crowd. An uneasiness, a concern for the woman who sought this ruffian out.

"I'm looking for Pod. Is he here?"

Pod was not entirely surprised to be requested by name, it happened more often than you'd think. Albeit not entirely surprised but certainly intrigued, Pod's face would rip wide into a lewd smile. Something impure and vile.

He would cough as the beady eyes of onlookers bounced between the two characters, the silence cut through so bluntly it was comparable to the swing of an axe. It was his simple answer to her simple question.

 

[Inanna Harth]

The droid froze, the repetitive motion of its metal hands wiping out a glass halting, and silently gestured somewhere off to her right side. Inanna turned and, by following the direction of other patrons’ nervously darting eyes, eventually landed upon a figure seated at the bar. He seemed to be a humanoid with the cold and chiseled features of a model—at least, until she saw the tentacles gripping his drink. Their eyes met, and his face broke into a leering grin full of jagged teeth.

A shapeshifter? Well. Even better.

He didn’t say anything, apparently expecting her to make the first move. She got up, closed hte distance between them, and slid into the empty seat beside him. “You’re Pod?” she asked. “I was told you were the person to go to when searching for lost things.”

Maybe that was a bit misleading. She wasn’t looking for things, she was looking for people. But if it turned out he wasn't interested, or she had the wrong idea about him, it was best that word didn't get out what she was there for. That too-wide mouth of his might be prone to giving up secrets.

P O D​

 

[P O D]

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Inanna Harth
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To say she didn't fit it was maybe an understatement, at least in Pod's mind. Much too well put together to hail from a planet as destitute as Balosar, or frankly to be stooping down to this level of hell to look for a man like Pod. He wondered who on earth she had spoken to to get ahold of his name and whereabouts. He wondered what else they might've known about him, what else they might've told her. She was an intriguing creature indeed, and while white hair was certainly not something uncommon in the grand scheme of things it certainly was something that had her sticking out like a sore thumb. Compared to the regular grime and stench of the pubgoers, she could be considered ethereal with her clean clothes and acceptable smell. It wasn't only her appearance though, there was a new aura she had dragged in through decontamination. Maybe a cleaner air, a fresh breath. A sense of maturity that the delinquents of Balosar had not been exposed to in some time. Or maybe conversely it was a naivety that Balosars could sense through their delicate antennas, an eagerness so pure and and determined that the scene may have reminded you of a baby being dropped off in a den of wolves. The beasts circling, licking their frothing jowls. She seemed so brazen, so careless to the cost of asking for Pod. It was certainly not to be ignored.

Almost fittingly so there was a single stream of drool that crept from the corner of his lips, his grin so wide it no longer contained the expanse of bloodied saliva. It was as if he could simply not contain his excitement. The thrill of meeting someone new, of working, of potential adventure. He had not gotten up to meet her where she stood in effort to test her seriousness. A subconscious effort no doubt, one that might've been set in place to see how ernest she was in Pod's albeit a bit odd, a bit intimidating presence. Whoever had given the woman his name had not described to her his particular mannerisms it seemed. He could feel her gaze picking hesitantly through his teeth like a pick, scraping over the tentacles circulating his glass. Perhaps he was not what she expected. Maybe he was better than what she was expecting. Maybe he was worse....

The drool now seemed to seep from his bottom front teeth as Inanna sat down besides him, trickling slowly down his chin "Yes, Yes..." His words were thick and dark, as if strained through molasses. Or bantha dung. "I do seem to have a knack for acquiring things. Lost things...misplaced things..." It was only then that a free tentacle would wipe at the blood-tinged drool, at first being unsuccessful and simply smearing it across his face. "I do apologize, I do not mean to slobber over you. How very unbecoming of me" he spoke almost humorously, as if this gross display of bodily fluids on his face might've been considered endearing or acceptable. He had raised his oversized sleeve to wipe away the spit. It was more or less a successful effort, albeit he looked like a fool. "You have something in need of being found?"

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[Inanna Harth]

Inanna instinctively kept her distance for her own safety, which also left her out of reach of the strings of red-tinged saliva dribbling from his mouth. Despite the presence of blood (hers was black, his was red—probably not a pureblood Shi’ido, then), the drooling reminded her of the baby back home. Was Pod just a kid? Here on Balosar, he’d be considered an adult at eighteen, but for a long-lived Shi’ido, hybrid or not, eighteen was practically a toddler. He could be barely out of his amya’s pouch, but as long as he looked like a grown-up none of the locals would be any the wiser.

Or maybe he just liked to gross people out with his uncanny abilities. Inanna went through a phase like that when she was younger and angrier.

"You have something in need of being found?"

“Someone,” she replied, keeping her voice low. “A Shi’ido clan, the Darzu, settled here during the Second Great Hyperspace War, after the Maw ravaged Lao-mon. They took the forms of the Balosar, blended in with society, but all the while they were simply waiting to go home. Well, now the Maw is long gone and home is safe to live on again… and yet they’re nowhere to be found. I haven’t been able to contact them, and it looks like no one has been living at their apartment for a while.”

Spoiler: Shi’idese translations

Amya - Mother or mama

P O D​

 

[P O D]

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Inanna Harth
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While Pod was certainly no spring chicken, he wore his 133 years quite well. Without knowing he was a hybrid one would figure him to be in his mid to late 20s, young nevertheless. In part, this guess would hold water - as he had gone through roughly a quarter of his lifespan. He was no baby...but he was not a stranger to childish endeavors. Perhaps immature and naive at times having never received a true, nurturing childhood, or really any environment where he could grow up. Thrown into the themes of slavery, manipulation, brainwashing, intimidation, smuggling, thieving, etc etc. Not the most wholesome of experiences, sure. His social capabilities were lacking, obviously. The drool that leaked from his yellowed fangs was unbecoming. While he acknowledged it, it wasn't something that had necessarily bothered him. He had always been off-putting, and he had always kind of enjoyed it. Watching people's disgusted or disturbed reactions. He found comfort in it. Twisted fuck.


An eyebrow raised inquisitively, listening to her words. Pod's wiry grin faded ever so slightly. Not so much because he didn't like what he was hearing (he DID like it) but rather he was focusing on her request, sinking back into his own thoughts to try to see if The Darzu rang any bells...they did not. A clan of Shi'ido? Well, surely he'd know of them. Or at the very least, they knew of him.

"Well this..." He paused, a sleeve rubbing over his mouth "This I like the sound of" The grin pulled back once more, leathery and taut against his bony structure. He looked so sinister in this moment, a sheer curtain of primitive excitement crept down his eyes. The were golden, the color of warmth and healing honey... but I'll tell you right now, Pod was anything but warm and healing. He sat quiet for a moment or two, studying her face while he thought. Finally that heinous grin of his subsided, mouth closing into a faint protruding smile. She would not be able to get out another word before Pod smacked his lips almost in exclamation, lowering his voice to a whisper in response "I do not know of any clans, or of any Balosars with inaccurate imitation of anatomy. But. There is one Shi'ido that is coming to mind. Describing him I say: mechanic by day, broker by night. Secretive, scandalous" He giggled softly to himself, amused by his own description. There was indeed a mechanic he knew of, a man who at one time hated Pod for his frequent theft attempts. The garage he ran was superficially nothing special, but any inquiry on his stocked merchandise would lead you to a back room filled with enhanced cybernetic doodad bullshit...that was stuff Pod just didn't understand. Enhanced droids or tech implants, he had no idea what any of it meant. Despite all his experience and knowledge in artifacts and treasures, Pod was the least technically capable smuggler you might just ever meet. What he DID know was that it was worth something, and stealing from a lil ol mechanic would be a piece of cake. In theory. Many tentacles had been chopped or squashed in their efforts to nick valuables, but as time passed there was an endearing 'father and son' dynamic that seemed to develop, an love-hate relationship that led them to reach a happy medium. Pod had been hired out by the man a few times to retrieve hard-to-find parts, or to bring him customers that had never ended up paying what they owed. He was known to be involved in certain crime organizations, often providing getaway speeders or tricked out cyber-tech. "Why, I might even call myself such things. Has a bit of a ring to it...scandalous...secretive..." He let out another giggle, maybe a bit more mischievous than the last. He could easily amuse himself that's for sure.

"And how are you thinking of funding this endeavor miss..." The accented voice trailed off, bartering for her name

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[Inanna Harth]

"And how are you thinking of funding this endeavor miss..."

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“Mrs. Inanna Harth,” she replied. “From my own personal funds. Name your price.” When over two hundred years old you are, broke you had better not be.

“This Shi’ido mechanic—what is his name?” She might recognize his clan, at least. Hell, it was possible she may have even met him before in her travels. Out there on your own, sometimes it was nice to find another of your own kind.

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