Sand Gets Everywhere

[Amilthi Camlenn]

The humid, tropical heat on Teth was much different from that on Tatooine, and Amilthi had eventually surrendered to it and stopped wearing the heavy clothes that were more appropriate in the desert. Now she was dressed in just a skirt and a sleeveless top that on Tatooine would have drawn embarrassed looks for being considered underwear. The lightsaber by her hip was clearly visible now, but fortunately most people here didn't pay attention to it and probably didn't even know what it was. The rest of hear meagre belongings were stuffed into a cloth bag that was hanging around her shoulder. It was indeed an admission of defeat on her part: keeping up the regulation of her body temperature had required constant concentration that had eventually proved too much to maintain. It had put aa drain on her mental resources that had made it much more difficult to think clearly and engage with the world, but too long a lapse would have carried the risk of fainting from the heat.

Not that she was planning to continue her stay much longer. A door slid open, and the slow, but intensely rhythmic music from inside the cantina mixed with the erratic rustling of leaves and the strange calls emerging from the depths of the crepuscular jungle that kept so many off-worlders awake at night here. The place was badly lit and not particularly busy. Amilthi could spot a few couples dancing, a handful of people sitting and standing around the bar, and, as she stepped inside, a few others huddled in more comfortable seats by the walls. It didn't escape her attention that most of them were armed, even the young lad embracing his date on the dance floor. An elderly pair of a rodian and a gran were playing some sort of game on a low table between their armchairs, dressed in loose-fitting shirts with colourful, flowery patterns. Perhaps this was their idea of a relaxed retirement. Still, the place was probably Amilthi's best bet for finding a ride off this planet, and perhaps it was simply too early in the evening yet.

She walked up to the bar, and the bartender, a human of dark complexion, looked her over appraisingly when she ordered a glass of sashin-leaf mead. "<Not from around here, are you?>" he asked in Huttese while pouring the drink. "<Not planning to stay, either.>" "<Ah.>" "<Get much traffic around here?>" In Galactic Basic, Amilthi could never hide her native Core world accent, but the informal Huttese she had acquired was quite congruent with her outward appearance.

[member="Rina-Jan Getchell"]​

 

[Rina-Jan Getchell]

Jungles. Karking jungles.

One day, Rina-Jan was going to retire from bounty hunting, and she was going to retire some place as far from any karking jungles as she could possibly find. She still wore her armor as she walked the streets, fresh from a minor bounty, but even if it kept the heat out she was reasonably sure that the suit's built-in life-support module hadn't been intended for this sort of thing. And after a while that system humming in her ears or just under her collar was enough to irritate the bounty hunter almost ceaselessly. She was armed with her rifle and heavy pistol on her and a vibro-knife on a sheath stuck to her chest. Between that, her ink, and her hair she easily cut the image of your typical bounty hunter circa. anywhere and any time in space where Hutts made business.

The cantina was a break from the heat and the open street. Being in crowded streets these days made the bounty hunter's nose itch.

There were too many places out there where someone with a blaster could sight in on her before she even knew it.

When she had entered, she had realized almost right away that the music carried enough bass to feel it up in her chest. The darkness meant that she had to take a few seconds to let her eyes adjust while she stepped inside. Of course since this was a place likely run by a Hutt, she was willing to bet the whole place was bathed in infrared light so that they and their rodian grunts could see just fine. A sweep of the smattering of patrons showed some rodian at a game table and a couple out in the dance floor.

She wasn't worried about those patrons so much as about the four or five she saw tucked away in their own little corners with blasters on their hips. A good bounty kept an eye on everyone besides her who had a gun in the room. But none of them seemed to be too interested in her beyond a cursory glance and nobody stopped her on her way to the bar.

Once sat down, she fished a cigarra from its pack in one of her pouches, and worked to light it as the bartender approached.

"<What can I do for you, lady?>" Had she been anywhere else in the galaxy, being greeted by a human speaking Huttese would have been weird.

She tossed her chit atop the counter, "<Rummy tonic. Extra rocks.>"

He gave a nod and pulled the payment from her balance. The drink was set down in front of her just in time for the Jedi woman to step inside.

And how did Rina-Jan know the other woman was a Jedi? Because Rina had been making an active effort to mask her presence in the Force, while this new arrival who came to stand beside her at the bar obviously hadn't. The blonde listened as the other woman ordered her mead. The two had a brief exchange. Rina waited until a lull in the conversation while tapping ash from her cigarra into the nearest tray, drink cradled in the other hand. When she spoke up, it was with a small laugh and, "Your Huttese is terrible, burc'ya."

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[member='Amilthi Camlenn']​

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[Amilthi Camlenn]

"<Not much. She's a new face>" said the barman, nodding in the direction of Rina-Jan. Amilthi looked at the woman, and in the dim light it took several seconds for her to finally arrive at a feeling of recognition.

It was a remarkable fact about the universe how even the perennial backwater planet of Tatooine was deeply connected with the rest of the galaxy. People from all over the galaxy ended up there, and in turn Tatooinians suddenly turned up where one would never have expected them. Amilthi wondered briefly what percentage of planets in the galaxy had at least one grain of sand on them that was originally from Tatooine.

Not that the edge of Hutt space was the most unexpected place to find someone you had seen on Tatooine. Amilthi remembered the woman who had been struggling to find the technology to overcome the physical hindrances that an accident had settled her with. With dogged determination, she had eventually succeeded, and since then she had quite possibly inflicted similar injuries on others. Amilthi could only hope they deserved it. She was always in two minds about the bounty hunters that swarmed the Outer Rim and Hutt space in particular. On the one hand, most of them were ruthless and unpleasant people who generally cared only about what their employers could pay, not what their targets deserved. But on the other hand, they fulfilled what one might call a vital ecological function: they were the only means the criminal world had to police itself.

A quizzical smile played around the corners of Amilthi's mouth at the greeting she received from Rina-Jan. Her gaze dropped involuntarily to the woman's legs, but of course nothing out of the ordinary was to be seen, trousers concealing the prosthetic limbs. She raised her eyes and replied with an unconcerned shrug: "I'm not writing scholarly treatises in it." Then she added with a wry smile. "I don't suppose you do, either."

[member="Rina-Jan Getchell"]​