Private Stranger Is Better

[Maijan Paisea]

Feeling like a pet, or a prisoner, didn't sit well with Maijan. The weight of the woman's arm around her was like a yoke on an ox, and it took her several seconds to mentally reconstruct the situation in her mind and put herself at ease. Long enough to almost miss the interrogation for her weight.

It was the play of her accent that snapped her attention back and eliminated the misty distance from her gaze. She shrugged.

"Galaxy's a big place. Some yes, some no." Caring for others, even of her own species, had never been her specialty. She'd abandoned that selflessness the moment she'd walked from the Fallanassi academy on Carratos. About to ask why this woman was so interested, Maijan glanced at the sabacc-player-turned-saboteur and for the first time noticed the humanesque femme wasn't so human. Or at least, appeared shimmierier than most. She just made a silent huh sound.

"...to da place ya jus' robbed so neatly?"

"Yeah, therrrre."

They wandered a bit further, the streets filled with clusters of pairs who meandered. Some stumbled, drunk, others sped-walk to their next destination. It was rare to see anyone meandering normally this time of night.

"Whatcha name? Unless yar prefer 'golden babe'."

"Golden babe, Magic Lady — those arrrre my usuals." She grinned. "Frrrriends call me Maijan." That was a lie. She didn't have friends, except maybe that Zabrak she was stuck with. But coworkers called her Mai.

She touched the bloodied spot on her face. "Since we'rre frrrriends, what am I calling you."

They neared the yawning mouth of a neon establishment, the archway flashing pink and blue boasts of cheap drinks and rich times. Between the blinking lights, Maijan tugged Mercy in to the shadowy venue. Bodies loitered in the corners of the space, and patrons swanned across the dancefloor — nobody actually dancing, just using it as an intersection to find their companions — Maijan dragged Mercy right through them to a corner where a teller looked bored. Popping bubbles with their gum.

"I'm cashing in for five-hundrrred crrrreds." Maijan announced, looting the amount from her pockets. It was only half of what she'd collected in her desperation, but Mercy didn't need to know that.

 

[Mercy]

Maijan Paisea

"Maijaaaaan." She tested out that name on her tongue and chuckled.

"S'fine one, Mai." It might have seemed as if Mercy was directly calling out her 'work' name. This was not the case at all. The woman whose arm was hanging lazily off of Paisea's shoulders was simply lazy. If she could shorten the amount of words on her tongue? She'd do this thing. Even if it meant butchering someone's name in kind.

Mercy didn't seem particularly fussed about the money the woman was getting from the teller.

After all... any amount of money was free money to her.

All it took was pinning her against the wall and claiming her for the night. That was a pretty easy little job. All things considered. "Oh... I be... Mercy." She grinned at Maijan as she murmured her name to her. Her hand reaching out to stroke Maijan's golden face. If there was ever a name that was less fitting to a person it was this one.

Mercy seemed entirely aware of this however.

"Ain't always too merciful, but if ya dun' piss me off... I be... I be."

Once the credits an' chips changed hands, Mercy began tugging her along, guiding her to one of the booths.

"So whatcha drink o' poison tonight, Maaaai?"

 

[Maijan Paisea]

Mercy was a horribly ironic name given the woman's solution minutes ago had been to punch Maijan through the chest, shatter her bones, and let her bleed out in an alleyway. She held back a gulp, but found it easily replaced with a snort. Regardless of Mercy being the woman's given name or not, Maijan was used to monikers. That was the life of pirates and thieves, criminals-turned-heroes. Nobody knew when was the appropriate time to serve up their real identity, and ended up making their own to represent all their misgivings.

"That cannot be yourr rreal name." Maijan challenged, flicking a credit between two fingers to catch the eye of a barmaid. A Twi'lek with wide hips leaned in real close when she took their order.

The Twi'lek was efficient, and soon Maijan raised her glass to her drinking companion. She couldn't even taste the blood on her lips over the smoothness of the gin. And the taste grew number and number the longer the night went on. A night that...was...much shorter for Maijan than it was for Mercy.

Halfway through the first round of twenty-one questions, Maijan's peripheral vision was starting to slip.

After two drinking challenges, lighthearted games of questions and dares, Maijan's awareness was transferred to somewhere else for safe keeping. Still conscious, but operating in a drunken daze, she laughed louder, drank more, and generally reverted more and more to the woman she'd been before the bomb had been slit into her neck.

The last thing she remembered saying was "..And who makes good guys, ahnywayzs?" — which was about as philosophical as she got, and whether or not there was a response, she felt mighty proud at being able to form such a profound question with her cheeks so red and her tongue feeling so loose.