Private Unforeseen Consequences

[Amea Virou]

Loske Treicolt

“This is entirely a poker face.” Amea chuckled at Loske’s remark about the whiskey. “It’s trash and burns, but sometimes you can’t afford to show weakness like that. Not that it’s a weakness, but some people believe that it is in these circles, so...”

As for karaoke, well, Amea was not a fan. She knew how to sing but it was still a stage, it was still attention that gave people reason to remember you. Not that punching others wouldn’t do the same, but it was a situation she could handle. Attention for the sake of attention was not her business at all. When Loske got up to ‘alleviate herself’ Amea gave her a small courteous nod and spread her arm as if to grant her the permission to leave.

Her attention wandered around the room until a coin slot called out into the relative silence of the bar. A guitar riff came on, one that Amea actually recognized. Her brows lifted in surprise, her back recoiled much the same as her foot began to tap against the ground along with the beat.

“How did you know?” Amea asked as Loske took a seat again. “I love this song!”

Loske asked her question and Amea leaned forward to place her elbow on the table’s edge.

“I mean, yes and no.” She rolled her shoulders in a shrug. “Working freight is work, but it also has plenty of downtime. I read, I listen to music and follow holo-shows like everyone else. Corine La’toya is still a guilty pleasure.”

“... Have you heard of her? I’d hope even a non-amnesiac me would have been aware of her, and spread the word.”

 

[Loske Treicolt]

Loske left the suggestion of knowing to remain unanswered. If Amea really cared how Loske just so happened to know her favourite song, she could probably figure it out with the circumstances they found themselves in. She only offered a roguish grin in response with a shrug.

Listening, she bobbed her head in understanding. She imagined the tank-top wearing girl across from her curled up in the space between crates and finding entertainment in whatever someone else produced. She almost choked on her drink when she mentioned Caroline La'Toya.

"Hah!" Wiping the back of her mouth from any accidental spittle, the blonde nodded enthusiastically "Yes. Yes I have totally heard of her. I wore a pink wig once and impersonated her, accidentally, one night." She laughed at the memory "Got a cute guy to get me some McYodas for free, I can only imagine the luxuries she gets.

My favourite is still the one where she ends up sleeping with the enemy.

What about you?"

The casualness of the conversation was comforting. The last time they'd talked about La'Toya and boys, they'd exchanged love life stories. And Loske's lack of experience in that one department had been dreadfully exposed. She'd meant to text Kaili an update..but had..forgotten. Seemed it was too late now.

Amea Virou

 

[Amea Virou]

Loske Treicolt

So, old Amea was also one with half-decent taste — depending on what your perception of ‘real cinema’ was. Corine La’toya was certainly not a difficult taste to acquire, needless to say it wasn’t just her evident grasp on different genres that had spread across her movies but never anything that had come across as too tasteless. Just enough to drive home what kind of actress she was, which was to say a symbol of sorts and enough of a careless attitude to not give a damn what others thought of it.

“I enjoy ‘It Came Crawling from Yavin IV’ as much as the next person.” Amea said and laughed. “Still can’t believe they managed to make two more follow-ups to that. They’re positively some of the worst crap that I’ve ever seen but the original has always been a solid watch.”

A hand grasped at Amea’s neck again, her cheeks going red as she tried to think of more movies she enjoyed, but there was only ever the one. One of the ‘looser’ releases, a mildly controversial topic in more conservative circles. And not just looser in terms of the actions performed but how factual the movie was. Not everyone had gone into tombs for themselves, and it was a movie, but…

Well,

“Leather is a very inconvenient choice for apparel when exploring a tomb,” Amea said and cleared her throat. “But Corine’s counterpart in ‘Artifact of the Damned’ was stunning, and amazing, and badass, and I loved the performance.”

 

[Loske Treicolt]

Absorbed in the conversation, Loske didn't noticed she'd finished her drink until it made an obnoxiously empty sound when she tried to suck in more contents. It also operated as a cue for the droid to roll by and visit them, see what they were interested in. Another round? Loske gave the signal for yes while Amea Virou explained the impracticality of leather.

"Not going to lie," She started, and poked the end of her straw at the bottom of her glass. "That movie made me want to don a catsuit."

The droid came along rather promptly and distributed the drinks to the women, before rolling away to tend to other patrons again.

The song in the background played for a second time, but the timing between the end of the last chorus to the starting of the guitar riff had no major gap that would indicate the song had finished -- so it could be a convincingly long song at this point, especially since it was mixed with the white noise babble of different conversations throughout the cantina.

"What do you think -- could you ever be an actress?"

Yes. Amea Virou could be an actress; she was on the daily.

"On the silver screen?"

 

[Amea Virou]

Loske Treicolt

There was a swap-out. Whiskey was changed for a Corellian ale as the effects of the cheap whiskey began to hit back. When the drinks came back Amea wasted no time taking the first sip and licked away the foam from the tip of her lip with a slow nod. There was a time and place for catsuits, and movies were certainly a very good one. Tombs? Not so much. Corine La’toya flicks? Perfect.

The song on the jukebox began to play a second time and Amea couldn’t help but raise a brow at the pilot — and also Jedi — before her. Was this her doing?

“Dear heavens, no.” Amea ‘pshfted’ at the mere suggestion. “No, no, no. No. Nah.”

Then again… Amea placed her elbow on the table’s edge again and propped her hand up against her cheek with a deeply contemplative stare off into the distance. Or rather, the ceiling. Her mouth shifted back and forth before she slowly scrunched her nose and began to shake her head.

“Nah.” Her hand fell on top of her other arm before her eyes began to dart around again. “Or maybe?”

“I dunno. Would you?”

 

[Loske Treicolt]

There was no hesitation in her response: "Absolutely not. Too much attention and pressure."

To punctuate her sentiment, she took hearty sip from her straw; the bubbles racing to the roof of her mouth and provoking a shocked cough.

"I'm not the best liar, and lying for a living would be...really tricky. Actually, you taught me a thing or two about faking it. I wouldn't have been able to play Cora that night if you hadn't shown me how to fake an accent. Apparently my Corellian was convincing enough." She doctored her speech at the end of the sentence, clipping her drawl to mimick what she'd seen in Holofilms.

"I wouldn't mind it for the dress though, some of their red carpet outfits are stunning. I've never dressed up like that before."

She looked down at her clothing. A simple tank, pants, boots and the go-to saber leather jacket "This and a flight suit are basically my only outfits." Apparently she really wanted to add a ball gown and a catsuit to that wardrobe.

Meanwhile, Get out my way, I'm sick of being polite transitioned once more into a guitar riff and Small town baby got his knickers in a twist.

"But, I kind of admire what they do. Provide distraction and entertainment for everyone -- it's a kind of charity work I guess--at the sacrifice of their own privacy."

Amea Virou

 

[Amea Virou]

That was something Amea had taught her? More than anything, Amea herself was confused as to why she could even do it. At some point she understood that she had been taught the skill from a Lorrdian, but who and why was a complete unknown. It had helped immensely in throwing people off her trail, or disguising herself as someone else. As far as Amea was concerned though, she wasn’t living life as someone else.

And needless to say, the attention and fame of movies and their likes was the big drawback of acting.

“I only, uh, own this and some of the change in my bag.” Amea said and looked down at the tank top that covered her chest and shoulders, the rugged yet fitted black pants that protected her legs from most of the damage she’d acquire from sliding around all over the place, and her equally black boots. All in all, she was dressed for utility.

“Not sure I’d agree they are doing charity though.” She would shrug. “They get paid insane amounts of money, live in mansions and hoard the weirdest of artifacts in their homes with minimum security.”

Make of that what you would. Amea took a confident sip of her drink and put the glass down.

“The privacy part though, that one I agree with.” Amea said and began to twirl her drink again. “I take it we used to hang like this a lot before? Just talk and… stuff?”

Loske Treicolt

 

[Loske Treicolt]

With minimum security? "Have you been in one of these homes?" Loske asked, catching the background music's fourth verse for the third time and suffocating a cringe at her questionable choices. Seemed the trick wasn't necessarily jogging any memories.

"Uh, yeah." Pushing her drink away for a second, she leaned back in the booth and folded her arms across her chest, shifting her feet beneath the table uncomfortably. How open does she go here? What was the borderline between useful and hurtful? Amea had a life that she didn't know, and Kaili deserved to rest. Loske could understand that. Her throat tightened and she swallowed against it, buying a second more to think by releasing her ponytail, twisting the hair around, and tying it back up again.

She elected not to divulge the you were my best friend thing and how much Amea Virou used to know about her. "It was nice. Kind of a normalcy amidst all the galactic chaos. You've said some things that have helped me out a lot, so, I owe you thanks."

A pause, in before Amea could feel bad about anything, Loske held up a hand to dissuade potential guilt.

"Don't worry, I didn't have a lot of advice worth remembering anyway.

I assume most of your engagements nowawdays are a lot more exciting. I can do exciting too."

 

[Amea Virou]

Loske Treicolt

Amea shuffled in her seat, cleared her throat and disguised it as a chuckle as her hand scratched against the side of her head. “Maybe.”

The conversation moved along and Loske shared more small pieces about who Amea once was, and in truth it didn’t sound all that bad. It was unexpected, but welcome. While it made it all the more frightening to know that she most likely had someone else out there that was once her friend and who probably worried for her, Amea pushed the thought aside with a chug of her drink.

Yet mid-chug Loske shot herself down. Amea choked on her drink and put the glass down to look over at the blonde, eyebrows raised in an empathetic stare into her blue eyes.

“No! No, I— the advice was probably great. This is all really great, I am having a surprisingly good time despite having technically just met you.” The drink was talking again and Amea shuffled in her seat to recover what they had before Loske fell into the guilt trap. “I am happy I met you again. It’s easy to talk to you.”

 

[Loske Treicolt]

She'd not meant to make Amea Virou feel guilty..but she supposed her comment was unnecessary. This was a very weird situation, but she smiled despite herself at the compliment to the camaraderie the short-haired brunette delivered. There was something reassuring about having chemistry for the sake of chemistry, and not because of familiarity. Kaili might have turned to Loske because she'd felt she had nobody else, but Amea probably had other people.

"Yeah," Loske nodded, batting away the suggestion that maybe her advice was good. It all depended on the application, really. She instead chose to agree with Amea's observation. Blue met brown, and she held her new friend's gaze for a second before she nodded. "This is nice."

Put down your small-talk and teach me to fight
Let's make this personal, stop wasting my time
Get out my way, I'm sick of being polite

She cleared her throat, and shifted in her seat before navigating through the dialogue again. "So tell me about who's house you broke into. Did you take anything?"

 

[Amea Virou]

Loske Treicolt

“Allegedly.” Amea added with a coy smile as she looked out across the room from their booth. The jukebox was still going, and it was still the very same song. Many of the guests were starting to show signs of frustration, yet no-one seemed to do anything about it. Amea turned back to Loske. “Did you… Queue that song like a dozen times or something?”

She shook her head and smiled.

“I have never been in one of their homes, but if I had been I would have asked myself why Hane Feek once kept a rare collection of Sith artifacts at hand at all times.” Amea leaned back in her seat. “Makes you wonder what other kind of religious beliefs the big heads in Tinseltown have. And I am not talking like a few items, I am talking an entire safe dedicated solely to Darth Andeddu, the necromantic Sith lord of immortality.”

“And let’s say information on Fraado’s ties to the Rodian Mafia was leaked to the public. The man should clearly have been more careful not to misplace such documents at his local holonet cafés, right?”

“I wouldn’t know, these are just rumors I’ve heard, of course.”

Yet something in how she acted made it seem very much as if Amea hadn’t merely heard it at all. Another coy smile spread on her lips as she took another sip of her drink.

 

[Loske Treicolt]

"S--seventeen times." Loske corrected Amea Virou 's estimate sheepishly.

Hooked on the subject of rumours and speculation, the blond quirked a brow and sipped away the rest of her drink. The bubbles raced up the straw and right to her bloodstream. She blinked lazily while the suggestion of cultish worship aired across the table. For half a second, she looked around the cantina and wondered what everyone else was talking about. Throughout the space, humans mixed freely with alien counterparts. Tentacles, claws, and hands were wrapped around various drinking utensils that varied in size. Conversation was a steady babble of human and alien tongues, but all of it indistinguishable.

"Crazy." She levelled "It's pretty nuts how big the galaxy is, and the different variety of weirdos and religious sects that sprawl through all the corners. Like the Rodian Mafia? How big is their influence? I've never even heard of them..though I've been pretty myopic in The Core, to be honest.

But hey--I bet people pay good money for that kind of information. Either to have or prevent leaking. Is that kinda how you're making money now? Information brokering?"

 

[Amea Virou]

Loske Treicolt

“Sure,” Amea said and shuffled in her seat. “Information brokering. Let’s go with that.”

“The Rodian Mafia isn’t all that powerful outside of Rodia, but they are enough of a problem there that if their influence were to spread — say, through a big name actor — it could help boost their pull there. Get people to sympathize.” She explained and took a sip of her nearly empty drink. “And let’s just… Have it said. The fact that there are so many religious sects out there is why I don’t put much stock in the Sith.” Or jedi, but given her company it didn’t feel right to say. Though Loske was smart, she could most likely pick up on it. “So many different interpretations formed during the plague, and it’s the one that propagated power at the expense of someone else that came back?”

“... I supposed I get the idea behind that, but not really. There was a long-dead sect on one of the lesser known planets in the Outer Rim that sought the same kind of power through personal trauma instead. They traumatized themselves by facing the death and suffering from the Gulag Plague so that they could better understand it and use it to protect others.”

“When the dark side’s tendrils began to extend and the lust for greater power began to corrupt them, they were shot down and given a hero’s burial for their sacrifice. Easier said than done out here, of course, given that we have lightsabers and what-nots, but they didn’t. And they were almost better off for it.”

 

[Loske Treicolt]

Amea Virou 's consciousness about company was correct. It was perhaps the first time Loske had introduced herself as a Jedi, or well..that wasn't true. To people that she didn't well know, she did -- but in her mind's eye she was just a Force User. Her current company was just very...religious.

"That's nuts." Loske mouthed along with the story about the tribe that attempted personal trauma to gain empathy and insight. "I don't understand how..." she leaned back in her chair, the story not quite sinking in yet. "The galaxy is so massive. I've been operating too closely to The Core lately, and all the problems are just... political. Cogs in the machine sorts of things. Not to say they aren't real problems, but all politicians are murky. It's hard to designate the good from the less good. Or the bad from the really bad.

I guess.." she pivoted back to the original story of the attempted cultists "There was no way to bring them back from the brink? They had to die?"

 

[Amea Virou]

Loske Treicolt

“It is unfair to their attempts at survival to say they had to die, but yeah, they had to die.” Amea said with a contemplative frown. “Stagnation and paranoia which leads to death and suffering is a very common theme on these planets. I wish I could do more, but…”

She sighed, shook her head and took a hefty sip from what little remained of her drink.

“Chronicling them is all I can do.” Amea looked at Loske yet again, Amea’s lips curving into a vague smile at the somber mood that would seem fell over her. “Luckily, in recent years we’ve seen more examples of why unity and cooperation are the most worthwhile endeavours out there. The dark age was an extraordinarily bad situation for everyone, but we survived because of it -- unity that is -- and now here we are.”

“And in a macabre sort of way, I suppose, I am having a drink with my own forgotten past.” She chuckled again before a mortified and utterly panicked expression fell across her face. “Not to say you are— Or that I—”

“That came out wrong. Sorry.”

“I get the feeling old me wasn’t like this.”

 

[Loske Treicolt]

More words of wisdom from the former Talith. Loske couldn't number the times she'd recounted the echoes of Kaili's advice. She and the formerly freckled blonde had shared a perspective on Jedi hubris, relationships, and several other things. Their bond had been one born out of convenience, but stuck for familiarity and mutual care. Even if Loske couldn't be the best warrior in the galaxy, as was her sole intention for creation, she'd try to be the best friend she could.

"That is macabre.." Loske admitted, trying not to wince at the reference to Amea Virou 's poor memory. Her countenance betrayed her, and upset lines drew across her face, which she buried behind the glass that encompassed her mouth.

The song looped for the twelfth time in the background.

Too many photos and not enough friends
Waiting on the next fad and the next trend
Poses in the hall, and they clogging up the stairways
Walking on that queen face
Come on baby, let's play

"I mean, you're not totally new you and old you. They're not complete dichotomies. I think er...old you would be happy with where you are now." Kaili'd explained Amea as the cool tomb raider version of a Corine La'Toya film, and looking across the table at her, that seemed like a self fulfilling prophecy.

"Hey, I have a question though -- I've met you as uh..Amea before. Do you remember racing on Tattooine? I know you don't remember that Wayland adventure, but that was pretty short and whatever. I'm wondering if an adrenaline surge like swoop racing might help with your recollection?"

 

[Amea Virou]

Loske Treicolt

Old Amea, happy with where New Amea was. Her brow rose at that. In a sense Amea had always considered herself a different woman than she had hoped to be, but Loske seemed to imply that wasn’t entirely the case. Some parts had carried over, and some parts had not. For what it was worth it calmed Amea’s nerves just a little. She had still lost a big part of herself but not all of it.

“It’s… Weird.” Amea said and squinted. “It is as if I feel like I’ve raced at some point in my life, but I don’t know that I have.”

She looked at her glass and then Loske.

“Swoop racing is a dangerous sport though. A lot of cheaters with many racers who die both on and off the tracks.” Or so something told her. “I… Want to say popular on arid planets? Like podracing, almost.”

Amea’s head began to hurt as she tried to connect the frayed ends of her memory with her newfound knowledge. A dull pain throbbed against the inside of her skull like a spike that repeatedly stabbed against her brain. She placed her hand against the side of her temple and began to rub it in a circular pattern.

 

[Loske Treicolt]

A knowing, but sad smile suffused its way to her plump lips and she rested her cheek in a palm. Her gaze was soft with compassion at the woman with dark eyes and a taste for brown liquor. The searching for recollection was a painful thing to watch, and it had happened too many times in this booth for Loske to keep focused on anything with levity in it.

"It is." The would-be kiffar agreed, the affirmation to the fragments Amea Virou could grasp made her feel better about this. As if giving the other young woman bouts of encouragement and yes-yes-that's-right-dears would help sooth over the speed bumps in her mind.

"It's still dangerous, but an improvement to pod racing. Many planets who were known for excellent pod courses replaced them with swoop bike tracks. While the courses are still dangerous, full of cheating and obstacles like you mentioned, the sabotage tends to happen before the races now rather than during them.

Pod Races have more than one racer on a track at a time, swoop racing is more focused on speed."

She shrugged, and finished her beverage. Her free hand gave a lazy, non-committal gesture. "At least, that's what it says on paper. You raced under my alias - Blue Sato."

 

[Amea Virou]

Loske Treicolt

Amea’s eyes squinted yet again. Blue Sato, she swore she had heard of that somewhere. A bar. Cheap and tacky lights against a backdrop of bottles that contained alcohol in almost a pure form. Patrons laughing and sharing a drink together as they watched the nearby holoscreen recording of a race. Amea had looked at it and caught sight of the driver, kept her focus on that. In reality the sport didn’t interest her all that much, at least not since it was recorded. She admired the woman’s shape and then left for her next job.

In reality, Amea began to blink at a rapid pace.

“You are Blue Sato?” She said and grounded herself in reality again. “I think I caught a rerun of your race on Tatooine.”

Her head began to slowly nod up and down as she grew more and more certain of it.

“Yeah, you were quite skilled, actually!” Amea exclaimed. “Had a time that was hard to beat.”

 

[Loske Treicolt]

"That was you." Loske quickly corrected, with a laugh that was far from empathetic and genuinely amused. "Your compliments are for you, only.

My races were on Ahto City and Vulpter." She gave a wink and a mock cheers in the direction of the woman who shared an empty glass.

"Not to say I can't beat your time with my eyes closed, especially now with this whole awareness of The Force thing, but you definitely cleaned up."

She was unable to conceal the absolute delight at the vague recollection of the memory, though it was weird to have Amea say she was watching Amea, and not remembering the race itself.

"Hey, this might seem weird, but I'm actually enjoying this. Can you..do you have...if I text you right now, what will show up? Let me try. I get in some trouble sometimes and need to talk through things, and it would be great if I could reach out to you again.

As you. Now."

Not taking pause to see what would happen, she pulled her datapad from her pocket and twirled it around in her hands until it was upright and pinned in Amea's number. Don't worry, she had it. It was more a question of whether or not it would trigger Amea Virou 's awareness when the text came through to the other side.

Finally, the song changed.