Private Wanting Too Much

[Vendra Vane]

LAMAREDD
- Little Mon Cal -

Amidst the ruins of a long derelict and crashed Lucrehulk was the sprawling settlement of Little Mon Cal, off the coast of an island of the same name. Tramp freighters and wildcat smugglers frequently made a stop here to bypass trade tolls and passing patrols; for others, it was just a nice out-of-way spot.

The kind of place where you could actually relax, and one establishment in particular catered to all types...

The Golden Gullet. A not-so-swanky dive with only hard liquor to offer and a jizzbox on the fritz. Oh, and credits would simply not do, not out here so removed from the Core economies. Peggats or barter only.

Thankfully, peggats were more than available to Vendra, who got paid in 'em last job and was more than willing to spend. She dropped a few extra for a private booth in the back and away from the crowd of side-eye giving thugs near the bar, and with it came a waiter droid on demand. All in all, it was a small luxury, but one that made all the difference between one high-stress job or another.

She grabbed her drink from the little droid and took a sip before quirking a brow at the man sitting across from her.

"What is it?" She still didn't know how to gauge him or his expressions yet.

"Maybe if I ask nicely and pay handsomely, they'll have better poison in the back, eh?"

Alec Sienar

 

[Alec Sienar]

The man across from her was solid like an oak in rest.

Except for the eyes.

Every once in a while they flicked around the room when a noise breached some internal threshold that demanded attention. Not quite mad, but wild in a way. They flicked back to Vendra Vane when she addressed him. Eyebrows quirked up in confusion. "What is what, I am just sitting here." That wasn't true, he had been considering what the chances were that the newcomer in black robes was a Sith and if he could get away with carving a smile right through his throat.

"Poison is poison is poison." Sienar murmured, still absent, hand already playing with the pommel of his knife. "Take it from someone who has had poison worth more than a Coruscanti apartment. Price doesn't matter, it's gonna get you drunk either way."

The black cowl came down and out came a smiling face with no amber eyes and with a lot of laughing lines.

Sienar sighed disappointed and took his hand off of the pommel.

"When you said we were gonna go do something fun in a bar, I assumed you meant hunting Sith in a bar. I haven't managed to spot even one yet, Vane. What are we really doing here?"

His hands were itching to get back to work.

 

[Vendra Vane]

She then glanced whenever Alec's eyes would wander.

He was right about one thing: the more you drank, the less it mattered what was going down, as long as it didn't come back up, at least not until after one was properly chit-faced. Vendra mulled over the thought as she took another sip of her drink, then barked another request at the little droid.

"Keep it coming, sweetheart!"

Her demeanor shifted somewhat when his tone shifted from booze banter into overly familiar frustration. Few would be surprised how many people had it out for the Sith. It seemed no matter what, their ten-a-peggat regimes would continually rise as soon as they would fall. Lightsabers rattling under a Darth this and Dark Lord that, appearing in every corner of the Outer Rim while all they do is covet and claw at the core as usual.

A cycle of exploit this backwater, genocide that species, attack the Jedi again and again, usually over the ghosts of dead soldiers from the last several campaigns.

Vendra shrugged after that awkwardly long pause for philosophical thought. "Different ideas of fun, I suppose. Really, you should have been more clear." She said, rather tongue-in-cheek. "Honestly, you have to have to relax somehow, right? Hobbies? A favorite holoflick... Sex, drugs?"

Though if he dismissed her gentle backtalk and followed her eyes, noticed the fingers that tapped impatiently against the glass, he would realize that she wasn't here for something as simple as getting drunk. She was listening, watching, mooching off of the conversations. Deals were happening. Leads were being discussed among drunken smugglers, pirates, and who knows what else.

He might just notice her business acumen in the act, at least the sort that would line her crew's pockets long enough to avoid talk of mutiny for a while.

Alec Sienar

 

[Alec Sienar]

Vendra Vane

"I don't have a lot of off-time." He said as a matter-of-fact while following the track of her eyes. Yes, it didn't take a lot of imagination to see that she was here for more than just drinks and a good time.

"But when I need to take a load off... I either get drunk as feth or I con people."

It was a strange thing to just admit like that, but Alec was not one for self-deception anymore. He knew what he was now. And part of it was being able to take back control after seeing all his control shatter in the face of Sith excess. "Pretend I am drunk, then scam them out of their cash when they assume they can take me for a ride during pool or something."

He rationalized it as doing a public service.

After all, if they didn't think they were taking advantage of him, he wouldn't have been able to switch it onto them.

"I can also do a mean card trick. How about you, what do you do when you are not working?"

 

[Vendra Vane]

Ven raised her brow at his admission, bemusement replaced by a knowing, if not outright approving, smirk that curled along the edge of her mouth. While she herself wasn't prone to such parlor tricks, she did appreciate knowing that Alec here was more like her people than at first glance.

When the question came back around, she paused in thought before answering. "Well, now I just want to see that card trick," she quipped.

"It's honestly hard to see the line between working and not working sometimes." The pros and cons of being an Outer Rim mercenary, where every conversation, any moment, could be an opportunity or a necessity. Still, there were the seldom times she had a moment to herself. Or at least in private enough company that work need not come up.

Following a sip of her drink. "I'm boring, honestly. I like to sit and think, not about anything, just let the mind water. I also read silly philosophy and spend far too much of my credits letting hacks describe my future." She admitted with a dry chuckle. "I've done the usual stuff, of course... Sex, drugs, holoflicks." She repeated the earlier line with no small amount of sarcasm.

Then she looked around the room. "If you had to con anyone here, who would it be? Who's your mark?"

Alec Sienar