The Path

[Clayton]

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys. . .

For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window panes;
There will be time, there will be time
[. . .]
There will be time to murder and create.​

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


Corellia

Valek whispered a quiet thanks as the barkeep placed a small bowl of pretzels in front of him. The baked bread was complimentary for people who asked, but he hadn't. Two and a half beers ago, Valek had instead paid for twice the price of a pitcher and told the man to keep the change. Generosity and appreciation for the man behind the bar had quiet benefits. Valek stared into the pale amber brew as a thin stream of bubbles rose from the bottom of the glass to the top. A handful of them clung on to the side of the glass and fought the call of buoyancy. He gave the glass a gentle shake and caused the cheap liquid to agitate. A fresh wave of dissolved carbon dioxide rose to the surface in a rush. A fresh, white skin formed at the surface only to dissipate a few seconds later. At least they didn't add compounds to artificially keep a head, he ruminated. It may have been cheap beer, but whoever made it wasn't trying to hide it.

At least they're an honest brewery, he thought as he brought the vessel, now warm to the touch, to his lips and sipped. This glass he was nursing. Dregs remained in the pitcher, maybe a mouthful that had been a little too much for his glass when it was full. He slowly reached over and poured the last of the pitcher into his glass. More white bubbles rose angrily to the surface, only to pop and vanish not a minute later. In front of him, high on the wall behind the bar, sat three large viewscreens. Two held sports (podracing and some high-value shockboxing match), and the other showed news. All three were muted. Music he had never heard before filtered through speakers in the ceiling instead. The background chatter of the hotel bar was just enough that it made actually listening to the music difficult. Not that he really cared.

Valek's body language and attitude were that of a barfly with all the time in the world. Someone who sought quiet solace in the stool, bar, and brew. A regular who seemed to melt right into the bar itself, as if he was a fixture rather than a patron. The funny thing was that this happened to be his first visit to the establishment. He was a seasoned barfly, however. It came with the territory of being a brewmaster. This was his territory as much as the ring was the territory of the two meatstacks beating each other bloody on holocast.

He popped a pretzel into his mouth and munched thoughtfully on how much of a barfly he wanted to be tonight. Valek had no qualms about staying until last call, he was in no rush and had nothing better to do tonight. On the other hand, he had so little to do, that he might call it a night just for the hell of it. Simple choices were often the hardest to decide on. Valek washed the pretzel down with another sip of beer. For the price it wasn't bad, he could drink slowly all night and not regret it in the morning, and the taste wasn't as unpalatable as some drinks he'd had in the past.

The barkeep finished his round to other patrons and stopped by Valek. "Can I get you anything else? Want another pitcher?" he asked with a friendly enough air.

"Mmm..." replied Valek as he realized he'd have to make up his mind on what to do tonight in just a few seconds now. "Yeah..." he said, the words drawn out and slow to buy himself a little more thinking time.

The barkeep waited patiently.

"Get me another pitcher, sure," he finally answered. He reached into a pocket and fished out a handful of credits that were then placed on the bar. "Keep the change," was the follow-up. It was not as generous a tip as the first time, but that had been to secure the barkeep's prompt service should he need it later in the evening. This was simply habit now. Valek always tipped unless service was atrocious.

The barkeep smiled, pocketed the credits, and said he would be back soon. Valek told him no rush, he wasn't quite finished with his glass. Barkeep nodded and told him to signal whenever he was ready for the second pitcher, then went to attend to a couple at the far end of the bar.

Valek nodded to himself, it was a scene he had been through countless times. It was almost a comfort, the familiar exchange of words and etiquette was a blanket to him, one that he could wrap around himself and keep all the worries and troubles of actual life at bay for a short while. That was the magic of a bar. He noticed the coaster, made from numerous layers of paper sandwiched and glued together, had become stuck to the bottom of the glass. It was an inexpensive way to make them, and a cost-effective choice for bars that didn't cater specifically to higher-end clientele. His own bar used them, even. With a finger he knocked the coaster off the bottom of the glass. A wide water ring had stained and blurred the ink decorating the paper. He tried to recall what it had been, a logo and words? Of the bar or a brand of alcohol? Probably the latter, as those were the less expensive. Breweries paid to have their logos printed and in front of bar patrons across the galaxy. Bars paid to have their own logo in front of patrons in their own bar. The advertising wasn't exactly effective in that case.

He cast his eyes down onto the long, wooden bar he was sitting at, and for the fourth time tonight saw someone had carved or doodled random aurebesh characters into the wood. He frowned for the fourth time tonight. There had been no need to deface the bar. If one really felt the need, why not do it to a bathroom stall?

The wood of a bar was sacrosanct and oftentimes it cost a pretty credit to install. He shook his head, drunks never really had the best logic or capacity for reasoning. With quiet morose Valek resumed his stare as if he was contemplating some deep, hidden meaning in the pattern of bubbles that rose to the top.
What did normal people do to pass the time? Did they attend shockboxing or podracing matches? He wondered why, especially when you could get an infinitely better view of the action through holocast. Did they collect vintage speeders, carve boats out of trees, or mundane things like scrapbook? Valek wondered these things as the night started to drag on. The shockboxing match was now over; it had ended in a TKO after a particularly clever combination of punches. 700,000 credits had been on the line for the victor.

700,000 credits! By the Force above! He had often wondered how he would fare in the ring, and invariably dismissed the idea out of hand. Shockboxing was different. His style of fighting, which might carry him to moderate success, was different. The other issue was fame. Valek had no desire for fame of any sort. Media attention would rip him apart and leave him no room for privacy. No, he preferred a life of quiet mediocrity. It was easier.

The second pitcher of beer arrived and he settled in for a long, slow evening. An uneventful one. Not that there was anything wrong with that. Valek christened his empty glass with a fresh pour and immediately set to drinking it. One wanted to take a drink when the beer was at its coldest and liveliest, even if you weren’t a seasoned alcoholic. At this point in his life, Valek’s liver had probably suffered irreparable damage. It was not something he thought about, for his own mental health.

When he set his glass down was when he noticed the person enter. They were average, a normal-looking person mundane in their life and not out-of-place. Valek watched casually as one watches birds in a bird-feeder, or idly gazes as a starship flies low overhead. As she had nothing better to do, he watched for a few seconds longer than he normally would, or might be considered appropriate. It wasn’t lust or intense interest, just mild curiosity mixed with detached boredom.
Valek finally averted his stare and returned to his drink. The hypnotic pattern of bubbles streaming to the surface soon sent the woman far from his mind, and he didn’t pay the new person a second thought. He set himself to figuring out what hops and grains had been used in the creation of this beer. This was a game of deduction, experience, and a small amount of guesswork that he usually played when he drank alone.

Judging by the price, it wasn’t anything imported. It could be a widely available commercial variety that was locally grown, that was more likely. The taste, coppery lemon with some acidic pungency was familiar. But there was something off. Hard water, that’s it. Hops and grains are probably a Spannhauieser-Bech brand, but the water they use is too hard, they don’t filter it properly.

Hard water and cheap grains, hell. Two pitchers of this stuff had the potential to actually make him sick. It was unbelievable, really. Usually the rotgut that got him sick was Rodian Bulb Nectar, or moonshine made on planets that had no place making alcohol with the ingredients they had on hand. Motor oil had been one of them. Now that had been an unpleasant three days.

A large amount of beer was still in the pitcher, and Valek decided that he would call it a night when maybe half a glass remained in the scratched, opaque, plastic jug. Now that sports were over and the news showed repeat stories from earlier in the day, there wasn’t much to stick around for. The people-watching was fairly low-key and uninteresting. Unusual for a bar, but it happened. ”Well Wanda, so much for tonight being interesting,” he whispered softly. Not that Wanda was here, he hadn’t been drinking any of the green elixir that summoned her. Yet he talked to her anyway. In some aspects Wanda was his best friend. Valek drunkenly resolved to make more human (or alien, he didn’t discriminate) friends.

The idea was instantly thrown from his mind as he thought back to the previous week’s events. A pity, shame, confusion, terror. Something that threatened to open up the world and expose memories better forgotten. His chest tightened. One hand clenched into a fist. No, the drink was supposed to keep this away.

Make it stop…

I don't want…

I need air!

 

[Galavant]

Dragging a very large box through the streets of some backwater on Corellia wasn't exactly where Andrena saw herself at this point in her life, but she also didn't have a lot of options. With the Smuggler's Association gone so were a lot of her credits, legit ID's, and many other fine things that would have meant that she didn't have to drag very large boxes through the street of some backwater on Corellia. Heck she didn't even have enough credits to get a repulsor cart for the thing which was why she was dragging it in the first place.

Hopefully what was in the box would help with all that.

The Force knew it felt heavy enough to have a million credits in it.

Sadly it didn't, but if she did things just right, it might get her much more than that. High paying smuggling jobs had also been hard to come by in recent months, and she didn't really have the patience to slowly rebuild her fortune over a number of years. Stealing something very valuable and selling it to other people for a lot of money seemed much quicker. It did however require some initial investment, such as what was in the box.

Dragging the box through the doors of the hotel earned her a few looks, and a security scan to make sure it wasn't anything that would go boom. You didn't just drag a very large black box in a place like a hotel without raising some suspicion after all. Andrena didn't care, it was better than being outside, and she sure as hell wasn't going to open this thing on her ship. She'd seen what happened to people who waited until they were in deep space to bother actually opening things they'd brought on board, and it never seemed to end well for some reason. That was why she'd gotten a room at the place whose name she couldn't actually be bothered to remember. If it was actually important the place would have engines.

A bellboy tried to come over and help her, and she dismissed him almost at once. The last thing she needed was some annoying local hick trying to pry into her business. This entire planet of wannabe smugglers was annoying enough already. She'd had to spend a long time outside finding what she needed, and then she'd had to drag it back to the hotel which had done nothing to endear her to the place.

Looking around, she noticed the hotel bar. She hadn't thought much of it when she'd checked in, but thinking about it now she might just need a glass of booze to take of any complications that might be inside the box.

She dragged her very large box with her up to the bar. She paid pretty much no attention to anyone else in the bar.

They weren't important.

If she had, she might've noticed that someone she'd met on the equally miserable world of Halmad was nearby.

When the barkeep got around to her he asked "What can I get for you?"

Andrena blinked.

"Something with alcohol in it," She answered with a tone that suggested she was talking to a gibbering idiot. Who the hell let people run these kinds of places anyway? That's what droids were for, or preferably just a menu where you pushed a button and that was it.

 

[Clayton]

A scraping noise, as if somebody as dragging a heavy object across a rough stone floor, caught his attention and shook Valek out of his downward spiral, if only for the moment. He was grateful for the distraction, it allowed him to focus on something other than his self-pity and past. He despised himself when he felt that way. In all likelyhood Valek was struggling with a minor depressive disorder (or major, since he was an alcoholic). He would never admit this, nor would he seek treatment. He was scared and ashamed of it, he didn't want to be officially labeled with some mental disorder. He didn't want something to be wrong with him.

The ironic thing is he didn't judge others for being depressed, but was an asshole to himself about it.

He looked in curiosity to see who was making the noise and spotted a familiar face. He had worked with this girl before, back on Halmad. They had gone after some Jedi who had stolen a shipment of very expensive (and illegal) alcohol. Sadly the Jedi had split up and their efforts to track them down had been for naught. This was unfortunate because a crate of the stuff would have been extremely valuable on the black market.

From what he remembered, this lady didn't like him much. She had doused herself in a fair amount of hand sanitizer after being touched by him. The girl had been a germaphobe or something. Perhaps she just didn't like company or the presence of other people. That was a possibility. She hadn't been the most chatty person except for when it came to talk about pay. Andrena had been somewhat unnerved that he had no cash to give up front. And she didn't seem to think that buying 500 pounds of ant poison was a reasonable excuse.

What an idiot. Ant poison had like, a thousand uses at least.

Should he go over to her or no? On the one hand, they hadn't parted with loads of money-making booze, and she didn't give off the vibe that she particularly enjoyed his company. On the other hand, it was better than drinking alone in a pool of pity and self-loathing. Valek would have tossed a coin, but he had given the last to the barkeep. Oh well. Frack it, he thought. Might as well go say "hi".

He grabbed the pitcher and brought it with him as he headed over to Andrena. He took a sip from it. A few people gave him an odd look, drinking from a pitcher was kind of unusual, but he paid them no mind. "Oh hey!..." he said once he was at the seat next to her. "Umm...uh..." he drew the words out slowly, snapping his fingers rapidly as he tried to remember her name. "Da...Damar-uhhh no your name is not Damara, I know what your name is not, that's more important than knowing what it is, right?"

Idiot.

He waved a hand at the bartender, who came over immediately with a half-prepared drink in his hand. Valek pointed at Germaphobe Girl. "Get her something good," he asked in a polite tone.

Valek looked down at the large box she had dragged in. "So uhh, how's business?" he asked conversationally. He took another sip from the plastic pitcher. This could be entertaining after all. He had a woman, she had a mysterious box, she wasn't afraid of doing illegal things which meant that they could probably have a pretty epic drunken adventure. Or maybe she needed help with that box. Valek hoped that there wasn't a body in it, that might be a little too creepy for his taste.

 

[Galavant]

"Da...Damar-uhhh no your name is not Damara, I know what your name is not, that's more important than knowing what it is, right?"

"Sure," Andrena said. She honestly had no idea what the hell he was trying to say. She didn't remember the man's name anymore than he remembered hers, but she did remember him. Mostly she remembered bad breath, and a great urge to find some hand sanitizer. Looking at him, he actually looked more drunk than when he'd been on a planet attempting to steal more booze.

Oh and she was pretty sure he owed her money. She wasn't going to press that issue however. At least not until she was sure he was sober enough to remember her pressing the issue.

He got a drink for her though, so there was that at least. And she didn't actually plan on drinking it so if it was poisoned or something that wouldn't be an issue, which meant that the sentiment (intended or not) went undiminished. Now the question was how she was going to drag the box to the lift with one hand holding a drink. She'd thought over her plan in intricate detail except for the part where she only had two hands, and all the very large computer thing in the box.

"So uhh, how's business?"

"Been better," She answered. A polite person might ask "how about you" or try to make small talk or some nonsense like that. Andrena wasn't exactly polite. Then again she was hauling around a box with an illegally modified navicomputer so...

"You want to try to make a lot of money?" She asked him. Couldn't hurt to have some more muscle. Sometimes. It wasn't like she had a gang of people to watch her back these days. And her droid was kind of a moron. Having an extra set of hands for upcoming chaos could be helpful.

After all, she needed someone to hold this drink while she dragged the box up to her room.

 

[Clayton]

"Good good, that's good," he replied conversationally, nodding his head as she told him business hadn't been as good. It wasn't that he wasn't paying attention to what she said, he was just oblivious. His gaze also kind of went past Damadrena a bit. She seemed to not fully recognize him, so he didn't really care if she thought he was crazy, or aloof, or an ass, or creepy. He had been called worse. Though once upon a time he hadn't been called any of...well, no. Let the past be the past.

However, when she asked about money, his attention snapped back to her. Money was good, he could buy lots of ant poison with that. He could also hide from the Jedi. He could also afford the luxuries and distractions to keep his mind away from what were frankly awful things. Like what he had taken part in against the Jedi. That was not a proud moment in his life. He would easily rank it as the second-worst experience of his existence. Truth be told, Valek was on the verge of catastrophic self-destruction. Too many things were piling up on him and he didn't have any effective way of blowing off steam.

So maybe this would be a good thing. He could adventure with Damadrena, maybe get wasted, punch some people, and make good coin while doing so. Then...who knows. Maybe he'd retreat back to his basement to brew alcohol and fight the ant infestation. He blinked. Retreat to his basement? Good lord, his life really was awful. "Yes, money, I'd love to make some cash. What's the game?" he asked with an air of intense interest as he gazed unblinkingly at Damadrena. This, this he could focus on. He quickly chugged the remainder of the contents of his pitcher (which was quite a lot) and then smacked himself hard in the chest to quell the burp that threatened to rise. The last thing he needed was a questionable burp exploding into her face.