A World To Lose

[Reidly]

It had been months since the... Utter disaster that was Dantooine. Ryth had fallen into a slump, just kind of wandering from place to place aimlessly. He had dropped off Wyit, his father, back at the farm and left without another word. How could he speak? His wife, his everything, bled out in front of him. Her last words didn't ease his mind either.

"Free" she said. His mind rolled that around for hours on end, but he couldn't get her out of his mind. She was gone. Well and truly. He thought of her once again as he fed their pets, Wyit and Creespa, before landing on a station to refuel. Maybe they had a bar here, so he could forget. At least for a little while. As he walked off, someone caught his eye.

"Val-" He almost called,before seeing the aforementioned farghul turn around. It wasn't her. With a heavy heart, he wandered into the bar and sat in the back. He took a pair of dice and rolled them around, his only memento of her. His eyes welled up again, but he stopped himself, taking a look at a datapad for potential job listings.

 

[The Captain]

Andor clamored into the space-station bar, taking a good look over the current crowd. Mostly drunks, smugglers, and mercenaries between jobs, same as every other spaceport cantina. Being in the last category himself, Andor moved to the bar, ordering the least watered down drink they had, before making his ay over to the contract-datapad in the corner. He saw it was already in the hands of a particularly depressed looking Shistavanen cyborg, thumbing absentmindedly through contracts and rolling around a pair of clearly weighted dice. The man looked...broken, not drunk or strung-out or crazy, he looked broken. Something Andor had both seen and experienced far too often in his life.

 

[Reidly]

Ryth selected one without really reading the job, just because he couldn't really bring himself to look any deeper. When he turned around, he bumped straight into a Zabrak.
"Oh my bad... Wasn't... in the moment." He mumbled, looking down at the ground as he shuffled past. A confrontation was the last thing he wanted. Heck, he probably wouldn't even fight anymore. The die rolled in his hands as he supressed a shudder from the memories of the first time he met her.

 

[The Captain]

"Clearly," Andor said, looking over his shoulder at the datapad to see what he signed up for, "Because you just applied to be cannon fodder." The job in question was serving as 'shock troops' in a military operation on Ryloth, a guaranteed death sentence. Andor put a hand on the Shistavanen's shoulder and dragged him back into the booth, motioning for someone at the bar to bring them some drinks.

"That look on your face, I've seen it before. Sometimes on others, sometimes in a mirror, but it's always the same..."

 

[Reidly]

"And what would that look be exactly?" Ryth said as he pondered why the stranger had decided to take such an intrest in him. As he took a glance back down at the datapad, he saw what he had signed up for.
"Oh" was all he said.

 

[The Captain]

"The look of a man who wants to throw himself in front of a taxi speeder." Andor replied just as the drinks arrived. Andor motioned for Ryth to drink as he took him off the death-roster.

 

[Reidly]

Ryth drank and looked down at the dice in his hand with a look of regret. "I've contemplated that, yes. Certainly would end my misery, but that isn't what she would want from me." He sighed. "I just... Want to speak to her again."

 

[The Captain]

Andor didn't reply, this was something he had felt time and time again about his own parents. But he had something to remember them by, to hold them close with, and it looks like this mystery wolf had a keepsake as well.

"I know how you feel, but you'll have to do with memories and old belonglings. I am sorry..."

 

[Reidly]

Ryth held his head in his hands and leaned against the table, shuddering again.
"I just... I just... Feel like I could've done something. If I was faster, if I was braver, if I had ran ahead instead of her... If... Everything." Tears welled in his eyes again as he downee the rest of his very strong drink. "We only said it out loud once. That we loved each other."

 

[The Captain]

"You can't get stuck on 'if's', trust me." Andor leaned over and took a swig of his mystery drink, letting the dull burn slide down his throat. He hadn't exactly planned on playing counselor to an emotionally broken wolfman, and Force knows he was hardly an expert in the field, but he'd dug himself in too deep to back out now. He nudged a drink closer to the mystery mercenary, hoping it might calm him down in some way.

 

[Reidly]

He took the drink and rubbed a small scar on his neck, another memory of when the relationship became official. As the burning liquor slid down his throat, he seemed to calm a bit, looking over at the relative stranger. "All my life, I search for a place to belong, where I can feel welcome. And what does the force do to me when I find it? It frakkin kills her, right in front of me. She deserved so much more..." He was ranting, now. Blowing off steam to a man whom he didn't know their name wasn't what he had in mind, but he'd been through enough. He needed it off his chest.

 

[The Captain]

Andor simply sat back, letting the wolf rant on about his life and lost love, it seemed to be doing more good than he was. He could relate in a sense to searching for a purpose, a place to belong. He'd always wanted a cause, something to fight for, something to explain away all the blood, pain, and death he dealt out and was dealt himself. If the man wanted to ramble, he was more than welcome.

 

[Reidly]

After several minutes of crescendoing profanity and rambling, Ryth finally managed to finish off the last of the bottle. He was, now and truly, drunk off his rock.

"Amd we had the greeeatest sex." He burped, laying his muzzle on the table. "She hadme whipped, I tell ya." He broke into a fit of giggles, knocking over the empty glas. "Oopsies."

 

[The Captain]

"I'll-hic-bet, she shounded like a real aminal..." Perhaps out of empathizing with Ryth's pain, or maybe alcoholism, Andor was just as plastered as his furry friend, lying back in his seat and staring pointlessly at the ceiling. Not even the falling bottle seemed to faze him, as he just stared straight off into oblivion, digging deep into his own memories. Without warning, he fell forward, smacking his face into the table and tearing up.

"I mish 'em so <<much>>" On the last word he dipped back into his Zabraki, having apparently forgotten Basic for a second.

 

[Reidly]

"Me too, bud." He said going through his own memories of his mate. To the time they met on the backwater world of force knows what, to when they became partners, and finally, her last word to him. "Free." That single word, so small and simple. Yet... Why? Why free of all things? It was tearing Ryth to shreds, thinking about it.

"What did she mean by free?" He said aloud.

 

[The Captain]

"Free? I think she meant free." Not intending any offence, and realizing that this probably didn't help Andor offered an explanation. "Live free, dun let thish mess you up. She was a real free-spirit right? She wants you...to be free." To his inebriated mind, this sounded wise enough to be right, and he really wanted to break up the atmosphere of grief and regret around them.

 

[Reidly]

After a little bit of mulling over inhis drunkard state, this made enough sense to him. Valia left slavery because of her un... dying independence. She wouldn't want her mate to be bound down because of her.

"Yesh... That sounds like her. I guess I should follow her advice, no? She always was the thinker between us." Ryth said, and for the first time, smiled.

 

[The Captain]

Finally! Andor had finally managed to get a smile out of the wolf, and he seemed to be perking up for the first time that night. Raising the last of his glass into the air, he poured it out over the floor, in memory of the fallen.

"To Valia! And my old mom and pop!"

 

[Reidly]

Ryth's own glass was broken, so he just picked up a shard of glass an tapped it on the other's. "To our lost family, and the good memories we have!" He cheered and drank his nonexistent beer. With that, he reached over and took the datapad, this time searching for an actual job. Something on... Iego.

 

[Richie B.]

Jaleer had arrive on the station to refuel having gone on a mission for the Jedi knight army, he felt that every good soldier needed some R&R ever now and again, if not they would go mad. So the knight dressed in nothing but his brown cloak and light brown robes, the hood up and his lightsaber and pistol on his belt. Truly he was ready for anything but he had a lot of experience and wished to do as much good as possible.

The bar was always a good place to help those who were down and needed a bit of a boast, so once inside he looked around for those that were either very drunk or not touching the drink in front of him or her very much.