of Burdens & Fate

[Reign]

o many years had passed since then. A fateful day, a seemingly innocuous encounter, and then chaos. She could hear them shouting, screaming in anger, bellowing in fear, crying in agony. She could hear his voice whispering to her, attempting to ease the emotion that melted away at her chest, instead decimating the little control still intact. She could hear hum of her saber, and then there was nothing at all.

"— No!" Her body lunged forward from the bed.

The heat was stifling, choking the young woman now awake to the reality of what now was. The whum of the fan at the ceiling was a welcomed distraction, primitive and ineffective, but far better than the nightmare that had consumed yet another sleepless night. Her torso was wrapped in form-fitting tank top soaked by her sweat. The acrid odor of the room told tales of untended mold and a decade of neglect. But oh how she embraced it.

Her eyes wore the burden of fear; her pupils contracted to the pale brown in the limited early-morning light. The beating of her chest, the drums of war, had steadied to an anxious hammering at her chest. It had been three years since then, but it felt as but a week.

Heavy breathing steadied as Scia's slender frame rose from the bed and crossed the room to the air circulator, and, with a pump of her left fist, the machine churned back to life.

A glance to the chrono on the far wall read 5:03— another night with less than three hours of sleep. A moment of contemplation flashed across her eyes as Scia's gaze drifted to the ground: attempt another few hours of sleep or run from the inevitable again. It was not much of a choice, now was it? She'd have rather been anywhere else but in that bed, reliving hell. No, not a choice.

Resolve took its familiar hold as she clung to the fading memories of her training: emotion was swept aside in feeble attempt #236— she kept count—and she made her way to the refresher.

Another day, another job in the pits of Coruscant.

 

[Deviant]

OOC: Holy excrement, you're good. I'll jump in but I hope you find my own writing suitable.

The heat had been too nosy for his liking. An embrace pervasive with the haunting reminder that his gear was one to regret wearing. The hiss of the air conditioner, alongside the typical murmur of an insect, was all that infested the scant room Calo occupied. Sprawled across an untidy mattress, a flagon of liquor sat in one hand and a suggestive wrapper of unknown origin was perched in the other. A night of incessant parties finally came to it's bitter end, evident by his lack of company— and spare drinks.

A sigh slipped from the corner of his mouth. The sultry conditions of his pad held him in place, forbidding him to retreat into the welcoming arms of sleep. Heat was a bitch: that clingy ex that would refuse to allow any chance of escape, or survival, after an end to the relationship.

Even as he slipped out of his clothes, in spite of his drunken stupor, the room was too much for him. It was too cramped and too stuffy: the result of being both dirt poor and without a job. It came as a surprise that he had yet to be thrown into the streets, a suddenly tempting thought compared to where he was now. Already did he want to step back out into the grandeur of shit that was Coruscant, only for the sake of avoiding the climate of the space.

Calo groaned as he propped himself off from the bed. 5:05— another night with absolutely no sleep (and no money). He limped to the door, the jar of alcohol still clinched in his right hand, before realizing he had forgotten something: his clothes.

Twisting to the assortment of apparel littered on the floor, he foraged through the mess until he found something worth wearing: a loose pullover with unintelligible words strewn across it and a pair of ordinary, charcoal pants. Now he was ready, or at least he considered himself to be.

 

[Reign]

he whish of metal the metal door gliding against its frame preamble the woman stepping from her abode and into the equally unforgiving corridor. The apartments that lined either side were typical in this sector. The underbelly of Coruscant was home to a vast majority of the city-planets citizens, many of whom dreamed of sunlight and cloud-cover.

Down here, the mud-encrusted walls and untended slime was the closest to the outside galaxy its people came. Even as a core world, the inhabitants down here in the lower levels knew little of the splendor, or squalor, of the rich and famous.

Some, like Scia, had seen the world above. They felt the pang of loss, of emptiness, of the knowledge and have-nots. They knew what the rule of credits could afford, and of how the rule of law was cruel to those without. They knew that so many were blind to the world buried beneath their feet, forgotten or simply ignored. Many of the young men and women down here had once been cut of a different cloth, equally unaware of those much like themselves today. But Scia had never been blind to what was and is; perhaps it was why she had chosen this life, as a reminder to what she had left behind. A scar she would always wear, there to remind her of her fall.

This was home. Where she belonged, now.

Ever a minimalist, Scia carried little more than the visible blaster clipped to her right hip. The long coat of a soft merlot hugged her shoulders and thin frame. The coat was purely utility given the choking heat of the hall, likely the result of a long-overdue maintenance. She had no doubt that the issues plaguing her apartment were issues that visited each and every apartment for a handful of blocks. The owners had forsaken these properties many years prior, leaving them to their own devices for the sake of better investments to come. The few owners who cared simply couldn't afford the care necessary: morality seemed to rarely coincide with business sense it seemed.

The hall itself was filled with casualties of last night's festivities. The usual mess had been enhanced with local flavor. A few locals face first into the tattered carpet and duracrete floors had slept wherever it was they had fallen, numbing reality with whatever that night's most affordable toxin had been. But the stink had long-since stopped bothering her. She knew the allure of escape that these men and women had found. No measure of training made resistance easier.

There was a muted glance of surprise, hidden behind an empty facade of appraisal. Admittedly, she expected to be the only conscious being in the hallway at this hour, which was frankly why this hour was preferable. Even so, the other in the hall carried the demeanor of a man not far from joining the list of fallen from the night before, what-with the bottle clutched in hand and the stupor worn in full.

 

[Deviant]

A rush of fresh air slapped across Calo's sturdy features at the long groan of his door. The draft was hardly as refreshing as one might find, but it was certainly satisfying enough for him. Every step into the sloppy corridor was a step farther from the gross confines of his apartment. Yet his shifting was more on par to that of a rude shuffle. The kind of walk anyone in their right mind would immediately recognize as the infamous: "limp of the drunkard." It wasn't like any other fleeting stranger gave a care, most were sprinkled across the hall. Their comatose bodies cradled the rancid matting of the passage, and several even languished on top of strangers in a manner some might find disturbing.

If there was one thing as common on Coruscant than crime, it was certainly intoxication. That, and the aroma of unadulterated shit.

Be that as it may, there another stranger in the far reaches of the hall, where eyes briefly locked with his own. Unlike what any other sober individual would acknowledge, it was a strange feeling for Calo. Not the kind where he'd be immediately intent on inviting them for a dose of sensuality, but one he could not so easily explain. Despite his typically boisterous demeanor, he merely raised his flask of liquor in greetings to the unknown bystander.

 

[Reign]

cia had seen many faces over the years. Coruscant had buried the corpses of many of its own, and within these levels, people like Scia or the drunk in front of her were forgotten. They might as well have died as far as the planet had been considered. This man wore a face of a different sort. Despite the inebriation that had taken him, and taken him in full, there was a spark behind the dull gloss. It was not attraction. It was not pity. It was a sense of kinship that drove it. Like a beast staring down another and knowing that, despite their ferocity, the two are alike.

But the feeling was ignored, and the nail in the coffin had been driven in deep. Her eyes read indifference, a trained reaction since leaving the order. The security net the expression offered had become instinct by now, a force to keep the moral code that had shaped most of her life reined in and bound down.

To say that she lacked sympathy was inaccurate. It had been her job to care for so very long; one of but thousands tasked to protect the countless species of the greater known galaxy. Yet everything had changed since then.

And with that, Scia pressed on, ignoring the toast and passing the other on the right.

Until the lift at the end of the hall that would take her to street level, she did not so much as grace him with a comment. Only at the door did she speak a gruff reply despite the normally-light and feminine tone she bore— also a practiced skill —"I'd find yourself somewhere to lay down, before you hurt yourself— or someone else."

As the doors hissed open, her eyes soldiered forward not turning back to give the other the time of day. A tap on the keypad, and the door closed behind her leaving the man alone with the others of his ilk.

 

[Deviant]

"I'd find yourself somewhere to lay down, before you hurt yourself— or someone else."

Calo extended an unwitting grin, at a loss for what exactly she had said. Ignorance was bliss, but no more so than liquor. It never failed to be the better course of action to take when a dilemma presented itself. The dulling of the senses, the thrill and satisfaction provided. Intoxication was the vital key to closing the gate from the burden only life offered, even if it was but a short-lived pleasure. It delivered a confidence finer than the most egotistical of morons, or your typical galactic politician— same thing.

Before his mouth could roll open to throw some an aimless reply, the elevator doors seethed open. The stranger graciously stepped through the aperture and sealed it over the figure of the gaping drunkard. Now he was all by his lonesome, well— not necessarily. The bottle met his stale lips, carrying with it another satisfying flood of alcohol. He sighed, straggling forward to another exit from the bounds of the hall.

"At least I have you, my lil' whiskey."