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momoffdrugs · 7 months

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11/02/2023. 2:01 AM

today was a normal day. tried to buy flowers for day of the dead. failed, but got some fake ones for my brothers grave. will put them in tomorrow (or 8 hours whatever). had work today, which was enjoyable. made some money (yippee) and came home, spent some time with my baby and am now relaxing. couple thoughts to share today.

why do i feel like no matter what or where it is, i am put in a situation where a 35 year old man is flirting with me, and i flirt back? and i love it. those are the men which i just have the best interactions with. but it’s not real, it never is. is it from when i was 18 and had sex with my 38 year old manager? i feel like it definitely comes from there. but it’s weird. at that time, i hated myself, wanted to be invisible. regretted so bad that i slept with him. it just opened up an open invitation for any creep to feel like he could hit on me. and it was my fault. at least, that’s how it feels. so i made an unwritten rule where i was never going to fuck a man i worked with, especially if he held power over me.

so, i can flirt, fantasize, but nothing must ever come from it. for my well being. and like, how can i even say nothing must come from it like im the one with all the power anyway? haha. who knows if he’s actually even flirting with me, and maybe im crazy enough to imagine this all anyway. but whatever, i digress. there is just something about the connection of being fat and cute in the face that white 35 year old men just love about me.

it reminds me on my relationship with k. i think i was an escape for him, when his divorce was finalizing, sitting alone in rehab, in comes this young, sad looking pregnant girl. and maybe he thought i could be more, because i was becoming a mother, and i was nice. maybe i could change his life. maybe i thought that too. but last week, i figured out i never could change his life. and in the end, i wouldn’t want to anyway. on my two year anniversary of getting clean, he called me from jail, asked me to unsubscribe him from multiple accounts so he could save money. netflix, hulu, disney+ … and onlyfans. i agreed. but when i looked at his OF account i was shocked. not anything crazy or unusual. just the air of disparity and wealth that was eluding from him. his profile picture of when he was in high school, drinking a beer. it was just profoundly disgusting and eye opening for me. and maybe it was wrong to judge, but i just had had enough of it. sure, we saw each other as friends, but we had sex multiple times. and he didn’t even remember any of it because well i don’t know why. it just brought up all these harsh realities.

i just…. didn’t want to take care of him anymore. i didn’t owe him anything. i gave him pieces of my heart when i should’ve been saving them for myself at the lowest point in my life.

and that day, my anniversary, was ruined. not because of him, but because of me, and my thought process. i went back to that good ol theory. am i gay? do i not like men?

and here’s where i was laying down my answers:

i find most men disgusting, i can’t stand being touched, if even in passing, by a man. it leaves me so uncomfortable. like actual fight or flight mode. i scream on the inside.

the last three times i’ve had sex (with a man) was just not enjoyable for me. and i had to have been tipsy/ drunk for each time to feel less uncomfortable.

i couldn’t take any man seriously, yeah i had attractions, but i never actually followed through in creating a permanent relationship beyond fantasy.

so that’s why i thought i was gay. (plus i had been molested as a child by multiple girls, so maybe that’s why i thought i was gay too)

but my friend said to me, being gay is being attracted to the same gender as you, not being repulsed by the opposite. and then he told me i obviously needed to heal.

and that struck me. like a lightbulb flicked on above my head. it was astounding.

i thought for the first time, am i really that traumatized by men? of course not, i talk to them, have attraction to them, and still want to marry one, one day. i couldn’t be?

but i am. i can’t form an appropriate relationship with a man that i find interesting (have a crush on) it’s extreme. always. every single interaction is like me trying to perform for them. and for what? once sex is on the table, i’m immediately turned off. disgusted. every single time. i don’t want to be vulnerable to a man again. at least, not in a loving way.

i was in a tumultuous relationship with my ex for almost 10 years. and it has scarred me beyond recognition. almost half my life with this man. and i’ve been single for two years and it still feels weird. sure, i’ve completely moved on from that relationship, but there is unearthed trauma that i have yet to work through. and fuck, where would i even start? i’m scared. i’m SCARED. okay? i’m scared of the outcome of another marriage. i’m scared the man of my dreams is not real. and one day i’m going to wake up next to my fantasy husband and he’s going to hurt me in the worst imaginable way.

i was molested a lot when i was a kid. i really don’t understand why. from multiple family members, both girls and boys, even a man, and from both sides of the family. it’s like they could smell it on me, that i was easy to coerce. like you’re easy pickings, you won’t say anything, and you might even just enjoy it. so why stop there? i’ve been raped, sexually assaulted many times even in my adult life. and i swear to god, every time i was assaulted in my later years, it took a bite from my soul. how could you let this happen to you? you’re stupid. you should’ve never went out. you should’ve fought back. why didn’t you fight back more? why did you just accept being a victim? why?

the last time i was assaulted was about two and a half years ago. i was in rehab, and 8 months pregnant. and my female roommate came home drunk. and tried to force herself on top of me. and i fought like hell to get her off of me and to leave.

and in retrospect, i haven’t had much sex with anybody since then. i wouldn’t let anyone touch me that wasn’t in a medical setting after that. then i had my daughter, and got even worse off drugs, and went to prison. and since getting out of prison i’ve had sex only three times. so maybe i’ve only had sex like less than ten times since the last time i was assaulted. and it has not even been enjoyable once. i coudnt even trust a woman to be safe with me. imagine how scared i was in prison, not even about general danger. just being taken advantage of, by another woman.

i don’t want to be in that position again. i won’t allow myself to be in that position again. so, i have barely gone out at all since getting out, just work, and take care of my baby.

and it’s effecting me, i feel alone. lost, and i want to be loved and cared for. i just don’t want someone to actually do it. i’m scared of that thought i guess. that someone would have to see me naked before im ready to show them who i really am. and i mean really naked, my mind, body, and soul. i don’t want to be vulnerable, left in the dark. i don’t want to be the butt of someone’s joke. i don’t want my hurt to be magnified, just to be left in the dust anyway. i’m scared. i am so scared.

i know i’m not ready for a relationship yet, but i want to get there some day. i want to be healthy enough for one. that’s actually just what i want. mentally healthy for a relationship. normal. not traumatized.

i have got to figure out how to see a counselor for sexual trauma.

thanks for reading ❤️

#journal #trauma #addiction

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crqstalite · 4 years

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SHADOW OF THE SITH, Ch.14

bit of filler so no one thinks khaak has actually been Kidnapped.

BA'SHIRA._ZIOST.

This was going so well, only about forty eight hours ago here on Ziost. Almost two days. For two whole days, she could say that it really was going her way for once. The first time Ba'shira had been with any sort of real family in literal years, and this was how it was going to end? Really? Cooped up in an old apartment and praying that Mako would pick up her holocom and she didn't know, maybe answer after she'd pinged her sixteen thousand times? A cheap apartment on the west side of New Adasta was not supposed to be her tomb, and no Sith was taking her down that easily. She'd taken quite a few in the past, century-old Emperor or otherwise it really shouldn't have been that different or difficult.

Except apparently she wasn't the sole target this time around, which made things way more complicated than they should've been. Not like her typical visit to Nar Shaddaa or Hutta with plenty of headhunters on her tail hoping to capitalize on a bounty that was years old at this point. Instead, the entire planet was going down with her in rakghoul-like glee. Yippee...

It wasn't nearly as fun as it should've been, really. Not as fun as her mind had made her think it was going to be, at least. Hyping up the trip to the Imperial homeworld was the only way to get her mind off of everything (well that made it sound like she was actively being hunted -- which was always). Torian was on a hunt with some of his friends from another clan, and not wanting to be the clinging wife she despised watching on holodramas, she'd decided to visit some of her own friends without making a fuss about it. Mako was gone, off with her boyfriend of a few months (a certain Cathar that she didn't trust as far as she could throw him) and Gault was out being Gault (what that entailed, she wasn't sure and definitely didn't want to know). So she decided that she just had to find a distraction of her own somewhere, with someone else preferably.

That being past Captain J'nell Wryen of their small party of then bounty hunters and smugglers (Thara had always preferred the term 'free traders' while they were travelling but Ba'shira would always call them what they were), and she'd come to pay the aging woman a visit. Well, aging was a strong word, the woman still looked like she was maybe thirty instead of nearing forty-five, but that was beyond the point. Beside drinking together and sharing stories of old and new jobs, it was a comforting time for Ba'shira to be around. Life day was coming up rather soon too, so the other goal was to find something for the crew in the marketplace if she could. If Torian was reconnecting with old friends, well there was no reason his cyar'ika couldn't do the same. Still fuming he didn't invite her along to begin with, but she digressed. By blood, she wasn't Mandalorian (apparently they didn't tend to care as long as you didn't break their code of honor, it still bothered her sometimes, feeling inferior and whatnot), so maybe it was a sort of thing you didn't invite your non-Mandalorian wife to. She'd never know, pride and all getting the better of her.

Didn't mean she wasn't frustrated, their anniversary and yes, the Wookie holiday were both coming up and she'd wanted to spend the days leading up to it with him, but she figured she would be as bad as those women in the holodramas if she begged him to stay back all for her. She knew just how happy and ecstatic he was when he brought things back for her, and another fur rug was never a bad thing in their home. Knowing her cyare had brought it back for her made it all the more sweeter.

She was much overdue for a little me time anyways. How long it had been since she'd laid back, knowing she wasn't on the run and no one was looking for her or needing her with a glass of Corellian whiskey in one hand and a holocom in the other...she did not know. That would have to be remedied more often, the warm feeling that spread through her body as she chuckled and hiccuped with the woman was something she hadn't experienced in what felt like forever. No talk of running anywhere, just them and learning about what the other had been up to in the years past. The woman had been here for years after she'd left their little smuggling crew, hoping to find the twin infant girls she'd spoken so highly of for so long. It'd been a fruitless journey, one that J'nell was still on apparently.

Ba'shira didn't have the heart to tell her that after nearly twenty five years, that it was probably worth giving up the search. As cold-hearted as it sounded, if she and Torian ever had a child (and that was a very big maybe that she had stuck a pin in since they'd been married) and they disappeared for two decades and then some years, it felt right to just let the path go cold. Holding onto things when it was healthy anymore -- to say the least she had some experience in that field. Maybe it was because she wasn't a mother, so maybe she wouldn't understand the grief just yet, but she still didn't want to help J'nell do anything regarding Mellena and Mivonie. Too emotionally draining, and it was taking up a lot of the two days that they'd spent together before everything went to shit. She was here to relax, not get caught up in a conspiracy that had been apparently active for more years than she'd been alive. Not even to mention that they surely had their own lives by now, maybe they didn't want to be found. A look around the apartment didn't immediately say 'welcoming mother' either. As much as J'nell had raised her, circumstances changed, and she couldn't imagine any kid really being happy in a repair shop of all places.

Still, what holorecordings J'nell had left after their birth, Ba'shira could begin to understand why she was so upset. One of them had been around until she was a toddler, and the little voice that she could hear over the botched audio surely struck a chord within her everytime she heard it. The kid had energy, and was surely a bright light in the dim evening years. Poor girl, Ba'shira found herself wondering what she ever got up to. Or if she was even still alive. That part she didn't tell J'nell. She may have had her doubts about everything she was doing but she wasn't a total asshole. But for some reason sitting silent on the couch as the woman ran herself ragged, talking offhandedly about the same subjects over and over again with pieces of armor, tools and whatnot surrounding her, well she felt worse about that. Not much she could do other than just twiddle her thumbs either.

They'd be older than she was by now. Two years, nearly three. Both force sensitive, both just as blonde as the Sith in the holocom that a very drunk J'nell showed her, tears streaming down her face as she cursed the man multiple times and recounted every single horrible thing he ever did to her. Had the man not already been dead (it was galactic news for a while after everything with the Sith went down, and the Wrath had taken one of the better bounties right out from underneath her; would've netted the crew of the Orchid enough credits to trick out the ship again) he might as well be now. If not for the credits, then just for plain revenge on what he'd done to her friend. Why J'nell was only just telling her all of this now in such a fuzzy state was anyone's guess. While they'd been together when she was little more than a lanky teenager with a penchant for fire on the Clarity, she'd never known the full story. In fact, J'nell had been much less willing to even tell the whole thing in the first place, yet here she was now, clutching the holocom in her hands and sobbing that Xalzon hadn't ever treated her right.

Ba'shira could've told her that, but if she wanted support through all of this, that's what she got. Least the woman was a talented armorsmith, she'd be leaving Ziost with her beskar repaired and ready for whatever battle took place next. The repair shop had been the one level-headed idea that J'nell had in all those years, though she shut it down shortly before joining the crew on the Clarity for some reason or the other. A spunky, thirteen year old Ba'shira with a love for the color pink and flames probably would've been able to tell someone, but tired and sleep-deprived twenty two year old Ba'shira couldn't even remember to eat some days, much less remember any of the finer details about her old captain. She picked the business up again a couple years ago, and that's what they were above as she thought now. Didn't see too many customers in the current climate, but it brought in enough credits for her to have a nice place in the city.

That reminded her, wondering about the fates of Zhonani, her partner Aethreen, Thara, her young son Axis and even Khaak, as many differences as they had. After leaving once the crew was disbanded at absolutely horrid teen age of sixteen, to say that she was -- that she felt alone was an understatement. She had missed her found family dearly in the years past (and had to return to Rwenne and La'anthra saying that they had been right about her needing to stay around), but after she'd been swept up into the Great Hunt at Braden's request two years later, that had become the furthest thing from her mind. Now they were entire mysteries to her. J'nell had been a lucky find, as she'd still had her old com code and it still worked to her surprise. Beyond that, she was grabbing at straws and hoping they were the right ones.

She missed her found family. Much as she loved the crew of the Orchid, it wouldn't ever be the same and she knew it. Still, the little victories would have to do for now. Such as these moments she was able to spend with her. No one ever knew when they'd die, and for someone like J'nell, that could be just about any day now with her drinking problem and how bad it had gotten over the last couple of years.

Also, because fate was a total dick, at least to her. All of this had really started two days ago, give or take in the middle of the night. At least, it'd finally hit their part of New Adasta.

The middle of her damned beauty sleep. The Emperor really had the nerve, huh?

First the screams had woken her up into a panic, startling her into thinking she was back on Hutta or something. Thinking someone had broken into the apartment, had already killed J'nell and they were then coming for her too. Sleepily reaching for her blaster and taking a shot at who she then discovered to be J'nell in the kitchen because she had been so spooked, she had managed to calm down when a return shot nearly hit her in the darkness of the apartment, knocking a holophoto behind her off-kilter from it's place on the wall, crashing to the ground with sound of it falling apart on impact just behind her. That was a moment that she'd bury in the corner of her mind until the day she died, as J'nell flicked on a light with her dilated blue eyes with fear wavering out of them.

Well, the years surely hadn't taken their toll on J'nell's aim. That was a welcome surprise. Well, it would've been if it didn't nearly take her out in cold blood.

So the scream hadn't be the older blonde woman's. That was a relief in itself as she apologized to the woman hurriedly and dashed out onto the balcony with J'nell on her heels as another one rang out in the night. At first Ba'shira can't see anything, and is convinced that maybe it was part of a dream or hallucination. Still, with how shrill it had sounded she didn't want to give up on it that quickly, afraid it meant something worse. How close it had been to her own mother's scream that was etched into her memories from her childhood years spooked her. Scanning the area, the darkness of the night cycle keeps her from really taking in most of the situation before she sees a blue lightsaber light. The plasma's light is enough to illuminate the situation, and she covers her mouth with a hand in horror as someone's body is stabbed through with the lightsaber. J'nell's hand finds her shoulder in the darkness, attempting to gently yank her back from the balcony and back inside. At first, Ba'shira stays, held in place by fear as the lightsaber wielding person continues on, slashing through the rest of the person's party with unadulterated rage.

Weren't Jedi supposed to be the hypocrite good guys? Why would they just be tearing through people like little more than fodder for their lightsabers? Not that Ba'shira ever wanted to support them, she didn't care for force-wielding matters but it was odd. Scary even. Unusual, wrong and downright weird.

They turn upwards once they've finished with who is before them, maybe looking directly up at where she was standing. Ba'shira couldn't see where their gaze landed, but J'nell just knows. J'nell yanks her backwards with some sort of motherly strength back into the apartment and just far enough away that when the lightsaber makes an arc through where the bounty hunter had just been standing, Ba'shira watches in wide-eyed horror to where her corpse would've laid on the ground. Hurriedly J'nell makes for the curtains, shuttering them closed over the balcony's windows.

Her eyes are bloodshot. Maybe she's been at this longer than Ba'shira has, awake longer than she has been. Reacted to the screaming far faster than she had. Hopefully not kept up by nightmares or the buzz of caff, but the cups that litter the table and the datapad that's still glowing dimly on the table say otherwise. They'd talk about her obsession with finding Mellena and Mivonie at another date, but the only words out of her mouth are a pure, condensed few words to tell exactly what's bouncing around in her head, "What the fuck was that, J'nell? Not sure I'm liking your part of town as much anymore."

She runs a hand through her hair, flickering the lights back off one by one until Ba'shira can only see the woman's silhouette with the dim office lights shining onto much of anything. Ba'shira isn't put anymore at ease in the silence, all except for the buzzing of the holoterminal nearby, "I don't know, Shira. I really don't. Blazes, if I would know any better I'd say that was a Jedi out there. Jedi aren't ever on Ziost...Ziost is Imperial territory."

"You think they are now?" Ba'shira asks, picking herself up tenderly from where she'd been thrown onto the ground. She wants to walk back up to the window, look back outside, let her curiousity take the better of her. But the stricken expression on J'nell's face keeps her from doing otherwise as the woman sits delicately on the couch. Too delicately. Any other day she'd flop down on the worn thing but now...now she sits there with her head in her hands. Wound up probably, but as she leans back her eyes that she can just barely see gives her entire story away, "'Nell, you know something, don't you?" Ba'shira asks, concerned.

"No...not much more than just rumors. And rumors can't ever be trusted, right?" J'nell asks tiredly, pulling a half empty bottle of whiskey out from under the table, unscrewing the top to take a swig before Ba'shira rips the bottle away from her. The look of pure betrayal, of need is evident on her face as she swipes for it with a tired arm. Usually her reflexes are better, but her arm is also shakier than usual, "Shira."

"No more. This," She gestures to the bottle, "and this," she gestures to the datapad and everything else that covers the table. A picture of a blonde toddler looks up at her with surely bright blue eyes just like her mother, and Ba'shira can't help but roll her eyes, "All this goes away until you give me an answer. You always have an in, 'Nell. You always have, and I know that look in your eyes. You know something I don't."

"There have been...rumors that the Republic is planning to invade. Made it down the vine the last couple of days. All that stuff that went down on Yavin with the Pubs? Chances are that won't last very long. Treaty of Coruscant is already in shambles because people can't sit still anymore, the Republic is already starting their push on Balmorra again. Only seems fitting they'd attack here next, especially as some big fancy show of power. Can see galactic headlines now, 'Republic takes the Gateway to The Empire'. Can I have my whiskey back now?" J'nell says, quickly and longwinded before she tries to take the bottle back again, standing this time. Ba'shira has no height on the other woman, so she gives up and hands it back, "Why I'm like this, kid? I ain't got anything left anywhere. After the Clarity, you think things got better? No. This has been my home for years, and to just see someone die out there? Hell, it just might be my time." J'nell shakes her head, slowly sipping at the liquid with disappointment in her eyes.

"Does the Empire know? Not that I'm interested in helping them, but I don't want the Republic paying my bills." Ba'shira deadpans. Not much else she can do on that front, she and J'nell know loss like an old friend who's always there for the rainy days and nights that nothing else matters. She shakes her head after she takes in what J'nell had just admitted to, "Do we need to get out of here? Is there a chance there are more Jedi like that one crawling over Ziost with all their weird Force powers?"

"Hey, I'm not military or Intelligence. Take that up with Miss Beniko, new head of Intelligence last I heard." J'nell responds, looking moreso at the now half empty glass bottle than her company, "Just rumors. It'll probably clear up within the next couple of days. As you'll learn about us Ziostian folk, we don't exactly let our friends and neighbors just die on us without a fight."

As she goes back to bed, Ba'shira wants to believe that. There are plenty more screams that night, she knows because she can't go back to sleep. That's a horrifying sight, even though she has seen plenty other Sith go about their business. Mierrio comes to mind, their time on Makeb flickering through her memories. But those were pirates, pirates who were horrible people and killed folks for their own gain. The person who'd just died down there...maybe they had a family. Friends. People who cared about them.

And they'd just died.

It doesn't improve into the wee hours of the morning when she's considering finding her own bottle of alcohol to help her sleep as she hears three more screams over the next few hours into when the sun rises over the planet. She gets three hours of sleep within that first day, and that day is the day when everything goes to shit. The screams get louder. She goes out for J'nell to the market and just barely makes it back with her life and a week worth of food. It logically doesn't make any sense, and it wasn't just Jedi -- in fact she didn't see another one until a week later. Common people, the military, hell even Sith had lost their minds and took out whoever walked in their path. If It wasn't for J'nell's extensive knowledge of not only the underworld and back roads in New Adasta as she was literally running to survive the next few minutes, there was no way she would've made it to the apartment without suffering a few injuries or even losing her life. The first time she employed a grappling hook in her entire life was that day, and while exhilarating to watch the world pass by underneath her, it was also terrifying in a way she didn't want to experience ever again. The red mist that seemed to evaporate off the people who were going mad...it was so unnatural, and that was coming from Ba'shira, who had definitely seen some shit while working for Sith in the Citadel. She'd never seen this before.

Com connections started to waver halfway through that day. When she'd gone to contact the Orchid and arrange a pick up for later that night, nothing had gone through as it should've. Static, some basic communication but no visual. Almost no audio. She and J'nell discovered it was due to some communications tower being down nearby, entirely destroyed earlier in the day. It explained the explosions that had jarred her throughout the entire experience, at the very least. And with just about every civil brain cell down in the city, there surely wouldn't be any repair crew coming in.

Ba'shira was not having any fun, now that much was clear as day, as redundant as the phrase got she was sticking by it. Stuck in an apartment with an alcoholic widow with people screaming throughout the night? Please. This was supposed to be an outing she was supposed to enjoy. If this was all some elaborate plan by the Imperial government to flush her out of hiding (wasn't unheard of, it'd nearly worked on Alderaan just before Gault smelled something off about the whole thing and subsequently got them off the planet before she was thrown into the slammer for any arbitrary amount of time), it was not going to work. She'd probably blow herself up tinkering with the holoterminal before that happened. Intelligence was a slippery bunch, but considering how many times she'd carried out operations (bounties with a much higher price on them) for the secretive branch of Imperial government, she'd like to say she could sleep with one eye open instead of both when she was on Imperial-sanctioned soil.

Except now both are open. Closing them seems like way too much of a security risk right now. And that isn't a chance she should really be taking.

Just the night before she'd been sleep in the room J'nell had provided for her, unconsciously tossing and turning between being halfway awake and her eyes closing on her. Finally a few 'just passed out in my clothes' instead of actual sleep hours, before yet another attack happened. This time she was slower getting up, quieter grabbing her blaster out of it's holster on her thigh and slipping out of her room. J'nell must've still been out cold, because she faces this threat by herself. No sounds of entry on her first scan of the room, nothing had been touched. Picking her way across the room, something glints out of the corner of her eye. Whirling around, she takes aim before realizing it's just stray piece of durasteel armor. Imperial, the red and black staring at her ominously.

Pushing the curtains aside, all she sees is black at first, before stepping backwards and looking up. She stifles a scream before they hit the window hard with the butt of their rifle, a male Imperial soldier now that she looks properly. He tilts his head sarcastically, a red Zabrak with cuts all over his face and his eyes the color of white bantha milk. A smile that is much too stretched, too forced to be anywhere near natural. Without his helmet too, meaning he'd lost it at some point before this and the Emperor hadn't bothered to retrieve it. He bangs against the window again, this time with more force and she reminds herself immediately that she was not here to gawk in awe. Cocking the blaster, she wonders how he even managed to get up so high, considering J'nell lived on the twentieth floor of the apartment building.

Stars, if they can fly now, she thinks sarcastically, deciding to observe the situation as long as it warranted. What was the rule of thumb again? No quick movements? That worked with rakghouls about one out of four times, that one time being when she'd first met Torian and she was covered in their entrails. Her hand hesitates over the door handle, considering. She can't shoot him through the transparisteel, that would shatter it and probably get her kicked to the curb. Not to mention if he got up here, that meant plenty of others could as well. And that would leave J'nell with a biting breeze through the apartment.

He bangs against the transparisteel again, and she backs up. If she closes the blinds maybe he'll leave, she thinks stupidly. She sees a hairline crack in the material, and she knows she has to make a decision fast and now before he does it for her. With one fluid motion, she throws open the transparisteel window. He's too slow to take aim for her, and when he does, she's already moved and he's shot J'nell's holoterminal.

Well, she'd pay for it later. Not like the shop didn't bring in any credits to get her a brand new one.

Ba'shira prided herself on being a quick draw artist, and it came in handy as she makes quick work of the situation, shooting him quick in the thigh of his armor. Distracted by it for just a moment with the sheer force of the blaster and being in such close quarters, she manages to slip around and knock him backwards in quick succession. Leaning against the guardrail, she figures he'll have one hell of a headache in the morning before he kicks him over with a final thrust of her leg into his chest. Brutal, yes, but the job is done. The spookiest thing is that she can't hear him scream if he does. Other than the whistle of cool wind playing with her hair, it's quiet. Much too quiet. For a planet dying, she figures there should be way more noise.

There isn't even a loud thump she can hear. A part of her hopes he hit a snowbank or something. Looking around, she finds that the balcony has a small bridge connecting it to another apartment. She curses, finding another one on the opposite side. They'd have to watch for invaders from that direction too.

There is some sound though, about twenty minutes later as she tries to explain to J'nell how her holoterminal had gotten shot in between the fifteen minutes of sleep she'd gotten. The sound of gunshots picks back up in their direction, fires raging below them. Today isn't a day to go out then, especially with Jedi and now Republic troops wandering around in an Emperor-fueled acid trip. Republic forces had arrived that night, and other than the occasional gossip and naysayers from the neighbors of the small apartment, there weren't very many answers to find. No one knew why they were here just yet, or even when most of them got here exactly. Under the cover of darkness, anything could happen, and it seemed that the Republic rightfully took advantage of the confusion and sent them down here. Her bet with an older Togruta next door was ramping up to one hundred credits that the oh so wonderful Chancellor Saresh had something to do with it all.

Ba'shira intended to win. And with everything going on that side of the galaxy, it seemed like in the worst way, she was right yet again.

Then, she and J'nell wake the third day after the chaos started. Ba'shira intends to finally sleep, it's quiet enough to and she's just snuggled into bed when she hears the window open again. Of course, it's open. There was a crash not that long ago, and J'nell is getting overly curious about them all. To report back, of course, to compare it with other crashes they'd witnessed earlier in the week. She's just dozing off into nap land when the window opens again and something hits the ground hard. Not even bothering to pop up all that quickly, she prays it isn't a dead body that the woman has brought home this time. Worse, that it isn't J'nell's body that's hit the floor.

In her sleep clothes, she picks up her now well-used blaster (she'd just bought it a month beforehand, and now she knew it like the back of her hand with all the action she was seeing in a residential area) and slips outside her room. Scanning the area, J'nell is thankfully still standing, though has the grappling hook gun in her hand again. Stars, that means she'd taken a trip down to the streets without telling her again. She has her outside clothes on, with her electrostaff and other various weapons on her back and in her holsters. Ba'shira had told her earlier in her trip that against folks with blasters, she wouldn't stand a chance but the older woman stood her ground on the purchase, claiming that Xalzon had taught her a few techniques before he'd left. It probably helped that electricity was one of the functions. It did malfunction at times, but apparently nothing the mechanic couldn't handle. Ba'shira wonders just how many times she'd been shocked to hell and back and wasn't telling her.

She was talking to someone in a hushed voice. Great, now they had another roommate to look after. Or another intruder, but J'nell would've shot by now. Half dead then, is the idea she has about this new person.

"Nice place you've got here." A voice says, deeply feminine from in the lounge. Definitely doesn't have the same deep grizzle as the Emperor did, so she isn't on such high alert anymore. No one that's being actively controlled then. J'nell responds with something she can't hear, a grin on her face as the Twi'lek picks herself up off the ground.

"Welcome to the end of a world, kid." J'nell answers, before Ba'shira lowers her blaster. A friend from somewhere else in the city maybe, and she steps into the lounge to get a better look at the Twi'lek. She's tall, but not too much taller than Ba'shira is, and is wearing a ripped jacket, leathris pants and knee high boots. She hadn't seen many female Twi'lek without a headdress before, but this one collapses onto the couch in a heap with it in pieces in her pocket. Her eyes tighten closed, and blood dribbles out of many cuts along her face and lekku. She must've just managed to just barely escape the warfare down below with J'nell, because a few look nearly fatal and a bump is growing on her forehead.

"Shira, you probably heard me come in, huh?" J'nell asks, turning her attention from the woman for a moment, "So I know what I said--"

"No more people, please. How do you know the Emperor didn't take control of her too?" She asks in a hushed voice, "Everyone's vulnerable, he just hasn't turned his attention to us yet."

"Crashed outside in a shuttle, by the way. Your friend Cadera here saved me from certain death." A groan from the couch makes it evident that yes, the woman had heard her. She wheezes in another breath, and Ba'shira realizes that there's a lot more blood than she'd first thought (after she realizes that J'nell has yet again given her maiden last name to a stranger). The stains are growing on her jacket and cloth armor, a crimson red that Ba'shira isn't sure she wants to know just how much it's soaked up from her injuries. Surely she was punctured in a few places due to hitting the ground at such a high speed in a durasteel death trap, and one of the holsters is missing a blaster. A crash in a shuttle? Wouldn't she know not to be flying through this area, especially with the anti-air canons being the way they were? Better yet, Ba'shira's curious how she's even managed a shuttle to begin with. She shifts positions, pushing her lekku over her shoulder, "Can you turn the lights down? Like, all the way down?"

"The lights are down, Beniko." J'nell responds, making for one of her cabinets and rummaging around inside. Probably to find a kolto patch. Ba'shira wants to tell her that anything short of a kolto bath probably is going to do little more than just knock her out for a couple hours and make her wake up with one hell of a bodyache, "Just try to relax, yeah? Don't aggravate any of those wounds."

"Beniko? Like the new Minister?" Ba'shira asks, leaning against a wall and placing her blaster on a nearby end table before sliding into the lounge couch across from her, "You're definitely not the new one, are you?"

"Nope. That would be my wife." She responds, trying to open her eyes again. Ba'shira flickers the light over the lounge off, and pressing a button the console of the holoterminal to illuminate the small space. Bathed in the blue light, the woman has the brightest blue eyes she's ever seen once she's able to register what's going on, "Beyond the fact that I just lost her more than half a million credits in that ship, Lana is going to kill me herself for nearly dying."

"If your injuries don't first." J'nell says sarcastically, returning with her meager box of medical supplies, "I've got kolto patches, raw kolto, and painkillers. Take your pick."

"Thanks for that, Cadera." The Twi'lek responds, a gentle smile on her face as she reaches across for something. She strains herself too far trying to shuffle her jacket off, as she bites her lip and rubs the green sticky material over one of the cuts on her arm. Ba'shira doesn't usually shy away from serious injuries, in fact she had plenty over the course of her life, but Beniko's are a kind that she winces at, feels vicariously through the barely bitten back yelps of pain, "Ya'll have been living through all of this? Intelligence just came in today."

"We noticed." Ba'shira deadpans, flickering up a map of New Adasta onto the holoterminal, "I don't live here. I just got stuck here on a very unfortunate sleepaway trip two days ago."

"Got a name?" She asks. Ba'shira raises an eyebrow, considering whether or not to give it to her. Complete stranger (as far as she knows), wife to the Minister of Imperial Intelligence, the same Intelligence that keeps trying to hunt her down time after time for breaking a lot of laws in the past year alone...hard pass, "Hey, no offense at all. Can't keep calling you stranger though." She says after Ba'shira crosses her arms in defiance.

"I'd rather not give you my name, but you can call me Shira." She proposes, instead, deflecting the question entirely as news headlines scroll along the bottom of the map in a dizzying array of aurebesh, "What about you?"

"If we're all going by codenames," She stops to focus on managing a patch on her shoulder and a sigh of relief escapes her once it sticks, "Call me Captain."

"Her name is Khaak. You've been in a lot of tabloids lately, Captain. I was just reading about you before you crashed," J'nell responds, somehow managing a datapad in that amount of time. Ba'shira's attention has been piqued, swiveling her head at the pink Twi'lek in surprise, "Old article, but I can't believe I didn't realize it before when you first told me who you were."

"Article? Which one? The one from what, two years ago?" Khaak questions, leaning over the blonde woman's shoulder, "Oh yeah that is definitely old. I'll admit though, I looked pretty damn good in that tux that day."

"Khaak!?" Ba'shira can't keep her tone down, throwing her hands out in surprise, "'Nell, you're not more concerned that she's here?"

"You weren't aware? I've known where she was for years," J'nell responds, shrugging her shoulders, "The part about being married to a Sith Lord, that part is only relatively new, only maybe two or three years old."

"Who are you, anyway?" Khaak's attention diverts back to her, pushing a hand up to her head with a smile on her face. Nursing a headache then, "Shira?"

"Don't patronize me." She responds at the tone given. Sarcasm then, but she's beginning to put together the memories the two of them had before the Clarity's crew fell apart. She's gotten a lot older, though not old enough to have any visible wrinkles apparently. How long has it been? Nearly six years since she'd last seen her or anyone else for that matter. Now that she really thought about it, she had seen Khaak's picture with the blonde Minister a few times in some holomags while flickering around for good deals.

"Still spunky little Ba'shira, eh?" Khaak asks, chuckling before she doubles over actually coughing, or choking. Once she recovers, she still has that smile on her face that Ba'shira swore to wipe off her snarky face all those years ago after she'd been denied the ability to fly the freighter ship. And all the times the older woman had bullied her into accepting less than fair pay until she got smart about it, "You got somebody waitin' for you back home now, Ione? Figure you're a real catch these days."

"Yes." Ba'shira deadpans, grimacing at the use of her birth name. She'd changed it after joining the crew for a reason, and thankfully no one other than Khaak knew it. But it was also horrible because no one other than Khaak knew it, and could use it against her, like now, "And before you ask, no you can't have his name."

"Just trying to make peace, not war. 'Nough of that going around right now," Khaak holds up both hands, the same shit-eating grin that she immediately ties back to their last heist as a crew. Her expression falls after a moment though, "Any of ya'll got a ship out of here? I don't know when or if Lana can send anyone to come get me."

"If I did, we wouldn't be here." J'nell responds tiredly, putting her head in her hands and pulling the grappling hook out of her holster and down on the holoterminal as she looks over the Twi'lek, "Well, I would. Shira wouldn't."

"Damn straight," She interrupts angrily, "I ain't here by choice right now. Last couple of days haven't exactly been the best days of my life either."

"I figure. If it makes you feel any better, Imperial Intelligence is doing their best to clamp down on what's going wrong." Khaak says, pausing as she picks up her jacket again from the ground and rummaging around in the pockets for her holocom, surely. She swears under her breath, "J'nell, you didn't pick up my com by any chance, did you?"

J'nell averts her eyes, a clear answer of no. The Twi'lek groans, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees before immediately having to lie back again, "You think you can go back down there and grab it?"

"Pub patrols are probably coming through this area again. I don't know if they're shooting on sight, but I'm not taking my chances." J'nell responds, running a hand through her hair. She's right, patrols of Republic forces have quickly become more frequent and more routine in the last twenty four hours. Controlled or not, they are't friendly and probably would be willing to kill if given the chance or provoked in such a manner, "Give it another couple hours, then I'll go down for a quick moment and see if it's still there."

"I can't wait a couple hours." Khaak complains, putting a hand over her eyes to surely block out the light above her, "Lana's going to be looking for me, and if she can't on her own, I'm afraid she's going to tear through a city block to find me without a regard for who she hurts."

"Who let her be Minister then?" Ba'shira counters, twirling a strand of hair around her finger, "Isn't that like rule one of every major position with power? That you don't let your personal life get in with you business life?"

"If anything can't she put out an alert? Sure she can bypass any comm towers." J'nell gives her a warning look with her grey eyes, and Ba'shira rolls her own, "If not that, you're definitely staying put. At least until you can walk six feet without looking like you just threw back a liter."

"But--" J'nell's look yet again shuts another person down, and she crosses her arms. Not even a moment later, she makes another decision and it happens to at least be a good one, "Fine then. Intelligence has intel that the reason there are so many Republic forces on planet, including Havoc and Mayhem squad, is because a certain Theron Shan brought the Sixth Line of Jedi on planet a few days ago. Blah blah blah, Vitiate, or the Emperor, is rising again but instead of a force sensitive planet, he plans to kill everyone here so he has enough energy to start terrorizing the rest of the galaxy again."

"Sixth Line?" J'nell asks, crossing one leg over the other, blowing a hair out of her face and slipping the scarf off from around her neck, "I thought there was just the Green Jedi and the Order itself?"

"I don't know much more than you do, honestly. All this is just stuff Lana's brought home lately," Khaak confirms what she'd seen the other day with the Jedi outside. Then there were Jedi here, even if no one knew particularly why. Who even was Theron Shan? Shan sounded familiar, though she couldn't figure why right then, "I was supposed to be searching for him somewhere in New Adasta, but obviously I got shot down first. Did you guys see a ship coming down in the last couple of days?"

"There are ships and speeders and just about everything crashing these days. Not much to differentiate them all from each other, can't exactly smell Pub from here," J'nell says, scratching the back of her neck, "Plus, I'm sure Shan was on the run anyways, wouldn't be much evidence to find. This is Imperial territory anyway. Isn't like his type to be here."

"Of course, yeah. But it'd still be good to find him, he is essentially the ringleader of this mess." Khaak responds, "Not that we're friends at all, pretty sure they intend to just find him to get details on why the Sixth Line is here to begin with. If you two can help me get off Ziost and could help me dig up some dirt, I'm sure I could get you on priority evac."

Ba'shira perks up at the offer, shooting a look at J'nell that isn't reciprocated, "Priority evac, you say? What exactly would I need to do, bring him in cold or warm?"

"What do you mean, warm or cold? We need him alive to answer questions, Ione." Khaak says in that tone she despises, the one that makes her feel like she's thirteen again, "This is not a bounty by any means at all."

"Fine then." She huffs, and Khaak moves to tinker with the holoterminal, "Hey, what're you doing with that?"

"Seeing if I can connect it to anyone's com code. Lana's is encrypted, so chances are she wouldn't answer anything from here, but if I can get the Wrath's, she could probably lead me back to her," Khaak says, rushing forward again. She holds a hand to her head from the quick movement, blood spilling out of her nose in a red river. She wipes it away with the back of her hand and opens a panel on the opposite side of the machine.

"The Wrath?" J'nell's eyes widen at the title as if it's the most important thing she's heard all day, "As in the Empire's Wrath, number one on Imperial's World holomag as one of the most beautiful women in the galaxy?"

"You read a lot of tabloids," Khaak sounds mildly interested at this, though she's terribly stuffed up now as she holds a hand up to her nostrils, "But yes. Same Sith, for now five years in a row. Got one hell of a temper from what I hear."

"No wonder, with a title like 'Wrath'." Ba'shira commented as she gets up to circle the holoterminal and watches as the Twi'lek goes about her work. If there was anything to appreciate about Khaak, it was her nimble hands and how well she not only piloted, but also sliced things. Not nearly as good as Zhonani or Thara, but the skill was still there, "You're really about to go bothering one of the most influential people in the Empire?"

"If she wouldn't hurt Lana, she wouldn't hurt me. Don't worry so much, Ione." Khaak reiterates, "Besides, I don't know Nine's com code and not entirely sure I want to try hacking into that. Ain't lookin' to lose my head today or any other day for that matter."

"You've come to the wrong place if you're looking to hunker down and live, but I won't stop you." J'nell responds, pushing herself up off the couch and stretching, "It's nearly time for dinner. You hungry?"

"I could eat, yeah." Khaak nods, before stilling her head. She's got to have a pounding headache, and the look at her exposed back as Ba'shira tilts her head to take in the rest of the damage makes her wince. As mean as she wanted to be, Khaak had probably nearly died down on the streets from that crash. No sympathy was usually warranted for spacers, but Ba'shira's waning on that rule.

Still hurts, but she's yanked from memory lane as Khaak starts talking, "What was that?"

"Who's the kid? 'Nell's?" One of the holocoms with Mellena's earliest and only photo has flickered back on when Khaak had jostled it.

"Definitely ain't mine. Yeah, 'Nell's daughter Mellena. Why?" Ba'shira asks as Khaak lifts her hand from the sparking wires until she can connect them again.

"Looks a lot like the Wrath. Not much to go off of, obviously, but can't you see the likeness? It's in the nose and the lips, not to mention the eyes." She dives back into her rewiring, essentially leaving the conversation. For a moment, Ba'shira wants to scoff at the assumption. There was no way J'nell was the mother to the Empire's entire hope and future. Mellena had been taken by red Sith shortly before her six month birthday apparently, and then not a word after that as far as Ba'shira was concerned. The Wrath had never spoken of her parents to the public, but it didn't ever seem like the Amarillis' or the Quinns were red Sith. Not that she cared, of course, but it was a weird connection to make.

Ba'shira is ready to call Khaak out, maybe as just a joke, but under closer inspection of the wavering picture, she can unfortunately see what her previous Captain saw. She still doubts it, but even the implication hangs over her for the rest of the day.

After she was off Ziost, she could wonder about that. But for now, Theron Shan was her meal ticket off a dying world. He'd better watch his back.

#swtor #star wars the old republic #swtor oc #oc #original character #swtor fanfiction #star wars #captain khaak beniko #khaak beniko #khaak sayare #j'nell wryen #katari cadera #ba'shira cadera #ione ithar #shadow of the sith

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