Sonja Hunt ∅ Giltine (necrius) wrote in thegalaxy, @ 2016-05-19 13:10:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | !locale: naboo, hannah vizari, sinjir fel |
don't threaten me with a good time
Who: Hannah & Sinjir.
What: The spitfires meet for drinks.
When: Following this holonet post, pretty backdated.
Where: A scrungy bar in Theed.
Rating: PG for some swearing?
Hannah crossed her legs and pulled the freshly poured beer toward her with the look of a woman dying of thirst. She brought it to her lips and drank deep; foam coated her upper lip as she pulled the cup away, a small frown giving away her judgement.
"You got anything made by dwarves?"
The bartender gave her a blank stare.
"Dwaaarves? You know, like...not really little people, but short and with beards?" Hannah licked the foam off her lip as her hand cupped her chin, attempting to mimic Violet's red beard. The bartender rolled his eyes and seemed to praise some unknown deity as another customer beckoned for his attention. Hannah gave a heavy sigh, spinning the mostly-filled glass a little. Some of the golden brown slopped over the side and onto the bar. Hannah whispered under her breath and the beer crawled up the side of the glass and back into the mouth of the cup.
"Now that," Sinjir said, "is a very useful trick. You'll have to teach me that one." He slid onto the barstool beside her. With one raised finger and a sidelong cut of his eyes he directed the bartender to bring another drink. He cared little for the contents of the glass put before him. The days had been long of late, and all he wanted was cold booze and a warm conversation.
"Sinjir. You must be Hannah."
"Bingo," she replied, turning on her stool to face the man she'd met on the holonet. "And I don't know if I can teach you that trick. Everyone's adamant that magic and this fucking Force thing are different, and I only know one set of mechanics. Are you one of those space wizards?"
He laughed, and curled a hand around his glass. "Well I have the ability, sensitivity, whatever you want to call it. And I use it often enough, but not the way they think I should. So I guess my answer would be 'sort of' and theirs would be 'no'."
"Outcast, huh?" She took a sip of her disliked beer, unwilling to allow it to go to waste. "I know the feeling. Never wanted to train on it? No one harping in your ear that you should make good use of your gift? Or were you not good enough?" One could easily have mistaken her words for judgement, but the bitter tone in which they were delivered revealed the truth behind her questions.
Sinjir took it in stride. It was hardly the worst he had heard, and in her tone he found strong echoes of a kindred spirit. "All of the above? I trained a little. Even trained someone, myself, for a while. But I never cared about their Jedi Code -- it's all bullshit if you ask me, and frankly does more harm than good -- and I don't do well with strict regulations. Regulations at all, really." He shrugged, pausing to take a pull from his beer. "I take it you're in a similar boat. Not gonna go running off to the new Jedi base, signing on the dotted line of chastity and emotional amputation?"
Hannah threw back her head and cackled. "No, if I wanted to castrate myself, I could have done that years ago. That sounds like fucking torture. I don't need more baggage than I already have." She eyed him with a new appreciation, as though he'd passed some test in her mind. She raised her glass and clinked it against his.
"You said you had questions?"
"Hell yes I do," he said. His grin had broadened considerably; already he felt more comfortable than he had in days. "I want to know basically everything about your magic, but let's start with this mirror. Is it just for humanoid travel, or can you send things through it, too? Do you have to have the Force or magic or whatever to use it?"
"Shit, slow down. No, yes, and, ah, for the last one, probably. People who aren't born with magic aren't entirely barred from using it, but that's not to say it's a good idea. This one guy got ahold of a mask and unleashed tentacled horror on my hometown; needless to say he couldn't control it, but that was beside the point." She put her beer down on the counter, eyeing Sinjir with some curiosity. "Why? You looking to make use of one? I haven't even gotten it to work, at least not here.
"And, to be fair, the one I used to get here I didn't make. A former professor of mine did. Full disclosure, no promises, all that fine print crap."
"I could absolutely use one," he said. "Or one hundred. Whatever you could make, when you figure it out. It would cut down on my expenses like you wouldn't believe. And the risk. A pirate-free, merc-free, First Order-free method of shipping what I do? It would be fucking incredible. Not that the smugglers would agree, I'm sure, but that's business."
He arched a brow. "Wait, a mask? How does that unleash anything? Is it a portal, too?" A slow grin full of ill intent crossed his lips. "And could you direct said tentacled horror at a particular place or group of people?"
Hannah scratched the tip of her nose, the ghost of a grin hovering over her mouth. "Are you a fucking terrorist or something?"
Sinjir gave a sharp bark of a laugh. This time he actually stopped to consider his answer, letting foamy beer fill his mouth instead of ever-present words. The silence did not last long. "Well," he said, "nobody's put so fine a point on it before. But yeah, I guess I am. Is that gonna stop you from answering my questions?"
"Naw. It just pays to know who you're telling what to. For all I know, you could be one of those First Order creeps that everyone keeps whispering behind their hands about. I've done my fair share of terrorizing back home. My mother was a revolutionary. Got her killed." Hannah rolled her eyes and shrugged, as though the fact was nothing more than a minor note in her life. "Thank the gods for necromancy or I'd never be able to talk to her. But yeah, upending the status quo. I can get behind that."
She took a drink, licking her lips as she returned the glass to the countertop. "'Course, I don't exactly know what the status quo is here, having been here all of five minutes. Who are these people you wanna blow up?"
"The First Order," he said, utterly without hesitation. He filed away the mention of necromancy and speaking with the dead; for the moment they had latched onto a topic dear to his heart. "They ran my homeworld into the ground until we revolted. Basically they're the afterbirth of the Empire we already beat once in the last galactic war. They're mass murderers and slavers among many other things. The Empire destroyed our last Senate, so a few months ago the First Order turned full copycat and blew up the new one. All this under a peace treaty their Empire signed after its defeat."
Hannah made a face, impressed. "Shit, they've been busy. I'm guessing they weren't beaten into the ground effectively enough the first time around. Shitheads like that has to be dealt with at the root."
She nodded, agreeing to an earlier question. "Sure, if I can figure out the mirrors, I'll let you know. Like I said before, no promises. Shit's harder than it looks."
"What isn't," Sinjir said. "So naturally we'll take all the help we can get putting them back in their place. You've got a great set of skills and the kind of attitude we need in the Resistance. Think I could convince you to declare a side?" He raised a hand, preemptively waving off any concerns. "I know you're not here long. But until you can convince your friend of whatever you need to, you could really do some good here. And blow a lot of shit up in the process, which I get the feeling is kind of your bag."
She frowned. "It is, but I'm not big on groups. Are the rest of them like you? Because all those other assholes on the message...thing can kiss my ass."
Unconsciously, his expression mirrored hers. "Not really," he said. "A couple of them are great. I think you'd really like Poe Dameron, and Finn is incredible. He actually left the First Order, which never happens. But for the most part they can be... well. You saw." He shook his head. "But you could still work with me. It doesn't have to be anything official. It'd just be nice to have someone else on the roster who wants to get shit done."
Hannah fell silent for a moment, a rarity for her, as she considered his words.
"Sure, why the hell not. As long as it doesn't conflict with my own plans, I'm down to blow some shit up," she replied, an easy grin sidling onto her face. "Dee told me to entertain myself, and if this helps keep the Order dickwads away from her, I don't see how she can complain." She took another drink, burped and wiped her mouth on the back of her hand. Sinjir, elated, ordered another round.
"I'm guessing you guys are doing a lot of recruiting from here, with all the rift people coming through? Basically a smorgasbord of options."
"We're trying," he said. "We know the Order's been here, too, and we need to beat them to the punch. Luckily it seems like most of the power players coming through the rift have gravitated toward us. Some people want to stay completely out of it, but we're getting enough strength that I think we can go on the offensive sooner rather than later."
"I guess how do you not go toward the Resistance after hearing the other side blew up a government. I mean, that's usually the kind of thing bad guys do," she replied, happily accepting the second beer as it was slid toward her. She quickly finished the first, wrapping her hand around the second. "Do you guys have some kind of a plan in mind? Strategy was never my strongest suit, but point me at something and I can usually level it in a few minutes."
Sinjir laughed again. "That's basically my entire strategy," he said. "General Organa is working on something, I'm sure. She's too strong-willed to just be sitting on her hands in their new base. But I'm not at the level where they tell me anything of that magnitude, so… I just work on my own time, and in my own way. Right now I'm focusing mostly on arming insurgents in First Order-held systems." He tipped his drink toward her. "And winning new folks to the cause, of course."
He arched a brow. "So this necromancy thing… is that something you've tried to do here yet?"
Hannah dragged teeth over her bottom lip. "Not yet; I need to recreate my summoning stones, and supplies are hard to come by here on the credits they've given me. Contact with my mother was cut off back home, plus my original stones are back in my inn room at Mage-U, so...yeah. Can't just snap my fingers and ring up the dead. Why? You think I'm gonna reanimate soldiers for you?" She shot a look at him, raising her beer to her lips.
"Gross. No. It's just interesting. They say there are Force ghosts and some Force users can speak to them. I'm just curious if you're able to do that. There are a lot of dead people who could be really helpful right now, I imagine." He softly narrowed his eyes. "What are these summoning stones like? I wonder if I could scrounge something like them up for you."
Her brow furrowed. "Nobody said anything about that. I guess I could try? The stones...they're made of a specific material, which is why I think they're gonna be even harder to come by, and then you've gotta conduct rites for the godsdamned thing, and the materials for that, well..." Her mouth cast a small but evil grin. "If zombie soldiers makes you uncomfortable, I don't think you'll want to be involved in finding the pieces for that."
Sinjir cast her a meaningful look. "I didn't say they made me uncomfortable," he said. "I just said it's gross. Parts falling off, that rotten stink... " His nose wrinkled above his boyish grimace. "So what's involved in this ritual, then? I bet I could find what you need. I'm very good at that. Or do I have to be inducted into this Mage-U or something before I'm privy to that kind of thing?"
Her impish grin widened into a clean looking smile, clearly pleased she'd made him uncomfortable. "No, these aren't trade secrets or anything. More like secrets people would prefer forgotten and buried and never spoken of again, up until my mother came along. It's the usual shit, blood and bits of people and some magical mumbo jumbo words. It probably looks a lot cooler than how I'm describing it. I'm guessing there's a market here for all of that?"
"There's a market here for everything," he said. He steeled himself with a long draught from his beer. It was odd work, and nothing with which he was familiar, but it was certainly no worse than the things he had done. "Some of it might be sold as food." He chuckled. "But I can get it for you. Just get me a list and give me some time. Let's see what you can do to fuck the First Order up in ways you never even dreamed."
"Mmm," she replied, casting him a judgemental look. "Don't make promises you can't keep. You have no idea what I dream about." The expression on her face taunted him with the idea that they were strange dreams indeed. Finally she seemed to sober up, and did so by taking another drink of her second beer, draining it halfway. "But I'll definitely take you up on that offer, especially once I can get off this Necrius-forsaken planet. You got a ship, or did you, I dunno, port here? I'm still wrapping my head around the transportation."
"I wish porting was possible," he said. "We can get our ships through hyperspace, which is kind of similar, I guess. But we have yet to figure out teleportation. Hence some of my interest in the mirrors." He waved a hand. "I don't personally have a ship, but I can get passage off this rock for you the minute you're allowed off. I typically hang around Coruscant, and I know a few crash pads there you can use until you get on your feet."
Puzzlement colored her features. "Coruscant, huh? I'm seriously going to have to read up on this holonet thing like everyone keeps telling me. It's still a little mind-blowing that there isn't just one planet, I mean, back home it was a journey in itself to just cross a godsdamned ocean.
"But yeah," she continued, shrugging off her concerns. "I'll hit you up for that. I don't know if Dee has a ship or not, I know she was on the crew of one, but that'll be helpful getting her back. Eventually.
"In the meantime, I'll get you that list, and I can get to work on the mirrors. And the scrying stones. Bilford Bogins, it'd be good to talk to Mom." She sighed, once again obviously pushing more worries to the back of her mind. Hannah drained the rest of the glass, slamming its base back onto the bar. She turned to Sinjir with a grin.
"So, I guess that takes care of business, then? What do you do for fun around here?"
Sinjir rubbed his hands together. Sheer, unadulterated glee lit up his face. "That's better shown than told," he said. He slid down off his barstool, finishing his second beer in one long, quick pull. He wiped foam from his upper lip, and tipped his head toward the door. "So why don't we get to it."