After ten years, two wars, and too many atrocities to count, Bao-Dur and Atton are finally having that drink. Sequel to "The Fragile Male Ego".
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"Pretty nice, right?"
"Yeah," Bao-Dur says, and doesn't feel at all bad about lying. In truth, the cantina was one of the worst he had ever had the displeasure of visiting. There was dirt on the floor, grime in the glasses, and the dancing girls all had the sick pallor of children too young to be out in the world. Bao-Dur feels ill, and he's pretty sure it's not because of the whiskey.
Atton, on the other hand, doesn't seem to think there's anything wrong with this place, and not for the first time, Bao-Dur wonders what has happened to his old friend in the years since the wars began.
"Remind me again why we didn't do this on Telos or Dantooine?" Bao-Dur asks quietly, and tries not to cringe when he sees the ugly bruises on the stage-girls.
Atton just grunts after swallowing another gulp of the execrable whiskey. "When, exactly, did we have time to get a drink on Telos? We left that planet right after that creepy Jedi chick cut us loose."
"Atris," Bao-Dur corrects automatically, and wonders for a split second how the handmaidens were doing. Those girls have quite a job in front of them, the way Atris has been acting…
"Yeah, whatever. And Dantooine doesn't have running water, let alone a decent bar."
Bao-Dur mumbles something that could be taken as assent, and looks solemnly at Atton. The pilot looks pallid in the neon lights of the bar, and Bao-Dur knows that Nar Shaddaa is bad for him. Nar Shaddaa is an unpleasant place for all of them – Visas won't come out of the ship unless ordered, and the Disciple always has a hand on his blaster these days – but it's worse for Atton, and Bao-Dur is unsure why.
"You know, I hung out here a lot after the war," Atton says quietly, staring at the bottom on his glass. Bao-Dur eyes widen in surprise, and he takes a sip of the (still-horrible) whiskey in order to hide his shock.
"Really? I was stuck on Coruscant for a while, waiting for a basic prosthetic." Bao-Dur grins wryly. "They took so long, I was able to make a better one while I waited," he says, and he flexes his fingers as the force-field surges. Atton snickers.
"That sounds about right. In my case, things were a little more…confused. I got sent here with everyone else," Atton says quietly, and smiles a little more. "This wasn't the best place to hang, but hey – I got to see some really funny bar fights."
Bao-Dur just shakes his head. "Same old Atton." He opens his mouth to say something else, but before he can, Atton sets his glass on the bar in front on him and stands up. "Look, sorry to cut this party short, but I promised the old hag I wouldn't hold the trip into the Refugee sector up, and I'm pretty sure I'm late. We'll catch up some other time, OK?" and all Bao-Dur can do is nod as his old friend walks out of the cantina.
"Well, he sure is in a hurry, isn't he?" Bao-Dur just raises his eyebrows at the young woman walking over to him from the shadows. She's cute, for a human, but a little too young for him – she might be older than the dancers in this bar, but that doesn't mean much on this planet.
"That's not exactly surprising, given what he is," she continues, and takes Atton's old seat. The neon lights reflect off her red hair and pale skin, and Bao-Dur notes the cleavage and tight leather in one frozen instant. There are a lot of women like her in the galaxy, but Bao-Dur has never met any who carried three blasters and a missile-launcher to boot.
"What exactly are you talking about?" He says carefully, and he's not entirely surprised when she looks at him, eyes wide, and smiles like there's no tomorrow.
"How much are you willing to pay to find out?"
Yeah, he's met a lot of girls like her, and every time, he wonders if he could have saved them.
"No thanks, kid," he says, and he means it. He's no fool, and even if Atton says nothing about the war, he remembers enough about the reckless fool Atton once was – and the strange, obsessed woman he served under – to understand, at least a little, what's going on.
Bao-Dur knows very well that Revan's fleet was nowhere near Nar Shaddaa when the Mandalorian Wars ended.
Bao-Dur walks out of the ugly cantina, away from the girl with guns and the children with bruises on their arms, and he thinks nothing has gone how he wanted it to. Ten years ago…well, ten years ago was ten years ago. He's come to terms with his life since then. He's pretty sure Atton hasn't, and he can't help worrying - about him, about the General, about the rest of their ragtag crew…
There's something wrong with this place, and Bao-Dur hopes Atton can hold it together long enough for them to get out of here. But the way things have been going, Bao-Dur wouldn't bet on it.