He took a rather large swig after this and thrust the bottle back into my hands aggressively. The action was rife with unspoken emotions. Aggression. Anger. Sadness. Bitterness. Disgust. Frustration.
This was more than I'd ever gotten out of the man.
Something was seriously bothering him, but I was suddenly too drunk to care.
"I gave you an order, Captain," I said pointedly before taking a final swig of the bottle.
It was empty. We'd finished it. The bottle, which was as cool as the drink on the inside, hung loosely in my weak fingers, a tie to reality in my tumult.
"Perhaps I did not understand, my lord," Quinn finally snapped. "To which order were you referring this time?"
I scowled.
"I said, 'speak freely,' Quinn!" I said louder. "That order!"
He finally looked up into my eyes.
"If you insist, my lord, I shall do so! What would you like me to say?"
"Don't be cute!" I snapped.
"It is beyond my capacity to be as such, my lord, despite your best efforts to prove otherwise."
If I was sober, I would have colored, but neither of us were. Instead, the words just seemed to hit me like a fist in the throat.
"Tell me what you're thinking now before I dive in your head and rip them out one by one!"
"Fine! The man!" Quinn said, gesturing uselessly to the campfires down the hill. "The Zabrak. Do you know him?"
"What? No! I was buying food from him!" I said after a stunned moment. "I've never seen him before in my life!"
"Respectfully, I did not see the merits in talking to him at all. When you allow these aliens to speak with you it brings unnecessary attention to yourself! As your officer in command, it is my duty to advise you that this is most unwise."
This hurt. And I didn't know why. The pieces fell in slowly.
"These aliens?" my mouth finally snapped. "What does that have to do with anything?"
"Groups of species like yours are not so common on these backwater planets. Drawing near to him seemed reckless and unnecessary."
"He was no one!" I finally shouted. "I've never even seen him before! And as for the matter of my species, I can't help it if the only vendor in walking distance that sells food happens to be a Zabrak! I know that must seem really offensive to you, him being the sole reason you're surviving and being an alien! Maybe almost as bad as serving under me!"
He now said nothing. And that hurt. He didn't understand my discomfort or he would have stopped right there. I sensed in him a strong desire to please me.
If only he could feel the anguish he was putting me in now.
"My lord, if I may be so bold, race has nothing to do with my misgivings."
"Oh?" I asked. "Because it seemed like it to me! Either that or the fact that he's a man of my own 'kind' that notices me."
Quinn said nothing again, obviously unsure of how to proceed. He finally said,
"I did not like the attention he bestowed upon you, true, but that was only because I humbly think that he is beneath your rank and position. He is a speck and you are the galaxy."
It was my turn to feel surprise.
Quinn was jealous.
Something sour filled my stomach, even as fluttering feelings passed through me at his words.
I'd given up on that thought. I teased him now to make him uncomfortable and for a small thrill it gave me. He could hate me, and I could foster a small infatuation from far away. No harm, no foul.
When he spoke again, I felt totally unsure of his intentions.
And that was scary.
And fear made me angry.
"It was…" He began before clearing his throat. He tried again. "Forgive me, my lord, but it is my uncertainty of your whereabouts that brought on this confusion."
"Whereabouts?" I asked, blinking. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"In the mornings and late at night. Sometimes, my lord, you are not here when I wake up. I do not wish to presume, of course, but it was my only thought, naturally, that you were going to meet up with the man in the market."
I couldn't withstand the disgust, and it came out of me with a vicious sort of sound.
The anguish inside of me was welling into something much larger: disappointment.
Prejudice really did color every part of him.
"So you think…that I…have been sneaking out at night to get away from you...to have sex with a random man – who I met today, by the way – simply because he is a Zabrak?"
Saying the implications of his words out loud made the insult all that much more insulting, and both of us heard it as the question hung poisonously in the air. I felt wronged in a way I hadn't in a long time. I guessed being a Sith Lord had made that part easier. Nowadays, if people had an issue with my species, they had the good sense to say it behind my back.
"My lord…" His gaze had turned to the horizon, and I saw him calculating in his head, so cold and emotionless and blithely ignorant of the pain he was causing. "I did not mean -,"
"Not all aliens are promiscuous whores, Quinn," I snapped.
His eyes snapped up to me regretfully.
Suddenly, the conversation was tense for an entirely different reason.
"No, my lord, I did not mean to presume or imply -,"
"And further than that you don't know how I am with men. You haven't asked, and it's obvious you don't care, so don't you dare accuse me of that kind of thing again. What, you think because he was a Zabrak that I should just be more apt to mate with my own kind? Is that it?"
He hung his head, and the expression on his face was twisted with self-loathing now.
"I offer my most sincere apologies, my lord. That was not how I meant it, but I see now that this was the manner in which I communicated my message."
Back to formal talk. Back to being "his lord."
I felt so hurt that it ached inside of me.
"Yeah, whatever," I snapped, waving my hand and turning my back on him.
I didn't trust the look on my face to remain neutral.
"My lord, please," he whispered fervently, "I didn't mean to insult you."
"Oh, that was so obvious, Captain," I said to the air in front of me. "Because if a man notices that I am beautiful, I must be having sex with him. That's how the career works, right?"
"No, of course not, my lord."
"But maybe that's how it works in the military," I snapped. "Maybe that's how the Empire works."
I found myself scowling before turning back to him.
All his anger was gone, and it made me feel bitter.
"Meritocracy, my ass," I finally said.
"My lord, I -,"
"Captain," I snapped powerfully, "that is enough. Get away from me!"
He hesitated now.
"My...my lord?" he asked fearfully.
"I said go!" I shouted angrily, waving my hand. "Leave me alone! You're a bigot, and it hurts to be around you!"
It had slipped, and he took a step back, as if I'd shoved my lightsaber into his torso.
"It does?"
I didn't want to answer, so my drunk mouth took over.
"You think you're so much better than me because of the color of your skin, don't you?" I asked him, sneering. "You think that you're just some wonderful asset in the Empire's military? Well, let me tell you something, Captain! Every single piece of intel you receive on a day to day basis is obtained through channels that are almost exclusively alien!"
"My lord, I already told you that I don't think of you -,"
"It isn't about me, Quinn!" I shouted now, feeling tears in my eyes. "It's about...that man. About Vette. About aliens. It's about us."
He was stiff.
"You aren't like other non-humans, my lord," he whispered quietly, looking at me with an intensity that was heartbreaking.
"Yes, I am, Quinn!" I shouted indignantly. "I am! I have three sisters! The youngest will be..." I trailed off, feeling broken for the first time in a long time. "She'll be twelve now. She won't remember me, but I..." I turned away, breathing heavily. "I have a mother who was a slave! A slave, Quinn! And you know what else? I was a slave too!"
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his fists clench. I heard him swallow and prepare to speak, but I felt like I had to continue to unload.
"My legacy? My birthright?" I snorted bitterly. "My birthright was given to me by my father, who nearly murdered my family - my masters - to bring me wriggling out of that place to serve his will! I was taken from everything that I have ever known and forced into another form of slavery!"
The silence was awful.
I hadn't even talked about this with Vette.
Angrily, I threw the empty bottle as far as I could, screaming in frustration. I turned back to him and pressed my index finger into his chest.
"You may think that you are some forward-thinking mathematical genius and that you've won, but you haven't won, Quinn, you are pathetic and sad! You know, I feel sorry for you! I really do! Because you're missing out on a lot of good in the galaxy just because you're just a little bit too blind and stupid to see it! So much for being a genius!"
Exhaustion finally took me, and the breathlessness I felt made me feel a little lightheaded. I turned away.
"Do as you wish, Quinn," I said dismissively. "I'm going to sleep. Good night."
Pointedly, I laid down on my mat, my back to him, and I waited for a long time before he finally let out a heavy breath. He seemed to relax by the way he breathed, as if he'd been holding his breath for the duration of our conversation, and he finally moved to walk away, muttering,
"Dammit…"
When he was gone, I pulled my knees to my chest sideways under the blankets, and I began to cry.
