Skira sat watching Ryn sleep, the blue Twi'lek's lekku twitching in satisfied slumber. He'd brought the food back as Shada had requested, and when Mrssk proved interested only in the nerf steak, he gave the rest to his slave girl. She'd cried tears of joy at eating something other than preprocessed ration packs or overly spicy mando'a cuisine.
The poor thing might have been just about the ultimate pleasure slave, but Ryn was about the worst cook he'd ever dealt with. It was, perhaps, the only fault he could find in the beautiful, loyal, and submissive Twi'lek.
Still, sleep eluded him. The conversation's turn left him too wired and angry to join her on the bed or avail himself of her charms. So he sat there, brooding.
A soft beep sounded in his ear, letting him know someone was at the door to the Bes'bev. Toggling his hud, he recognized Raana standing on the wing, a bottle in her hand.
"What," he asked over the comm, his voice tight.
"I want to get drunk." Raana said, raising up the bottle to the camera.
"So get drunk." Skira said.
"I don't want to get drunk alone," Raana said. "You're my only option unless I want to start shit with the mudbugs or the sailor girls."
Skira was silent.
"I've got my own tihaar," Raana said, "brewed it myself. I'll even give you a bottle to keep when we're done."
Skira didn't reply. Instead he cut the comms and sat there in the dark. He knew what Ryn would say.
A moment later he was greeted by Raana's grin as he came out of his ship, a predatory thing filled with razor sharp teeth. Heartily, she clapped him on the back and shoved him towards the Jai'galaar.
"I thought you were going to kill that doctor," she said as they made their way over to her ship. "Frakking di'kut."
The Jai'galaar was an ugly ship, but it offered a great deal more space than his Bes'bev and used that space efficiently, as was the Mandalorian way. Consisting of three decks, the lowest held prisoners and storage, while the second deck provided living quarters for the pilot. The final deck was the cockpit , located at the rear of the vehicle.
Raana led him up a ladder to her quarters. They were rather small, but easily bigger than what he himself had on the Bes'bev. There was a hallways, with storage room, galley, and bunk room complete with refresher station, if he knew the floor plan right. He'd considered getting one of these ships himself, but none had been available at the time. Plus, he'd needed something with a bit more firepower, which the Bes'bev gave in spades.
"Home sweet home," Raana said, flopping down in a galley chair and pushing the second one out for him. The glass bottle with the tilaar thunked heavily against the plasto-crete of the table. "You want a glass or straight."
"How do you take it?" Skira asked, sitting down and popping off his helmet. Raana gave that sharp toothed grin again and popped the top off the bottle before taking a long pull. Then she handed it to him.
Skira drank deep, feeling the fiery burn, like scalding lava, as it poured into his mouth and down his throat. The bottle thunked heavily on the table as he set it down, a long, slow breath escaping his mouth.
"Good shit," he said, his voice raw. "I could clean my engines with that and you'd think they just came out of the factory."
"Right?" the Togruta said with a proud grin. She took another hard drink.
They passed the bottle back and forth a couple more times. This was clearly a friendly drink, rather than one to take his measure, or she'd have brought out the kri'gee.
"You're Vongese'ad, aren't you," Raana said softly after they were down to three quarters of the bottle.
"What gave it away," Skira asked, softly. The booze was strong, stronger than his will to keep silent. Part of him hated Raana for doing this. Part of him understood. You had to trust the ones beside you in a fight. This was his test. She was doing it in private, rather than in front of the others. Part of him was grateful for that.
"Adenn Skira," Raana said softly. "No parent would name their child that. They wouldn't want their child to live with that over their heads. You had to choose that name, and the only thing that could make a Mando'ad choose that name would be something truly horrific. Something that could never, would never, be forgiven. Plus, your armor isn't exactly subtle with all that gold."
Skira was silent for a long moment, the grabbed the bottle and took a double long pull. Fire burned in his flesh, the fire of the tilaar. The fire of memories.
"I was born on a Corellian colony," he said softly. "It was a simple life, government was a bit tyrannical, but then which aren't? We were farmers, mostly mealgrains. I was twelve, when the Vong came, and brought haran with them."
"They decided they didn't want to terraform the planet," he continued, staring at the table. "I guess the soil was already good enough for what they wanted to grow. What they really wanted though, was sport."
"A group of warriors came to our house," the words caught in his throat and tears burn like tihaar in his eyes. He tried to fight them back by pouring tihaar down his throat. It worked. Barely. It didn't help the screams in his memory.
"Vong worship pain." Skira said, his voice hollow. "They are it's faithful supplicants. Pain and suffering makes one holy, brings redemption. They know more about pain than we could learn in a thousand years. And they used that knowledge on my family. Starting with my father."
"They started with his feet," he said. Closing his eyes, he could still see it. Hear it. The bones being broken, the toes twisted like corkscrews. Then higher, so his father could never stand against them. Heard his mother and older sister scream, scream for mercy, for help, for it to stop as they were stripped naked. As the aphistaffs cracked like whips and shredded skin that had only ever been kissed by the gentle sun of their homeworld.
"They broke the bones," he said softly, "In his hands and feet. Twisted them around. Pulled them apart. They laughed as he screamed at them to let my mother and sister go. Then they started working their way inwards. Breaking the bones, then skinning the flesh off, while they made...made us watch...as they raped my mother and sister. They flayed off his...manhood...mocking him for being too weak to save us."
"My mother and sister passed out by the time they had finished skinning him, but they brought them back somehow. Some injection. I don't know how he was still alive. Some of their science, maybe. Then they started to do the same to my mother, only instead of using razors to slice the skin off, they used burning embers. They didn't stop raping her either. Every time she passed out, they brought her back."
The bottle was empty and he tossed it aside.
"They made my sister watched, so she could see what was coming. She screamed, and begged, as they took her and staked her down. One of the warriors, a female I think, skinned her when the time came. When it was done, she paraded the skin around like a trophy, waving it in front of my sisters face, before wearing it like a trophy. My sister bled out, watching a monster wearing her own flayed skin."
"And you?" Raana asked.
"I hid," Skira said, guilt thick in his voice. "I'd never even been in a fist fight. My father wouldn't let me. I hid, and watched, unable to do anything as my family was butchered. Watched as they all died. But I couldn't take watching that creature wear my sister. I broke, and came out swinging. They captured me."
The Togruta didn't say anything. He appreciated that. What was there to say? He'd been a coward, no matter what his buir told him. He hadn't had the courage to face the Vong with his family. He'd let them die.
Instead, she got up, and pulled him to his feet. The embrace was hard, armor cracking against armor. The Keldabe kiss was numbed by the tilaar, but it still struck with bruising force.
She'd lost her family too. No doubt their killer had taken their time too. No doubt she'd had to watch too.
The tears in her eyes reflected his own. The same pain was there. The same guilt. The same need.
Her kiss was hard and hot, unlike the ones Ryn gave. Ryn could never love him. She could fake it, fake it to the point she believed it herself, but she was a slave and her life depended on him, and that would forever taint everything. This, this was far more real. This was a choice, Raana's choice.
The tilaar blurred things, but she led him back to her quarters. Armor hit the deck plates with heavy impacts. She gasped as she saw his torso.
Scars covered his chest and back, a latticework of torment and pain. He'd been a coward to leave his family to die. He'd been a fool to almost make their sacrifice in vain. If the Mando'ad hadn't come when they did, he would have been with them.
"Adenn Skira," Raana said, trailing her fingers over some of the scars. "I understand, now."
Adenn Skira. Merciless revenge. No parent would want their child to bear such a name, such a fate. Two sets of parents had tried to spare him, but he could never spare himself. Not until the Vong were dead, or he was, and the former was never going to happen now.
She was beautiful, her orange skin marked with almost tribalistic white markings that framed her eyes, her breasts, her belly, her legs, and mound. Muscles, strong and hard as beskar, flexed under her skin, rippling as he touched them. Togruta were near humans, and mammals, so everything was fairly familiar to him.
Raana drew him in, kissing him. Sharp teeth, matched with soft lips, caressed him with each kiss. She didn't judge him, or hate him. It was more than he deserved. She drew him in, accepting him, taking him. Mando'ad women were not meek flowers to be plucked. They were warriors who claimed what they desired just like the men.
She claimed him. Claimed him from the nightmare. From the pain. From the Vongese. If only for that moment, for that night. His scars were her scars. Her skin was his skin. Her lekku reminded him of Ryn and he felt guilty. Her eyes reminded him of his buir and he felt safe.
You couldn't stop the ones you loved from hurting. Even if you were the cause of that hurt. You could want to take all the pain away, but you never could. You just had to live with it, make their pain worth something.
"What happened to them?" Raana asked during a pause in their conquest.
"Mando'ad showed up," Skira said softly. "Including the woman who would adopt me. They killed most of them, captured the rest. My screams had been picked up by their scanners. When they found out what had been done, well. They took care of business. My buir gave me a knife and let me kill the female who took my sister's skin. They treated my wounds and took me with them since I had nowhere to go."
Raana nodded, then proceeded to start kissing him again. Drawing him away from memories of the past. Drawing him into her again. He embraced her and the relief she offered. Everyone of them had wounds from their wars. They knew the value of relying on each other, never judging each other for the scars of the past. Where you came from didn't matter. All that mattered was who you would be, and helping you get there.