AUTHOR: Neniae
CONTACT: aslyinn@yahoo.com
Well, I'm finally back and working on it again. My Internet isn't connected right now, so I'll post this later and thank all of my reviewers in the next chapter.
By the way, I'm currently trading shameless plugs. If you tell me in your review that you put a plug for this in one of your stories, then I'll put up a plug for one of yours.
Obi-Wan is about 15 right now.
For the new character: yeah, he has a weird accent, and I've typed the words the way that he says them because I think that it adds to his personality. It isn't that much different, but if for some reason you have trouble figuring out something that he says, then try pronouncing the words the way that they're typed and you'll get what he's saying.
Oh, and I admit that the new character's opening line was taken from some book that I read a few weeks ago and then edited to be more Star Wars-ish. It's still funny, thought. And now, on to the story!
The planet D'renth was similar to Tatooine as far as its populace went -- any "business" conducted there tended to be either illegal or close to it. It had been a base for the Imperials during the last war, and many had not bothered to leave afterwards. The old Sith fortress had been torn down, of course, but it was considered quite common to see a Stormtrooper in full armor walking down the main street. However, D'renth did differ from Tatooine in one way. Weather. Frigid winds buffeted the whole planet yearlong, and any off-worlders caught outside in the middle of the night generally froze to death.
The wind was blowing just as fiercely as ever through a small, unnamed city only four fajhe (A/N: one fajhe is about three quarters of a mile) from the capitol, Jik'das. There were few people on the streets, and most were now rnning for shelter as clouds in a particularly sickly shade of purple formed overhead. The people dashed quickly through the cobblestone alleys, scarves held before their faces to protect them from the chill. They were looking for their houses, or bars, the only places open at this time of night. If one person had lowered their scarf slightly in passing, they would've seen the silouette of a slim figure framed in the lighted windows of the inn "The Salataria" across the street -- but it was cold, and the people were in a hurry, and no one cared to look.
Inside the Salataria, glowglobes cast a dim yellowish light over the humans and aliens huddled at the tables and around the bar. The human who had been standing next to the window slunk over to the bar, his dark brow cloak stiff with encrusted mud making him appear no more reputable than the other occupants. When he sat down on a high, plastisteel bar stool, he slumped and kept his hood up and his eyes lowered, glaring at the fake marble tabletop as if it had somehow managed to insult him. If it had been a living creature and looks really could kill, it would have been writhing in pain on the floor within seconds.
"Whaddaya want, kid?" slurred a barmaid as she came out of her drunk stupor long enough to notice him. When he did not immediately reply, she yanked off his hood and repeated her question viciously. Angry sea colored eyes surveyed her for a moment before the youth harshly said, "Corellian liquor. Blue. And make it extra strong." His eyes snapped closed as the shocked barmaid bustled off to get it.
A few minutes later, he sat sipping the electric blue liquid. The night before, he had used a permanant dye ground from a dark stone found in this region to experiment with his hair: instead of short blonde spikes fading to white, his spikes now faded to black. He'd also drawn two thin horizontal black lines across one cheek, parallel to one another. The symbol of death. It had done the job that he intended it to do; no one had messed with him. He ignored the kids and adults of this planet alike. Almost all of the adults ran one illegal business or another, and most of the kids were slaves, prostitutes, street-rats, or gang members, any of which would slit your throat without a second thought. And so everyone took the hint and ignored him as well. Until...
The boy on his left suddenly suggested that Obi-Wan's mother had done something rather unlikely with a bantha.
Obi-Wan jumped up, shattering the glass and sending the liquor splattering on the floor as he whirled to face the kid who had just insulted him. "AND YOURS WITH A WAMP RAT!!!" he bellowed, the consequences of his action clouded over by all the red that he was seeing.
The whole bar went completely silent. Obi-Wan mentally cursed at himself for being so stupid... from the reaction of the other occupants, he had just talked back to the wrong person. Great. Now he was probably going to get clobbered.
The other boy suddenly cracked up laughing, and the other people in the room relaxed and started talking again. He held his hand out, and Obi-Wan cautiously shook it.
"You've got spunk, kid. You're stupid, but you've got spunk." A pause. "I'm Kajir. And you?"
"My name belongs to a past that I do not want to remember. Just call me... Kid."
"We can't 'ave ya walkin 'round a place like dis with a name like dat. People'll think you're soft. Ya need a proper name, somethin rough-like." He snapped his fingers. "Got it! - you kin be called Tairth. We 'ad a Tairth a while ago, but then the Stormtroopers thought he waz annoyin so dey shot 'em."
Obi-Wan was not too happy about being named after a dead person, but what name he went by didn't really matter. It was just something that other people called you, after all. "That's fine. So... Kajir... what's your line of work?"
Tairth could tell that Kajir was examining him closely to see if he could be trusted. Suddenly he nodded as if in approval of what he saw. "Me 'n my mates, we 'ad a little gang. We did pick-pocketin, some other small-time thefts, but den we got into da assassin business. We're workin as mercenaries now cause da pay is better."
"So do you travel a lot, then?"
Kajir's eyes lit up. "Oh, so yur hidin from sommun! Don't want ta get caught, so yer lookin ta get as far away as possible?"
Tairth nodded curtly. It was a lie in a way, because he knew that Kajir was referring to hiding from the law. But still, he was hiding - from Qui-Gon - and he didn't want to be found.
"Me 'n my mates, we travel a good bit. We take jobs when we can find 'em, and when we can't, we got a nice little ship we've fitted up special, 'n so we be pirates till we get anutter job. It's a nice life cause ya can do what ya want, mostly. We don't get caught by da officials much, 'n we don't take sides with da Rebbies or da Imps, so dey don't bother us."
Just then, someone turned on another glow-globe, and Tairth got his first good look at Kajir. He was about nineteen or twenty years old, with naturally spiky black hair. His bangs were long enough to cast a slight shadow across his face, but not quite long enough to cover his eyes, and he had brushed them to one side. Tairth realized with a silent laught that he too had experimented with the miraculous substance known as permanant dye -- there was one section of his hair that was a deep purple, and this was on the right side at the edge of the bangs. He wore plain gray pants and a tunic that were tight enough to not get in the way in a fight but loose enough to allow for freedom of movement and the carrying of hidden weapons. Tairth's eyes, however, were trained to observe just this and so he noted that Kajir had several knives and a blaster currently on him. But even Tairth would have trouble reading his new friend's eyes, for they were so dark of a green as to be practically black. He looked, all in all, like an experienced fighter that you wouldn't want to mess with if you could possibly avoid it. A dangerous enemy, if provoked... but a powerful friend.
"So, would ya be lookin to join us?" Kajir inquired.
"And what if I am?"
"I'd need proof that you're a good fighter 'n that ya won't just be in da way. Yer heart's in da right place, kid, but I can't be babysittin ya. I don't have da time for it."
Tairth gave Kajir one of his infamous grins. "Me, having a babysitter again?" Kajir raised one eyebrow. "Thanks for the offer, Kajir -- you'd make a good babysitter -- but I'm afraid that I'll have to decline. You see, I'm not in diapers anymore and I do know how to take care of myself." With this, Tairth whipped out his lightsaber from underneath his cloak and held it (deactivated) where only Kajir could see it.
Tairth watched as Kajir's jaw dropped and practically hit the floor. "So, am I in?" he asked cheekily.
Kajir still looked like he was in shock. "Y-yah Tairth, y-you're in..."
Author's notes: Wow, that was long! I conside this chapter to be some of my best writing on FanFiction.Net so far... I hope that you enjoyed it. In the next chapter, you get to see the blue Corellian liquor take its toll ^_~
I'm looking for a Beta reader/editor, preferably someone who is already an author on here, so if you're interested and you check your email at least every other day just let me know in your review. (I can't have someone who checks it less often because then the chapters would never get posted!)
As always, please review - I am working on several stories at once and whichever get the most reviews are updated the soonest. Compliments, comments, ideas, suggestions, and constructive criticism are all greatly appreciated!
CONTACT: aslyinn@yahoo.com
Well, I'm finally back and working on it again. My Internet isn't connected right now, so I'll post this later and thank all of my reviewers in the next chapter.
By the way, I'm currently trading shameless plugs. If you tell me in your review that you put a plug for this in one of your stories, then I'll put up a plug for one of yours.
Obi-Wan is about 15 right now.
For the new character: yeah, he has a weird accent, and I've typed the words the way that he says them because I think that it adds to his personality. It isn't that much different, but if for some reason you have trouble figuring out something that he says, then try pronouncing the words the way that they're typed and you'll get what he's saying.
Oh, and I admit that the new character's opening line was taken from some book that I read a few weeks ago and then edited to be more Star Wars-ish. It's still funny, thought. And now, on to the story!
The planet D'renth was similar to Tatooine as far as its populace went -- any "business" conducted there tended to be either illegal or close to it. It had been a base for the Imperials during the last war, and many had not bothered to leave afterwards. The old Sith fortress had been torn down, of course, but it was considered quite common to see a Stormtrooper in full armor walking down the main street. However, D'renth did differ from Tatooine in one way. Weather. Frigid winds buffeted the whole planet yearlong, and any off-worlders caught outside in the middle of the night generally froze to death.
The wind was blowing just as fiercely as ever through a small, unnamed city only four fajhe (A/N: one fajhe is about three quarters of a mile) from the capitol, Jik'das. There were few people on the streets, and most were now rnning for shelter as clouds in a particularly sickly shade of purple formed overhead. The people dashed quickly through the cobblestone alleys, scarves held before their faces to protect them from the chill. They were looking for their houses, or bars, the only places open at this time of night. If one person had lowered their scarf slightly in passing, they would've seen the silouette of a slim figure framed in the lighted windows of the inn "The Salataria" across the street -- but it was cold, and the people were in a hurry, and no one cared to look.
Inside the Salataria, glowglobes cast a dim yellowish light over the humans and aliens huddled at the tables and around the bar. The human who had been standing next to the window slunk over to the bar, his dark brow cloak stiff with encrusted mud making him appear no more reputable than the other occupants. When he sat down on a high, plastisteel bar stool, he slumped and kept his hood up and his eyes lowered, glaring at the fake marble tabletop as if it had somehow managed to insult him. If it had been a living creature and looks really could kill, it would have been writhing in pain on the floor within seconds.
"Whaddaya want, kid?" slurred a barmaid as she came out of her drunk stupor long enough to notice him. When he did not immediately reply, she yanked off his hood and repeated her question viciously. Angry sea colored eyes surveyed her for a moment before the youth harshly said, "Corellian liquor. Blue. And make it extra strong." His eyes snapped closed as the shocked barmaid bustled off to get it.
A few minutes later, he sat sipping the electric blue liquid. The night before, he had used a permanant dye ground from a dark stone found in this region to experiment with his hair: instead of short blonde spikes fading to white, his spikes now faded to black. He'd also drawn two thin horizontal black lines across one cheek, parallel to one another. The symbol of death. It had done the job that he intended it to do; no one had messed with him. He ignored the kids and adults of this planet alike. Almost all of the adults ran one illegal business or another, and most of the kids were slaves, prostitutes, street-rats, or gang members, any of which would slit your throat without a second thought. And so everyone took the hint and ignored him as well. Until...
The boy on his left suddenly suggested that Obi-Wan's mother had done something rather unlikely with a bantha.
Obi-Wan jumped up, shattering the glass and sending the liquor splattering on the floor as he whirled to face the kid who had just insulted him. "AND YOURS WITH A WAMP RAT!!!" he bellowed, the consequences of his action clouded over by all the red that he was seeing.
The whole bar went completely silent. Obi-Wan mentally cursed at himself for being so stupid... from the reaction of the other occupants, he had just talked back to the wrong person. Great. Now he was probably going to get clobbered.
The other boy suddenly cracked up laughing, and the other people in the room relaxed and started talking again. He held his hand out, and Obi-Wan cautiously shook it.
"You've got spunk, kid. You're stupid, but you've got spunk." A pause. "I'm Kajir. And you?"
"My name belongs to a past that I do not want to remember. Just call me... Kid."
"We can't 'ave ya walkin 'round a place like dis with a name like dat. People'll think you're soft. Ya need a proper name, somethin rough-like." He snapped his fingers. "Got it! - you kin be called Tairth. We 'ad a Tairth a while ago, but then the Stormtroopers thought he waz annoyin so dey shot 'em."
Obi-Wan was not too happy about being named after a dead person, but what name he went by didn't really matter. It was just something that other people called you, after all. "That's fine. So... Kajir... what's your line of work?"
Tairth could tell that Kajir was examining him closely to see if he could be trusted. Suddenly he nodded as if in approval of what he saw. "Me 'n my mates, we 'ad a little gang. We did pick-pocketin, some other small-time thefts, but den we got into da assassin business. We're workin as mercenaries now cause da pay is better."
"So do you travel a lot, then?"
Kajir's eyes lit up. "Oh, so yur hidin from sommun! Don't want ta get caught, so yer lookin ta get as far away as possible?"
Tairth nodded curtly. It was a lie in a way, because he knew that Kajir was referring to hiding from the law. But still, he was hiding - from Qui-Gon - and he didn't want to be found.
"Me 'n my mates, we travel a good bit. We take jobs when we can find 'em, and when we can't, we got a nice little ship we've fitted up special, 'n so we be pirates till we get anutter job. It's a nice life cause ya can do what ya want, mostly. We don't get caught by da officials much, 'n we don't take sides with da Rebbies or da Imps, so dey don't bother us."
Just then, someone turned on another glow-globe, and Tairth got his first good look at Kajir. He was about nineteen or twenty years old, with naturally spiky black hair. His bangs were long enough to cast a slight shadow across his face, but not quite long enough to cover his eyes, and he had brushed them to one side. Tairth realized with a silent laught that he too had experimented with the miraculous substance known as permanant dye -- there was one section of his hair that was a deep purple, and this was on the right side at the edge of the bangs. He wore plain gray pants and a tunic that were tight enough to not get in the way in a fight but loose enough to allow for freedom of movement and the carrying of hidden weapons. Tairth's eyes, however, were trained to observe just this and so he noted that Kajir had several knives and a blaster currently on him. But even Tairth would have trouble reading his new friend's eyes, for they were so dark of a green as to be practically black. He looked, all in all, like an experienced fighter that you wouldn't want to mess with if you could possibly avoid it. A dangerous enemy, if provoked... but a powerful friend.
"So, would ya be lookin to join us?" Kajir inquired.
"And what if I am?"
"I'd need proof that you're a good fighter 'n that ya won't just be in da way. Yer heart's in da right place, kid, but I can't be babysittin ya. I don't have da time for it."
Tairth gave Kajir one of his infamous grins. "Me, having a babysitter again?" Kajir raised one eyebrow. "Thanks for the offer, Kajir -- you'd make a good babysitter -- but I'm afraid that I'll have to decline. You see, I'm not in diapers anymore and I do know how to take care of myself." With this, Tairth whipped out his lightsaber from underneath his cloak and held it (deactivated) where only Kajir could see it.
Tairth watched as Kajir's jaw dropped and practically hit the floor. "So, am I in?" he asked cheekily.
Kajir still looked like he was in shock. "Y-yah Tairth, y-you're in..."
Author's notes: Wow, that was long! I conside this chapter to be some of my best writing on FanFiction.Net so far... I hope that you enjoyed it. In the next chapter, you get to see the blue Corellian liquor take its toll ^_~
I'm looking for a Beta reader/editor, preferably someone who is already an author on here, so if you're interested and you check your email at least every other day just let me know in your review. (I can't have someone who checks it less often because then the chapters would never get posted!)
As always, please review - I am working on several stories at once and whichever get the most reviews are updated the soonest. Compliments, comments, ideas, suggestions, and constructive criticism are all greatly appreciated!
