2 - Surprise, My Ship's Been Stolen
"Well, frack. He hung up."
Havyn narrows her eyes at the now-deactivated holoprojector; trying in vain to fry the device with nothing but the sheer force of her ire alone. No dice. Her eyes snap up to the sky, back to the holoprojector, and then the sky again.
There'll be hell to pay, that much is obvious. Corso can almost swear that she is mentally retracing the trajectory of her stolen ship; silently attempting to pin Skavak with one of those unsettling, 'Mark my words, I will get you' glares even across the parsecs of hyperspace dividing them.
The woman takes a deep breath and just holds it for a moment; shoulders tensed, fists clenched, mouth twisted into a snarl. "Frack," she breathes to herself once more. It's as if the truth has finally dawned on her: everything, her entire life, has just been stolen in the blink of an eye. She let her guard slip, and just as she had feared, some kriffing di'kut saw the hole in her barriers and took the opportunity for everything it was worth.
Her smuggling contacts. Her credits. Her clothes, her belongings, her blasters. Her home. All of it is gone, and the only thing she can do it gawk up through the clouds of dust that are still lingering in the air from Skavak's escape.
When your entire ship gets stolen out from under your nose, there's either something wrong with your skills, or there's something wrong with your world.
And there was nothing wrong with her skills.
She looks down at her hands in dismay. This feeling of anxiety, of being...trapped, with no escape...it is seeping into her gut and seems to be spiking with every labored breath she takes. Is this what helplessness feels like?
This wouldn't do. This would not karking do at all. She reaches inward - searching, searching - until she can grasp at the cloying bit of emotion that is quietly mewling for her attention. Then she twists, and twists, and twists, until at long last she feels the tight coil snap away into nothingness. Havyn Xylone is many things, but she is not a damsel in distress. She will not allow herself to sit in the dust for much longer. She will not accept defeat.
And she most certainly does not roll over like a helpless kath hound pup and let some schutta fly off with her ship.
"Frack. Frack, frack, frack, frackety kriffing frack!" she snarls, her voice growing progressively louder until the docking bay is practically echoing with the staccato sounds of her cursing. Suddenly her body is pivoting around, fueled by the smooth, raw energy of her rage. "That di'kut'la moron does not know what's coming to him!"
She takes one breath, then another, her shoulders heaving with rage. Quickly she scrambles to find her center, forcing the anger down under her control before it breaks loose for good. Cool, calm…no. The rage still bubbled somewhere beneath the surface, but it was trapped for now; a tool for her to use, instead of the other way around. And then, almost as if someone has flipped a switch, her expression evens out and it fully melts away to give room to that low, sly tone she first spoke with.
She thoughtfully taps an index finger against her lips. "Of course, there's the teensy problem of how to start hunting that little bugger down. And credits. Can't forget those. Oh, and blasters. Clothes...those are important too." Havyn huffs an impatient breath, "You know what, why don't I just make a list of how utterly fracked I am and let's call it a day?"
Even though she had technically been ranting to the man in front of her for the last five minutes, she suddenly looks at him as if she had only just now realized he was standing there.
The hurt and betrayal in his eyes are visible. Faintly, she can hear it echo in the Force as well. It's a muted pulse radiating out from him; a steady beat of forlornness and anxiety silently being broadcast out to an unfeeling world.
"Hey, you," she nods her head at him. Her voice isn't angry, or sly, or smooth. It's low, raspy, and real. "About your stolen blaster. I'm sorry. That's a tough break." She shoves her hands into the pockets of her green leatheris jacket and stretches her shoulders in a quick circular movement. The bits of metal adorning her clothes all clink together like wind chimes. "Look, I better go. If that guy really was an undercover agent, I'm gonna have my work cut out for me if I'll be hunting him down anytime soon. I guess I'll see you around, yeah?"
He can't believe his eyes. She'd just taken a colossal hit, and yet she was already limping away to find another way to fight back.
There's no way he can let her walk away empty-handed. He's got to be able to give her something. Something that she could use to get back on her feet. Credits, a blaster, anything.
"Wait," he calls out to her. "He took my best blaster, but that's nothing like losing a whole starship. I feel for ya, Captain, I really do. Let me help you out."
She reels around, her face letting a tiny hint of surprise shine through. It twists into an agitated frown and she says slowly, carefully, "I didn't ask for help."
She's wounded – he can tell from the pained look in her narrowed, feral yellow eyes – and it's obvious she would rather die than trust anyone at the moment. But he has to try.
"Come on, don't be like that. Just listen." So he tells her about his boss Viidu anyway; gives her a lead, promises to send a holo ahead, and finally hands her a datapad with a map to FortGarnik.
Havyn's eyes go wide and her grip slackens around the old, smuggled blaster pistol in her hand. Still, she does not protest. He takes the opportunity to remove the blaster from her hand and press the handle of his spare blaster into her palm, once again cutting off the impending protest with an affirmation that they're both in the same boat now.
When he finishes, there is cunning in her eyes again. She wears a hooded smile as she spins the new blaster 'round her index finger and puts it in the holster at her side. "Well, why not?" she shrugs. "Better than the plan I had."
"What plan?"
"Exactly."
This time when she leaves, her gait is loud and echoing. Once again she dominates the room with her sense of purpose.
Because while she was completely lost before, now – oh, now – she has a lead.
As she disappears out the side door in a fading visage of black hair and green leatheris, he can't help but think that he's set something great in motion.
A/N: More character detail! And because I have no comment right now, other than, "I'm sure some of you must be wondering about Havyn's rather...eccentric personality," I'll just tell you some more things about her:
- Havyn is a failed Jedi Healer's apprentice who grew up on Tython, and was later booted out of the Jedi Order for various reasons...temper, sarcasm, and predisposition to blaster fights included.She still retains passive empath abilities, which allow her to sense other people's emotions and character. Because she has a hard time defining what she senses, she often just assigns a color to describe each specific feeling. Red is anger, green is greed/envy, blue is sadness, silver is valor, et cetera.
- She is a direct descendant of Darth Revan - in this case, Xana Dakari from my SwKOTOR stories - hence the cynicism and Sith-yellow eyes. Even though she admits to an unholy love of credits, she still triesto make people's lives better as a sort of penance for her darksided ancestry, attempting to prove that she's not like them.
- Havyn gets a kick out of appearing to be cunning and enigmatic; at times she can easily outsmart bounty hunters twice her size, other times she will slink off to a dark corner so that no one will see that she's at a loss for ideas. For someone whose ideal is 'sly and mysterious', however, she talks a lot to whoever will listen (which is pretty much always Corso). And I mean she talks a LOT.
- She is apparently a fan of Battlestar Galactica, or the SwTOR universe's equivalent, considering how much she likes the word "frack".
- Her ship is called Tempest, and yes, that is a play on words because her last name sounds like "Cyclone".
A big shoutout to writtenrhythm for beta reading this series! She's been a huge help in teaching me how to do detailed, poetic inner monologues. I've not quite mastered it yet, but I'm slowly getting there. :)
Review time! How are you guys liking Havyn so far?