Finally A Drink...or Three [Pre-Game]

[Jyrvess Ertil]

Jyrvess took a seat at the bar and ordered a drink. She knew that was dumb of her, given a dwindling money supply. But it had been an odd day and something to take the edge off would help.

"That all?" The server asked and then turned to disappear after Jyrvess nodded.

"Yeah...that's all." She sighed and took the first sip.

[Tranq Sayzin]

The door hissed open, the dim lighting from the street washing in as a large figure stood in the door way. Stepping in as it hissed closed, the karkarodon slowly strode in. Everything about his posture, the way he moved, screamed of a predator on the hunt. Single minded determination as he moved towards the bar.

He didn't sit, both hands on the bartop. When he finally spoke, the powerful jaws were emphasized by the rows of too sharp and too many teeth.

"Any leads on any bounties?" His voice was low, with that subsonic frequency that spoke of monsters in the dark.

[Fuff]

Fuff skipped a beat at the sharkman's entree, but then swiftly returned to the song he was performing. His voice lacked his usual ease though, and he wasn't entirely able to hide it, though only regulars would know the difference.

"...I was just guessing at numbers and figures
Pulling your puzzles apart
Questions of science, science and progress
Do not speak as loud as my heart..."

[Jyrvess Ertil]

Jyvress had noticed the arrival of the powerful predator, but hadn't thought much of it. He wasn't the most terrifying thing she had seen in her life and it wasn't like she was all that visible to begin with. Just one more barfly in the watering hole. She jumped a little when his hands took the bar space next to her. But it was probably a reaction the karkardon was used to. Calmly she raised her glass back up to her lips. It got about halfway there when.....

"Any leads on any bounties?" had come rumbling to her ears. She froze the glass but a few inches from her lips. Jyvress didn't turn to look, her eyes were fixed on the stage. Slowly she brought the glass up the rest of the way to take a sip and then sat it back down, laying one hand on the other to hide a small tremor.

[Tranq Sayzin]

"The kind put out for real scum. Not the kind put out by two bit petty thugs trying to extort their own losses." He continued without missing a beat. His fingers splayed out on the counter, the webbing between each finger stopping just before the first knuckle of each digit.

The bartender shook their head, without any sense of nervousness, wiping the counter before the Karkarodon. Tranq nodded, then looked at the offerings.

"Corellian Brandy, Ex Oh if you have any." He saw a bottle but doubted it would be anything as refined as extra old.

He was used to the unease he could put in others. Even as a youngling... back before it, it appeared in his classmates. There weren't many in the Temple from Karkaris.

How many were even left altogether?

The Light had bern snuffed out in one swify stroke. He had been lucky to finally get the message that had been left by Master Kenobi.

"Unless you've been hurting innocents," he spoke up, without looking to the woman to his side who had stopped drinking just long enough when he asked his question, "you've got nothing to fear."

[Jyrvess Ertil]

Hurting innocents. There was an irony there, though its not like one could simply discern it. That she had refused to keep doing such was why her head carried a price, or one of the reasons. Still the words hard sparked pangs of guilt and regret.

She moved her hands apart and set them flat on the bar, her voice was soft so as not to carry. "My experience with Bounty Hunters says otherwise. Even the ones who claim nobility are all too often willing to take whatever comes there way if they go long enough without a meal."

Jyvress turned to look at the Karkardon, she kept a brave front but the fear was there behind her eyes.

[Tranq Sayzin]

"Fair enough." He didn't argue to discredit her statement. Even if he didn't let the ideals, the very reason for doing what he did, fall, others would. Other Hunters held less scruples.

"But your face doesn't seem familiar from any listing. and we'll go ahead and say I'm off the clock." There was a darkness to his chuckle. "And I'm sure a place like this will have plenty of other work."

[Jyrvess Ertil]

Jyvress relaxes a fraction, her expression more weary now. "I suppose that is enough assurance for now." She returned to her drink. "I would have thought most of the real scum would have fled after the Imperials showed up." A hint of bitterness crossed her face at the last statement. She didn't add or started working for them. But the thought crossed her mind.

She took another sip of her drink, the shaking had mostly stopped. "Maybe whatever price was on me has fallen off." Jyvress couldn't stop the hysterical laughter of the that thought from escaping. She did at least manage to reduce it to a nervous 'Eh he he he'. And of course took a moment to look over her shoulder at the other patrons.

[Fuff]

"Nobody said it was easy
It's such a shame for us to part
Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be this hard
Oh, take me back to the start..."

...was the ambient, perhaps entirely unintended commentary coming from the small stage with the Farghul's vocal.

[Tranq Sayzin]

Jyvress relaxes a fraction, her expression more weary now. "I suppose that is enough assurance for now." She returned to her drink. "I would have thought most of the real scum would have fled after the Imperials showed up." A hint of bitterness crossed her face at the last statement. She didn't add or started working for them. But the thought crossed her mind.

She took another sip of her drink, the shaking had mostly stopped. "Maybe whatever price was on me has fallen off." Jyvress couldn't stop the hysterical laughter of the that thought from escaping. She did at least manage to reduce it to a nervous 'Eh he he he'. And of course took a moment to look over her shoulder at the other patrons.

He chuckled as the drink he ordered arrived. It most definitely was not top shelf quality, but it was hard to complain when there are other issues plagueing the Galaxy.

"Maybe. It's good for you, though. I certainly won't go looking to double check. Plenty of other opportunities to solve that require attention." His grin was disturbing to most, all those teeth just gleaming in the dim light of the bar.

[Jyrvess Ertil]

Jyvress eyed him weary, but curious. "Such as?" She flinches after asking, "I mean...if I may ask."

Her drink was about half-full right now, and probably taking effect...especially since her heart was still racing from the adrenaline surge a moment ago. Then of course she remembered he was asking for a job to begin with and stammered out a, "...er...I mean what sort of opportunities do you look for."

[Tranq Sayzin]

"The kind that brings true justice." The word was enunciated clearly, even with the dark tenor of a deep sea predator. "Beings who have gone too long without righteousness being brought upon them for their vile deeds." His voice went cold, that surgically precise hate flowing through his words.

At the top of that list, was the Empire. He wouldn't say ye enjoyed killing. But taking vengeance against any of their ilk?

There was a little fun to be had there.

[Jyrvess Ertil]

"True justice." Jyvress pushes her drink with a finger, watching the liquid within, "How does one define that? If a man steals to fed himself is it justice to throw him in jail? The regime would say it is....the new and many in the old. Is it something the individual determines, the society, or some higher power?"

[Tranq Sayzin]

"Law and Order is not Justice." He responded with a practiced calm. "The society that put a man in a position to have to steal to feed their family? That is what kust be punished. Not the man." The Karkarodon drank down the cheap brandy, his mouth twisted into an odd rictus before returning to normal.

"The Galaxy defines what is justice. There is no middle ground. Even as the Empire looks to change and destroy what that definition was."

[Jyrvess Ertil]

"Dangerous sentiments these days," Jyrvess takes a sip of her drink, still visibly nervous. Perhaps even more so now with the karakarodon's agitation, "Forgive my bluntness....most of the Justice I have seen was the sort the strong have for the weak." She swirls her glass again, "Even the Republic engaged in it at times, though they at least cared enough to worry about how that looked..." And the nobler ideals were there at the core, she thinks.

"I'm curious how the Galaxy, a collection of stars and rocks, defines something as...well shapeless as justice."