Brother's Keeper

[Jaden Luka]

Jaden contemplated that question with more intensity than most people would. Sure, he had his own personal preferences and dislikes: he wasn't much a fan of seafood, but that didn't stop him from sampling every unfamiliar item on restaurant menus back on Dac. Some of them were actually quite pleasant, and others he could tolerate in the right flavour combinations. They might not have broken their way into his absolute favourite foods, but they were the native cuisine on Dac; the native food of another gorram planet. What was the point of being out here in space if you weren't going to eat or drink the exact same stuff you were familiar with back home?

Jaden angled himself slightly, enough to direct his question to T'yeellaa, but not so much that he seemed to be ignoring or shutting out the barkeep.

"I don't have the faintest idea," he admitted, completely jovial and at ease in his utter ignorance. "I've never sampled anything from your world before. Anything you'd suggest? Throw me in at the deep end... I've still got too much Rogue in me to stick to the easy options."

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

T'yeellaa looked a little disappointed. Any other day and the whole unofficial cultural liaison schtick would be just part and parcel of her usual role. She'd rather Jaden not get too in the weeds with trying things the Cizeri way to be any good at being a proper drinking parter, which involved 1) thorough if meandering discussions and 2) no frilly bullshit.

So no, Jaden wasn't getting Pai Leeha or Ku'an Sonaa'te. He was getting what she was getting.

"Fei." She answered for the human. The barkeep appreciated keeping it simple, and set to work on two proper old fashioned cocktails. A dropper dipped into a dark bottle, dispensing a few drips of equal measure of a darkly sanguine liquid. To that, what had all the trappings of a bottle of whisky was reached for, and a measure tilted into each tumbler. Ice was next, then a bout of brisk shaking, and straining into a pair of rocks glasses which held a single chunk of ice in each. The barkeep then reached into a jar, pulling out something that resembled strips of amphibian skin. Each was briefly singed by a blowtorch until the shiny side began to blister and crackle, and then pitched into the glass for garnish.

The barkeep slapped a napkin in front of each patron, and a glass on top of that, and moved along without a further word.

T'yeellaa took hold of her own cocktail, leveraging it towards the human.

"Cheerrss."

[Jaden Luka]

The power behind Jaden's smile fluctuated a little as he spotted the initial shift in reaction on T'yeellaa's face, but he diverted power from his motor mouth to keep it stable. Disappointed was the word for it, and regardless of his current intentions, that was not something that any attracted-to-females sentient being wanted to witness on the features of a lady. Apparently his expectations were somewhat off base: rather than being relieved to find that this human was open-minded and willing to embrace whatever aspects of her culture were placed in front of him, she seemed almost tired at the notion.

Jaden wondered if perhaps he wasn't the first; if perhaps T'yeellaa spent day in, day out confronted by humans who kept trying to be cloyingly accepting. It was an unfortunate side effect of becoming a member of the Rebel Alliance, or the Free Planets, or whatever it was they were calling themselves now: for decades now, the chief examples of humanity to the non-human elements of the galaxy at large had been the clone armies of the Republic, and the officers of the xenophobic Empire that had followed. When you joined the Alliance, it was usually out of an aversion for that prejudiced Imperial attitude, and so naturally you tried your hardest to prove to those around you that you were better than that; better than the Empire. It became a habit, a compulsion, and while it wasn't necessarily the worst institutionalised personality trait in the history of the galaxy, he supposed that perhaps it became grating after a time.

Making a note to tone down his efforts to be proactively amiable, Jaden picked up the glass that had been placed in front of him. He'd watched it being made with interest: it mostly seemed to be whiskey with stuff in, which was an alcohol choice he could get behind. The stuff momentarily gave him pause: there was something blood-like against him, and his internalised sense of cultural judgement reared it's ugly head; but he battered it down and left it subdued and unconscious in the corner. Humans were squeamish about the strangest things. They'd be perfectly content to sit there eating a steak carved out of the muscle of a bantha's backside, or sausages made from diced body parts squeezed into segments of intestine, but offer them meat from a different muscle like the tongue, or some other internal organ, and suddenly it became icky. Jaden felt the aversion often, but he never allowed it to take hold. As long as it wasn't going to kill him, or make him up-chuck his guts, he would put it in his mouth and swallow.

Jaden blinked a little at his subconscious. Phrasing.

Without giving himself another opportunity to think about anything at all, he let his cocktail glass clink against T'yeellaa's with a "Cheers," of his own, and knocked back a mouthful, letting the cocktail make it's warm and mildly coppery way across his tongue and down the back of his throat. His eyebrows immediately rose in satisfied surprise. It wasn't quite the whiskey experience he was used to - he preferred his with a little more richness and caramel in the mix - but the stuff added an interesting dash of bitter to the taste, and he wasn't hating it.

"Not bad," he said aloud, letting the glass loiter lazily in his hand rather than setting it back down on the bar. "It's not Herten Vallei from back home, but it's not bad. What did you say it was called again? My understanding of Cizeri is pretty much nil, so I didn't catch any of -" He waved his glass vaguely in the direction of where the barkeep had been. "- that."

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

Fortunately the translation was easy enough, even if the results were cryptic as ever.

"Guesss jyou'd call jit an Old Fasshjioned, that'ss the ljiterral trranslatjion. Syragor whjisskjy, bjitterrss, and charred rrjind. Don't know about the name. Guesss jit'ss been arround ssjince beforre hjyperrdrrjive to earrn jit."

T'yeellaa sipped the cocktail, picking the deep spice baseline of the blood bitters from the almost citrusy oils released by the amphibian rind. Syragor whisky was, by her small sampling of galactic whiskys, a tame medium. A mildly caramel base upon which more complex flavors stacked above and below.

Something else was bothering the K'ohta'rrou. She swirled her glass a little, watching the faint lines of melting ice make near imperceptible traces against the liquor.

"How long have jyou sserrved wjith mjy brrotherr?"

[Jaden Luka]

Jaden allowed himself another sip of the cocktail as he considered that question. "A few months?" he replied, not bothering to be any more specific because he honestly could not remember. The time patching up the Novgorod so she was fit to fly again, the weeks spent on little missions and skirmishes near the Tion border, flights from one end of the Alliance to the other, strange shift hours, no glimpse of sunlight, no vast crew to enforce a conventional day/night cycle; it had all become something of a blur. He wasn't even sure what day it was anymore; and the only reason he knew it was day at all was because the station seemed full of awake people instead of sleeping ones.

"I joined the crew just after the whole -" He caught himself, suddenly wondering just how much of her brother's career T'yeellaa was aware of, and how much she had the proper Alliance clearance to know. "- retrofit of the Novgorod thing," he continued, quickly pulling a high-g verbal evasive. He sipped at his cocktail again, hoping his efforts had gone largely undetected. "I knew him a little back while he was still working as a mechanic; he worked with Rogue Squadron for a little while back then. Didn't have the privilege of serving with him back before the Treaty. I hear he was a different man back then. He's certainly -"

Haunted? Damaged? More cynical? Less optimistic? Not the same fun-loving cat that I used to know?

"- more battle-hardened than he used to be."

Casually Jaden reached out, grabbing a handful of what he believed would be harmless bar snacks. The crunch through a chitinous exoskeleton and the soft gooey centre within quickly informed him of his mistake; fried bugs of some description, apparently. He could feel the legs trying to jam themselves between his teeth, but all in all it wasn't as terrible as he probably would have expected it would be, if he'd realised what it was he was putting in his mouth. Like meaty, batter-covered raisens. He popped a few more and chewed thoughtfully before he spoke again.

"So what about you? How'd you get from being the eldest kitten -" Oh god, was that the right term? Was that offensive? "- of one of the Pride's wealthiest woman to being the intimidatingly badass and gorgeous first officer of one of the Alliance's most important outposts? I know there are human worlds where the firstborn son joining the military is kind of a tradition; is there some sort of gender-flipped version of that in your society, or was the military something you decided to do for yourself?"

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

She was getting little glimpses. Snapshots. Bits to fill in the blank where years of living ought to have been. The way Cirrsseeto had left...it wasn't the way you could just come back. It was probably the right thing to do, but the pain was real.

T'yeellaa didn't say much. She wanted to hear everything Jaden had to say. He talked of Rogue Squadron, and her ears rose at a name she'd certainly heard. Part of it was her exposure to the nascent Alliance of recent, but even before the Treaty, the watercooler talk among Navy types was of an elite special squadron of snub fighter pilots the Rebels were using to hold the Empire at bay. And her baby brother had a hand in that success.

He's certainly...more battle-hardened than he used to be.

T'yeellaa paused mid-sip, catching Jaden's expression. It wasn't the sort of look that one would give in a state of braggadocio. His jawline tightened, and he glanced beyond her as if looking for the words. As if he'd witnessed an unpleasant shift. The K'ohta'rrou hadn't seen much combat in her career, but she'd seen some who had. At the Thalassian sieges. There was a dark implication, and if she read the human correctly, it was hovering squarely over her brother.

Before T'yeellaa could ponder that, Jaden changed tact, and the abruptness nearly threw her off. It was probably a smart move to get her off her unpleasant course of thoughts.

"Me?" she blinked, "uh..."

Another sip. A stalling tactic, really.

"...not exactljy." The understatement of the century. T'yeellaa's eyes widened a bit at that.

"jI chosse the mjiljitarrjy agajinsst the wjisshess of mjy motherr. Sshe had...otherr planss for me."

[Jaden Luka]

So she was one of those people. There was some old proverb or idiom or whatever it was you called them about people who, if you gave them an inch, they'd take a mile. Then there were the people who you could give a whole mile, and they would only take an inch. Those people were fine. But things became different when you asked for an inch. For some people, if an inch was what you asked for, you'd get a whole mile, and then some. Jaden was one of those people. He didn't see the point in being guarded. Didn't see the point in making people work for every scrap of information. In his experience, people seldom managed to phrase a question exactly how they wanted to, so odds were that if you answered only the explicit question, you weren't covering the intended bases. Better safe than sorry..

T'yeellaa though, she seemed to be of the opposite breed. Ask for a mile, and all she was willing to give was an inch. Jaden refused to allow himself to be deterred.

"I'm guessing that didn't go over well, huh?" he mused, trying to angle his way into more information via subtlety; perhaps he could trick T'yeellaa into being more open than she was typically predisposed to being. He watched intently - but casually - for any ticks and cues that she might inadvertently provide. His eyes narrowed, focusing in on glimmers that he'd been subconsciously picking up on every time mothers and family were mentioned. It was the same subtle something that he had noticed whenever Cirrsseeto was confronted with the topic of his mother as well.

"And even though you've made a name for yourself," he realised, "Purely on the back of your own ability and determination, she's still not proud. There's just no pleasing your mother."

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

He was about as accurate as laser-guided ordnance, and T'yeellaa realized that she wasn't going to suitably obfuscate things by being cryptic.

"No. No therre jissn't. jI commanded a galleon. Mjy motherr contrrolss one of the larrgesst corrporratjionss jin the galaxjy, ssjitss on the Ssenate, and jiss prrobabljy the ssecond mosst powerrful perrson jin the Prrjide. Sshe'ss worrth trrjilljionss of crredjitss, and sshe'ss gotten that farr becausse no one ssajyss no to herr."

T'yeellaa finished the last third of her drink in a punctuating swallow, setting her glass on the bar like a gavel.

"Sshe wanted me to be herr hejirr. Ssomeone capable enough sso that when sshe djied thejy would contjinue to grrow the brrand" she used the corporate buzz word cynically, "and forr me to have enough cubss to enssurre that one dajy, jI would be makjing the ssame chojice."

The K'ohta'rrou sighed, her ears buoying and lowering with ambivalence as she glanced to the barkeep long enough to let her know to top her off once again.

"The rrealljy crruel parrt jiss that jI ssusspect therre jiss a parrt of herr that jiss prroud. Not that sshe'd everr tell me, but...jI pajid mjy whole wajy thrrough the Academjy. jI put jin the worrk and made the ssacrrjifjicess. But jI'm sstjill a Meorrrei. How ssurre can jI be that jI djid jit alone? That a whjissperr jin a prrjivate rroom djidn't open a doorr jI pusshed agajinst wjith all mjy mjight."

[Jaden Luka]

"You could ask," Jaden replied with a shrug, treating himself to another sip of cocktail.

It was a stall tactic though, a way to stave off a few moments of awkward silence before he actually managed to conjure up something beneficial to say. He knew a little of what T'yeellaa was going through: not enough to even dare to mention it, but enough to realise that however bad his personal daddy issues were, they didn't compare to the kind of pressure that T'yeellaa must have felt under. His experience was a mere pittance by comparison, and yet...

"My dad wanted me to follow in his footsteps. Wasn't the second most powerful woman in the Pride or anything like that, but they were still big shoes. I grew up on Ord Cestus, and dad was a bigwig droid researcher on a planet pretty much owned by droid corporations."

He held his hands up to forestall an interruption, awkwardly bumbling the next few words. "I know, I know, that doesn't even begin to compare. The point is though that when I decided to rebel against the life he picked out for me, I started boosting speeders, going on joyrides, seeing how much trouble I could get away with before my dad gave up on trying to dig me out of it. That's how I wound up in the Stormtrooper Corps: one day my dad just gave up pulling strings, and it was either military service or jail time." He let out an ironic snort of a chuckle. "Bet they thought they were pretty damn clever duping a convicted joyrider into service as a biker scout."

The mirth faded, replaced with a slightly more somber tone.

"My solution was to test my father, but you? You didn't challenge your mother, you challenged yourself. You didn't run away from the life she had planned out: you went off and you built a whole different life for yourself. A better one. A more selfless one. One built on honour and tradition and a higher cause, not on maximising profits and whatever else it is your mother gets up to. If she feels anything aside from pride, it should be disappointment that the aspirations she dreamed up for you are so vastly inferior to what you have managed to achieve. You're a fraction of her age, and you are already one of the most important Cizerack in the Alliance of Free Planets, and while she fills her days quibbling over taxation and free healthcare in a room full of self-important morons, you fill yours with one of the most vital roles that the Alliance military currently has."

He reached for his glass, fidgeting with the stem, waiting until he finished speaking before raising it in salute.

"I just met you, and I can already tell you're damned impressive. If your mother can't bring herself to acknowledge that and be proud of you, then screw her. Screw the Pride. Screw the whole damn universe. The only person who you need to be proud of you is yourself, and you damn well should be."

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

It wasnt a solution, if there even was one to be had. But it helped. She listened to his parable, his candor, and and the anger that sounded as if it was forged from his experience in parallel. She'd been tempted to ask if he reconciled matters with his father, but like he said, that didn't matter. Maybe it wasn't up to the children to make that first step.

T'yeellaa laughed a bit as she reached for her now-refreshed drink.

"jI'm sstjill gettjing ussed to a man talkjing ljike jyou do. jI thjink jif jyou werre a woman, jI jusst mjight tell jyou jyou'rre full of jit. Majybe jI let mjy guarrd down forr a handssome face."

Which in itself was symbolic of the mountain she had yet to climb to ascend to the summit of Jovan.

[Jaden Luka]

Jaden wasn't sure how he felt about being thought of as a woman - mostly because that raised all kinds of questions about how pretty a woman T'yeellaa thought he would be, and how large his imaginary breasts were - but handsome face? Well now.

He adjusted his expression into the most charming smile he could muster.

"Most men don't talk like me," he admitted, enjoying another swig of his cocktail, draining the glass and setting it back down on the bar in the hopes that it would be refilled the way T'yeellaa's had. "Most humans don't, in fact, and that's utter nerfshit if you ask me. Everyone's too busy fumbling around their social airs and graces, putting all that emotional energy into powering the shields that keep people away. People spend so much time evading and manoeuvring, it's a wonder anyone gets anything done."

He shrugged, his eyes studying the Cizerack's features, wondering just how much of what he was trying to convey was sinking in, and how much clashed horribly with the way that her society had taught her to think and be.

"I guess some people can't help it. Some people feel like they're a Y-Wing stuck in a trench run, relying on shields and armour as they slowly make their way towards the objective, any deviation from that course resulting in fire and explosions and death. Me? Not surprisingly, I'm more of an A-Wing kind of guy. Ain't got much in the way of shields, but if I see an opportunity I'm gonna hit the thrusters and try and intercept; and if I miss, I just haul back on the stick and aim myself at another."

He threw a nod in the direction of the barkeep who'd recharged his glass. "Pretty easy on the eyes too," he added, with a mischievous twitch of his eyebrows over the rim of the glass as he permitted himself another sip. "By human standards, at least."

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

"Sso jI'm fjindjing out." T'yeellaa admitted with a bit of surprise on her expression. "jI've been herre a month and alrreadjy jI've caught a ljittle Syragor feverr."

The look on Jaden's face signaled to T'yeellaa that he was preparing for a mighty leap on his jump to conclusions mat, no-doubt thinking she'd picked up some rare breed of social disease. The K'ohta'rrou swallowed a laugh that simply left an amused smile on her face.

"Kosa...jI mean, jI've been sseejing a human, and that'ss compljicated. jI'm sstjill learrnjing the rruless. jI guesss that pegss me asss the Y-Wjing tjype."

[Jaden Luka]

Syragor fever? A phantom itch erupted from Jaden's groin; one he tried very hard not to fidget or react to. He'd been discerning enough - or perhaps lucky enough - to never catch anything of that sort during his various attempts at horizontal diplomacy with members of other species, but there was a frightening moment when he almost had. Fortunately - or perhaps unfortunately - he'd wound up discovering that he was mildly allergic to one of the compounds that Nautolians secreted from their skin, and, well... suffice it to say that it had been an uncomfortable few weeks until the rash had finally cleared up.

Mild relief came as Jaden realised this Syragor fever was metaphorical rather than literal, but it brought with it a wave of distraction as Jaden began to wonder whether or not he was allergic to cats. It seemed like something worthy of experimentation, but now hardly seemed like the right moment to proposition field trials.

Instead Jaden frowned, pondering the admission that T'yeellaa had made. Still learning the rules. Life was annoying that way - whether it was work, or love, or simply minding your own business and trying to stay out of everyone's way, there were always frustrating and complicated rules that no one ever bothered to brief you on. Life was a series of infractions, blundering along from moment to moment trying to make sure that any rules you bumped into only wound up bent, rather than broken.

"The thing about Y-Wings," Jaden eventually spoke, trying his best to keep the metaphor intact, "Is that you're meant to have a gunner watching your back. Trying to trench run in a Y-Wing without a copilot is a recipe for fiery destruction, unless you find a way to trust someone enough to let them in."

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

Jaden Luka was a man doggedly determined to ride a metaphor into the ground, and his hell-bent insistence on maintaining course was threatening to make T'yeellaa laugh, which she barely covered behind her glass.

"jYess, jI'm famjilljiarr wjith the concept, but jI thjink jyou'll fjind the prreferred chojice of crraft forr mosst Cizerack jiss a Keerta grrapplerr. Jusst asss cautjiouss asss the Y-wjing, but sspace forr morre than one man."

Which put T'yeellaa on a dangerously flirtatious path. Not that Quentin Samus Dage had anything to worry about. She hadn't flown with a copilot in years. The thought of the proverbial Keerta alone might cause the whole thought exercise to burst into flames.

"Jaa'eih neehaissee kaa'u gai'forrda'lo T'yeellaa ssa'i?"

A brunette-haired Cizerack mingling a few spaces down addressed the K'ohta'rrou, who half turned with an amused expression on her face.

"A'e daa! Si'ruu'a ataannee ti kosa ne."

That brought a bit of disbelief to T'yeellaa's acquaintance, who perked her ears.

"Ti saa ne? Sei kataali sa rrou-rrou!"

T'yeellaa rolled her eyes as she gave a dismissive wave.

"Da waa. Ja irra Seellaa."

Returning back to Jaden's more-present company, T'yeellaa just shook her head.

[Jaden Luka]

There were times when Jaden thought about acquiring a protocol droid. Not because he wanted some glorified robotic annoyance following him around or anything. Most protocol droids he couldn't stand for more than a few seconds at a time. Hack off the legs though, stuff it in a cupboard, and maintain a perpetually open comlink so that they could translate alien languages in bars? Yeah, there were times where that could be pretty damn useful.

"Are you seeing anyone?"

The idle question tumbled out without Jaden really even realising it was being spoken, his mind too distracted by trying to casually peer past T'yeellaa and work out what the linguistically impenetrable exchange of words had been about. With lack of evidence to the contrary, Jaden decided to assume that it was some Cizerack equivalent of where'd you find the cute guy? followed by T'yeellaa's dismissive back off bitch, he's with me.

Not that Jaden had any particular desire for T'yeellaa to be protective of him in that sort of way; but it was a notion that Jaden found mildly satisfying. There was no denying that the Empire especially was a decidedly patriarchal place, and Jaden knew that growing up in that kind of surroundings had imprinted on his psyche. While sure, he was your typical fighter pilot, and liked to cash in on his charm and heroics to ensnare the company of a beautiful woman every now and again, he liked to think that he wasn't too much of a sexist ass about it. He was never really sure though, male privilege and all that; but here in the company of matriarchal Cizerack, he had the rare opportunity to wear that shoe on the other foot. All the traits that Jaden had learned to think of as chivalrous and gentlemanly; how did it feel being on the receiving end? Was it as flattering as Jaden hoped, or was it a frustrating exercise in oppression and suppression that made you feel anything but the kind of special that was intended?

That wandering tangent finally faded out enough for Jaden to realise what he'd said. He made sure to keep glancing at other patrons of the bar, at drinks being served, at bottles he couldn't read, just to emphasise how casual and innocent the question was supposed to be.

"Romantically, I mean."

That didn't sound great. He backpeddled a little. "An, uh, exclusive copilot, I guess. A husband waiting for you back in the Cluster? Husbands?"