Self Medication / Self Destruction

[Untaaura Verratoa]

Station Time: 0140 hours.

Draver's Tavern was the closest to out of the way that the concourse offered. It wasn't ritzy like the Shatterstar Lounge, it didn't draw in Cizeri with neon glyph signage. It barely announced itself at all. A modest placard over the doorway led into a dim interior where at most twenty people could crowd around a bar or the pair of tables next to the dejarik board. In short, it was an excellent place for someone who just wanted to drink, without the expectation of having to do much else. The small hours of the morning helped make it even more intimate.

Untaaura stared blankly into the bottle of Freeithaahee on the counter next to her drink. It was half full, and she'd done most of the damage to it. The bartender at least knew that it paid to stock Cizeri liquor, and didn't mind someone buying him out of the rest of the bottle on the shelf. The sweet, potent red liquor laced along the edges of her glass where she'd regularly tipped it to her lips. The same red liquor stained the butt of her cigarette. She drew on it until the tip glowed bright, then tidily shaved the ash away on the edge of her ash tray.

She felt numb. Mentally. Emotionally. Numb. Given the day's events, that's exactly what she wanted to feel. The jukebox at the back of the room was playing a song in an alien language she didn't understand, but the mood of it felt completely impactful.

Untaaura could feel the bartender's eyes on her. He was a Rodian, so she supposed that feeling could've been amplified by biology. In any case, he didn't try to force things by starting a conversation. Instead, he tended to cleaning glasses.

She took another drink. With luck, she'd just be able to keep her course, return to her billet and black out. The thought of waiting on sleep in the still of the station's night filled her with dread.

[Zwane Nkosi]

"Rough night?"

Tapping out his cigarette over the ash tray, he returned it to his long mouth, took a drag, and blew the smoke out his large nostrils. Normally he wasn't the kind that spoke so much as a word at this time of night, but he had watched the small Cizerack for the last several hours slowly digging through that bottle with a look on her face that he'd seen before in a lot of hangar bays. He could tell she was a soldier. Probably one of those fancy Cizerack Marines that ran a large part of the security on Jovan. Between the nicked ear, the facial scars, and the thousand yard stare there could be no other answer.

He guessed there was a sense of comraderie there, even if they were from different races, governments, and branches of the military. All Zane knew was that when he looked up from the pyramid of empty shot glasses and patch of ash he was growing on the counter in front of him, that the look on her face snapped him out of his own daze long enough to focus on more than his own absolute disgust with himself.

Tapping sharply on the counter he caught the bartenders attention and in short order a full shotglass was placed on the counter beside all it's empty brothers and sisters. Grabbing at the half-empty pack of Black Bothans he plucked another cigarette out and set it on top of the pack, ready for when the one in his mouth met it's imminent end.

[Untaaura Verratoa]

She heard a voice to her right. The voice came in woolen and muffled, not fully forming words in her half-deafened right ear. The sound was at least enough to cause Untaaura to turn her eyes in the voice's direction, finding an enormous alien seated down the bar, fixing her with what seemed to be an expectant expression. Her leaden eyes blinked, unchanging the expression on her face.

"Ssorrjy, jI djidn't hearr jyou."

The big guy looked familiar. Familiar enough that he wasn't a passing traveler. She was sure she'd seen him in the gym before, playing grab-ass with one of the damned Nehantites infesting Jovan.

[Zwane Nkosi]

An overkill of a drag finished off the last of the cig, which was smashed into the ashen graveyard beside all those who came before.

"I am saying, rough night? You are having the look of seeing ghosts."

His voice was cracking and his Thakwaashi accent was spilling out between poorly pronounced words and mixed cultural syntax. Sticking the prepared cig into his mouth he cupped his hand out of habit and lit the tip up before exhaling a fresh cloud of smoke. Black Bothans had a rough start on them, which he immediately washed away with the shot of... Zukuulan Fire Rum? Damn. He really needed to stop asking Nito to pour him random shots. Save that sweet shit for teenage girls out for their first drink. Zane didn't even like cinnamon. He gave the Rodian a dirty look, but the little bug eyed creep only shrugged his shoulders and walked away.

[Untaaura Verratoa]

Untaurra laughed, in that the corners of her mouth turned up slightly when she she exhaled raggedly. It wasn't an expression that met her eyes, and was more the laugh of someone compelled to think about something absurd against their will.

"Ghosstss? Heh. jYeah. Guesss sso."

Commiseration was dangerous. Sharing was deadly. It was much safer to swallow it down and shut down anything that thought too long or felt too much. But that wasn't ever so easy. Solitude could kill just as easily. So Untaaura perched on the ledge of her own making, taking utilitarian draws from her cigarette.

"Wherre do jI know jyou frrom?"

[Zwane Nkosi]

Green Squadron statue in Crynyd Square. Display in the Battle for Endor wing of the Hall of Heroes on Dac. Holos of him shaking hands with various dignitaries and Alliance celebrities? Nah. She didn't seem the type to care about that sort of thing. Quite frankly, he didn't give two shits about all that pageantry anymore. It'd always just been going through the motions, of being celebrated for something he did not really feel his achieved himself. Even then, half the time they just wanted to use him as a vehicle to celebrate Crynyd's "noble sacrifice". It had been like watching a corpse be paraded through town.

"Probably seen me 'round the station. Titan Squadron. You a marine?"

[Untaaura Verratoa]

She nodded affirmative, a tidy motion of her head punctuated by tucking her cigarette back between her lips.

"Mjy good lookss gjive jit awajy?"

No need pulling rank here, and she didn't want to in the first place. Being able to hang up her Major's bars through the butt end of the night felt like taking a four day rucksack off her shoulders. No, it was enough to be a Marine and leave it at that.

"Name's Untaaura."

The Marine pivoted on her stool so that she faced Zwane fully. That was mainly to give her good ear a better chance to pick up the conversation. She was hardly the best at figuring out what species each alien was, but Untaaura was certain that whoever this guy was, he was the only one of whatever he was that she'd ever seen. Whatever he was, her first estimation was that he was wasted in a cockpit. Big thing like that was built to hump a pack and carry a rifle.

[Zwane Nkosi]

"It's that look in your eye. That thousand yard stare. The drinking like you want to die. Yeah, those scars too. That's what soldiers look like. Well, soldiers who have lost a lot, at least."

The sound of cut-off screams and sudden crackling dead space over comms. Those hauntingly beautiful plumes of fire lighting up the dead of space. Frozen corpses twisting in the icy void. He stopped counting a long time ago, and instead inscribed them into a secret journal. He could not bring himself to add up all those tally marks, all those names and faces.

And that was not even what brought him and drove him to the bottle and the pill. He had a different breed of skeleton all together in his closet. Dead crewmen were just the ghosts that slipped out of the cracks in the door.

"I'm Zane." He said at last, following a very prolonged pull from his cigarette, his name escaping with the smoke as it hissed from between his big, blocky teeth.

[Untaaura Verratoa]

At his estimation of her, Untaaura did laugh, perching her cigarette on the ashtray as she did.

"jYou'rre one morrosse forrda, Zane."

The laugh lines eased, and she regarded the blood red liquor in her glass, tilting it so the strappy liquid clung in ribbons.

"What arre jyou anjywajyss? jI've neverr sseen one of jyourr kjind."

[Zwane Nkosi]

"Thakwaash."

It was a response he was used to. Most had never seen a Thakwaashi, and he could understand why a 2.5 meter equinoid would stand out to people. There were not a lot of equally tall species about, not on Jovan at least. Spaces like this were hardly made for creatures his size, and most were smart enough to stay on the ground. Hell, when he thought about other big creatures only one jumped to mind; Gradoona. But she navigated the space with a sort of saucy grace that he found mesmerizing. How did someone so large in so small a space move with such confidence?

"Not a lot of us ever travel off world. Most Thakwaashi find interactions with single-minded species difficult. Not me..." He took a long hit off his cigarette, almost ashing it up to the filter. "...I find them much more agreeable than my own people."

[Untaaura Verratoa]

"jI can get behjind that." Untaaura gave a single nod in sage agreement, opting to sip from her glass instead of upend it.

"Trravel hass a wajy of knockjing down wallss. Therre'ss too much jin the galaxjy that jyou'll neverr underrsstand untjil jyou ssee jit jyourrsself. All thjiss..."

She gestured left and right idly with her half-full glass.

"Thjiss jiss asss farr frrom home asss mosst of mjy people wjill everr go, orr everr want to. Ssurre, therre'ss the trrade mjisssjionss, but mosst Cizeri? Thejy don't want what'ss bejyond the clussterr orr thejy don't carre what jit mjight be."

[Zwane Nkosi]

"You ever stop and think that maybe we've traveled too much; seen too much?"

Zane posited the question out there in the stale, smokey air; releasing a long held thought that he had, and until now had really lacked the kind of person he felt could answer the question. The others in his wing, some of them were experienced and had participated in a lot of battles throughout the Civil War and subsequent Cold War, but none of them had a service record that even came close to his own. He was the old man on the team, after all. This Cizerack soldier on the other hand definitely looked like she had seen some shit.

Functioning people don't end up in dive bars at this unholy hour.

"I've flown from one side of this galaxy to the other. I've seen a lot of beautiful places, but I've also seen a lot of terrible things. I don't think the first outweighs the second. If I could forget all those places, I would. Maybe sticking it out at home and not leaving your system is for the best. In the end."

[Untaaura Verratoa]

Untaaura gave Zane a hard-eyed stare for a moment, breaking the moment to draw the last of her cigarette, which she then gaveled into the ashtray.

"No ssensse thjinkjing about that. We've done what we've done. We've sseen what we've sseen. jYou ejitherr can't hack jit, orr jyou learrn to ljive. Fjind ssome goodnesss and meanjing to whjy jyou'rre herre."

Which, she admitted to herself, sounded easier than it was.

"Wherre'd jyou fljy, forrda?"

[Zwane Nkosi]

"Endor."

"Can't Hack It" would be the title of his autobiography, but sadly there wouldn't be anything in there worth reading. He bridge his personalities like the rest of his people, couldn't manage his acting career, wasn't capable of building and maintaining relationships, and couldn't even fly worth a damn if it wasn't for what felt like a completely different person living in his goddamn head that was good at everything and was responsible for any accolades or accomplishments that were pinned to his name.

Goddammit, this was not where he wanted to find himself tonight. The fire needed to be quenched.

"Nito, Kentuulan Derbanyan. No ice."

The bartender disappeared under the counter to root for the Thakwaashi liquor. This regular stuff was not going to do it for him anymore. He needed the real stuff.

[Untaaura Verratoa]

"Mm."

It wasn't a game of brinksmanship, so Untaaura didn't even feign it. Endor was the kind of battle that everyone from one end of the galaxy to the other had heard of. Wasn't a battle like it before. Might not be one like it after.

"Herre."

Before the bartender could retrieve the bottle, Untaaura slid her own down to the alien. The red liquor sloshed against the glass, leaving retreating residue that hinted to a slight viscosity. He could take his share from her bottle, or warm up to his more familiar custom. It didn't matter to her.

"jItss been what, eleven jyearrss ssjince Endorr? jI fjigurred the Alljiance would've made jyou a Generral bjy the ssecond jyearr. That'ss how jit goess, rrjight?"

[Zwane Nkosi]

"It's not blood, is it?"

Turning the bottle over he tried to determine the nature of the liquor inside. The label was in Cizeri. A cautionary sniff of the mouth revealed cloying, sweet tones.

He wasn't about to reject a bucket of water while his soul burned. Tipping the bottle's contents out into one of his many empty cups he poured himself a reserved amount of the mysterious liquor.

It was like pouring water on the fire. He didn't even taste it until the smoke billowed up from below. The walls retreated and he felt like he could breath again. Sweet. Too sweet.

"They tried. Like hell did they try. But that's not for me. Not yet. Maybe when I get too old for the cockpit."

Zane didn't want to think about it, but that was a point that was rapidly approaching. His coat was going gray and squishing into a cockpit was getting harder every day.

"We can't all stay young forever."

[Untaaura Verratoa]

Untaaura downed the rest of her glass in fellowship with the veteran pilot. She eased the tumbler down again, watching the residual traces wick back down to the bottom.

"A ljifetjime ago, jI wanted to be a wrrjiterr."

The marine chewed at her lower lip in a half-hearted attempt to stow the loose talk. She didn't know this alien. She didn't want to. But the alcohol had worn down her armor of silence to where words came out.

"jI wass jin unjiverrssjitjy, hungrrjy forr ssomethjing meanjingful to ssajy when sso few people jI knew ssajid anjythjing worrth ljisstenjing to. And jI thought - jI'm a gjirrl frrom a ssleepjy vjillage jin the mountajinss who could onljy ssee acrrosss the vallejy. jI'd rread authorrss who'd ljived among the hjighss and lowss of ljife to jitss ljimjit, and jI wonderred what sset them jin a worrld sso aparrt frrom mjine."

Her brow furrowed slightly as she labored through her thoughts.

"Therre'ss wantjing to know, then therre'ss rreachjing out and touchjing the trruth of the thjing, lajyjing jyourr handss on jit jin the flessh. Then jyou pass thrrough the lookjing glasss agajin, and sspend anotherr ljifetjime trrjyjing to fjind the worrdss to explajin."

The Cizeri let out a sigh, and rummaged into her pocket for her cigarettes.

"jI sstjill don't have them. Sso jI'm herre untjil jI do."

[Zwane Nkosi]

Her beautiful way of speaking silence him in the moment. There was a thoughtful exploration nestled in with pain and uncertainty. It mirrored his own, and yet so much better articulated. There was a catharsis to be found in the dark commiseration of regrets and fears. He was uncertain from which the healing came; from sharing the burden of a kindred soul or from the revealing the scars on your soul for others to see. It was like cutting into yourself and letting everything slough off to reveal your true existence that you keep hidden from those who just would not understand. Not that they lacked compassion. They lacked the experience that would allow them to relate.

"That was very poignant. You've got a way with words. Sounds like your on your way."

Seeing her padding down her pockets he grabbed his half-empty pack and slid it down the bar top, pointing the opening toward her and leaving it there as an open invitation before going back to take a drag from his own.

"I'm stuck feeling like I don't belong here, that I haven't earned any of this. That I'm just, I don't know, faking it until I make it. Feels like I've been doing that my whole life. I feel like I'm taking all the credit for something somebody else did. When I try anything else I fail miserably and always end up back here again. I tried to go back to acting, like I did before the war. Turns out I'm not very good at it. If that isn't fucking hilarious I don't know what is. Spend every day feeling like I'm pretending but I can't make it convincing when a holocam is rolling."

[Untaaura Verratoa]

She wasn't trying to turn an artful phrase, so the compliment got treated with a wary expression, until Zwane copped up with a pack of smokes. That forgave a lot of things.

"Thankss."

Untaaura sparked up again, drawing in deep and exhaling sharp, as if to jump-start her wandering mind.

"Frrom what jI hearrd, fljyjing forr the Rrebelljion djidn't offerr a good chance at a long ljife. jYou'rre herre, jyou earrned that."

She half grinned, but it ebbed as she stared across the bar into the void between shelves full of half empty bottles.

"But jI get the otherr parrt. Not knowjing what to do afterrwarrd. Trrjyjing to fjnd meanjing jin the ljivjing, and all the whjile the besst thjing jyou'rre good at jiss kjilljing."

A faint tremor picked up in Untaaura's left hand, until she reached for her glass. It was gone in a moment. Her brow knit a little.

"Djid jyou everr land anjy worrk asss an actorr?"

[Zwane Nkosi]

"Just commercials. Some extras roles. Thakwaash has a strong theater tradition. If you can't cut it on the stage you really don't have much of a future. There's this thing, called an Umbhiyozo where one actor does an entire play. You've got to be able to switch between all the characters and play each one flawlessly. I couldn't manage it. I'm not good at characters. I just kind of play myself. Not a lot of people want to see an old, washed up fighter pilot on stage. Not that it really matters. Empire ain't never letting me cross the border. They don't take kindly to war heroes trying to get home."

It wasn't like he was itching to get home anyways. Thakwaash might as well be a small room where every wall is crammed with portraits of his disappointments and failures. All it did was remind him of how much he did not belong there. It had been stupid to think that he could just go back after the war and slide right back into his old life. No. He thought he could go back and that somehow all his experiences would make him better. In the end, he did go back to where he had been. He was a failed actor then and a failed actor now. He had just convinced himself that he had put his career on hold to go fight the war.

The reality is that he ran away to the war, and while he had noble intentions it was still an excuse to escape his failure.