Galaxy's Edge Space Bar

[Myitt]

"Yeah, I did," says Myitt, looking the stranger over curiously. She smiles wryly. "Hold still."

She pulls out her computer cube from her black trench coat, and sets it on the counter.

The holoscreen that pops up floats obediently in front of her face, and she taps a glowing, hovering icon.

"Initiate bioscan," she tells the computer, and she slides the green floating screen towards the stranger.

The scan hovers on top of, then down the length of the human man's body, and back up again, spitting out a screen full of data in front of Myitt once more.

"I'll be damned," she says appreciatively, reading the Yeerkish text as it scrolls past. "A blind Controller. What's your name, kid?"

[Terenia]

Cameron's eyes narrow into brown slits, and she makes a sound deep in her throat. It sounds painfully close to a growl, though on the human girl it's less terrifying and more worrisome. Her fingers grip the sole blanket on the mattress tightly, digging into the fabric.

She doesn't speak, but at the word 'Dalik' she backs up a half step, putting her back firmly against the wall, the growl turning into a hiss of displeasure.

[Gaz]

Morgan walks over to the bar, there's something going on at one end but he's not ready to jump into anything like that. Morgan ordered a stiff drink and offered a silent toast to the Doc and Gaz. Wherever they were. Hopefully they were alright.

(sorry for the shortness)

[Luke Skywalker (Ossanlin)]

Ossanlin closes his eyes for a few moments before backing away from the bar counter.  <I don't need this.  You all want to pardon the horrors he's responsible for in his past, and the one he's responsible for here, then do so at your own risk.  Don't come running when he gets someone else to slit your throat.>  The comment is directed at the whole bar and no one person in particular.

He turns and walks out the door, sending a single thought back, obviously directed at Jeffrey.  <No one escapes their own fate.  You'll get what you deserve some day.>

With that he takes off at a trot toward the woods.

[Myitt]

Myitt turns sharply to her friend.

"Ossanlin, wait!" she calls.

But he's gone, and she hisses a curse, turning back to the bar counter.

She murmurs something in Yeerkish to the silent barkeep.

He brings another wine bottle, wrapped in black wax, and leaves a fresh, oily tumbler next to it.

"****ing hell," she mutters again, holstering her Dracon and looking back at the holoscreen. Takes a deep breath again and sighs.

"Blind Controller," she mutters again, not really registering the words on the screen.

[guitarhero01234]

Shaking his head, Nepek drops a tea bag into the mug that the BT provided. "How self-righteous can he get?" he mutters. "Chastises us for not taking justice into our own hands and then storming off. . . ." He chuckles to himself, confident that his biases were given further weight by this. "Typical."

While waiting for his tea to steep, Nepek looks up from the bar and only just now notices the minotaur in the room. He allows himself a small chuckle. "Well, that's something new," he says into his mug. The Hork-Bajir moves to stand up, but remembering his prior fall, aborts that action and instead opts to wave the creature over. "Excuse me, but I believe I already own the title of the lonely drunk in here. Why don't you come on over?"

* * *

"Well, you certainly called me out on that," the blind human says with a raspy laugh. He carefully takes a seat on the nearest barstool. "Name's Guppy. 'Least, that's what everyone calls me. Real name is Gaf 536, but my host's last name is Fish, so there ya' go." He extends a hand in the direction of the girl's voice. Strange that Guppy didn't seem bothered at al by the sudden bioscan, or the Andalite's minor outburst. "And you would be?"

[Myitt]

"Myitt 195," says Myitt cautiously, gripping Guppy's hand firmly. "My host's last name is LaFauci. But you can just call me 'Myitt'."

She squints at him. "Gaf, I'm curious as to why the Empire would assign you to a blind human host. And of course, why you haven't had your host's vision rectified. I've worked on prototypes for fixing host eyesight." She smiles thinly. "Can't ever seem to get the colors right, but they do work."

Myitt swipes the holoscreen away and pours herself a drink. "Before you answer that question, I'm going to pour you a drink. Ever had redin? No - let me back up. Were you born on a shipboard pool, or on the homeworld?" The pungent red liquor smells an awful lot like sodden mulch as she pours a second glass and offers it to him, rum and Coke be damned.

[guitarhero01234]

"What?" Guppy remarks, though his face betrays no trace of confusion. "Not sure what you're talking about with all this 'Empire' stuff." He withdraws his hand and relaxes in his bar stool. "I'm guessing you're not stationed on Earth? 'Cause there, we only really take voluntary hosts. That's what they'll say, at least." He cringes a bit when he smells the redin, but accepts the glass anyway.

<Don't drink that ****,> Guppy's host warns. <It smells ****ing rancid.>

<Aw, come on. She seems nice.>

<For all you know, the **** could be trying to poison you.>

Guppy sets the new drink to rest next to his rum and Coke. "Thankfully, good ol' chris Fish here was a voluntary host. Lonely boozer who didn't mind having a little friend in his head." His hand wanders over to the drink that he brought over with him and he takes a large sip of the familiar drink. "As for the blindness thing, I never stuck around long enough to get that fixed. Left Earth in a hurry to go off and do my own thing." With that, Guppy already finishes off his drink and sets the empty glass on the counter, promptly beginning the search for wherever he placed the drink that Myitt gave him. "But you got me curious, where ars you from? Half this stuff you're saying is totally foreign to me."

[Myitt]

Myitt barks a laugh. "No, buddy. I'm not stationed on Earth. And hardly anyone there is a voluntary Controller. What do you mean, they just let you leave and 'do your own thing'? Like, you're a trader?" Her eyes narrow. "Or a turelek?" The Yeerkish word for 'bounty hunter' makes her skin crawl, and she absently rubs at her neck.

"The homeworld. I'm from Tayon Yerralash. It's...like Sulp Niar, only boring." She winces. "Other side of the planet. Sucked up in a big straw? Andalite insurgence? Seerow? Is this ringing a bell at all?"

<<Dude. If he doesn't even know what the Empire is...>> Tara murmurs.

<<Shh. I'm trying to focus!>>

"And now I work for myself, too." She rolls her eyes over at Fayleth and Terenia. "Well, sort of."

<<Right. Because telling him you're a rebel won't mean jack **** if he doesn't even know what the ****ing Empire is.>>

<<Let me concentrate. This place brings in so many people from so many timelines. Just let me think.>>

[guitarhero01234]

Guppy snaps his fingers, and his cloudy eyes seem to light up. "Oh yeah, I've heard of that stuff!" Again, he lets out a chuckle, just as his fingers find the glass. "Man, that stuff is like ancient history now. Heck, even the war on Earth has been over for a long time now. Long story short, those of us who didn't want to trap themselves in morph, and of course, the grubs of those Yeerks, started up their own system of government."

Contrary to his host's protests, Guppy takes a small sip of the liqour, surprised at how pleasant the taste is, compared to the aroma. "That being said, they didn't exactly let me go out on my own. Truth be told, I more or less stole a ship and went from there. Y'see, I'd been told that there's a lot of lying and collusion going on, and that's something that Chris and I can both agree is messed up."

Guppy takes a deep breath before continuing his story, not giving Myitt a second to get a word in. "Plus, there wasn't much to do, not being able to see and all, and it just got boring. I needed to get out, explore the stars. Have fun with my life!" His mouth forms a wide grin, and he pauses for a merciful, brief moment to sip his drink. "Man, that stuff is great! Anyway, as for what I do, you were spot-on with guessing that I'm a trader. Actually, that's what brings me here today. Someone wanted to buy some ship parts off me, told me to meet him here. 'Course, Chris is convinced it's a little fishy - no pun intended."

<That's because it is. Who the hell would want to make a deal at a bar in the middle of nowhere?>

<Someone with great taste in booze, obviously,> Gaf retorts. <Come on, you can't deny that this redin stuff tastes great.>

<. . . That I can't,> Chris concedes.

"But enough about me," Guppy says out loud, nearly finished with his energetic monologue. "Like I said, you got me curious. What're things like in your corner of the universe?"

[Myitt]

Myitt listens carefully to Guppy's energetic monologue, briefly narrowing her eyes when he mentions the war is over.

"So you're from the future," Myitt concludes. "My future. Or...a possible future of mine." She nods thoughtfully, rubbing a hand against her chin. "****." She punctuates this with a swallow of the dark red liquor.

"I have a lot of questions for you, but really," and she laughs, "I'm not sure if I want to know the end results of one possibility. I don't want to know my future. But you know what, it sounds like Earth won, and if Earth won, maybe the rebellion will, as well?"

Her dark eyebrows raise. "Now let's see how well you know your history." And she pours another glass of the stuff. "Or whether we're a part of your history at all. Ever heard of the Yeerk Peace Movement? Buncha hippies? Think: Peace Movement, with guns and a moon base. That's the Yeerk rebellion."

Again she peers at him. "And if you're lying, you just got a ton of information out of someone who really shouldn't be telling you any of this." She sniffles. "Gashad, does that word mean anything to you, in your future? Do they still teach grubs Yeerkish? Or was that whole shebang a systemic cultural genocide?"

[Gaz]

Morgan hears someone trying to get his attention, and sees Nepek waving him over. Morgan grabs his drink and moves down.

"How are you? Name's Odysseus Morgan." Morgan reached out for a hand shake.

[Shenmue654]

Keshin holds out his arms in front of him to show he's not holding any kind of weapon. He felt vaguely like he was trying to approach a rabid animal. "Hey, hey, it's fine okay? We are not here to hurt you. I promise you that. We just want to take you back to Dalik. Do you not..." Keshin ****s his head, responding to the hiss he heard earlier. "Do you not like Dalik? Is that it?"

<Kess, let me do this.>

There is a deafening silence internally. <...you're sure?>

<Yeah. I'm feeling better.>

<Okay.>

Joanne's posture changes and she sighs visibly. "Look, kid, I don't wanna hurt ya, okay? I was just called up here because that **** down the ramp needs you to come downstairs so you can get infested. If you don' wanna, that's fine with me, but I'm just sayin'...Stayin' up here won't help nothin.'"
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Jeffrey watches as Ossanlin leaves the Bar, shaking his head. So you're not going to fight me, then? After all that? Fine then. It was a little annoying. The Andalite had threatened him in public, insulted him, basically called him the worst there was, and now he was what--- Just running away? Not even asking him to come outside? Jeffrey rolls his eyes. He puts his hand on his hip and watches the conversation between Myitt and Guppy, who was apparently a blind guy from the future with a Yeerk inside him. I wish I could say that's the weirdest thing that's happened, but it's not. Better leave those two to it.

Jeffrey walks over to Nepek and Morgan, not even vaguely surprised or startled by Morgan's appearance at this point. He sits down back at the Bar. "Thanks," he says to Nepek, offhand. He's not sure why he feels the need to thank the blade creature, exactly. Maybe it just seemed as if the old man was less judgmental than he appeared.

[Terenia]

Cameron's shoulders tense, but the feral grimace falters as Joanne speaks. Dark eyebrows draw together in confusion and Cameron slides off the mattress wordlessly. Standing at her full height she sways, as if drunk, and her steps forward are tentative.

When she reaches Joanne and Keshin she circles them warily, eyes roving over the turelek's body. Then, she smiles.

"C-close hatch," she says abruptly, in Yeerkish, followed by a string of nonsense words. The hatch smoothly glides shut, a small whirring sound indicating the ramp being pulled in. Outside, there is a muffled sound of alarm.

Cameron ignores the sound, her entire focus on Joanne. She tilts her head and gives the woman a lopsided grin. "You're my new p-pilot," she says. Her words are forced, with the sort of obvious stutter that only accompanies those who have been hosts for many, many years. Cameron doesn't seem to notice, though, and her sudden grin is full of childish glee.

"T-take me home!" she demands.

[guitarhero01234]

Nepek lets out a husky grunt in what passes for a Hork-Bajir laugh. "'Thanks?'" he says to Jeffrey. "For what? Not almost removing your head from your shoulders?" Nepek takes a sip of his tea, cringing slightly as the beverage scalds his mouth. "I'm no monster, Jeffrey. Not anymore. And despite what my actions may lead you to believe, I'm not entirely crazy." Nepek sets his drink down and makes eye contact with Jeffrey. "What the Andalite did was his prerogative. Perhaps he had more foresight than I to try to . . . eliminate you."

Nepek shakes his head. "I don't know. And frankly, as long as you don't attempt to kill me, or anyone else in this bar, I don't care. Nobody has the right to choose who lives or dies. Nobody." Nepek stares down at the bar for a moment after these words. He appears to almost slip into a trance before quickly snapping out of it, having noticed Morgan's outstretched hand.

"It's a pleasure, Morgan," the Hork-Bajir says. He gently shakes the minotaur's hand, taking care not to hurt Morgan with his claws. "I would be Nepek. What brings you to a place like this?"

* * *

"Yeah, of course I've heard of the YPM!" Guppy says with a tone of mild confusion. "But wouldn't the whole 'guns' thing be, well, the exact opposite of the ideas of the Peace Movement?" He polishes off the last of the liquor that Myitt had provided him. "I'll admit, I'm a little lost."

<So, it's the politics that loses you and not this whacked-out **** about being from a 'different future?'> Chris interjects.

<Maybe she's a little out of the loop. She did say she isn't from Earth, and I get the feeling she's a little tipsy, herself.>

<Or she's ****in' bananas.>

Guppy scratches at his ear and narrows his eyebrows, choosing to ignore his host's inferences. Crazy or not, this girl was good conversation, which is always welcome. "Now, gashad. . . " He drops his hand and drums his fingers on the bar for a few seconds, only to promptly stop. ". . . Sorry, not ringing a bell. I did know a little bit of Yeerkish, but I haven't actually heard any of it in a long time. Even then, the only words I knew, I picked up from old-timers." Guppy leans back in his seat. "Sad to say, but we really aren't taught Yeerkish anymore. Shame, because I'm still a little interested in the 'old language,' as a lot of people call it."

Guppy momentarily turns his attention to the BT, wherever he is. "Bartender, mojito please?" He turns back to Myitt. "Anyway, you said something earlier that went way over my head. Turelek, or something? You're gonna have to fill me in on all that, 'cause I got no clue." Guppy lets out a small giggle. "But I gotta ask, why would I be lying to you? Someone got it out for this rebellion or something?"