Clan Laerrin

With some time to kill, and with Crank currently totally out, Axel found himself idly wandering the ship.

Or perhaps not entirely idly. He held a datapad, for one thing. For another, his dark brown eyes kept looking carefully about. There were a lot more people on this ship than before, and, grateful or not, it was a bit of a risk.

He wandered into the lounge, scanning the room with his eyes as he first walked in.

There was one other individual in the lounge at the moment: a zeltron woman with bold, pink skin. She had lengthy navy blue hair still damp from a shower and being left to air dry. She did not appear to notice Axel's entrance; her eyes were transfixed on the glass in front of her. It was presumably filled by some part of the half-empty bottle of whiskey next to it.

For a moment, Axel held his breath. Then, realizing how stupid that was, he shook his head, breathing normally.

"That's a good bottle." He said in his rough voice, nodding to the whiskey. "Mind if I take a glass of it myself?" Rough as it was, Axel's voice was distinctly non-pressing.

"It's not doing me much good," the woman replied. She slid it over to him and then rested her head next to her glass. "I thought not getting to drink for awhile would make me a lightweight but nope. Still go that famous metabolism." She poked herself in the tummy and then went back to essentially collapsing on the table.

Axel's big hands weren't especially nimble, but he poured whiskey like a man who'd done so many times before.

"You can't get drunk?" He frowned at her a moment. "Didn't know that."

He took a slow sip of his whiskey, savoring it, closing his eyes a moment. "I never imagined not being able to get drunk. Not sure if it would've made things better or worse."

Setting down his glass, he held out his hand. "Axel Ward." He said, the whiskey actually smoothing a bit of the roughness from his voice.

"It's not that I can't get drunk. It's just that it takes a lot more than it does for humans," she explained. She flicked the bottle and purred. It was meant to be seductive but her general exhaustion made it a rather pathetic attempt. "This is for humans."

The zeltron clicked the glass against Axel's and then smiled sardonically.

"You forgot to give a toast, Axel Ward," she grumbled. She looked into the glass and then shrugged. "Daerah, though friends call me Dae." The woman looked him over and then said, "Which will it be, Axel Ward?"

The sad attempt at being playful was almost endearing. Axel shook his head with a smile as he took another sip.

He shrugged as the glasses clinked together. "Suppose I did. Well, I've never been one for toasts, anyway. A quiet drink's good enough."

The question made him pause, frowning. "Don't know." Axel finally said. "Don't think I'm even on a first name basis with anyone. Hardly anyone." He corrected. "Laerrin, Wren, Kusat... but that's different. We're in the same unit."

He regarded her quietly. Even if she was free now, she'd just been a slave. "But if you want a friend, I'll give it a try. Dae." Axel frowned. It felt a little weird.

"Quiet and alone is your usual approach to drinking," the zeltron stated. It was a sentence of authority rather than a suggestion.

"I'm not going to force you to do anything," Daerah remarked. She pointed at her self and smiled again. "I know what it's like to have do stuff against your will and all that."

Axel grinned. "Yeah, I'll give you that one. Got an eye for more than just whiskey, huh?"

He gave her a serious look. "Yeah, I guess you would know about that, huh? You and me both." He clinked his glass against hers once more. "Well, right back at you, Dae. Let's both choose our own course from here on out." He'd been doing that for... well, a little while, anyway.

Axel took another sip. "So, with that in mind, what are you gonna do next? We can drop you off somewhere you can get a transport to wherever if you want."

"Comes with the territory of being zeltron," Daerah explained, "We have a knack for people. Sometimes gets us in trouble." At first, that was meant to be a joke. But the shift in her expression turned it more serious, more grim.

"We also have a knack for parties. Can't say I'm looking to get more into parties right now."

Axel gave a slow nod, his brown eyes understanding. "I'm not good at much besides fighting. Cuts both ways, too. I'm trying to find the good part of it. That's what I'm doing here."

"A knack for parties?" His brow furrowed. "How's someone good at parties? You just..." He waved one of his heavy hands, "... party."

After a moment, he shrugged. "Anyway, doesn't matter. You don't have to." Another shrug. "Although this is an alright bunch to hang out with. Don't suppose you like watchin' a game of Huttball from time to time?"

"You might have a lot of reason to believe that that's all you're good for," Daerah said, "But I'm hoping that isn't the case." She shot a smile and released a bit of those famous zeltron pheremones in hopes of getting the man to cheer up. "You wear 'dour' really well from doing all the time."

The zeltron shrugged. "Well," she said, "Do you think you could handle partying all day, all night, for years on end? That's what my people's planet is like." Her expression turned plenty amused. "Huttball? And here I was hoping you were secretly a cultured poet under that hard exterior."

Her eyes went down into her liquor glass. "Guess I wish there was something under my 'party-girl' exterior. Well, right now it's 'damaged ex-slave.' Neither are that impressive."

The pheromones really were something. Axel found himself sliding a little closer before giving her a suspicious look, eyes narrowed. After a moment, he shrugged. That was just who she was, he decided. Just like he was who he was.

His lips twisted. "No, I don't think I could handle that. Not if the whole planet of you could drink me under the table, too." Axel took a bit more of a gulp of his whiskey. A strange combination with the pheromones. "But no, not a poet. Philosopher, maybe." He'd continued to idly hold the datapad as they spoke; he shifted it in his grip.

The descending eyes drew Axel's attention. He gave her a steady look. "Maybe you just haven't had the chance to find out what's under there yet." He smiled. "Besides, you don't seem that damaged to me."

Daerah looked away, ashamed from the look he had given her. "I didn't mean anything by it," she said, "Old habits." She scooted away and averted her gaze.

"I'm damaged enough to be dumping all of my problems onto some random Mandalorian. Care as much as you do, it doesn't really make sense." She made a grand gesture to the lined up bottles and the trophies outside. "This is a warrior's lodge, not a psych ward."

"Hey, no, it's okay." It was Axel's turn to be embarrassed, flushing under his beard, looking away. Right, fighting or scaring people, that was the other thing he was good at. "It's fine."

"I don't know." Axel grimaced as he followed her gesture to the trophies. "We're just talking." He frowned thoughtfully a moment. "That sorta talk happens all the time in bars. Doesn't matter if I'm a shrink or a warrior or what. Talking's alright."

He took one more sip of his whiskey; the glass was almost empty. "Drink's alright, too."

"When's the last time you tried to comfort someone?" Daerah asked, giggling under her breath. She took another sip of her drink and shook her head. "I can taste the liquor but it's not going to do anything. Anyways, I'd love to pretend I'm good with people, but can I really say that if I manipulate them with pheremones?"

"This is the first time." Axel said, joking blandly. "What, isn't this how it's done?"

Chuckling, he took another sip of his drink. "Sure. Why not? It's just who you are, right? Who cares why it's that way?" He shrugged. "I can't say the past doesn't matter. But maybe it doesn't matter that much."

"You don't worry too much about what people think of you," Daerah mused. She took a sip and then peered at the man before her a bit more. Her eyes flickered and she put down the glass, a smirk on her lips. "Well, that may have been an exaggeration. I'd say, you're more used to people reacting poorly to your rough and tough exterior.

"As for me, people love me." She gestured to her body. "Most conventionally attractive species in the galaxy." She leaned in closer, looking for his eyes. "Now I have to wonder: are you listening to me because you'd do it for anyone or because I'm a pretty face?"

Axel chuckled. "Pretty good. You're right on both counts. I know what people tend to think of me, so I don't worry too much about it. Besides, I've done things..." His jaw clenched a moment, then relaxed. "Well, like I said, the past doesn't matter too much."

She was good at drawing the eyes, in any number of ways. Axel first found himself tracing her figure with his eyes, following her gesture, then going up to meet hers. His own eyes were dark, serious, intense. Gentle? It was hard to say.

He smiled, just a little. "You're good with people. What do you think?"

"Past is always there. How much of it can we really outrun?"

Daerah's eyes shifted downward and she smiled faintly. "Well," she said, "I think you wouldn't like me as much if I was an aging Gand mystic. But there's good in you, something you might not be aware of yourself sometimes."