#inyri rambles

[inyri]

when it rains it pours, right?

just venting about the last few days... a lot of really frustrating and tedious TMI health stuff on my part (and apologizing in advance for any of the stupid shit I may say or do over the next few weeks- thanks, hormones!). feel free to skip right on past this one, lovelies.

so as I mentioned previously, all the test results are back and our only real chance for having a biological child is IVF. (turns out the problem’s almost 100% him. common and unsurprising given my husband’s history, but it still took two ultrasounds and three rounds of blood tests on my part to sort everything out.) unfortunately when it comes to IVF, regardless of the root cause, pretty much all the unpleasantness is on the uterus-haver’s side. five different injected medications. you basically have to grow as many eggs as possible simultaneously, which normally our bodies don’t do, so it takes a lot of hormonal tinkering while your ovaries grow to the size of tennis balls and then a surgical procedure to get all the eggs out (which is probably going to be as fun as that sounds like. at least i get sedation for it.)

our insurance does cover a lot of it- we’re lucky on that front- but took a long time to approve the process, so I’d done a (third) ultrasound and blood work last week to baseline... and coverage was still pending. apparently I had to call insurance myself, despite having already done so and being told we were good to go? nope. had to call. again. the next day was the holiday, so had to go on meds over the weekend to pause things while we waited. insurance came through shortly after that and had to rebaseline this week (ultrasound #4, blood draw #5). all looked well. and then...

the nurse tells me to go ahead and start the next round of meds (injections) last night. which would be fine, except I haven’t received the meds yet.

apparently that’s news to the nurse, who thought they’d sent the scripts several weeks ago to the pharmacy. they hadn’t bothered to tell ME that, of course, so I didn’t know to follow up on it... anyway! I call them. nope. nothing- and that pharmacy isn’t the one I’m supposed to use. they tell me to call pharmacy B- by then, it’s after business hours. pharmacy B’s closed, and when I try to call the nurse back it goes to the on-call. cool cool cool. meanwhile, the clock’s ticking, I’m literally crying in frustration (hormones-I almost never cry! help me), and I still had two more patients to see. thank fuck for waterproof eyeliner. 

(the whole thing’s time sensitive for several reasons- #1 if we blow this month I have to wait a cycle, putting us into next year for the bulk of the procedural stuff after our deductible resets. less than ideal. and I’m still waiting on New Job which has a decent chance of calling me up as soon as late January- and whose insurance benefits do NOT cover IVF. problem.)

this morning: get up, go to work. see my first sick call patients. call nurse, get voicemail. call pharmacy B- they ARE my specialty med provider but maybe not for this? somehow no one knows! call nurse again. six rounds of phone calls later- involving a lot of phone tag, since I had a full schedule today and was returning calls between patients- they’ve scrounged up enough medication samples to get me through the weekend, which I need to go pick up over lunch hour because they close at 4 and I work until 5. 

did I mention my lunch break’s an hour in the best case and the clinic’s 40 minutes from my office? 

I didn’t get lunch today. drive (while on phone to pharmacy C- maybe they’re who I’m supposed to be dealing with, we think?). pick up meds. turn around. get back to clinic, 30 minutes late. my 1:00 patient is a saint and was very forgiving, thankfully. 

somewhere around 3 o clock i realize apparently I’m spotting. i realized this when i noticed i’d bled through my skirt. thankfully my hospital coat covers my ass. 

more phone tag. nurse, pharmacy C (nope! STILL wrong! I have to use the pharmacy at the hospital where I work, and they can’t get the meds in stock until Monday).  pharmacy D (okay, now we’re getting somewhere). nurse again. 

and ultrasound #5 on Monday too, apparently. that machine owes me dinner and opera tickets at this point. 

I think, maybe, it’s finally sorted now. won’t know for sure until Monday when the meds come in. meanwhile I’m already cranky and hormonal and Menopur injections burn like fuck and I spent FOUR HOURS on the phone today with four different pharmacies and the clinic team... I don’t know how a person with no medical background would even begin to handle half of this. 

oh, and i got home and we have a gas leak in the front yard. 

I think I need to sleep for about a year. I’m trying to be calm about the whole thing, but... whew. 

[dwead-piwate-meggers]

So, in light of the... *gestures vaguely at the state of the world * fucking everything that is currently happening, I think we need to spread some love around.

And I figure most of the time with these types of games, we tend to tag people we’re currently interacting with, so let’s try something different: tag some long-time mutuals from that old fandom that neither of you really live in anymore, but you’re still really happy when they pop up on your dash, and you love hearing about their life updates.

@jakey-beefed-it, @motheatenscarf , @starrypawz , @daraasum , @doriansbutt , @inyri , @bugsieplusone , @galagraphia , @hehasmonkeytoes , @schrammes-ramblings

💕💕💕

[always-wishing-for-rain]

Yaaaaaaaay got tagged by the lovely @lumielles and goshh this was so fun!

RULES: Pick one od your OCs and three of their relarionships. Then find gifs that resemble them.

Okaaay so my beloved sith inqui Merinan will be my victim xddd

With Theron: ( I chose this gif because we are after the nathema conspiracy shitstorm and Theron got so fucked up in my headcanon that he shrughs even from touch so. Heeey I'm not depressive at all xdd)

With Lana: ( Okaaay so the gifs are not a hundred percent accurateee but it is drastic enough I think! So I headcanon that during the time Theron was gone Merinan started to fall apart like she was keeping her emotions seemingly in control but because of all the shit she kept back her body suffered. Like blood coughing etc. Etc. Did I mentioned I'm dramatic and like to see my OC suffer? So nothing happened but Lana started feeling more for Rin much much moree)

With Senya: Okay I'm back again with a rather drastic gif xdd This is what Senya was for Merinan troughout Kotfe and Kotet emotionally. Like no one saw how much she suffered from wanting be good enough leader lover friend etc. No one but dear Senya. Quite the mother figure ain't she?

Soo I stop rambling nooow I tag @inyri @darkcouncilelite and anyone else who wanna do this! And I'll gladly read opinions about my headcanons *looking at you Conner (<3) *

[greyias]

Tagged by @rinskiroo

Copy and paste the last sentence you wrote and then tag as many people as there are words in that line.

Stupid, I know — never said I was good at this sort of thing.

It actually took me a while to find what the actual last sentence I wrote was, since I’ve been writing everything completely out of order. Let’s see, that’s... 13 words... (I guess I’m lucky it wasn’t one of the long rambly sentences!)

(Feel free to ignore if you’re not in the mood): @mjaydesw @aearyn @menollywanderer @wrathetc @elveny @fer8girl @soulventure91 @andveryginger @heymichigeeks @salaciouscrumpet @inyri @for-the-flail @brietopia

[inyri]

an apology, of sorts. 

still working on writing. 

it’s going. slowly. chapter’s getting close to done. but it’s not because i don’t want to write- i like writing and I still love this story and want to keep telling it. it’s just-

(cut for rambling.)

I suppose I don’t really want to do much of anything at all right now- with a lot of personal life stuff on a lot of burners lately i think i finally hit my breaking point over the last few weeks. We’re trying to get the house ready to put on the market soonish and it’s just... it’s exhausting. It’s phone calls and more phone calls and things I should be able to delegate and yet somehow (oh, surprise) I end up doing all of it- and you would not THINK it would be so hard to find someone to pay money to come and fix things and YET-

and this week has just been a complete shitshow on a political front at a time when I have an imminent decision to make on a career level that will tie me into the government, for better or worse, for the foreseeable future. 

I want this job. It will let me travel and be a doctor and do things I want to do, and I’ve worked hard to get to this point in the hiring process. And if everyone like me withdraws from representing the US abroad it’s another victory for the people currently in power-

but God, I think about having to pay lip service to some of these policies and it makes me sick to my fucking stomach.

But then I go to work and remember how much my current office stresses me out- one of my partners just straight up told one of my other partners to go fuck himself in the middle of a meeting WITH OUR MANAGER PRESENT this week, so that was super great by which I mean send help. I need to get out of there, and soon. 

So to make a very long story shorter, it’s been hard to get up the willpower to do anything at all. But I’m trying. 

Sorry. 

[inyri]

Six months

It’s been six months since my husband’s transplant.

Cut for personal/rambling. I really, really should call my therapist. But isn’t that what the Internet’s for?

It doesn’t seem like six months. I suppose I should have known better- I see this professionally all the time, of course- but it’s different when it’s home, different when it’s you and your family.

I thought it would be easier by now.

That’s selfish of me to say. I know that. It’s not like it’s easy for him- I don’t have to live in his body with the constant joint pain from his anti-rejection meds, the ache of his scar and the pressure of the incisional hernia he ended up with, the nagging mental drain of wanting to do things and not feeling well enough to manage.

But I just wanted him back.

And I got a sort-of-him. A mostly-him. Which is better than not having him at all, of course, but-

[inyri]

Equivalent Exchange (a SWTOR story): Chapter 29- What Happens on Nar Shaddaa

Equivalent Exchange by inyri

Fandom: Star Wars: The Old Republic Characters: Female Imperial Agent (Cipher Nine)/Theron Shan Rating: E (this chapter: M.) Summary: If one wishes to gain something, one must offer something of equal value. In spycraft, it’s easy. Applying it to a relationship is another matter entirely. F!Agent/Theron Shan. (Spoilers for Shadow of Revan and Knights of the Fallen Empire.)

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What Happens on Nar Shaddaa Odessen. 21 ATC.

“Sending proof of completion now.” The figure’s distorted voice crackles over the speaker as the projection stutters and flickers above her desk. “As you requested. However, you should be aware there was a complication.”

She sighs.

“Define complication.” Nine pulls up the images, flipping through them idly: the buildings of the ranch now smoldering ruins, the equipment they’d had to leave behind rendered unusable, the rakghoul test subjects-

She wrinkles her nose. They’d had to leave so quickly and there was nothing else to be done with them, of course, no room to bring them to Odessen and the experimental process leaving them unsuitable for return to Taris. Stars know they couldn’t just leave them wandering- they’d have had an epidemic on their hands in no time at all. But seeing them laid out one by one in the pens…

The poison had worked, clearly, a blaster shot to each meant to finish the job but probably unnecessary by the look of the wounds. Clean. Merciful.

Still, it seems a shame.

“Someone sniffing around the complex. Republic military, to judge by kit. He fired on us.” Arms folded, the figure shifts from one foot to the other.“It’s been handled, and he wasn’t looking for you- some rogue SIS agent, according to his datapad- but I’m going to have to insist on a surcharge. Combat and sentient disposal weren’t part of the initial agreement.”

She flips to the last image.

Shit. She should have known they weren’t going to leave Coruscant behind so easily as that. “Fine,” she says. “An additional fifty. Sixty if you send me the contents of that datapad.”

“Two hundred.”

“Oh, fuck off. One dead ‘pub? Seventy-five. Final offer.”

A pause; another voice in the background. And then- “All right. I’ll take the rest of the credits to the same account. Data incoming.”

“Very good,” she says, setting her own datapad down after a few more taps to its screen. “Credits sent. And you can drop the cloak-and-dagger shit, Renzi. I know that’s you.”

“Dunno what you’re talking about.”

She grins. “You said I. Xessa always says we.”

“She’s got you there, Ren. He thinks voice masking makes him sound exotic-�� a second figure pops sideways into frame as the masking drops away, Xessa’s green-scaled face a contrast against her partner’s pale pink torso- “but mostly he couldn’t be bothered to put a shirt on. So, where in the Void have you been? We’d heard you were dead.”

“Rumors greatly exaggerated, et cetera.” Shrugging, she lets the unspoken question die. “Excellent job as always. Cleaner work’s not your usual, I know, but-”

“Work’s work nowadays, and with Zakuul’s eyes everywhere business is slow. A payday’s always welcome.” Renzi grins as Xessa straightens up beside him, one arm draped over his bare shoulders. “Though we-” a smirk for emphasis, there- “had hoped you might want to render payment in person. It’s been far too long.”

(A dangerous offer, with far too many pheromones in that room for anyone’s good. She’d fallen into that trap once or twice (or, okay, maybe it was closer to half a dozen times) with those two, back in the old days when one of her many jobs was keeping the Cartel from throwing in with the Republic; the happier she kept the Hutts and their lieutenants, the happier her Intelligence masters had been, and-

Well. It had been a particularly enjoyable trap. Besides, anyone who could sit with a Falleen on one side and a Zeltron on the other and manage to keep one’s knickers on may as well go join the Jedi- that much self-denial couldn’t possibly be healthy.)

“Not this time, I’m afraid. My cargo required urgent transport.” The keypad outside her quarters chimes. Someone’s looking for her; she ought to wrap this up. “Rain check, hm?”

“We’re working in the Core for the foreseeable future. You need us again, come find us and we’ll knock ten percent off the going rate.”

“Only ten?” The door’s chiming again. She pushes back from the desk. “If you’ll excuse me, I ought to get that.”

Xessa winks. “We’d consider fifteen. A pleasure as always, my dear.”

As the holocall disconnects, Nine stands, calling out toward the door. “Just a min-”

It slides open. Theron slips through, wiggling his fingers at her in response to her arched eyebrow. “Don’t get up. I can let myself in.”

“So it would appear. You could have rung in, you know.”

“I did. Twice. When you didn’t answer I assumed you were still in science wing.”

She shrugs. “I was on a call. Lokin’s in the middle of a treatment, so there’s no point in sitting around watching gamma rays- though you’ve just reminded me I should probably change my entry code.”

That he’d memorized her passcode oughtn’t to have been a surprise. She was careful with it, always, but over the last months they’d walked back to her room together for one too many late-night ‘meetings’- of course he’d learned the sequence. She’d expect no less from him; she’d have done the same herself, if they’d ever spent any time in his quarters.

“It took me a while- it’s a good code. Not your birthdate, not a predictable sequence.”

Old habits were hard to break. “It was my identification number at the Academy. I used it a dozen times a day, so it’s easy to remember. But I’d still appreciate a knock.”  

“I thought I’d surprise you.” Theron, wearing a suitably contrite expression (she doesn’t believe it for a minute, but at least he’s halfway pretending to be sorry), holds up an insulated bag. “Figured I owe you dinner after the whole Coruscant clusterfuck. Possibly like a hundred dinners. And some other stuff. But if I’m interrupting-“

He looks down at her datapad, face-up on the table with the last transmitted image still open on the screen, and then back up, frowning.

“I didn’t know,” he says carefully, “that we were going against the Republic now.”

“We aren’t. The team I contracted to mop up on Alderaan ran into-” she gestures delicately with one finger- “this guy poking around. Anyone you know?”

Theron shakes his head. “No, but his gear looks military. Do we know what he was looking for?”

“Files are there. I haven’t had a chance to read them yet, but best guess? You.”

“No way.” Setting the bag on the table and hooking one foot around the chair in front of her, he pulls it toward him, sits down abruptly and reaches out for the datapad. “Coincidence. Must be.”

The transmission’s there, unopened, in one of her dozen Holonet accounts; Theron glances up at her again and, at her nod- he may as well see it, whatever it says- taps the screen. For the next minute he sits in silence, eyes flickering from line to line as he reads, and then he pushes the little screen away and rests his elbows on the projector table, head cupped in his hands.

“Well, fuck,” he says, voice muffled.

She waits.

“You were right. I should have gone to Rhu Caenus for supplies.”

Of course she was. Pallista was far too risky, far too many people who might have known him or might have been told to watch out for him- but there’s no point in gloating. Instead, she rolls her desk chair across the floor and sits down beside him, leans against his side until he turns his head toward her with a sigh.

“In any case,” she murmurs, reaching up to rub at the back of his neck, “it’s handled. The team that killed him doesn’t know who you are or that you were there. Loop closed. We’ll just have to be even more careful moving forward.”

“I should have known he’d do this. But I thought-” Theron closes his eyes. “I thought- I mean, my own father-”

He trails off.

“Sometimes I think you’ve got it easier, not knowing,” he mutters. “Not having to worry about your parents or-”

Her fingers dig in to his skin, harder than she means them to. “Don’t be stupid. Do you really think it’s easier?”

“I only meant that-”

“I don’t even know who they are. They could be anyone at all, or dead, and I’d never know it. I might have walked through the Kaas City market and passed a sister, a brother-” at that, a spike like lightning lances straight through her head and her hands fall to her sides; she grits her teeth to keep from crying out. Oh, she should know better than to think of such things by now, oh, oh-

When she catches her breath and her eyes refocus Theron’s shifted position, sitting up straight, holding her head close against his shoulder.

“And then there’s that, of course. A small side effect,” she says dryly, unembedding her fingernails from her palms with a shudder. “But ignorance is bliss, right?”

“I’m sorry.“ He presses his mouth to her temple, his hand in her hair. “I’m sorry. That looked like it hurt.”

“It does. But one learns to live with it. Or not. After all, it was my choice.” Forcing a smile, she nudges his hand away gently with a tilt of her head, straightening up and reaching across the table for the bag. “Enough philosophy. We should eat before the food gets cold.”

“I-” He stops. “Yeah. Yeah. I remember you mentioned these before, and since I’m probably not going to be able to go Coruscant again for… well, possibly ever- um. Ghedi was due to rotate out of embedment last week anyway, so I had him make a stop on his way to the spaceport. He flash-froze them and I just heated them up in the canteen, so I’m pretty sure they’re still-”

As Theron rambles, she raises the flap and pulls out a few takeaway containers and a chilled bottle of wine; the containers are warm, lids opaque with steam, and when she opens the first of the containers and inhales the smell’s familiar.

This time her smile is genuine. “You seriously had someone bring dumplings all the way back from Coruscant?”

“You said you liked them.”

Did she? She does like them, so he’s right, but when- oh! “When I sent your implant- Theron, that was five years ago. I can’t believe you remembered that.”

“It was the last time we talked before the Zakuul war started.” As she sets the second container in front of him, he gets up to fetch glasses from the cabinet. “I remembered.”

She takes a bite. They’ve suffered a little from the freezing, but Force knows she wouldn’t tell Theron that- he’s watching her intently when he sits back down, fills her wineglass but doesn’t eat, waiting for her reaction and he looks so ridiculously hopeful that they could have been stone-cold and stuffed with rocks and she’d still have eaten every last one. “Best thing I’ve eaten in years-” still actually true, frostburn and all- “and yours are getting cold. Here.”

Holding one up to his mouth as he starts to reply, she pops it between his parted lips.

“You know,” he says around a mouthful of dumpling, “we’ve never actually been out to dinner at an actual restaurant? The mess hall doesn’t count.”

“We’ve been more than a little busy. And Taris isn’t exactly known for haute cuisine.”

“True. But next time we’re back in civilization, I’m buying you dinner.”

She grins, leaning into him to steal a forkful of noodles. “If you’re attempting to bribe your way back into my good graces with food-”

“Is it working?”

“Maybe.” A pause. “Is there cake in there?”

“Is there cake? You wound me.” With a snort, Theron digs down to the bottom of the bag. “Of course there’s cake. Their cake is legendary.”

“Then I forgive you. For now.”

***

She lets him stay that night, too.

She missed him, even in the days it took to get from Alderaan back to Odessen in their separate ships, even with the distraction of Doctor Lokin’s fragile health keeping her in the medical bay almost constantly and having to arrange the cleaner team to cover up behind them (it had been sheer luck that Xessa’d answered her holo and that she and Ren’d been near enough to handle the job- no one from the Alliance was within range, and her first two options had been too far away or too busy to pick up the work.)

She tries to tell herself it’s habit, this thing they have- he’s a craving to be satisfied like any other but somehow still novel even after months together, her want and her affection for him enough to forgive him his recklessness, enough that she hasn’t so much as looked at anyone else in that time which is practically a record-

But when he stirs in his sleep in response to her nightmares, arm tightening around her to pull her nearer, murmuring her name against the nape of her neck, she curls into the warmth of his body and whispers back.

Some habits are worth keeping.

***

The next morning his ringing comm wakes them both a full hour before sunrise and she groans and covers her head with a pillow while he checks who’s calling.

Hang on, he signs, lifting the pillow for a moment. Need to take this.

She nods and pulls the blanket up, just in case- one wrong angle and his caller’s likely to get an eyeful- as he slides quickly into trousers and undershirt and ducks down the stairs to her desk.

“Do you know,” Theron says by way of opening, “what time it is?”

“You said call with the plans.” The answering voice is unfamiliar: female, heavily accented- native language almost certainly Huttese. Hm. She peeks out from beneath the pillow as the voice continues. “Got plans. So I’m calling.”

“And I appreciate it, I do-” he yawns- “but it could have waited an hour. Or five.”

She can’t see a thing from this angle. Ducking beneath the covers until she’s poking her head out at the foot of the bed (the sheets are a mess anyway, half-stripped, kicked off during the worst of her dreams), she tries again. Now she can see Theron, half-perched on her desk chair, and on the holo in front of him a yellow-skinned Twi’lek, a faded Black Sun tattoo on one bare shoulder, stands with her arms folded across her chest and a very smug expression on her face.

“Oops.”

Theron sighs. “I told you I was sorry those SIS guys came after you.”

“Not came after, found. Broke teeth,” the woman scowls. “Again. And stole my gun.”

“I’m paying you for the plans. You should be able to buy, like, ten guns.”

“Liked that one.”  

He settles down into the chair with a thump. “Seriously, Teff’ith. I really am sorry.”

“Happens. They said I’m… um. ‘Known associate?’” She- Teff’ith, not a name Nine recognizes- sounds uncertain, mouth moving to make the shapes of an unfamiliar word. Her Basic’s awful. Not a former work colleague of Theron’s, she’d bet, though she’s got more than her fair share of old contacts with likely similar histories. “Should have given stupid medal back.”

Theron looks sidelong in her direction with a shrug and an I’ll tell you later signed behind his back. “But you got the plans, you said?”

“Yup. Not easy.” The Twi’lek holds up a data chip. “Lots of slicing. But got ‘em.”

“Your account’s still the same?” Theron glances down to his wrist for a moment, but his commpad’s still on the table beside the bed. “Hang on, I need to get my-”

Wrapped up in the blanket, Nine sits up and stretches across until she can reach it; catching his eye again, she mimes tossing it down to him and he nods, reaches up to pluck it out of the air as she lobs it underhanded in his direction. As it crosses the field of the holo’s lens Teff’ith blinks and takes a step backward, eyes darting from side to side suspiciously.

"Who’s there?” Her tone’s even brusquer than before. “Someone else spying, too?”

Letting his breath out with a huff, Theron shakes his head. “No one’s spying on you. You just happened to catch me in the middle of a meeting-” (the age-old excuse, of course, though he keeps a straight face when he says it)- “and the Commander’s here.”

“Let me talk to her.”

Clothing would probably be useful right about now. Last night’s clothes are all somewhere down in the sitting area, though, and the closet’s on the far side of the camera field; she looks around the room for ideas beyond the bedsheet but none spring immediately to mind.

“If it’s about the credits, Teff, I’m sending them right now.” Commpad slipped onto his wrist and his attention on its screen, he taps out a few dozen keystrokes before he returns his eyes to the holo. “You don’t need to-”

If looks could kill, Theron’d be a smoking heap on the floor by now. “You made me get arrested. By your mom."

“You never actually got-”

“It’s fine, Theron.” Both their heads snap in her direction but not the camera yet, thankfully, as she pulls the sheet tight around her chest and runs her other hand through her bed-mussed hair. Draping the blanket over her shoulders- it could pass as a shawl at this angle, right?- she gestures toward the holo. “I assume she’s a friend of yours?”

“That’s one way of putting it. I arrested her, she saved my life- the usual. I’ve been trying to keep her out of trouble ever since.”

Teff’ith snorts. “Saved you twice. You’re welcome.”

“It’s true,” he says, and turns the camera toward her at her nod. “Teff’ith, this is the Alliance Commander. Commander, Teff’ith. Formerly of Coruscant, currently residing on Nar Shaddaa. She managed to get us a copy of the unredacted Ternion building tenant list and schematics.”

She opens her mouth to respond, but before she can get a word out the Twi’lek looks her up and down, at her hair and her bare face and her blanket-wrapped body, and angles her head back toward Theron.

“Never thought you’d leave. Didn’t understand why you did,” Teff’ith grins. “Now I get it. She’s prettier than the wanted holos.”

“I’ll take that,” she says as Theron’s ears go scarlet, “as a compliment.”

***

“I’m sorry.” Half an hour later, even in the lift on the way up to the War Room, he’s still apologizing. “She can be… abrupt. But she’s a good kid.”

“She’s entertaining, I’ll give her that, and I’ll comp you back the credits from the discretionary fund. But she’s hardly a kid.” She scans over the schematics as they hit the top floor- they’re good. More than enough detail. They’ll just need to find their in, now. “She’s how old- late twenties?”

(Somehow they’ve all gotten old while they weren’t paying attention.)

“Something like that, yeah. I’m not sure she even knows. But we’ve known each other a long time. She was there when Ngani- when Master Zho-”

The hallway’s crowded when they step into it, bustling with soldiers and crew heading to their morning duties, and everyone’s looking at them. “Tell me later?”

Theron nods, voice lowered. “It’s a long story. Tonight?”

“Tonight.”

They’ve still got half a slice of cake to finish, after all, and she’s still got the extra toothbrush.

***

With the tenant list projected on one screen and a blueprint on the other, she and Lana and Theron sit staring at the list, crossing out names one by one.

“It seems to be mostly corporate,” Lana says, “as expected. Approaching any of the Republic-owned organizations is out of the question, I assume, so that rules out these five.”

“And these.” Theron crosses out two more. “Off the record, an SIS front and a weapon dev lab for SpecOps.”

She wrinkles her nose. They’re rapidly running out of options. “Wish I’d known that ten years ago. And these four are Cartel, and much as the Hutts want the blockade gone, I doubt they’ll approve of our methods.”

“The twenty-ninth floor looks to be vacant.”

“Right underneath the shield generator? Ten credits says it’s stuffed full of skytroopers.” Stretching, Theron reaches across the table for his caf cup. “What about Omnicorp? Twentieth floor?”

She puts a line through that one, too. “Two words: killer robots.”

“Never mind.” Theron squints, looking harder at the list. “And everything else is Imperial- wait. What about this one?” He traces a circle with one finger around the listing on the mezzanine level. “Umbrella Corporation. That’s got to be a joke.”

“Reminds me of an old friend, actually. Sia’hla. She used to talk about wanting to own a dance club.” Taking a sip of her own caf, she leans her elbows on the table as Lana, beside her, keeps scanning through company dossiers. “I told her she’d be better off running it like an umbrella company- hire girls on as independent contractors, keep the Hutts’ slimy mitts out of the whole business. She was still learning Basic at the time, though, and the phrase doesn’t quite translate into Huttese. She thought I meant she should call it-”

She stops. That’d be too much of a coincidence, surely.

“It is a cantina.” Lana raises one hand, sliding a dossier page on top of the projected list. “An odd choice in an industrial district, don’t you think?”

Theron settles into a chair, focused on the page. “Pretty genius, actually. Bunch of white-collar types working long hours and with money to burn- now they don’t even have to leave the building to drink and chase tail. Whoever owns it must rake in credits hand over fist.”

“Speaking from experience?” She grins as Theron slides down until he can reach her, extending one leg to kick at her ankle.

“Nah. That was Balkar’s thing. I was more the ‘you’ve been here for thirty hours, Shan, now go the fuck home before I have you evicted from your office’ type.”

Lana smirks. “I’d never have guessed.”

“Shut it, Beniko.” Theron flicks his tip of his stylus at her as she leans neatly out of the way, redirecting it back around with a wave of her hand; it hovers over his caf cup for a moment, then drops into the liquid with a splash. “I was drinking that.”

Ignoring him completely except for a soft, amused-sounding hum (Theron, meanwhile, fishes the little rubber piece out when he thinks neither of them is looking), Lana magnifies the line until they don’t have to squint to read it. No individual names or contact numbers, of course; it wasn’t going to be that easy. “It looks to be a clean tenancy as well- no proxy listed. No connection to the cartels at all, so far as I can see. It may be our best chance of getting into the building.”

“I’d prefer not to gatecrash.” She shifts her attention back to the blueprints, to the mezzanine level. “Assuming Ternion’s constructed like most Nar Shaddaa towers, our access to the power conduit will be somewhere back here-” one circle on the map, marking the location- “ well out of the public areas. Not impossible by any means, but we’ll be dodging repair ‘bots all the way up the conduit already. I’d rather not have to worry about security wandering in while I’m dangling a dozen floors up.”

“So, what? We ask nicely and hope whoever runs the place doesn’t mind us blowing the roof off the building?” Theron rubs his forehead.

“One never knows. We might get lucky. But no,” she says. “We just need to get access to the staff areas.” Pulling her datapad out of her jacket, she opens a new search window- the place must have a Holonet site, though whether it’ll give her the info the needs is another-

A-ha. Jackpot.

She flips the screen around, grinning.

"Hiring performers for immediate start.” Lana reads aloud as she points to the words. “Experience preferred. For interview, contact- Nine. No. Absolutely not. You’re the Commander of the entire Alliance. It’d be completely inappropriate for-”

“Shhhh.” She leans forward, lifting her finger off the screen and holding it against Lana’s mouth. “It’s a plan, which is more than we had five minutes ago. Unless you have a better idea.”

“I’m sure I could think of- there must be some other-” Lana closes her eyes, lips moving, silently counting to five. “Theron, tell me you don’t agree with this.”

He considers. “That depends. Do I get to watch?”

“I’ll need a handler.”

“I’m in. Although I probably should mention that I don’t, technically speaking, have clearance to land on Nar Shaddaa right now."

Lana sighs.

***

The last layer of concealer applied to her cheek, she sets it with powder and brushes her hair until it’s sleek and shining. A swipe of lipstick, a touch of rouge, a quick adjustment of her shirt- good enough. She hasn’t got the right supplies here to manage anything with the scar on her stomach, a problem she hadn’t considered initially; if this club wants the usual costume, it’ll be hard to hide even with makeup and airbrush.

(Most clubs don’t like girls with scars. Or tattoos. Spoils the aesthetic.)

Oh, well. One step at a time.

Emerging from the refresher back into her quarters, she grins at Lana and slips into the voice she’ll use for the call. “War wounds patched. How do I look?”

Cross-legged on the couch, Lana winces. “Force, that accent. You’ll shatter glass if you’re not careful.”

“When’s the last time you- hold on.” She clears her throat. “I know, it’s appalling. Everyone on Nar Shaddaa talks like they’ve gargled razor blades and snorted helium. But I’ve always used this cover identity for this sort of thing there, and in any case when’s the last time you saw a cantina dancer who sounded Imperial?”

“Korriban, actually. Once again, for the record, this is a terrible idea.”

“Objection noted. Theron, is the holo ready?”

He nods, done tinkering with it, gesturing toward the table as he crosses the room to settle down on the couch next to Lana. “Masked and relayed. Ready when you are.”

“All right.” Clearing her throat once again, she inhales, adjusting her posture and her voice. “Here we go.”

She stands before the camera, hands clasped, shoulders back, as the call goes through and a pretty Mirialan, throat bare in a low-cut dress, smiles politely from the other end of the connection and greets her in accented Basic. No cartel ties, no collared employees- by Hutt Space standards this place is getting weirder by the minute. “Thank you for calling Umbrella Corporation, voted Best in Sector two years in a row by the Nar Shaddaa Star. My name is Cira. How may I direct your call?”

(She’s had this conversation half a hundred times.

Breathe, girl. Just like driving a speeder.)

“Your ‘net site says you’re hiring dancers. I’m interested in auditioning, if the position’s still open.”

Cira nods, giving her an appraising look, then relaxes slightly. So far, so good. “We’re currently hiring for performers-” the correction’s subtle but emphatic; no dive bar, this. Interesting. “Any previous experience?”

“Of course.” She ticks them off, one by one, on her fingers. “Here at home I’ve been at Haven’s Blaze, Club Vertica and the Slippery Slope. I did a stint at the Dealer’s Den on Coruscant a few years ago, too.”

Across the room, Lana raises an eyebrow and Theron grins.

“An impressive r��sumé. If you’ll excuse me a moment, I just need to confirm with the owner but I expect she’ll want to have you in for a stage trial. What’s your name? ”

“Xari.”

All at once the polished smile drops from the girl’s face. “Yeah, right. Try again.”

If someone picked up that cover identity while she was in carbonite- no. Not possible. So what’s-

“I’m sorry,” she says, keeping her tone even, her body relaxed even as she starts planning for half a dozen contingencies. “That’s the only name I’ve got. Is there a problem?”

“She’s been gone a long time, so I never met Xari, but I’ve seen the holos. Everyone here has."

Okay, now this really is getting weird. She used the name for years, sure, in more than a few undercover ops- she never got caught out as Xari and after a little while she had enough reputation to open doors, which made the work easier. But it’s been six or seven years since she’s played the part and the only performance holos she knows of (a mistake, letting those get loose on the ‘net, but between wig and cosmetics and costume she’d barely know herself in them, let alone be recognized now) must be ten years old.

Why would she still be so well known there?

(There are holos? Theron mouths.

Lana, squinting, pulls out her datapad- then elbows Theron sharply, pointing down at the screen.)

"That bold a lie might pass down in the sublevels,” Cira continues, eyes darkening, “but you should do your research properly next time. You must know who owns this place. Did you really think you’d fool Sia’hla, of all people?”

She blinks.

Maybe Koth’s right after all. Maybe this whole thing really is destiny.

“Go and get her, then. Ask her-” she sighs, dropping the accent. This isn’t going to work, not the way she meant it to. But this might be even better. “Ask her if she remembers what happened with Belan.”

The girl scowls, pushing back from the desk. “Is that supposed to mean something?”

“It will to her.”

As she disappears from view, Nine rolls her shoulders and cracks her knuckles and Theron and Lana both stare at her, their faces twin masks of worry. Disconnect? Theron signs.

She shakes her head. Not yet.

After a minute she can hear footsteps, two sets, approaching on the other end of the call. “I should have just hung up on her-” Cira’s voice, out of frame, terse and snappish in Huttese- “but she swears she’s-”

“I’ll deal with it, Cee. Leave us.” The figure that stands behind the desk now isn’t the Mirialan girl; a slender Twi’lek woman in a high-necked black dress stares flatly into the holocam, eyes narrowed as she switches to Basic. “Look, schutta, I don’t know who you think you are or where you heard that man’s name, but-”

She stops, blinks, looks at her face again.

“It’s you. It’s… Kaliyo told me you died. Five years ago.”

(She oughtn’t have covered up her scar. It had been there the last time they’d seen each other, after Hunter and that last damned lucky shot- they’d joked about it, even. So much for my stage career.)

“I keep hearing that this week. But it’s me. I swear.”

"Prove it.” Lekku winding anxiously around each other at their tips- the markings are new, elaborate tattooed bands in a pattern Nine doesn’t know the meaning of- she presses her lips together tightly. “Tell me something only you would know.”

Theron and Lana both look entirely confused now, straight-backed in their seats, hair-trigger tense in a way that echoes in her own nerves: an op poised on a razor’s edge, ready to turn good or bad in the span of a single moment. She nods, as much to them as to the holocam.

“You shot him. You shot him because I made him stop. Do you remember?”

One hand flies up to her throat, just for a second, and the projection shimmers as Sia’hla leans forward hard against the desk. "I- I remember. Where the fuck have you been?”

“That’s a story better told in person. But I need to ask you a favor.”

***

Up next: Dress Rehearsal, in which we meet Sia’hla (and “Xari”) properly, and Nine plans (much to Lana’s chagrin) for a show with quite an explosive encore…

Hey, everyone. Contrary to plans, I got exactly zero writing done over my holiday vacation (the perils of visiting family) and I’ve been working 50-hour weeks ever since. But unless I post otherwise here, you may always assume that a new chapter is coming- it’s just a matter of when I can steal time to write it!

[inyri]

Tagged by @thewriterandmuse and @birdonabird  (thanks!) I don’t know who has/hasn’t been tagged: @thievinghippo @salaciouscrumpet @sinvraal otherwise tag yourself RULES: answer 30 questions and tag 10 blogs you are contractually obligated to know Nicknames: Sam,  Hey Can I Ask You A Favor

Gender/pronouns: she/her

Star sign: Gemini

Height: 5′9″

Time:  9:23 AM CST (in the tiny lull between sick call and my scheduled clinic time)

Birthday:  May 28th

Favorite bands: Panic! At The Disco, Muse, Fall Out Boy, Journey, Soundgarden, Nirvana (I have weird taste in music ok)

Favorite solo artist: Halsey, Marina and the Diamonds, Florence and the Machine, Adele

Song stuck in your head: Mother (Danzig)

Last movie you watched?: in theater: Lady Bird. 

Last show?: Dark (on Netflix)

Why did you create your blog?: back in Ye Olde Days when everyone migrated over from LJ, this was the place to be. 

What do you post?: my fanfiction, Star Wars, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, costuming stuff, random doctor blogging stuff, occasional drunken rambling

Last thing you googled?: (I’m cheating, this is the second-to-last thing.) “how to reduce PDF size”

Other blogs: all largely inactive now... I’m on Twitter as @inyri_

AO3: InyriAscending

Do you get asks?: generally only in response to prompt posts, et cetera. Spontaneous asks- very seldom. 

How did you get the idea for your URL?: Inyri (Forge) is a Star Wars EU character from the X-Wing series- I like her. Not too complicated.

I follow: lots of people- generally due to mutual interests. (Please don’t be offended if I don’t follow back or unfollow- I’ve learned over time I have to cultivate my fandom experience fairly tightly to keep myself happy and engaged. It doesn’t mean you don’t have great content! It may just mean there’s something about your blog that doesn’t quite work for me.)

Followers: 441 (uh, thanks for sticking around? xoxo)

Average hours of sleep: 7-8 (average. It’s either 5 or 10+, no in-betweens).

Lucky number: don’t have one

Instruments: piano (rather badly). scalpel (rather well).

What are you wearing?: that’s quite a personal question, I think maxi skirt, black sweater, flats- work clothes

Dream job: (watch this space- I mentioned an upcoming interview...)

Dream trip: Europe (Germany/Austria/Italy)- with time to actually relax...

Favorite food: char siu bao if I had to pick one thing to eat forever

Significant other?: married (oi @pirateyeti that’s you wave to the nice people)

Last book I read: Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers (again)

Top 3 fictional universes: Star Wars, Abhorsen series, His Dark Materials

[inyri]

Have you ever thought of how long the Player Characters took on each world during the main quest lines? By this I mean Class Stories, Makeb, Oricon, Shadow of Revan, KOTFE and ET, and all the interlude time between the chapters?

An additional to the question of how much time passed: how did you decide, since the game makes it look like you are always at a whiplash pace?

I’m not sure I’ve broken it down in quite that much detail, but the official timeline of the game and the passage of real-world time between updates does give us a rough degree of guidance. 

The short answer: timelines are dumb and I do what I want, more or less. The long answer…

The events of each class’ prologue and chapter 1 take place in 3643 BBY/10 ATC. For Nine, for example, that covers Hutta, Dromund Kaas, Balmorra, Nar Shaddaa, Tattooine and Alderaan. The “story” absolutely does shove us through each planet at breakneck speed, but those 6 segments.. that’s a whole year! The Hutta mission probably took about 1-2 months, then a few months’ training on Dromund Kaas and doing the initial research into the “terrorist cell” thanks Jadus. After that, the planetary missions probably took a month or two each with some add-ons and side trips (I certainly make reference to non-canon missions and characters in my writing- the “story missions” often weren’t the only thing Nine was assigned to do in each place). 

I assume the Ciphering process takes some time- at least a month for the conditioning process and more training, probably longer. 

Chapter 2 moves us to 3642- we know that because the Cold War ends canonically that year, with the real war heating up in 3641. As an Agent? You were under Hunter’s thumb for the better part of a year. A YEAR. The Jedi Knight was likely mind-controlled by the Emperor for months. It’s easy to slip past those numbers when you’re playing chapters back to back to back, but it’s not a short amount of chronological time. 

Chapter 3: half a year to a year- the Battles of Corellia and Ilum both take place in 3641, so not too much down time between those (Nine sat out Ilum, both because frankly she didn’t care much at that point and because she was still recovering from Corellia and her last fight with Hunter.)

Makeb- 3640 BBY. It’s a big planet- the Makeb campaign might have taken months. (Yes, the planet’s unstable. I know. Resolving that entire map in a week is nonsense regardless of game mechanics.) After that we get some more down time before we move to Oricon in 3639 BBY, which was probably also a question of months. 

We start spacing things out a bit when it comes to the Forged Alliances/SoR story. The four main missions in Forged Alliances all take place in the same year, but that’s really ALL we have in canon for that year. I’ve assumed that Tython and Korriban happen almost simultaneously (which… you can’t GET from Tython to Korriban in less than several days, so the fact that you’re fighting in both events- *handwave* spaaaaaaaaace magic.) Manaan was likely a few months later- you’re off doing your own thing, character-wise, while Lana and Theron are investigating independently. Then we lose Arkous and Darok for a little while since they need time to build that whole cyborg army on Rakata Prime before that occurs.

In my timeline there’s a pretty big gap between Rakata Prime and Rishi. Rishi doesn’t happen until early in 3637 BBY, so you’re out there looking for Lana and Theron for quite a while- several months, at least- and then all of the groundwork on Rishi takes another month or so. Yavin 4′s quicker- a few weeks, start to finish. 

Ziost happens in mid-to-late 3637, a few months after Yavin 4- for those few months the galaxy returns to relative normalcy (by which I mean war, of course). And then, just as the Empire’s recovering from the loss of Ziost, the Zakuulans show up. 

We know that went quickly- three months before the navies are defeated. Less than a year before the Empire and Republic sue for peace. 

Five years in carbonite.

The KOTFE story takes place over a much longer time period than KOTET, but even so KOTFE 1-14 all take place within the same year (3632 BBY). Granted, there’s a lot of clustering there and I play a little more loosely with the time scale because I wanted to bring Kaliyo back earlier, so there’s still several months of “downtime” between the segments of KOTFE- less, if you count the Star Fortresses, but still. They didn’t build that whole base overnight. 

There’s a weird gap between KOTFE 16 and KOTET 1 that doesn’t make sense, storywise- the only things that happen in 3631 by the calendar are the Darvannis mission, SCORPIO’s betrayal, and the First Battle of Odessen. Given I hardly think Vaylin sat around for three quarters of a year twiddling her thumbs, in my own canon I’ve moved much of KOTET into 3631 as well with the Second Battle of Odessen and the Battle of Zakuul taking place, as per officially, in very early 3630 BBY.

A few months pass between the fall of Zakuul and the Iokath war. For plot reasons I kept the Traitor Arc essentially happening in real time (I like drama, okay) which is about seven months of Galactic Calendar time (35-day months), which takes us just about to the end of 3630 (and I’d argue that we’re now in 3629 as the game goes since KOTET dropped in November 2016 and it’s… still the same year in game?, but I’m not sure we’ve established that yet. We’ll see with the new expansion!)

Again, I just shove side missions and plot digressions where I feel like I want them, with very few exceptions when the flow of the story doesn’t allow it (between SoR Tython and Korriban, for example), and I encourage everyone else to do the same.

[inyri]

Husband's back in hospital again. I got home from work last night, late, and he was really out of it- couldn't tell me the month, even. Thankfully I could get him up into the car and over to the hospital without having to call the ambulance. He's encephalopathic- toxins building up from his failing liver, making him sleepless and confused. He's on new meds, now, and is better today, but he'll probably be here for at least another day. Blood transfusion's running now and he's eating lunch. I'm hanging out with him for the time being (had to take another day off work... sorry, patients), waiting for updates. I didn't get home and to bed until nearly 3 and I'm usually up at 5:45, so I called off. Not really in great shape to deal with clinic today anyway, honestly. (It's always interesting when we're at this hospital because it's part of the group that I work for- I occasionally have to pull the doctor card on people, which I hate to do, but I didn't go to school for twenty-two years to get called "Mrs"- so I get a little more say in the process.) I'm trying not to think about statistics. For encephalopathy they're not nice- one year mortality upward of 40%. Hopefully he'll have his transplant by then, but... not thinking about that. Not ready for that. May have to be. Yesterday was a pretty shit day, all things considered.

[inyri]

Cut for rambling, sensitive subjects (infertility/childlessness).

Not my usual content, I know, but not sure where else to put this and I needed to get it out.

One of my office partners just had a baby. She and I don’t look much alike other than that we’re both curvy white women- she’s about six inches shorter than me, for one thing- but apparently that’s enough, so I keep getting congratulated on the new baby.

Apparently I look great, for just having had a baby.

Which is funny. Because I don’t know that I’ll ever have children.

My husband is dying of liver failure. He needs a transplant, or he will die. We’d been trying for six months to get pregnant when he was diagnosed. He’s sick enough now that we’ve stopped trying.

And I know they mean well, and it’s an honest silly mistake, but it’s a knife in my gut every time.